Just over an hour south of Sydney, the suburb of Scarborough sits quietly within the Illawarra’s coastal edge, one of a series of small settlements threaded between escarpment and ocean. The topography is immediate and defining: a steep, vegetated cliff to the west; the Pacific Ocean stretching out to the east; and, between them, a narrow inhabited strip where houses, gardens and infrastructure (one main local road and a regional train line) are tightly held in place. It is a landscape shaped as much by compression as by outlook, where proximity to landform is felt as strongly as any distant view.
It is within this context that OK House by architect Stephen Collier is set. On this particular site, the sense of compression intensifies. The railway line runs directly adjacent, elevated and close, introducing a constant layer of movement into an already constrained condition. Passing trains register as both sound and light vibration, so that what might otherwise read as a quiet coastal setting is instead defined by a tough intersection of landscape and infrastructure. A more exacting architectural response was therefore required.
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The project marked a move from Sydney for owner-architect Stephen and his partner, less a sea change than a professional recalibration away from the frenzy of the city. The site, acquired soon after the COVID–19 pandemic, is difficult by almost any measure: irregularly shaped in plan, constrained by setbacks, with its northern edge running parallel to the railway and subject to additional controls. A steep 15-metre fall from the railway line to the lowest point of the site, combined with risks of overland flow, landslip and bushfire, limited any conventional approach to excavation and siting.
In response, the building sits lightly on the land. A steel frame is supported on four appropriately sized concrete columns, each founded 6 metres deep into rock, allowing the house to hover above the terrain rather than reshape it. The plan adopts a rhomboidal geometry, slipping between nine existing trees – including a significant Moreton Bay Fig – while maintaining minimal clearance to the site boundaries. Much of the construction was prefabricated, with primary elements assembled off-site and installed in rapid succession, attempting to reduce waste and foregrounding efficiency.
The house that emerges does not pursue the expected. Where others might orient outward to the ocean, this one turns inwards to a courtyard, allowing one to focus on the sky, and to the filtered presence of trees. It is conceived as a place of retreat, prioritising privacy without severing connection to its surroundings. From within, the suburban condition recedes; what remains is canopy, escarpment, and the slow movement of sunlight, drawn in through well-positioned openings throughout the year. Although the house is nominally north-facing, the escarpment limits winter sun, while the adjacent railway – also to the north – introduces noise and visual interruption. The courtyard mediates these competing conditions, acting as a controlled source of light and a buffer to the outside. Openings are therefore used sparingly and with intent – less about abundance, more about placement.
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Set out on a single level, the plan reads as a loose arrangement of nine irregular volumes, their functions deliberately indeterminate. Only those spaces requiring services – kitchen and bathroom – are fixed; the remainder are left open to occupation and change over time. This ambiguity is supported by a series of sliding elements separating the internal courtyard from the interior, some fully glazed, others solid timber, which allow rooms to expand, contract or close off entirely, continually recalibrating degrees of openness, separation and use.
Roof planes fall inward, directing water and leaf litter to accessible gutters that can be maintained safely from within – a pragmatic move that also produces generous ceiling heights at the perimeter of the house. In bushfire conditions, Stephen explains, this geometry allows water to be directed across vulnerable openings, adding a further layer of resilience. Spatially, the resolving of the conflicting geometries between plan and section have added to the indeterminacy of the rooms inside. The fragmented geometries made me think of the late Frank Gehry’s own house in Santa Monica, California, though here they are a little cleaner and more restrained.
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Externally, the building is deliberately muted. Fibre cement sheeting, simply detailed and muted in tone, meets both budget and planning constraints without excess. Internally, however, the atmosphere shifts. Colour, texture and material richness are concentrated within the spaces of occupation, where they can be most directly experienced. Stephen has used all but one colour from a polychromatic range of ceramic tiles in a bold and confident manner.
The end result is a house defined less by outlook than by calibration – of light, of enclosure and exposure, and of living. A place that holds its occupants quietly, while remaining closely attuned to the conditions that shape it.