Macedon Ranges Retreat

Location: Mount Macedon, Victoria
Year: 2024
Scope: New residential architecture
Status: Completed 2024
Photography: Alexei Tsang

Long rammed earth house set into a rural paddock with hills behind

The brief

A couple nearing retirement had bought five acres of sloping paddock outside Mount Macedon, with a long view south over the ranges and a cold, windy aspect that came with it. They planned to move from Melbourne and live there full time, and they wanted a house that would be warm in the ranges winter without a heating bill that ruined the dream.

They asked for a single-level house they could grow old in, with two bedrooms for them and a third for visiting family, generous living for the way they entertain, and a deep connection to the view. Above all, they wanted thermal comfort, a house that holds its own temperature through the swing of the seasons.

Sloping rural paddock with eucalypts and a long view

Our response

We set the house into the slope and built its long walls in rammed earth, using the ground and the mass of the earth itself to do most of the work of keeping the house comfortable.

The plan is a single long bar following the contour, with living at the warm northern end and bedrooms tucked into the cooler southern end. Cutting the house into the slope shelters it from the southerly wind and gives the living spaces a low, grounded relationship to the paddock.

The rammed earth walls are 450 millimetres thick. They soak up the winter sun that pours in through the northern glazing during the day and release it slowly overnight, so the house stays comfortable with very little active heating. Deep eaves keep the same sun out in summer. A wood heater handles the coldest weeks. The result is a house that is quiet, still and noticeably even in temperature, the thing the owners wanted most, achieved mostly through the building itself rather than its systems.

Living room with a rammed earth wall, concrete floor and north glazing

Materials and approach

Layered rammed earth wall texture — Rammed earth walls, 450 millimetres thick, made from the site's own subsoil and local aggregate.

Deep timber eave against the sky — Deep northern eaves sized to admit the winter sun and exclude the summer sun.

Polished concrete floor in warm sunlight — Polished concrete floors to store and release the warmth of the day.

Walls: Rammed earth, 450mm, local aggregate
Floor: Polished concrete with embedded slab heating for the coldest weeks
Roof: Colorbond, insulated to a high standard
Glazing: Thermally broken aluminium, double glazed, north-oriented
Heating: Passive solar gain, wood heater, minimal active backup

Outcome

The owners moved in over the winter and reported the house held its warmth through the coldest weeks with the wood heater lit only in the evenings. The rammed earth has settled into the paddock as though it grew there. The project received a commendation for Residential Architecture in the 2024 Victorian Architecture Awards.