Australian Design Review

Base Camp is a compact, climate responsive and adaptable weekender, sitting off the land yet immersed within it. Robust and singular in form, it is multi-layered in interior detail.

The ‘two-thirds’ house is smaller than the average home, with a footprint of 82sqm including decks. Designed to use and consume less, it features multi-functional areas that can be adapted by opening and closing sections to transform the rooms. The house explores the lifestyle potential of a future reality, in which space and resources become increasingly scarce and building operating and energy costs are at a premium.

The elongated form creates a house that is one room wide, allowing views through the interior to the landscape beyond. Reinforcing the compact yet open feel, this blurs the edges between areas of the house and integrates the landscape into the interior. Wide views and close-up porthole views of the landscape encourage interaction with nature, allowing occupants to experience the bush at different times of day.

*Team* Daniel Seyd, Lisa Fong Ariel Lopez