Building around, not over
Every mature tree on the block was retained; the house was set out around their root zones rather than the other way around.
Office
Unit 2/9-11 Baillieu Court
Mitchell ACT 2911
Australia
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hello@deolbuilt.com.au
0403 890 301
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HouseRed Hill · South Canberra2021
Red Hill Escarpment House
Built into a falling block on the Red Hill escarpment, where the kitchen does the work most living rooms do.
TypeHouse
LocationRed Hill, South Canberra
Delivered2021
Build time13 months
The Brief
How this home came to be.
The block fell nearly four metres from street to rear boundary, so the kitchen was positioned at the pivot point of the plan — the one room every other space in the house looks toward, with sightlines out to the escarpment beyond.
Split-level construction added real engineering complexity, but it meant not a single established tree on the block needed to come down to make the house fit.
Site area
950 m²
Internal
298 m²
Bedrooms
4
Bathrooms
3
Garage
Double
Star rating
7.1
Photographs
On site.
Shot over three visits — dawn, midday and dusk — so the material palette reads the way the family will actually live in it.
What's inside
The specification, in plain English.
Every line here is something we insisted on — not something added to fatten a quote.
- 01Split-level design to follow a four-metre site fall
- 02Every established tree on the block retained
- 03Kitchen positioned as the visual anchor of the plan
- 04Engineered screw-pile foundations for the lower level
- 05Full-height glazing framing the escarpment outlook
- 06Bulkhead-integrated rangehood for an uninterrupted ceiling line
Signature moments
The things worth
pointing out.
Small decisions that only reveal themselves once you're living in the house. These are ours for this project.
A kitchen with a view
The kitchen sits at the highest point of the split-level plan specifically so the escarpment outlook is visible from the sink, not just the lounge.
Foundations for a falling block
Screw piles were used on the lower level to avoid the excavation and retaining costs a conventional slab would have required.
Where it stands
Red Hill,
South Canberra.
- Client
- Private family
- Architect
- Sightline Architecture
- Build time
- 13 months
- Delivered
- 2021
