Broombank | SOUP Architects

This house creates an extraordinary unfolding relationship to an expansive watery landscape with a very limited and controlled material palette of pale grey linear bricks, plaster and timber. The brick walls meander through and retain the banked landscape, offer a glimpse of the wetlands beyond. The timber-lined entrance hall leads the eye first up through a top-lit glass atrium roof and then out through the long glass wall to the distant view. The minimalist design belies the adaptability and liveability of the house: a large wooden sliding wall can separate the family room from the rest of the house, the glass sliding wall allows the house to open out to the landscape, folding shutters to the upstairs bedroom create a direct visual and acoustic link to the atrium and rest of the house. In the end, the careful geometric and material choices are augmented by an exemplary control of light and views.