On the bright side

When their original plans fell through, Kari and Tom started their design and build process again. Luckily, the outcome was better than they had imagined.

Inspired by Australian shearing sheds and Nordic spatial efficiency, this new house sits comfortably in its bushland setting. Located in Sutton, a farming village in New South Wales, it combines the best elements of rural life with proximity to the national capital – it’s just 20 kilometres north-east of Civic in Canberra.

Kari and Tom bought the site years ago, long before they could afford to build. They also moved to Stockholm for three years, where they came to appreciate the benefits of living well with less. Their 25-square-metre apartment was “super functional and efficient”, Tom recalls. “For me, that provided a whole different perspective in that you don’t actually need a massive sprawling house to have a really high-functioning house.”

Their new home is large by comparison at 150 square metres – although still considerably smaller than most new Australian houses – with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The H-shaped plan has two pavilions connected by a central entry zone: one for living, the other for sleeping and bathing.

“It’s not tiny, but we knew what we didn’t need,” Kari says. “One of our core requirements was to keep the footprint as small as possible, because it’s a bush site and we wanted to be as gentle on the landscape as we could.”

The couple originally commissioned a modular prefab house from Victoria, but when those plans fell through, they sought out local design and construction expertise. After visiting several project and display homes that didn’t really align with their goals around overall size and design quality, they discovered a close-knit team of architects and builders via Instagram. Having visited several homes by MYMYMY Architects and MegaFlora Group during Design Canberra open home events, they confidently commissioned architect Mark Brook and builder Daniel Fitzpatrick to create their new home.

Mark and Dan were enthusiastic about the rural location with its lack of mains water and power. “For us, it’s always great to have a completely off-grid project that is independent and self-sufficient,” Mark explains, “because it drives sustainable design conversations and decisions about not making the house too big (because you can only afford so much power capacity) and about going fully electric, with induction cooking and so on. In this case it was easy because Tom and Kari were already invested in that outcome.”

Bushfire regulations provided the other significant design constraint, and the team was careful to mitigate risk while keeping costs down where possible. “It’s not grassland on a steep hill, so it’s not a super bushfire-prone area,” Mark says. “We were able to manage the asset protection zone so that the house site sat in the rating sweet spot of around BAL-29.

“We incorporated ember proofing and used robust materials externally, but we didn’t have to introduce elements that drive the cost up dramatically, such as bushfire shutters, fire-resistant glazing, and soaker systems,” he goes on. “All of those mechanical systems make a project more difficult and expensive.”

Having established clear goals and shared values that informed the project, Kari and Tom invested a high degree of trust in the design and construction process, which paid handsome dividends. “I love the connection with the site – it’s a very special place because we are surrounded by bush,” Kari says. “The house feels different because of the way it sits, well nestled into the land and with windows everywhere. I can see wallabies and sacred kingfishers before getting out of bed, which is pretty special.

“I also like the colours and textures,” she adds. “It feels joyful to be in this space.”

Mark says the ochre red cladding was chosen to connect the house with its surroundings. “Although the obvious choice in that location is pale green or the grey of galvanised metal, we thought about the colours that sit alongside those natural tones,” he explains. “A lot of the local flora has touches of red, such as the kangaroo paws, and we wanted to make the house complementary to the landscape, rather than make it completely disappear.”

Mark credits his business partner and the home’s builder Dan, as well as the extended construction team, for the excellent construction quality, which adds to Kari and Tom’s sense of delight and enjoyment every day. Tom appreciates being able to go from “a hectic work meeting on Zoom” into the living room, where he is instantly immersed in views of the bush. “Also, I keep discovering that the level of craftsmanship is amazing,” he says. “I had to ask Mark and Dan what they’d done to the corners of the Colorbond steel, because I could tell that it was different, and good, but I couldn’t tell exactly why.

“I keep noticing more things like that – obvious things like the custom-welded front door, and more subtle elements like some of the light fixtures – throughout the house,” he continues. “It’s full of things you won’t find anywhere else.”

Tom and Kari couldn’t be happier with their new home, in spite of the challenges they navigated early on when the modular plan fell through. “Thank goodness it did,” Kari says. “We lost some time and money, but it was for the best.”