Twenty-first Century Houses Downunder

21st Century House Downunder
Edited by Mark Cleary
Images Publishing
RRP $79.99

This book of Australian and New Zealand homes by major architects provides a snapshot of current designs and trends in urban, rural and coastal properties.

The majority of the buildings are Australian but there are half a dozen New Zealand ones included which are among some of the more dramatic and well designed.

There are some spectacular homes as well as more modest creations, examples of sympathetic renovations as well as homes which settle into the landscape along with those which impose themselves on their surroundings..

Most of the houses use a range of materials such as glass, metal, concrete and timber with the timber being used in a variety of forms, textures and tones.

A number of the buildings have something of an eco approach with aspects of sustainability and acknowledgment of the natural environment.

There are Australian houses such as the Lethlean Housie (Craig Rossetti Architects) which is not connected to electricity where solar panels become part of the overall functional as well as aesthetic design. Many of the houses incorporate design elements such as making use of orientation to the sun and airflows through the house.

The acknowledgement of the sun means that many of the houses have deep overhangs such as the Balhannah House (Max Pritchard), high roofs such as the H1 House (Reddog Architects) or elaborate screens such as Boolarong and Kinkabool (BVN Architecture).

Several of the houses take on organic shapes such as the Beached House (BKK Architects) where rectangular forms are contrasted with curved shapes resembling a beached whale.

A couple of the houses reference architects and artists of the twentieth century with the Scarp House (Kooi-Ying Architects) incorporating a large stone outcrop much as Frank Lloyd Wright did in Falling Water and the Tattoo House (Andrew Maynard Architects) pays homage to Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg.

The juxtaposition of shapes and forms plays a major part in many of the houses with high atriums, indoor out door connections as well as intersecting spaces. This gives many of the building a light and ethereal sense, most notably in the Perforated House (Kavellaris Urban Design) where the exterior of this contemporary terrace house performs a symbolic as well as functional purpose.

The New Zealand houses in the book include Balquhidder (Irving Smith Jack Architects). This narrow, single room width house which unlike many houses in the book incorporates colour as an architectural feature. There is also the Te Mata House (Stevens Lawson Architects), a ground hugging work with shifting spatial views both internally and externally.

The Te Mata House is in direct contrast to the Gordonton House (Frans Kamermans) which seems out of place in the book. It looks back to the late twentieth century traditional large farmhouse which appears to have been merely plonked down in the middle of a paddock