Sydney Architecture Images- Northern Suburbs

The Ball-Eastaway House

architect

Glenn Murcutt

location

Halcrows Road Glenorie 

date

1982

style

Late 20th-Century Structuralist

construction

steel frame, glass

type

House
 
  Designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Glenn Murcutt, the Ball-Eastaway house is an artist's retreat nestled in an arid forest. The curved roof prevents dry leaves from settling on top. The windows and "meditation decks" are placed to create a sense of seclusion.
 
  The main structure of the building is supported by steel columns and steel I-beams. By raising the house above the earth, Murcutt protected the dry soil and surrounding trees.
 
"The Ball-Eastaway House is a long, low, single-story column and beam platform house entirely constructed in steel with a corrugated curved roof and timber terraces. It sits poised above the undulating ground level on its six I-section columns protected from bush fires with complete coverage from an external sprinkler system. The house was designed, according to the architect, to provide the minimum interference with nature and the existing site. A small, open-sided platform bridge runs from the car parking enclosure to the house itself, another precarious reminder of the vulnerability of living in the countryside. Adjacent to the house are two commercial farmyard Dutch barns, purchased straight out of a catalogue but ingeniously converted into spacious and waterproof artists' studios." — Dennis Sharp. Twentieth Century Architecture: a Visual History. p378.

 

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