Connecting to Country
Image Credit : Sophie Solomon, 2025.
Connecting to Country
Connecting to Country in Australia is a recognition of the Ancient Lands on which we are lucky to call our home and respecting deeply those that have been here before.
It takes on a different meaning in other parts of the world, Colonised by Europeans or devastated by the impacts of War.
Connecting to Country for the indigenous Vietnamese has evolved dramatically over time, yet relates to the tilling of the Rice Paddies, still led by Ox and Cart, creating long thin lines of farming allotments, upon which permanent housing was built. There are similar themes of land parceling in Japan and their notion of connecting to country is deeply embedded in the spiritural and mythological beliefs that have developed through Shinto and Taoist Buddhist philosophy.
The mountain range of Iwatake in Hakuba is an incredibly breathtaking and deeply reverential glacial landscape with the steep ridges lined in Cedar and Pine Trees. In Winter the slopes are covered in deep deep Powder Snow.
Hakuba Valley is a fertile and abundant flood plain where most food is grown to service the inhabitants and the mountains are home to wild bears, deers and monkeys.
The respect the Japanese have for both their fellow man, their cultural identity, both living and dead and for the built and natural landcape is quite remarkable.
Connecting to Country in Australia is equally nuanced and no less traumatic that what the Japanese and Vietnamese have experienced through recent wars, still in our collective memory.
Historical, Cultural, Socio-Economic and Political factors all come in to play when Architects take on a project and Connecting to County begins, like a project with deep listening and sensitivity.
The Gable House was designed with notions of connecting to country through a deep and sensitive analysis of both the local site context, the existing landscape on the site, the character of the original house and the story my clients bought to the home after living abroad and growing up outside of Australia. The desire to bring an Internation Scandinavian Barn Home to the Suburbs of Kensington, so uniquely Sydney formed a part of the original brief for the home.
Essentially, as a concept the rear gabled extension is set back from the side boundary to allow for light to penetrate into the open plan living room, replacing a cold , dark and poorly insulated extension to an original Federation Home, built as part of the subdivision of Kensington, following the Post War Garden City movement in Sydney at the turn of the 20th Century.
Gable House Kitchen is runner up in the National Trends Ideas Awards for best Kitchen.
Built by Cumberland Building and Portelli Joinery.
Image Credit : James Kinnear Photography
Photo credit : Adam Haddow, National President Australian Institute of Architects
The debate continues... Passivhaus v Passive Design.
I have been lucky to have collaborated with these wonderful humans on various National committees and focus groups, including the Federal Government funded group to reduce energy consumption in homes.
This inspiring group of Architects took the reigns from Tony Edye, Tony Edye and Associates and Tone Wheeler, Environa Studio, in developing the Sustainability movement in Australia with a focus on Passive Design Principles, Photovotaics and Low Tox materials .. from the 1970s when it was in it's infancy.
Rod Simpson was instrumental, with Che Wall in developing the BASIX tool in NSW and re-formed the Sustainability Committee, which I joined following my tenure on the Built Environment Committee.
We have come a long way and still there is more work to be done to match the Circular Economy principles being developed in Europe and China.
Both the Randwick and Maroubra alteration and addition projects have reached completion and awaiting their beautiful garden designs to be planted out, to bring the projects to life. I cannot wait to share more.
A Glimpse of Our Portfolio
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