Celilo Springs has Beneficial Thermal Qualities

In Celilo Springs, Western Architecture Studio has produced a beautiful, modest project on a compact, steeply sloping site.

As with all of Andrew Boyne’s work, site planning, design and crafting of the architectural solution are beautifully resolved to achieve a thoroughly integrated place. The suburban setting is left behind on arrival, stepping down through native gardens, to the simply planned and superbly detailed building which opens on to a beautiful outlook of Western Australian endemic flora, fed by the namesake spring.

The Colorbond Steel award was made for the efficient and elegant roof structure and design that minimised cranage and made site construction efficient, making use of a pop-up tent concept. The selection of roof material responded to the contextual vernacular and the shimmering fascia reflects light and the water bodies of the landscape.

The choice of Alucabond for the ceilings has beneficial thermal qualities, while also capturing the dapple reflection of the ponded spring throughout the day. Celilo Springs is a beautiful compilation of West Australian steel applications.

Celilo Springs is a strikingly different home. Ephemeral qualities of light and nature are wrapped in a singular room that reimagines human occupation. Acknowledgement and acceptance of this ‘difficult’ site, provided opportunities for experimentation with structure, challenged conventional construction methodologies and most importantly the concept of typical suburban infill.

The terroir has been embraced, with a seamless transition between the thriving bush and diverse ecology outside, and the home’s interior. With its deliberate openness to nature and its surroundings, this house provides a lesson for living well. It is rigorously elemental in its form, but could variously be described as tent-like, playful, liberating, and joyful. It is both simple and very much of the 21st century. There is a quality that is quintessentially of this land.

This delicate structure is a shelter, a 125 sqm home, that engages on many levels with its location off a tranquil street almost within site of the Derbarl Yerrigan and the tallest towers of Perth CBD. The Architect Western Architect Studio describes this home as submersion in place, a veranda that works with and within the shared landscape of its site. All the components of this location, trees, and plants (existing and new), the sound and movement of a natural spring, a rear tree lined unsurfaced/unfenced lane, the slope, adjacent gardens, the birds, animals, the sky, and breeze all play their part and are in some way each carefully, skilfully, and seamlessly weaved together with re-cycled materials into the tapestry of this exercise in sustainability.

Passive solar design principles and cross ventilation minimise energy consumption and the generous garden restores an endemic ecosystem to the site. This home really does engage with its place in this tiny corner of WA, but it’s not just a conversation on sustainability, it’s about creating harmony and community too!