Windmill House
By Borland Architecture
This contemporary farmhouse on the Mornington Peninsula is robust to withstand the harsh environment, yet soft, comfortable and beautifully detailed.
This contemporary farmhouse on the Mornington Peninsula is robust to withstand the harsh environment, yet soft, comfortable and beautifully detailed.
Designing a new house on a greenfield site requires a great deal of forethought and care, but designing a new house on a site as beautiful as this takes design considerations to a different level. Views of the ocean needed to be maintained from the road, meaning the positioning of the site and the height of the home were especially critical.
Through 3D modelling, we were able to determine that the best site was as close to the water as possible, ensuring the building’s form hugged the natural landscape.
We carefully considered the journey to and through the home. Firstly, the new laneway from the road to the home was designed as a meandering pathway that introduces visitors to key features like the reconditioned windmill and the newly constructed stables. Upon approaching the home, the ocean view is deliberately concealed by monolithic concrete walls which symbolise the robust structure needed to withstand this exposed environment. It’s only upon being invited through the huge driftwood door that the visitor is rewarded with their first framed view of the ocean.
The program of the home is laid out in a linear fashion, stepping up and staggering outwards as it rises to match the natural terrain with almost all rooms facing the water. As a consequence of this arrangement, access to each part of the home is via a wide corridor which changes direction at the edge of each building block. This change of direction coupled with a change of scale and materiality in each segment allows the visitor a new view and spatial experience at each turn.
With the ocean side of the home being largely south facing and exposed to the elements, it was critical to create a calm counterpoint. We did this by placing the alfresco seating area and pool on the north side, sheltered by the stepping form of the building. Even this zone has uninterrupted ocean views through huge glazed walls.
Photography: Fraser Marsden
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Windmill House
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True quality goes beyond what you can see
We believe that to deliver true quality we must exceed aesthetical and functional delight and deliver a home that performs as well as it looks. After all it’s your family’s health and wellbeing that’s at stake. At Borland Architecture, we don’t take that responsibility lightly.
True quality isn’t just about having something that looks good, that’s a minimal requirement. It is about exceeding expectations on what you see and what you can’t. Our purpose is to design homes that set a new benchmark for families like yours to thrive in and others to aspire too.
All homes should foster rest, social connection, privacy, play and comfort as standard. True quality, appropiate-performance homes furnish the internal environment with just the right amount of fresh, filtered clean air, eliminates contaminates, viruses, moisture, mould spurs etc. These homes are highly insulated, yet seamlessly connected to nature, energy efficient and self sufficient, yet are technologically rich and adaptable for future innovation to grow with your family.
Did you know that the design of your home can affect your family’s quality of sleep? Just think about the impact of that over your lifetime.