A Refined Country Home That Celebrates The Seasons

The attention to detail of Edition Office is on full display in Kyneton House, which demonstrates the possibilities of a simple floor plan, and restrained material palette.

Working with a strict budget, the architects designed a relatively modest brick house for the downsizing owners. The clients hoped the home would capture passing time, and the qualities of changing seasons including light, colour, and texture. 

A clear geometry was adopted for the floor plan, allowing continuous links to the garden, including the ability to read the full length and width of the site from within. 

Throughout the home are a series of repeated and rotated brick wall gestures. Always returning inwards, this repeating motif informs the ‘thickness’ of the home’s exterior. 

In contrast, crisp white ceilings including a skylight shaft pick up fluctuating levels of natural light, providing the home with a sense of softness. 

Materials intended to naturally weather such as recycled and texturally finished brick walls, pale concrete floors, and galvanised steel roofing further reflect the changing effects of weather and time. 

Also important is the home’s position set back from the street, allowing the large garden (including trees relocated from the owners’ previous property) to be the interface between the house and the street.

‘Crucially, this siting gesture allowed us to avoid the inclusion of a front fence, and allow the landscape to be encountered as a part of the public domain,’ says Edition Office director, Kim Bridgland.

Given the home’s modest footprint, orientation and thermal mass, no mechanical cooling is required. An air-exchange heat pump warms the floor slab when required in the cooler months.

What Kim loves most about the project is its sensibility, particularly the sense of calm and balance one feels when passing the outer threshold and entering the home. He says, ‘Time appears to stand still, while the subtle changes in light and mood in the surrounding gardens appear to play out in every direction as they wrap and embrace the home.’