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The Apollo Bay House sits amongst the coastal vegetation that fringes the bay. It has been designed for relaxed coastal living and easily crosses the line between inside and out through the use of multiple sheltered platforms and a strong visual connection to the outside.

The original cedar clad shack is the driver for this project and remains intact under the new asymmetric steel structure. New spaces have been developed beside, in front, and on top of the old shack. These spaces are filled with dappled light and sharply angled walls contrasting the older, more enclosed, rectilinear rooms. The geometry of the new framework is relaxed and gently covers like a tent frame with multiply layers. The internal material palette is clean and light, while the outside materials are strongly informed by the waterfront site.

The main living area centres around a suspended fire place, the flue of which continues up through the master bedroom. From this main space is a broad view that captures everything from the nearby vegetation to the distant hills across the water. The sense of space in the living area is exaggerated by the external decks that abut each end.

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Location: Apollo Bay, Bruny Island
Completed: 2018
Photos: Adam Gibson
Builder: Aspect Building Solutions

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This new facility is home to three local junior clubs, cricket, football and athletics. Two previously under utilised sports fields at Clarence High School are now connected via the insertion of a wedge shaped building. The terrace between the two buildings links both fields to allow events to be viewed from both sides. The two cylindrical like forms are wrapped tightly in a skin of metallic bricks. Internally the main spaces can transfer from change rooms to class rooms along with a community function centre if required.

The design draws together three spatial elements – two circular brick structures and a central terrace – under a single roof. This plan was generated by the spatial logic of the triangular site, linking the disjunctive axes of the sports fields. A restricted material palette of steel and dark glazed brick addresses the need for resilience, legibility and reduced cost. It is softened by the considered insertion of varnished timber and laminate for detailing and screening.

Servicing two sports fields requires centralized supervision, not to mention event coordination, security, scoring, adjudication and commentary. The two fields impose their duality on the site, removing any sense of a privileged front or back, while issues of security and supervision have generated a single-sided, radial solution.

The building’s lack of a formal entrance is surmounted by a slim, linear projecting marquise. The marquise gathers people at the arrival point and directs them along the building to the central roofed terrace, which provides a secure social core and shelter. This area has good visual access to both sports fields and can be closed or opened by sliding mesh screens, while the rounded forms of the brick volumes at either end mitigate wind turbulence. Spectators gather in this central volume naturally. The egalitarian nature of self-regulation informs a personal and social response that culminates in a developed sense of ownership and identity for the pavilion’s diverse patrons.

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Location: Clarence
Completed: 2014
Photos: Adam Gibson, Stuart Gibson & Atomic Blender
Awards: Australian Institute of Architects, Alan C Walker Award for Public Architects 2016

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An additional preschool room, with a new foyer and staff facilities, extending an existing one-room preschool attached to a primary school.

This new extension negotiates an awkward site between the pre-and primary school buildings, with a difficult north-west orientation.

The new childrens room opens up into the existing room with an art area at the junction, encouraging and supporting interaction and team-based learning for new educational philosophies.

The solution is a simple lightweight steel-framed structure, with wide column-free outdoor learning verandahs joining the light, airy and voluminous new childrens room to the outdoor play areas.
This contrasts with the huddle of low suburban house-forms of the surrounding buildings, reflecting perhaps a more cheerful approach to providing public facilities.

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Location: Cragieburn
Completed: 2013
Photos: Tom Roe

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The second house we have completed on the beautiful Bonnet Hill, just out of Hobart. This house is nestled into a steep site and stepped down into site to allow a strong connection to the landscape. Modern and rectilinear in design, it includes rustic materials reminiscent of the clients rural upbringing.

Drawing inspiration from the surrounding wild nature, there are several conscious links between house and environment through their design. The design has been grounded by embedding it into the site’s steep slope. The natural world has been kept in focus in most living and private areas with long, northwest facing walls of, predominately, floor-to-ceiling glass. These frame striking views of the Bonnet Hill valley and its historic shot tower.

A single, long Tasmanian oak step sweeps down the middle of the house, connecting two split levels, while providing relaxed seating when needed. It also establishes a sense of flow between internal and external living spaces. A similar effect was achieved with the continuous use of small, imitation convict bricks, on kitchen and deck floors. A young, flowering pear tree sprouts from the centre of one of two outside decks.

The house is built for entertaining up to 40 guests with a strong focus on the kitchen. The client's mutual passion for cooking and entertaining meant that a large kitchen area and ample preparation and pantry space were non-negotiable. As a result, the house’s centrepiece – when not the landscape – is a five metre-long concrete bench that was poured on-site.

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Location: Bonnet Hill
Completed: 2015
Photos: Adam Gibson

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Our most recent hospitality project LUMA Woodfired Pizza Cambridge Park is in the heart of a large retail outlet on the outskirts of Hobart. This small commercial space was converted to a specialty restaurant and bar. The sharply raking ceiling, wood fire oven and concrete bench form the main elements to the space.

