Treetops House, Mount Martha Residence, Australian Architecture, Images
Treetops House in Mount Martha
Semi-Rural Home, Australia – design by Bryant Alsop Architects
14 Oct 2016
Treetops House
Design: Bryant Alsop
Location: Mount Martha, Australia
Treetops House

Designed for a semi-retired couple [plus their whippet, Monty] and completed in December 2015, this three-bedroom house in Mount Martha provides a private haven to entertain guests that engages with the surrounding trees and bay views.

The notion of a ?weekender? evokes images of architectural simplicity and isolation where owners can escape their weekday life and reconnect with themselves and their environment.

Typically found in landscape-rich sites [think sand dunes, woodlands, rolling hills, etc] with the view ?just there?; our challenge was to create this sense of retreat on a large but essentially suburban corner block in Mount Martha on the Mornington Peninsula. The inherent nature of the site was that whilst heavily treed and embedded in nature, the greatest connection to the view was only going to be made at first-floor level.
Within the confines of a relatively simple brief, the house evolved around our clients love of food, wine and entertaining [as well as a sophisticated and extensive wine collection] tempered by their wish to be private and self-contained when guests are staying. This duality expresses itself in both the planning and the materiality of the house, and informed the initial arc...