Moat’s Corner

The sites layered history began with a pioneering family, after whom Moat's Corner was named. A gnarled cypress lined driveway is a historic cue to the first settlers on this rural property within the coastal town on Melbourne's Mornington Peninsula. Next came almost 70 years of a gardeners cultivating and collecting, resulting in a rambling and diverse array of flora across 5 acres of the 53 acres stretch. A new phase now and the owners' commitment to create a home over the existing footprint set the tone for the design challenge - to respond to the integrity of its setting.

Moat's corner draws on an inspired vision and a commitment to an established setting, refined to a point of tranquil precision, an interactive haven, with which to experience the life and energy that surrounds it. To live in the home is to co-exist with the garden. Perched respectfully, the modernist inspired style opens itself up to the garden at every opportunity, equally important and equally celebrated. There is not a space within the home deemed principal or secondary that does not acknowledge the life that surrounds it, reflecting nature's mood, unpredictable but always in a synchronised sway.

Moat's Corner is a benchmark for residential design in the way it treats its context and its inhabitants - both working equally to redefine our expectations of daily living. The considered and gentle placement of the home affords minimal disturbance and overall impact on the landscape it nestles so closely to. To hero its natural setting is to strengthen our connection with it and the way we care for our immediate environment. But it's the incorporation of innovative technologies and materials within the home that work in conjunction to deliver a new living standard for now and well into the future.

The west wall and entry elevation is one of protection, intrigue and interaction. From outside - insulated black panels spaced to a dual glass cladding guard for weather protection. But they are more appreciated at a sensory level, where on approach they completely fill with the reflected silhouette of the established west gardens. From inside - the panels take the form of bookshelves to the bedroom wing and bench top and storage to the kitchen, recessed and raised. They are framed with deep-set glass above, below and between, ensuring natures moments are never missed. Raw galvanised steel appears as an offset frame to the intermittent reflective panels, while floor and roof structures adhere to the depth tolerances that the steel members prescribe. A natural stack stone fin is the grounding element below a completely cantilevered bedroom wing, projecting the roots of the design inspiration - a mid-century modernist ethos encompassing honesty to materials, structural innovation and minimal ornamentation. The elevated band provides a look through to the landscape poolside, allowing vegetation to nestle gently under and around with minimal disturbance.