The house is very measured in its décor. Artworks are propped up against walls and the backs of sofas rather than hung and there is a sense that the objects that have been chosen have gone through a rigorous selection process. An Akari standing light by Noguchi and a sculpture by Pilar Rojas, flank a sofa designed by Godsell  – a tribute to Donald Judd.

Godsell does play with concepts from east and west in the house.  ‘The divided plan shows the influence of Asia on Australia’, he says. The living area has a sliding wall to separate the space and create two areas, just as in Japanese architecture a series of rooms is animated by operating screens. The house has no corridors and so has a continuous flow of space, which Godsell admits was easier when he son Jack was a small child rather than a teenager.

It is the fact that I live in a Bruce Rickard house ( where my family and I have been for 11 years) that started my whole interest in Australian domestic architecture and those that created it.
My husband and I got to know Bruce and were part of an informal club which met, visited each others houses, and then had lunch with Bruce. It was a great opportunity to see his different projects, on different sites for different clients – but all with his use of natural materials and his use of space for communal use – and all with a deep connection to the natural landscape.

My family and I were part of his 80th birthday celebrations at a house he had built for himself at Cottage Point. It was a joyful, inclusive affair with all generations in attendance. Many of his children spoke, as Bruce himself did, in his quite considered and gently humorous way. The warmth of the occassion was unmistakable. When his son Sam let us know he was in hospital and dying it caused me to consider, and write down, what living in a house Bruce had designed meant to me. Much of it was to do with raising the children in the house – how it contributed to their appreciation of nature as the skies change and the southerlies blow in; how I have bought a day bed specifically to lie in the winter sun Bruce so cleverly arranged to pour into the house in winter. How my daughter (who loves the house and never wants to leave) and I look for patterns, faces and animals in the sandstock bricks. His influence has been profound as it was Bruce who ignited my interest in architecture and the two books that are a direct result of that interest. I was pleased that Sam got the opportunity to read the letter to his father before he died.

The house is built in a mixture of natural materials – sandstock brick, timber and glass and sits on a battle-axe block amongst the angophoras.

One of Rickards main concerns was the connection between indoors and out an so the house is designed to open up to the surrounding garden in summer and close up to be cosy and protective in winter.

Access to the house is via a raised walkway.

The spare furnishings in the interior space concentrate the mind on the landscape beyond and Viney was highly tuned to the relationship between the two. “Architecture is created from the inside out – from space to form, they are integral to, and inform each other to resolution’.

The Viney House appeared as a hero feature in Architecture Australia magazine at a time when it was hard for Tasmanian architects to get national coverage of their work. RMIT Professor Richard Blythe notes, ‘Viney’s work stands out because of his ability to take a cosmopolitan view, to be concerned with the particularity of place, of the relation between a subject and the landscape beyond the immediate site while resisting the sentimentality of a regionalist approach’. Shown here is the glazed southern wall facing the surrounding bush.

The architects of the apartment – Neil Durbach and Camilla Block were at the launch, as was Glenn Murcutt, Peter Stutchbury, Ken Woolley and Russell Jack, while other architects, from interstate, where there in spirit.

This view of the apartment shows how easily the place opens up to accommodate a crowd and is one of the perspectives of the house that both Durbach and Block remarked upon as it simultaneously takes in the exterior city view and the main sweep of the house, bisected by the powerful curve of the wall.

The house responds incredibly well to the movement of the sun throughout  the day and rooms become lit by sharp shards  of sunlight while other areas remain in shadow. The Vico Magistretti ‘Sinbad’ Chair sits behind a prototype of a coffee table Marshall designed for the Adelphi Hotel.

The little ‘penguin windows’ – named by Marshall’s colleague John Denton – run along the north west side of the building, allowing light in from the courtyard but not allowing direct visual engagement with it.

This corner of the main living space says much about the Donovan Hill ‘D’ House. The furniture is built-in and designed with practicality in mind – you can easily sweep under it, use it as an extra bed, bring a dining table close and use it as bench seating. It also has the effect of creating lightness and transparency as you see through to the courtyard beyond. Hill also custom designed the copper wall light situated above the window.

This view into the kitchen captures the soft finish of the set plaster. Many of the materials are honest and unadorned and the shaft of natural lights highlights the ‘wacky patina’ of the wall. The skylight is placed above the threshold of  where decisions have to be made and also allows tantalising glimpses of the sky.