{"id":223701,"date":"2025-12-08T12:26:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T01:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indesignlive.com\/?p=223701"},"modified":"2025-12-08T12:40:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T01:40:35","slug":"storiesindesign-gill-gibney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indesignlive.com\/ideas\/storiesindesign-gill-gibney","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Gill and Jason Gibney on urban density and bushfire resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Listen to the full episode here!<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some projects just speak to one another. Among the 26 shortlisted projects for this year\u2019s Habitus House of the Year<\/a>, supported by Winnings<\/a> as well as Billi<\/a> and Rogerseller<\/a>, there are two New South Wales<\/a> houses that offer a compelling dialogue about the state of housing in Australia in 2025. Indeed, they stood out so much that they each took out an award!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, Clifton House by Anthony Gill Architects<\/a>. It\u2019s in Bondi, a famous area in Sydney, and it deals with questions of density, privacy, overlooking and natural light. This project has been announced as the<\/em> Habitus House of the Year 2025!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Second, Amongst the Eucalypts by Jason Gibney Design Workshop (JGDW)<\/a>. Located several hours up the coast by Seal Rocks, it engages with the regional coastal landscape, wildlife and bushfires. A close contender under jury debate, this project has been recognised with the Editor’s Choice Award. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On the surface, then, not much in common. However, during our roundtable discussion for STORIESINDESIGN podcast at The Commons in Sydney, what became clear is that the two projects not only address conceptually similar issues but do so in strikingly similar architectural terms. The principles underpinning both projects are highly similar, even if they find very different manifestations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Gibney and Gill (below, left and right respectively) spoke about surroundings, for one. With Amongst the Eucalypts, that primarily concerns the casuarina forest and native wildlife at the site. Clifton House might be more concerned with the possibility of overlooking neighbours, but both projects are fundamentally attuned to the life that immediately surrounds them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related: <\/em><\/strong>Kengo Kuma on the podcast<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The winners are called up during the Awards Party at Winnings Redfern in December 2025.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve always thought privacy is slightly overrated,\u201d says Gill. \u201cClients are always talking about privacy as their greatest concern, and there are certain areas where you really need it. But at other times, connections to the street [and] to community are super important. So, it’s about getting that balance right by solving it in certain areas and giving the clients comfort that they’re going to be able to inhabit it the way they want.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each project also places a significant emphasis on landscape design, albeit at different scales. Gill has taken great care to curate interstitial moments of greenery behind fibreglass surfaces, while Gibney deliberately sets the house up in the trees as well as crafting private planted areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe needed to come up with something quite different in terms of what council would accept,\u201d explains Gill. Something, he continues, that \u201cwould provide privacy, but would also give us an opportunity to make those spaces upstairs really rich and enjoyable to inhabit. We planted these roof gardens and used this off-the-shelf fiberglass, corrugated material \u2013 which is probably more at home in industrial use. But it creates this beautiful soft light, and the gardens grow feverishly underneath these screens. By the time you get upstairs, it actually has this otherworldly character to that does make you forget that you’re in Bondi.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Describing his own engagement with the landscape by Seal Rocks, Gibney says: \u201cAs you go up the hill, you lose sight of the lake. But then as you go higher and higher, it appears again \u2013 and now, it appears beyond the canopy of the trees. So, you\u2019re halfway up the hill and you have a mature tree canopy below your eyeline, with water above. Everything changed when we got up there\u2026 You were in this undeveloped area where nobody built houses, and so even the fauna \u2013 the birds and the lizards \u2013 just seem so at home. They weren’t bothered because they weren’t used to people being there when we were building.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Like all good architecture, it\u2019s about context \u2013 and it\u2019s about not taking the similarities literally. With both architects in agreement, Gibney concludes: \u201cThese are buildings in an Australian suburban area or an Australian bushland site, and we do have unique climatic conditions that draw out a certain response. And yet at the same time, I think you could take the same logic or principles and apply them anywhere \u2013 because [the parts] that became the solution to deal with those parameters are about bringing back the humanity and the nature side of how we live and dwell anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen to the full episode here!<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthony Gill Architects<\/strong>
gillarchitects.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jason Gibney Design Workshop (JGDW)<\/strong>
jgdw.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photography<\/strong>
Justin Alexander (Amongst the Eucalypts), Rory Gardiner & Colby Vexler (Clifton House)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winners of the 2025 Habitus House of the Year and Editor’s Choice Award respectively, Anthony Gill and Jason Gibney join the podcast to discuss the state of housing in Australia today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":334,"featured_media":224128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[86,1183,73,44,37010],"tags":[40383,40382,39206,1164,780,876,2898,37164,38181,40385,26380,1162,25641,40384,5418,40387,22321,5465,40388,30781,1180,39174,40386,39175,4035,7873,26529,9154,857,3608,672,25502,37416,40389,1476,11355],"class_list":["post-223701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-slides","category-ideas","category-in-profile","category-people","category-podcast","tag-amongst-the-eucalypts","tag-anthony-gill","tag-anthony-gill-architects","tag-architecture","tag-australia-2","tag-australian-architecture","tag-billi","tag-bush","tag-bushfire","tag-clifton-house","tag-density","tag-design","tag-fire","tag-habitus-hoty","tag-habitus-house-of-the-year","tag-habitus-house-of-the-year-2025","tag-home-architecture","tag-hoty","tag-hoty-2025","tag-house-architecture","tag-interior-design","tag-jason-gibney","tag-jason-gibney-design-workshop","tag-jgdw","tag-nsw","tag-podcast","tag-privacy","tag-regional","tag-residential-architecture","tag-residential-design","tag-rogerseller","tag-rural","tag-stories-indesign","tag-storiesindesign","tag-urban","tag-winnings","home-slides","ideas","in-profile","people","podcast"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSTORIESINDESIGN - 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