The ‘irregular‘ Letterbox House is the winner in Melbourne Design Awards 2010 sub category residential. This house created by McBride Charles Ryan Architects situated in Blairgowrie, Australia. This house building begins as the letterbox and unfurls to become this healthy scaled verandah, to some it is an upturned boat, to others it a wave a cliff.
Description from McBride Charles Ryan
“There is a clear hierarchy in this house. Contrasting to the raked timber wall that stretches from the letterbox to become the westerly verandah, the remainder of the house appears as a simple modernist expression akin to many of the houses of the region. On approach, the raked timber wall appears to have morphed from out of the diminutive letterbox. Yet from other perspectives the house appears to have been carved away. The two techniques are conceptually contradictory.
The wall is a wrapped deck, cliff, upturned boat, frozen wave, verandah, internally a depository of the bric-a-brac collected on beach holidays – an essential medium for evoking family memories.
The wall is an in-between zone, a powerful stage for enacting family life. It is a place to watch the kids and the sunsets, to enhance the beach holiday and to ground memory. It will be a backdrop to family photos”
More information please visit McBride Charles Ryan website.
- Photos © McBride Charles Ryan Architects
- Photos © McBride Charles Ryan Architects
- Photos © McBride Charles Ryan Architects
- Photos © McBride Charles Ryan Architects
- Photos © McBride Charles Ryan Architects
- Photos © McBride Charles Ryan Architects














