As Cyclone Alfred lashed the coast of Byron Bay earlier this year, the inhabitants of the recently completed ‘Lighthouse’ residence marvelled calmly at the spectacle of Mother Nature in full cry. It was not just the fact that the house they’d commissioned from Brisbane’s BVN architects is built like a fortress and able to resist the onslaught of a tropical storm; it was also that, being totally open to the north and surrounded by native forest, it offers an immersion in the elements.

“It was awesome,” recalls the owner, who requested to remain anonymous. He moved here with his wife and four children from Brisbane last winter. “Tall trees were bent over and whipping about, but not only did we feel incredibly secure, we felt like this was an unparalleled experience of nature.”