The Idealised Landscape: The C-House. Donovan Hill Architects. Coorpoaroo QLD Australia 1998
The idea of building as a metaphor for landscape has been an ever present theme within architecture in the twentieth century. Falling water by Frank Lloyd Wright explores the spatial and formal qualities of the environment, with horizontally cantilevered balconies, allusively floating above the waterfall like the surrounding rocks. The landscape metaphor is a starting point for the architectural investigation made physically present in the C house. The surrounding site has been cut into to recreate a kind of utopia in which the home maximizes all of the possibilities of its location. "The site has been refashioned into a series of overlapping sub-sites (both indoor and outdoor), with their interconnections across the climbing topography resembling experiences of typical of 'terrain'. The landscape metaphor has been extended beyond physical representation to enable the everyday experience of occupation to be as if it were in a landscape. This experience is reinforced by the handling of light, which emphasizes changing conditions during the day and year- contributing to the house's sensual and varying atmosphere'. (Architects note by Brian Donovan and Timothy Hill in Tonkin 32). The site was cut and modified to maximize the opportunities for the home to filter the optimum conditions to filter the surrounding environment.
The C house is named after its use of concrete which is seen internally and externally. By using it in all areas the distinction between outside and inside is less obvious, which creates a continuity with the external terrain.
The home contains human activities in terms of public and private domains. The front half of the site is split into two gardens. The first is labelled as the public square to incorporate the entry. The 'public square' is linked by a 'major stair'. Another example of a public domain within the home is the centrally located outdoor room. Other rooms wrap around this space, where a wing of two level of bedrooms is a segregated private space.
