‘E’ House is the ‘exemplar’ house of the highly anticipated Elysium Noosa project. Elysium is distinguished by involvement of twelve leading Australian architects each designing six houses in its first stage. The architects include Gabriel Poole, Richard Kirk, Elizabeth Watson Brown, Lahz Nimmo and Bligh Voller Nield. Cox Rayner Architects were given the role of ‘master architect’ to interface between the architects, design the streets and parks, and design the Elysium Community Centre.
The concept for the house was to generate a subtropical living environment that would mature to become intrinsic with its heavily forested setting. Timber was selected as the material best suited to achieve this objective, adaptable as it is from structure to surface to joinery. Inside and natural rendered concrete are used sparingly to relate the house to the vocabulary of park structures which are predominantly timber and concrete.
The house comprises three parallel living zones (hence the title ‘E’ House) – one its north-facing loggia, the next a series of interconnected living zones that open to the loggia with bedrooms above, and the third comprising utility and vertical connection spaces. This layering of spaces is dramatized and articulated by internal voids and by expressed elements such as window boxes, built-in seats and screens, for which timber is eminently pliable. The result is a series of flexible, fluid spaces in which timber is utilised to ‘craft’ specific elements.
While the concealed structure is treated pine, the primary visible timber used is Spotted Gum for its versatility, workability and ageing characteristics for cladding, screens, visible structure, joinery, flooring, ceiling and wall linings. Also chosen for its high environmental rating as a renewable Australian hardwood species, the Spotted Gum exterior is coated with CUTEK Wood Preservative which has been developed to resist surface decay yet permit gradual patina over time. An associated aim was to dispel the myth that timber entails repeated maintenance.
‘E’ House is a rigorous exploration of the simultaneous virtues and capabilities of timber to articulate space both as structure and skin, to integrate architecture into its natural environment, to express intimacy through modulation and variation, and to contribute to environmental sustainability. Designed by Cox Architects.