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Location: Cambridge
Completed: 2017
Photos: Atomic Blender

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A new soccer and cricket pavilion replacing the existing undersized and tired, though highly-valued and utilised, nearby 1970s pavilion. Social facilities are combined with four, linkable, changerooms.
Existing facilities from this era (1960s & 70s) often suffer from multiple problems when confronted with a need to upgrade to current statutory requirements (particularly in regards to accessibility) but also in meeting changing community needs and expectations.
This redevelopment adopts a landscape-integrated approach to its parkland setting, with a strong focus toward the oval/pitches.
A deep, column-free, translucent-roofed verandah provides shelter both for spectators and players and also for personal trainers and other casual users.

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Location: Fairfield
Completed: 2015
Photos: Tom Roe

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Set in the hospital hub of Hobart’s CBD, stage two of Pilgrim Coffee sits behind an inner city heritage sandstone facade. The refurbished dining space, opening to Liverpool Street, is connected back to the existing Argyle Street cafe via a new semi-open central kitchen.

Working within a narrow volume, the existing fabric was stripped back to reveal highly-textured old layers of timber and sandstone, raw and warm. New minimal harder-line elements were then added, using a restrained palate of natural, recycled and salvaged materials to accompany the richness of the original fabric.

The existing café site dictated the location of the new kitchen and bathrooms, and these naturally fill the interstitial space between the two dining rooms. Inserted new services and equipment have been kept exposed and non-integral, and their sense of impermanence acts to counterpoint and heighten the robust and warm materiality of the building fabric.

The extension pares back dining to its essentials. The spaces are visually complex, tactile and aged but the experience entirely contemporary.

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Location: Hobart
Completed: 2013
Photos: Tom Roe
Awards: 2014 Australian Institute of Architects (Commercial Architecture)

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This modest 100sqm house sits on a ledge cut into the north-facing hillside, with all-day solar access and views across the wooded ravine to the early-colonial Shot Tower and over to the Derwent River. In fine weather it opens up to the sun and the views, with the shady morning and afternoon external terraces extending the internal floor out into the landscape, with natural cooling cross flow ventilation. In less-favorable conditions the house closes up tight and the wood heater takes over, creating a snug but still naturally-lit interior. The passive solar design, raw simple finishes and dramatic loft spaces create a characterful and comfortable, affordable, low energy-consumption home.

A simple cement-sheet-clad box bedded into the side of a valley, it is seemingly tiny from the outside but spacious on the inside. The building is difficult to spot until you are upon it, due to the cut and position amongst existing vegetation, but internally the space is lofty and permeable. The basic program is unsurprising – a mezzanine sleeping and bathroom area hover over a service area (kitchen, laundry, store), while the living area is double-height. But there are twists that make the building unique.

The building moves around the contour within the main living zones, so each long side opens to a deck, creating a pleasant sense that the building dematerializes into the surrounds with all doors open. The entire northern facade is glazed, broken only by a large cross of mullions and transom. Because the aperture is so large, elements of the landscape, such as an adjacent silver wattle, are part of the building, stretching and enclosing the living area. The tiny “outrigger” space projecting from the upper level is a tiny space of just two square metres. This acts as a mini refuge against the winter chill, offering cosy contrast to the double-height space.

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Location: Bonnet Hill
Completed: 2010
Photos: Peter Robinson

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A small extension to a heritage listed terrace in the Hobart CBD, situated between a busy street and a highway. The brief for the project was to add a light, bright living room, landscaping and courtyards to a mid-1800's sandstone terrace.

The concept for the extension was for the new to only gently touch the old. Reused convict bricks were turned into a feature wall within the extension.

At one end is a living space, at the other a bathroom and the entrance to the original property’s kitchen. The extension’s entrance is a steel frame pivot door, floor-to-ceiling in height with angled Tas Oak.

Each downstairs room revolves around a rain forest-like central courtyard which can be opened up during summer to keep things cool. This courtyard also acts as a light well to existing parts of the terrace house.

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Location: Hobart
Completed: 2015
Photos: Adam Gibson

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Light, warm, flexible and Tasmanian - eHabitat is a fully modular, sustainable building system with passive solar design at it's heart.

Based around a 1200mm by 2400mm sheet size, eHabitats are made up of standard modules, which plug together to form a dwelling. All posts are pre-fabricated, meaning there is next to zero waste. This eHabitat at Glaziers Bay used a polished concrete floor - this means that the floor soaks up all the warmth of the sun during the day, to help regulate the internal temperature during the evening.

The double glazing fits directly into a rebated frame, they plug straight in which keeps the costs down while still allowing occupants to have plenty of windows for the passive solar and to take advantage of a property’s views.

The name eHabitat has two elements, the “habitat” portion coming from the idea that your habitat is more than just living inside your house: it’s about what is happening all around the building too. The ‘e’ refers to the green, sustainable side of things.

For more information on eHabitat, click here.

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Location: Glaziers Bay
Completed: 2007
Photos: Adam Gibson