Temperate house - designed by architect Glenn Murcutt

Architectural Review, The, Oct, 1996

There could be few stronger contrasts in Australia than between the site and programme of the Marika-Alderton house and that of the Simpson-Lees. The latter is in the Blue Mountains, some 150 km north-east of Sydney, and is on a large site that slopes to the east and north, giving magnificent views over the richly varied vegetation of the bush to wave after wave of forest-clad hills.

The house is for a wealthy couple who wanted to retire into the heart of nature. Their site is on the flanks of Mount Wilson, and they wanted a house that would cater for their own needs (and those of occasional guests); a detached studio was required that could be used almost as a retreat from the retreat. Murcutt used a variant of his long thin plan with a service wall to the west (uphill) side. He set the two buildings apart with a long pond and tied them together with a private path that runs from end to end of the composition, which is orientated slightly cranked to achieve the best prospects. Along much of its length, the path is a deck, which rises higher and higher over the terrain as the ground slopes gradually to the south.

The long living area of the main house can be made into a platform almost as open as that of the Marika-Alderton house -- but in a much more complicated way. The north-east side is made with glazed panels, insect screens and blustrades, all of which can slide back to open the living area as a huge balcony to the wonderful vista. A further layering is given by electrically operated external aluminium venetian blinds, so that the possibilities of mediation between interior and exterior are endless.

The structure is as usual a series of steel frames, which in this case carry metal monopitch roofs. These project on the main front as sunshades to be propped (and tied) by slender rods that spring from sheet steel brackets on the columns. All the metal parts, the structure, the corrugated sidings and the blinds, are either naturally silver, or treated to be so. In context, this does not seem such a contrast with the landscape as it would in the northern hemisphere, for one of the main impressions of the eucalypt bush is of the silver trunks of the trees. Another is of the fluttering of the thin leaves, a metaphor for which is perhaps the blinds that shade the great glass wall.

Yet this is not a building that apes nature. It is plainly an artefact, and in some ways, a very austere one too. Its spaces are as spare as its construction, and the predominant grey, white and silver is relieved only by the startling scarlet of the fireplace and the warm brown of the hardwood parts of the promenade. But this austerity is essential to the purpose of the building, for it allows uncluttered contemplation of the majesty of its apparently untamed natural surroundings.