1+2 Architecture acknowledges the Palawa people as the traditional custodians of lutruwita, the lands on which our company is located and where we conduct our business. We pay our respects to ancestors and Elders, past and present. We are committed to honouring Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' unique cultural and spiritual relationships to the land, waters and seas and their rich contribution to society.
Farm House Garden Room
LOCATION + TRADITIONAL COUNTRY
The Palawa, Central Tasmania
CLIENT
Private
STATUS
Built (2002)
AWARDS
Not applicable
media
Not applicable
PHOTOGRAPHY
1+2 Architecture
Farm House Garden Room is a contemporary addition to a tiny colonial-era cottage in southern Tasmania's rural landscape that responds to the need for a more generous and comfortable living space and an immersive garden experience.
Conceived to overcome the limitations of the original home while preserving its heritage character, the addition introduces a light-filled living space that opens directly to the established English garden. A restrained palette of glass, steel, concrete and stone creates a deliberate contrast with the cottage, establishing a complementary relationship between old and new.
KEY COLLABORATORS
Place
The original Georgian-style timber cottage, with its weatherboard cladding, small windows and brick chimneys, retains the modest character and charm of its colonial origins. However, its enclosed, relatively dark interiors offered little visual or physical connection to the surrounding English garden, despite the beauty and maturity of the landscape.
The new garden room establishes a direct relationship with this setting, opening the interior to the garden through expansive operable glazing. Its transparency allows the garden to become an ever-changing backdrop to daily life, while the contrast in scale, materiality and architectural expression preserves the legibility and integrity of the original cottage.
Process
The addition adopts a deliberately minimal architectural language, with expansive glass walls supported by a slender steel structure. Its lightness and transparency recall the modernist explorations of Mies van der Rohe, creating a space that feels open to the garden rather than imposed upon it.
The concrete floor to appear to float lightly above the ground, reinforcing the impression of structural lightness. In contrast, a ruined stone wall was carefully rebuilt to anchor the addition to the site and provide a sense of enclosure. Its substantial, textured masonry provides a tactile counterpoint to the precision and restraint of the steel, glass and concrete.
Impact
Farm House Garden Room transforms the relationship between the cottage and its garden, replacing dark, disconnected interiors with a space immersed in light, greenery and the changing seasons. The addition provides the amenity needed for contemporary living while allowing the original cottage to retain its modest character. Through the careful interplay of transparency and solidity, historic fabric and contemporary detailing, the project demonstrates how a small, precisely resolved intervention can enrich both a heritage home and its landscape.
Awards + Jury Citation
