Loved opening our OK House to Stephen Crafti’s Sydney and the Southern Highlands Art, Architecture and Design Tour. Wonderful group of guests with smart questions and interesting perspectives. 🐕 Redford was a great tour guide. And what a day for it too!
The OK House — a beautifully resolved home where architecture, landscape and material honesty come together 🌿
Designed by nationally acclaimed Stephen Collier of @scarchitects and built with Tim Lock of @building_momentum11 this Scarborough home is a refined expression of sustainable, place-responsive design.
@architecturalhardwoodjoinery doors and windows feature throughout, bringing warmth, texture and natural form. Sliding doors frame the central courtyard—the heart of the home—around which daily life unfolds.
Set on a triangular site, the design reinterprets Palladian principles through a contemporary lens, with a precisely aligned rhomboid courtyard connecting the home to its landscape. Designed for a bushfire zone, the inward-pitched roof reduces risk while creating a striking rainwater feature.
“It’s a small house that’s deeply considered. Every detail—light, proportion, materiality—was designed to serve both beauty and practicality. It’s a home for living simply, connected to place, and made to last.”
— Stephen Collier
#architecturalhardwoodjoinery #stephencollierarchitects #sustainablearchitecture #scarborough #illawarra
What a delight to spend the night at Brian Zulaikha @brian_zulaikha & Janet Laurence’s @janetlaurence “tree change” house. A beautifully simple idea beautifully executed. The project rebuilds the in-between between 2 existing buildings; each of which are 2-rooms separated by bathrooms & surrounded by verandas. Both buildings are straight-forward & conventional in form and material. This new in-between is the arrival, covered patio, dining room, study, kitchen, guest bathroom & laundry. They form themselves-in that order- around a spiral coil of movement from the outside arrival point. Simultaneously opening out with views to garden & curling protectively into each other. Becoming slowly more private as you curl into the centre. The addition is small in nature but completely reconfigures (both the functional and spatial characteristics of) the house and its relationship to the garden. Thanks to @mattriviera for the photos
Have an office name “plate” now. Hard to read from street unless you have 20/20 vision (& close up?) but not too serious is fun. Tile letters bought from Terunobu Fujimori’s Mosaic Tile Museum in Tajimi, Japan
Today we welcomed over 50 visitors to the OK House (as we like to call it), as part of the Illawarra Festival of Architecture and Design. So lovely to chat with people who are equally passionate about design and ways of living on the land we’re lucky to call home. Big thanks to the team at @__ifad__ for including us in this year’s event.
#ifad2025 #AustralianArchitecture
🎟️ Just Released — Extra House Tour Tickets!
Our Illawarra Festival of Architecture & Design House Tours, proudly presented in partnership with @raywhitehelensburgh are back with a few extra spots now available!
Join us for a rare peek inside some of the region’s most inspiring homes — from clever heritage transformations to coastal retreats that celebrate light, craft, and connection.
Just one of those special homes will be hosted by the acclaimed Stephen Collier Architects @scarchitects where the man himself will open his home ‘The OK House’, in Scarborough, designed and built in collaboration with local builder Tim Lock. Be inspired by Stephen’s home which reinterprets the classical principles of a Palladian Villa—symmetry, proportion, and harmony.
We’ll also enjoy tour two other homes designed and built by @barnaclestudio , @mattjolleybuilder , @is____design , alongside @debu_studios and @hs.building .
✨ Tickets are limited and will go quickly — don’t miss your chance to join the design conversation.
🎟️ Tap the link in bio to secure your place.
#IFAD2025 #IllawarraDesign #ArchitectureFestival #HouseTours #IllawarraHomes #GoodDesign #AustralianArchitecture #HeritageDesign #IllawarraEvents
So satisfying to prep and lay pavers on a driveway. Permeable too, so less concrete /m2 used & less water run-off. Looking forward to green sprouts in the gaps between @brickworksbp
Outdoor bathing is now an option: accompanied by smell of timber, sound of leaves rustling in trees, and sight of just a few stars in night sky @cedarbathcompany
One further step in completion this week. 2 x 11m strings of LEDs light upwards and dramatically increase the sense of height and space. Designed by the wonderful @davidegroppi and available through @dedece
