Wood Marsh Translates Topography Lines Into Snake-Like Peninsula House In Australia

Sinuous lines, raw sculptural language, light and bold material palette define a new residence in the south of Melbourne, Australia. 

The project, named Peninsula House, was designed by Wood Marsh, a Melbourne-based architecture studio who is known for its bold, fluid, and curved geometries. 

Considering the site's physical references and boundaries, the studio has drawn the house as an artistic architectural response to Australia’s coastline and the contours of the rural landscape.

The project is quite bold for a low-lying profile structure, with its simplicity but contrasting material choices. 

Peninsula House is envisioned as a "dramatic sculptural relic, weathered by its context."

The house is approached through a meandering driveway while a ribbon of rammed earth rises monumentally 10 meters into the air. It looks like a castle wall wrapping behind the dwelling, before gradually tapering and returning to the landscape.

The elevation is defined by minimal glazing and helps considerable thermal mass – stabilising the heat from the afternoon sun. It features a notch midway along the wall, and forms a shadow line, subtly defining the entry.

"Crossing the entry threshold, a lush, planted atrium defines the building’s axial centre, and allows natural light to flood into the interior," said Wood Marsh.

The interior of the house is shaped by bending hallways resembling a snake and from the atrium it create three distinct zones: a living zone for entertaining, a bedroom zone, and a recreation zone. 

The private master bedroom is placed above the living zone, accessed by a sweeping stair cloaked in darkness.

"The main double height living space dramatically rises towards the glazing and the expansive views of the rural terrain and ocean," the office said. 

"The sweeping parabolic ceiling affords a unique acoustic quality to the space that accommodates the sound from the owner’s grand piano and collection of musical instruments."

The house features a large, sheltered terrace adjacent to the main living space, it also meets the client’s brief to host grand poolside events with views of the valley and water. 

Each of the five bedrooms and main living spaces provides views of the rural context and surrounds. At the end of an evocative hallway, lined on one side with rammed earth and slot windows, lies a purpose-built recording studio.

The office chose a dark, natural exterior material palette of charred timber and rammed earth for its durable, low-maintenance qualities.

"The charred battens cloak the building mass allowing it to recede into the rural context as an enigmatic form," said the office. 

"Internally the thematic quality of darkness continues with black mosaic tiles, black timber battens, blackened brass, and black terrazzo flooring."

The studio drawns an emphasis on the shifting nature of light and shadow along curving surfaces and forms of walls and openings. Using monochromatic tones frames views of the natural colours present in the surrounding setting.

As the studio explained, "Peninsula House is envisioned in the round, to sit harmoniously in the topography of its site – its raw sculptural language belying its domestic use - an erosional remnant formed by its harsh, exposed coastal setting."

Site plan

Ground floor plan

First floor plan

Sections

Elevations

Wood Marsh built a five-star luxury resort facility with sweeping arc-shaped volume in Victoria, Australia. 

The firm designed No. 6 Sydney Street residence featuring organically-sculpted columns that complement the undulating surfaces in Prahran, an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Project facts

Project name: Peninsula House

Architects: Wood Marsh

Location: Australia

Completion date: 2023

All images © Timothy Kaye.

All drawings © Wood Marsh.

> via Wood Marsh

charred timber dwelling house rammed earth residence Wood Marsh