Deepwater House | AHA Studio

Deepwater House is uncannily long, thin, land-hugging and garden-seeking. Employing an elongated L-shaped plan, the private domain stretches the length of the site, separated from the street by a shorter public wing. The public wing houses a discrete garage, an arrival threshold and a room with significant public exposure designed for many uses and arrangements. This public room contains a deeply shaded bay window, focusing eastward glimpses to the distant river valley.

Arriving up some steps, just past the public room, the house’s private centre is marked by a communal room with a raked ceiling borrowing high, indirect south-light, while its northern eave is pulled low to manage glare, offering deep shade and with generous access to the garden. This main room’s palette is consistent with the house as a whole – concrete floors, raw blockwork walls and luxuriant timber veneer ceilings. Consequently, the house feels both modest and composed, with a sense of restfulness from the considerable effort applied to the mitigation of glare. From the communal room in the main wing, a long and internalised ramp takes the occupants uphill to the string of bedrooms, where each addresses the garden through small blockwork kinks and screens. Each bedroom is refreshingly modest in dimension, adding to a feeling of protection and quiet.

A requirement of ‘Named Award’ winners is that they “significantly advance architecture”. Deepwater House does this by reminding us of the value of suburban life, primarily where house and garden are weighted as equals. There is the sense that the architects are working with a concern for the suburb as a place worthy of sustained study and conscious revaluation.