{"id":134026,"date":"2025-09-11T00:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T00:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/134026\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T00:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T00:32:09","slug":"house-on-a-hill-is-a-concrete-masterpiece-on-the-mornington-peninsula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/134026\/","title":{"rendered":"House on a Hill Is a Concrete Masterpiece on the Mornington Peninsula"},"content":{"rendered":"

House on a Hill by Leeton Pointon Architects<\/a> and Allison Pye Interiors blends minimalist calm and brutalist strength. The seven-bedroom holiday home, which has been shortlisted for a 2025 Houses Award<\/a>, is a secluded refuge that sits on more than 200 square metres of land on Bunurong Country, on Victoria\u2019s Mornington Peninsula.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe initial site was basically a paddock,\u201d says Michael Leeton, director at Leeton Pointon Architects. \u201cWe spent a lot of time walking around, working out what it needed.\u201d Inspired by the Pyramids of Giza and India\u2019s stepwells, he wanted the house to feel both ancient and contemporary. \u201cThere\u2019s a sense of archaeology to it, as if it\u2019s always been there and was dug out of the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

The home offers views of verdant rolling hills and Western Port Bay. Of course, with big vistas comes big weather, which was a consideration from the get-go. \u201cIt\u2019s such a harsh environment. It gets hot during summer, but it gets cold, muddy and wet all winter,\u201d Leeton says.<\/p>\n

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So the team worked with the environment, rather than against it. The main material is weather-resistant concrete, which nods to brutalism and prolific Japanese architect Tadao Ando. The curved concrete walls create three internal courtyards decorated with Italian furniture, like Paola Lenti\u2019s woven armchairs and Gervasoni\u2019s concrete side tables. \u201cAt any time of the day you can go outside and get a nice spot out of the wind,\u201d Leeton says. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a surprising calm to the concrete in the arched passageways, sturdy outdoor pillars and towering pockmarked walls. The latter came about almost by accident, as the team used a nifty trick to reduce concrete waste. \u201cWe got rid of all the formwork \u2013 the unsustainable part \u2013 and sprayed the concrete walls on,\u201d Leeton explains. The result is a stippled surface that\u2019s reminiscent of abandoned churches and secret caves.<\/p>\n

The other main material was bagged second-hand bricks, which Leeton says have surged in popularity and patina beautifully. \u201cThe house will age over time. We wanted to celebrate that, not shy away from it,\u201d he says. \u201cTo me, sustainability is about designing a house that lasts the test of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the owners, having a space that could contract and expand was important. \u201cA lot of the time it\u2019s just two people [here]. There are parts of the house you can close off from use, heating or cooling,\u201d Leeton says. In the entertaining season, however, it can hold up to 40. Leeton worked with interior designer Allison Pye to create a long timber table and a stately curved sofa in off-white. \u201cThe design \u2026 works equally well when there are two people or more than a dozen people,\u201d the owners said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The most calming space might be the living room, with its sunken lounge, freestanding fireplace and domed concrete ceiling. The rare roof references the cult 1960s Futuro \u201cUFO houses\u201d by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen \u2013 and was the biggest challenge. The Leeton Pointon team worked with LBA Construction to install a binishell, a concrete structure of Italian origin that Leeton compares to a blow-up balloon. \u201cYou get this plastic form and blow it up. Then you get inside and spray the concrete against the plastic.\u201d Often used to make grain silos, binishells are rarely used in Australia, let alone in coastal holiday homes. \u201cIt was fascinating to use it in a high-end architectural finish,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Considered details seamlessly connect the interiors to the vast outdoors. Skylights pour natural light into the rooms, creating luminous circles that glide across the floor as the hours pass. \u201cIt\u2019s a nice, meditative element measuring the slow moving of time, which we thought was appropriate for a holiday house,\u201d Leeton says. Elsewhere, a reading nook overlooks a colourful patch of native grasses. \u201cEven though you\u2019re cocooned in the house, you get that connection to the landscape.\u201d <\/p>\n

Outside, Leeton worked with leading garden designer Paul Bangay. Towering oak trees and mature olive trees were added to the site, along with clusters of perennials. Purple patches of black adder and neutral native grasses change colours with the seasons \u2013 another way to mark the passing of time. \u201cWhen you go up in winter, [the vegetation is] dry and sparse,\u201d Leeton says. \u201cIn spring, it all grows up. And in summer, it\u2019s in full bloom.\u201d <\/p>\n

This article first appeared in Domain Prestige<\/a>, in partnership with Broadsheet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"House on a Hill by Leeton Pointon Architects and Allison Pye Interiors blends minimalist calm and brutalist strength.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":["post-134026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}