The Local Project (July 26, 2024): This home’s design facilitates a rare co-habitation with the forested landscape and represents a balance of modern architecture and the purity of nature. From a distance, Edition Office’s Federal House appears like a shadow nestled into the folding hills of the hinterland, a sharp contrast to the vibrant surrounds.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Home 00:58 – The Initial Brief 02:11 – A Walkthrough of the Home 03:07 – Shaping Light Through Design 03:30 – The Warm Material Palette 04:01 – A Holistic Experience 04:57 – Thankful Moments

Upon approach, the textures of the exterior convey a distinct dialogue with nature. This home’s design acts to deepen relationships between people and the natural setting and intimately shows the inner machinations of the environment. The brief outlined a home that would act as a sanctuary and elemental respite from the clients’ high-pressure careers. The occupants of Federal House enjoy a relationship with the hillside, forest and grassland at the site’s rear as well as panoramic views over the forested horizon from the heavily inset living-zoned platform and sheltered pool.

A reverberation of settler colonial homesteads of the past, this home’s design inverts the front verandah typology, looking inward to orbit an internal courtyard and present a tightly controlled outer envelope. Federal House’s interior spaces act as an elevated stage, a refuge from which to observe the passing of time through the shifting weather and seasons of the Northern Rivers hinterland. The covered outdoor spaces welcome in the landscape, where modestly scaled living spaces and bedrooms lie.