Home of the Decade (2015—2025) winning firm RTA Studio has refined a Southern language of gables and barn-like forms into a coveted residential style that is equally at home in the Alps as it is in the inner city.
Textural and rustic at points, sleek and modernised at others, RTA’s material palette tends to shift and adapt to its context, while its intrinsic forms — playful adaptations, slicings and stretchings — remain. At their heart, however, are architectural odes to the rural South.
This home, perched on the crest of a hill and commanding spectacular views towards the Remarkables, Kingston, and Coronet Peak, demonstrates RTA’s vernacular interpretations at a truly confident and sophisticated level.
“The idea of Two Sheds is abstracted and formalised interpretations of rural sheds,” said lead architect and RTA director Rich Naish. “One has a pyramid roof, and the other is half that, because we’ve sliced through it and exposed the gable.”
What might appear as a loose aggregation of rural sheds reveals itself as a carefully orchestrated sequence of spatial encounters.
Robust, beautiful materials reinforce a function-first approach well-suited to rural life, while the plan accommodates changing seasons and occupants with ease. Views toward the surrounding mountains are framed with painterly precision, and the main living space gathers around a powerful central hearth.
The latter is an impressive centrepiece to the house, acting both as an internal and external fireplace, a social hub, and a structural anchor that holds the large timber beams in place.
“The stone-clad drum supports a radiating hardwood timber roof structure and also contains fires that serve both indoor and outdoor living,” according to the designers.
Meanwhile, the timber-clad interior glows and cocoons, adding touches of hygge and nostalgia — elegance and soul — to a truly eloquent interpretation of the RTA vocabulary.
Playful yet accomplished, the house celebrates the happy collisions of rural forms, resulting in a deeply rich internal experience.
Project Credits
Architecture: RTA Studio
Build: Dunlop Builders
Landscape Designer: Baxter Design
Words: Federico Monsalve
Images: Sam Hartnett
Coloured Concrete: Peter Fell
Timber: Abodo
Furniture: Studio Italia
Tapware: Plumbline
Lighting: ECC
Fireplace: The Fire Dept.
Interior Walls: Rockcote
