STUMPY GULLY HOUSE
Winner, Architeam New Residential – Over $1m Category
A finely crafted approach to a family home suggests an alternative, sensitive approach to development in coastal villages, drawing on midcentury and Japanese references.

This family house, located in the coastal hamlet of Balnarring on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, is a considered approach designed to nestle sensitively into its village context. A direct riposte to the contextless and homogenous new developments driven by tree-change population shifts in regional Victoria. Stumpy Gully House suggests a more sensitive way to engage with a site that is considerate of solar orientation, street frontage and architectural form.
While newer houses in the street are sited full width with minimum setback, Stumpy Gully House proposes an approach more consistent with older patterns of development in Balnarring, offering a bushy frontage to the street. Instead of the incessant double garage street frontage of neighbouring developments, a linear plan opens the entire house to the northern aspect along the side boundary, rather than the western “back” yard. This linear landscaped yard, featuring landscapes by Jo Ferguson, runs the full length of the house. Instead of the big Aussie backyard, it’s the big Aussie side yard.
The clients, a young growing family, were looking for a family home that would evolve to accommodate their family as it expanded, aged and matured. They wanted to be able to supervise young children while accommodating and allowing privacy separation as the children grew up and needed their own space. The linear plan achieves this by linking a succession of living spaces which flow out seamlessly into the northern outdoor landscape. These spaces are punctuated by perpendicular timber lined walls, which visually slip through the external northern glazed wall to create a series of privacy baffles both internally and externally. These baffles enclose, demarcate and screen views as you proceed along the linear plan to define different functional areas (front garden/backyard; main bedroom / living area / kids area / service area). This repeated architectural device creates spaces that are variously connected, separated or in a state of liminal ambiguity. Internally an enfilade of large sliding doors allows the linear plan to be completely opened up, allowing sight & circulation from one end of the residence to the other, or alternatively to be closed and separated as required.
Collaborating Architect / Stavrias Architecture
Builder / Ross Bakker, Bakka Constructions
Project Architect / Nicole Henderson
Photography / Pier Carthew
Styling / Jess Kneebone