Noosa Hinterland, Australia
Smiths Road House sits on a hill within a vast eucalyptus forest in the Noosa hinterland. Many of the surrounding trees rise over 30 m high, giving the landscape an extraordinary scale.
The house draws from the quiet logic of the Australian farmhouse — simple forms and deep eaves that cast strong shadows across the facade. From the outside it remains restrained. From within, the architecture opens carefully to the landscape.
The house is a pavilion on the hill - a calm place to sit, watch the wallabies pass through the grass and listen to the birds in the canopy.
Throughout the house, walls and openings frame small sections of the forest so that the landscape becomes a series of living artworks.
Most houses in the hinterland give you the view immediately.
Here the approach is more restrained.
You enter through a quiet foyer where the landscape is only hinted at through small openings. Then, as you turn into the living space, the house suddenly opens and the forest reveals itself in full.
That moment — when the view appears all at once — is the kind of small delight we try to build into every project.
