EA House

Esther & Alberts House
Southern Highlands, NSW, Australia

EA house Bridge access to the house on the edge of a cliff. Dramatic architecture.

Bokey Grant EA house, southern highlands near bowral and Mittagong. House nestled in the dense bushland overlooking a gorge.

EA House, Southern Highlands NSW near bowral and mittagong. Dining Room view from EA house overlooking the australian bush.

EA House, Southern Highlands NSW near bowral and mittagong. Living room lined in spotted gum timber.

Interior view of a modern house showing a staircase with concrete steps, white walls, and a wooden floor visible in the adjacent room, with a window revealing trees outside.

A modern brick building with rectangular windows, surrounded by trees and foggy weather.

Part of a hallway with toys on a carpeted floor, a framed artwork, and a wooden architectural feature leading to another room.

Modern interior hallway with white walls, wooden framed windows, and concrete ceiling and floors, leading to a wooden door at the end.

A modern brick house with large windows, surrounded by rocks and native plants, including a small tree, on a natural landscaped site.

A beige brick building with a large rectangular opening and a garden with grass and plants at its base, surrounded by trees and hills in the distance.

A modern brick house partially visible among tall eucalyptus trees with green foliage, hillside terrain, and a clear sky in the background.

Architectural Floor plan showing building surrounded by trees, contour lines indicating terrain elevation. Difficult terrain. Architectural presentation plan drawing

A living room with a large gray sofa, wooden walls, a patterned red rug, a modern wood-burning stove, and two children playing on the floor by a large window with trees outside.

A concrete footpath with a metal railing curves through a green park with tall trees and shrubs. A street lamp stands along the path, with two children leaning over the railing and looking down.

A foggy outdoor scene featuring a modern concrete and brick structure with a walkway and railing, trees, rocks, and fog in the background.

EA house in the southern Highlands-Mittagong-Bowral-view to native bushland architectural

Empty hallway with a concrete ceiling, cream-colored walls, and dark wooden doorframes leading to small rooms. A window at the end shows greenery outside.

Southern Highlands Architecture-EA house-Mittagong-Bowral-Entry

Interior view of an entryway with a door open to a small patio or backyard, visible brick wall outside, and a pair of shoes on the ground. The hallway has plain walls, an unfinished concrete ceiling, and built-in wooden shelves on the left side.

Scene of a modern building with a curved concrete pathway, surrounded by trees and bushes, under a clear blue sky.

A modern, rectangular building with small windows, perched on a hillside surrounded by dense green forest, with mountains and a light sky in the background.

EA House

Esther & Albert’s House
Southern Highlands, NSW, Australia
On Gundungurra Land

2026 Australian Institute of Architects - Blacket Award
2026 Australian Institute of Architects - NSW Chapter Award Winner

EA house is a family home. An experimental home carefully crafted onto a sensitive rock cliff face escarpment in the southern highlands.

A simple elemental gesture testing emotional responses on a difficult and unique site. An experimental house, while simple in form, it solves many overlapping constraints and challenges that exist because of the site. A left over parcel of land from a suburb that was planned before realising there was a giant cliff & gorge. Since being deemed unbuildable, the site had been empty ever since.

The house balances the conceptual ideas of being both a look out tower against blending into its natural environment. It touches its site purposefully but carefully so as to have no impact on any existing flora and fauna utilising the natural typography to its advantage.

Grounding heavily, But minimally with a small 120m2 footprint designed to emerge from the rock. A bridge provides both equitable access along with being the conduit for all services to and from the building resulting in minimal impact on the rock escarpment and existing trees.

Planning is paired back. Public and private is opposite to the typically expected with the living at the lower levels having a closer connection to its site. All spaces are connected by a single loaded corridor idea expanding over two levels which slowly reveals the spatial play of the plan and slowly reveals the site to inhabitants. Stripped of excess, yet rich in sensory and spatial experience

Private & transitional spaces are monastic in concept similar La Tourette. Humbly sized with controlled light and view creating intimate and reflective living. This is Contrasted by the lower levels open plan Living, dining and kitchen with larger curated views. Each element is conceived as a piece of furniture arranged in and breaking up the space. A singular materiality cocoons you and connects to this wider site which feels both dramatic and nourishing at the same time. The varied openings offer many different perspectives of the shared outlook.

The house manages many overlapping technical constraints. It’s flame zone bush fire rating, ecological constraints, energy requirements, geotechnical constraints and access does so effortlessly. We didn’t have the grace of an unseen elevation even the roof is visible. The houses ancillaries and services became a integral part of the design and sculptural proposition.

Its materiality is fire resistant & maintenance free and recedes into the context. There’s no preparation work incase of evacuation and provides amazing internal thermal stability. Combined with the significant levels of additional insulation & FZ glazing the house performs at a very high level passively.

This house experiments with a new way of living in the landscape canopy. Its simple element gesture conceals the technical challenges of this project offering a model for housing in a challenging environment.

Photography: Clinton Weaver
Engineer: Structure Consulting Engineers
Builder: Armstrong Residential & Owner