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The Silver House
A house built to disappear. Clad in raw spotted gum that silvers slowly into the Wandoo Woodland, The Silver House sits in its clearing as if it was always going to be there.
The site offered everything — ancient woodland, remarkable light, totally quiet. The risk was building something that competed with it. Every decision was made in service of the landscape, not in spite of it.
Any architecture that announced itself here would have been a failure. The challenge wasn’t designing a beautiful building — it was designing one that knew when to be quiet.
Two days on site before a line was drawn. A single barn volume, oriented east, with living spaces opening toward the woodland and the form emerging from the light.
Vertical spotted gum, left untreated to silver with the seasons. A standing seam roof that reads as shadow beneath the canopy. Raw concrete, warm timber, blackened steel — a building that knows exactly where it is.
Eighteen months from first site visit to handover. Six in design, twelve on site in close collaboration with a local building team throughout. The spotted gum was milled from sustainably harvested stock, installed vertically and left completely untreated. The silver you see is two years of weather. Nothing more.
“Working with the studio felt less like hiring an architect and more like finding someone who understood what we were trying to say, before we even knew how to say it.”
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