With a sense of playfulness and feeling of familiarity, Highlands House sits quietly in its landscape while simultaneously embodying its own character. Designed by Other Architects, the home provides the luxurious simplicity of living in a single volume, allowing the residents to enjoy the informality and flexibility of their country lifestyle.

There is a casual ease to country living. Time and space can feel more relaxed, less restrained by a defined structure of the day or functions of a house. David Neustein and Grace Mortlock, Directors of Other Architects, captured this feeling of openness and open-endedness in the design of Highlands House. Located in the New South Wales Southern Highlands, Highlands House is informal and flexible, crafted as a single volume with timber joinery divisions and soft edges, allowing time and space to feel unhurried.

The project is the country home of a semi-retired couple – it will become their permanent residence with time. When the clients purchased the property, it had a three-bedroom cottage along with an artist’s studio, and it was overgrown with weeds and creepers that blocked the ocean view. The couple invited Michael Jackman to landscape the surrounding area; they then engaged Other Architects to design a house that supported their relaxed country lifestyle and enjoyment of their new garden.

The clients sought a country house simply for themselves rather than providing extra space for guests. They wanted the luxury and ease of living in a single room, with the landscape always close at hand, the architects say. Architects approach was to offer a different experience of living in the landscape to that of the quintessential modern Australian house. It is loose-fit rather than functionalist, soft and inviting rather than hardedged, and it sits quietly in the background and the garden, ceding the foreground to people, pets, furniture, art and plants.

Highlands House is built on a concrete platform that replaces the footprint of the previous cottage. Its flat roof relates to the retained artist’s studio across the courtyard, while a lower-level structure has been repurposed as a guest bedroom. The builders carefully dismantled the existing house so that materials could be recycled; the cedar beams have been reused in the construction of the new dwelling, verandah posts are now steps in the landscape and crushed brick forms the driveway.

With its low-lying, horizontal form, Highlands House has the sense of being a pavilion, with large sliding glass doors and windows that allow for the freedom and informality of movement that goes with country living. The compact but generous interior is experienced as one space that contains living and sleeping areas, with timber joinery dividing areas and providing a warm internal backdrop. Travertine flooring inside and out enhances the sense of the interior space flowing and expanding outside. The kitchen, dining and lounge have an easterly view across the garden and spread out to the north-facing loggia. Behind the bookshelf, the bedroom faces south and opens to a curved terrace atop the guest bedroom. The laundry and boot room are behind the kitchen cabinetry, and the ensuite is in the back corner of the house.

Where the glass doors open the interior to the landscape, pop-ups and skylights in the roof bring light deep into the plan. They also add a distinctive playfulness to the pavilion form. It would have been a simple, utilitarian country house if it just had a flat roof, but these exaggerated volumes give a sense of occasion and levity. A curved popup in the bedroom provides a view of the night sky and tree canopy, and a triangular opening brings northern light over the kitchen and dining. A chimney-like form rises above and ventilates the laundry, and there are skylights over the ensuite and boot room.