Sarah Truscott played a pivotal role in designing and documenting the home during her tenure at Philip Leeson Architects. She continued to provide valuable construction stage advice under the banner of STA. David Braithwaite and his team at Braithwaite Building also deserve commendation for their exceptional efforts in bringing this project to life on site.
It is a true team achievement that highlights the contributions of sub-consultants, builders, and sub-contractors who worked tirelessly over the years to realise this vision.
We will leave here the words of the jury, upon Kampung Batu Bigga receiving this prestigious award:
“Very seldomly projects arise from an inextricable connection to site that approaches the poetic. Inspired by rudimentary trekking shelters, this house heightens the experience of the rocky knoll.
Working across scales, Truscott and Leeson have elegantly carved a shelf from the knoll with calligraphic rock walls working as retaining and low landscape walls. Nested within this zone a lyrical interplay of sliding rammed earth walls, dynamic roof and corrugated metal clad pods define a sensory journey across the site.
The simple profiled gable roof pushes and pulls with the wall and pods, aligning and then easing away to the landscape, defining interstitial nooks with the rocky site walls, and unfolding to open terraces that intersect the landscape. The oblique roof geometry arcs down to offer an intimate scale to the terrace, whilst a tension with the floating rainwater heads celebrates the balletic capture of rainwater.
At the personal scale, lyrical painted steel rod frames interweave with plywood joinery, working in counterpoint to the earthy tactility of the rammed earth walls.
Exuding a simplicity and rawness that seems to have been formed from the site forces, this project delights with elegant details and lightness of touch.”
Kampung Batu Bigga also picked up the Colorbond Award for Steel Architecture: the home is completely steel framed, save for the rammed earth walls, attaining a very rigid structure throughout. It also harnesses steel cladding externally, plus steel tubing throughout the joinery details internally.