Birdwood | Peter Besley

Birdwood is a house on a local street tracing the ridge of one of Mount Coot-tha’s numerous spurs. The house design takes the form of a series of independent objects emerging from the steep terrain. Moving between the parts reveals different qualities of the spaces and the subtropical landscape. The house explores ideas about materials reuse, multi-generational occupation, and subtropical living. A large volume to the rear is wrapped in a tall reclaimed brick brise soleil, variously frayed and edited to filter light to the interior. At the beginning of the project many brick and terracotta pieces were salvaged from a discontinued local brickworks. Much of the stock were refractory clay pieces or ceramics used in metallurgy. These unique pieces were worked into the house composition as external walls, columns, tiling, and paving.