Eighty percent of Australians live within 80 miles 

of the sea;50 percent of the country’s houses sit

less than 8 miles froma beach.When Sean Godsell

Architects began its latest experimentwith an

ecofriendly, rectangular residential form, the
Glenburn House, it naturally built a first prototype

on the coast. Theprecursor to this scheme, the St.

Andrews Beach House, located on apeninsula south

of Melbourne, is raised up on stilts above the dunes,
oriented at right angles to the sea, and acts as a

telescope to the horizon,where sky and ocean meet.

At Glenburn, a rural area 90 minutes northeast ofMelbourne,
the relationship between the house and the water is reinterpreted. The
box is presented as a ship slicing through swells of earth. Instead of facing
water, here the house’s long, northeastern flank provides views from
the living areas and the guest room to the distant heights of Australia’s
Great Dividing Range—the mountains that separate the populated
eastern littoral from the desert interior of the island continent.

This entrance cuts
through the plan along a central axis
and leads to another opening, which
allows access to that long gully earlier
glimpsed. Inside, the program of the
residence should be simple—the
living, dining, sleeping, and bathing
areas are meted out within a rectangle—
and yet,much as the procession
to the house plays with your perception,
the interior is equally surprising.