Avonlea House

Avonlea is a family home set on a commanding, elevated hillside in the centre of Eumundi, a market town on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. It takes its name from the Queenslander that once stood here, the home in which architect Jolyon Robinson spent his boyhood, until fire destroyed it some nine years before the new house was designed.

The five-acre site arrived with development approval for a six-lot subdivision. Rather than maximise the yield, Robinson Architects and the owners chose to release only three lots, build on one and keep the remaining two as garden, a decision driven by the building's prominent position in the town. The released lots were sold privately through the practice on a single condition: that Robinson Architects would design whatever was built on them. Each of those houses is modest in scale and budget and answers to the immediate character of Eumundi.

The brief for Avonlea itself was straightforward, a long-term home for a young family. The plan anticipates how that family will change. A child's bedroom sits close to the main bedroom for now, while a guest room at the far end, with its own access to the outside, is intended to become his room as he grows. The bedrooms bookend a central living space and are linked by a single hallway, with storage and pantry drawn off that spine so little space is wasted.

The long, linear form is set at right angles to Cooroy Mountain to the north, giving every room a view of the shifting mountain vista and drawing cooling cross breezes through the house. On the southern side, rammed earth walls made with the district's distinctive red earth buffer the noise of the nearby primary school and market traffic. Above, a razor-thin steel roof with deep eaves shades the building and sets a crisp line against the weight and texture of the earth.

Completed in 2017, the single-storey house covers 250 square metres. It received a Commendation and the People's Choice award at the AIA Sunshine Coast regional awards, a Commendation in the new house category at the AIA Queensland awards, and was shortlisted in two categories, Houses over 200 square metres and Sustainability, at the national Houses Awards.

Design by Robinson Architects, with Jolyon Robinson, Jenna Hawting and Will McGuiness. Photography by Nic Granleese.