The architect’s family weekender that doubles as a prototype kit home

Hannah Tribe is an intensely thoughtful architect whose interests and preoccupations are wide ranging. It is no surprise, then, that the holiday house she designed for her family in the NSW coastal enclave of Bundeena is an expression of many of the things she wrestles with daily at her Sydney practice, Tribe Studio.

The living and dining quarters open to a generous garden.Credit: Katherine Lu

How can you be sustainable when building a one-off house? How do you create an atmosphere that is casual and promotes ease while retaining a strong aesthetic? How can you keep the marauding deer away from the edible plants?

The low-lying house is a clever experiment in a prototype kit home, taking its cues from local fishermen’s cottages. It is designed to be replicated, which Tribe hopes to do on a commission-by-commission basis. “We could have had glorious views from a second storey, however we felt that reinforcing the local vernacular of single-storey timber cottages was important,” says the 45-year-old, whose firm has won more than 30 awards at state, national and international level.

Slow living is aided by the lack of a television.Credit: Katherine Lu

An internal courtyard is filled with edible plants.Credit: Katherine Lu

Designed as a retreat from the city, the house was built to promote a slower way of living, as a place where Tribe, her husband and their two boys, 8 and 11, can read, cook, bushwalk and paddleboard. There is no television, and the living and sleeping quarters wrap around an internal courtyard filled with edible plants, while also looking out on to a north-facing rear garden.

When friends come to stay, built-in sofas in the lounge double as beds. The wet areas – laundry and bathroom – were pushed to the entry to become a “deliberate sand trap” for discarded beach towels, wet suits and thongs.

While the timber-clad structure is raw and robust, the interior features splashes of playfulness and colour. The dining chairs, for example, are a 1980s tubular steel and plywood school set found at Grandfather’s Axe in Melbourne. “There is something fun and at the same time nostalgic about them,” says Tribe, “and I just love the colour and the compositions they make when arranged unevenly around the table.”

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