What does it mean to be at one with your environment? Maybe it’s walking barefoot through grass or swimming sans suit in the ocean. But what if the subject in question is a house? A built structure is inherently at odds with the natural world, but what if it wasn’t?
It were these questions that informed the most recent project of Melbourne-based architecture firm, Archier. A new build in the inner-city suburb of Caulfield North, Ora House, as it’s been coined, sought to honour its bushland outlook and minimise its impact on the environment—both physically and visually—by taking its cues from the natural world. “We wanted Ora House to soften the distinction between architecture and terrain,” Chris Haddad, one of Archier’s directors, tells Vogue Living. Rather than using bricks and mortar to separate the home from its environment, Archier, at the request of the home’s owners, used landscaping to bring them together.