Chiara du Plessis

Raised gently above the ground, this housing project begins with a hearth — redefined not through material weight, but as a solid red core that signals the spatial and social centre of each dwelling among an otherwise open and adaptable plan. Although reimagined, the idea of the hearth endures: a marker of domesticity, memory, and shared ritual.

Referencing the typology of a traditional home, the project abstracts its domestic familiarity into a modular, elevated steel framework suited to the Australian context. The dwellings are lifted over three metres off the ground to create an undetermined undercroft. This flexible open space encourages social use, environmental permeability, and potential future infill. Above, units are arranged around a large central courtyard that opens diagonally to the southwest, forging a strong connection with the adjacent parkland and drawing the landscape into the heart of the site.

Raw and resilient materials — steel, corrugated cladding, glass, and plywood — express structural honesty, while the hearth introduces a moment of visual warmth within the structural grid. At its core, the project proposes a living framework: fixed in its structural logic, yet open to spatial and social evolution.