Wurundjeri Woi-wurring people of the Eastern Kulin nation
Victoria
Hislop Hill House is a family home that balances openness and privacy within an evolving suburban context on a steep 4m slope from the street to Hislop Reserve at the rear.Â
Located under one roof, six levels are composed in section according to scale, privacy, and relationship to context. In plan, the programme is organised around several courtyards and connected by a singular elongated stair that acts as the home’s circulation spine. Spaces for gathering and retreat are oriented to proximate and distant landscape views, mediating between public and private, inward and outward, and family and individual use.
The project fosters flexible family life across teenage and adult stages, supporting privacy without compromising communal gathering, as well as offering adaptable spaces for evolving work-from-home and social patterns. The project critically reinterprets neighbourhood precedents to produce an enduring, materially rich home that is deeply attuned to its occupants and environment.Â
Award For Residential Architecture – Houses (new)
Stretching between a suburban street and public playing fields, this project deftly utilises topography to reconcile the tensions between openness and privacy familiar to many homes.
The first impression is one of clarity. The home presents as a fenceless native garden, backdropped by monolithic brick. The entry glimpsed, a glazed window lantern, a single skillion roof falling with the slope. These quiet offerings establish a restorative tone that frames the entire architectural experience.
Inside, the terrain is felt. Terraced floor plates negotiate the site’s steep topography. Creating a sequence of distinct spatial experiences, each in dialogue with the garden and the borrowed landscape beyond. Subtle level changes mediate between openness and privacy with an assurance that never resorts to the obvious.
Courtyard gardens are woven through the plan with precision. Passive design principles are balanced with the choreography of views while drawing light, colour and diversity into an otherwise muted interior palette. These gestures bind interior and exterior into a deeply integrated whole.
This is an architecture that earns its place without demanding attention — where built form and landscape are integrated with sensitivity, restraint and purpose
Award For Residential Architecture - Houses (new)
Stretching between a suburban street and public playing fields, this project deftly utilises topography to reconcile the tensions between openness and privacy familiar to many homes.
The first impression is one of clarity. The home presents as a fenceless native garden, backdropped by monolithic brick. The entry glimpsed, a glazed window lantern, a single skillion roof falling with the slope. These quiet offerings establish a restorative tone that frames the entire architectural experience.
Inside, the terrain is felt. Terraced floor plates negotiate the site’s steep topography. Creating a sequence of distinct spatial experiences, each in dialogue with the garden and the borrowed landscape beyond. Subtle level changes mediate between openness and privacy with an assurance that never resorts to the obvious.
Courtyard gardens are woven through the plan with precision. Passive design principles are balanced with the choreography of views while drawing light, colour and diversity into an otherwise muted interior palette. These gestures bind interior and exterior into a deeply integrated whole.
This is an architecture that earns its place without demanding attention — where built form and landscape are integrated with sensitivity, restraint and purpose
Every room in this house serves as its own retreat, offering either a beautiful connection to nature or a secluded place to hide away. High ceilings and expansive windows frame views of the sky, while perfectly angled eaves allow the right amount of light to enter the home. The connection to the park and garden gives the house a calm, expansive quality, and the use of natural materials creates a sense of warmth and timelessness. It’s truly special yet practical.