Cliff face house

Full description

The Cliff Face House draws itself tightly against a layered sandstone rock face at Pittwater, north of Sydney. The house faces away from the harsh light and brutal on-shore weather that typify the ocean side of the peninsula, and towards the calmer inland waters and the canopied points of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. The project, decisively set below the adjacent street level, is allowed to develop an intimate relationship with its very particular landscape. Importantly, this positioning also allows the existing houses upslope to retain their connections to the landscape. This exploration sets Cliff Face House apart from the architectural repertoire of houses that perch on cliff tops or jut from cliff faces. The design increases privacy, abates noise from the traffic below and explores how a building can actively manage primary connections to site: those of sky/horizon, rock/ledge and ground/bay. House and landscape assimilate; the rock ledge is the feature wall of several rooms throughout. Stutchbury’s restrained palate engages occupants, tactilely; he emphasizes ecologies between rough and smooth, similar to the logic of an oyster. The structure recalls the temporary scaffolds placed against early Sydney sandstone buildings, but in this case the roles are reversed.