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