Sandra Lin

This project focuses on reengaging with aboriginal customs and traditions of caring for the land in its cycles. Early inspiration for the concept was taken from scarred trees, a Wurundjeri practice that marks that aboriginal people reside in the area but also has practical applications with the bark used for shelter and tools. Aboriginal peoples were careful to take only the amount of bark needed, allowing the tree to continue to grow and regenerate. By caring for the land and nature, humans can then continue to use the resources nature provides in a mutually beneficial relationship.

The two houses are designed together as a set and could be adapted to become a large home for extended family in the future. However, because of the current rental relationship each client family has an individual house with shared space in between and around the site. The radical design has no internal walls, using the ground to delineate spaces. Curtains and timber batten screens add privacy to sleeping spaces and bathrooms.

The house responds sensitively to its location, with a sustainable and environmentally responsive design that challenges the vernacular normative and cocoons its inhabitants with an embedded indigenous design response that provides transcendent meaning and context.

360° Masterplan Tour