52 DIGS.NET
| 7.1.2022
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P R O F I L E | E D I T I O N O F F I C E
STRIKING EXAMPLE of contemplative architecture, Federal
House is a contemporary "reverberation" of the colonial
homestead typology of its rural surround in northern New
South Wales, Australia. Nestled in the hills of Bundjalung
country, the dark-lined, sharply constituted form thwarts
expectations of what one might expect to find in such parts.
Recessive from a distance, it appears dormant, looming like
"a shadow within the vast landscape," notes Edition Office, the
Melbourne-based architecture studio behind the project whose
architecture, in its words, "enhance and enable connection and
interfaces which provoke, question and enrich both occupants
and the public realm."
Federal House is exemplar of this ethos. An absorbing, delib-
erate building of concrete and timber, "The house stands as an
out element within its landscape, establishing a relationship of
connected departure, whereby the interior of the home becomes
an island of texture and shadows from which to witness and
observe the natural surroundings," the studio states. As a
physical entity in dialogue with the landscape—a project that
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