Featherston House, Modernist residence in Ivanhoe, Victoria, Australia.
Featherston House is a modernist residence in Ivanhoe designed around a central chimney with floating platforms that extend outward. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls dissolve the boundary between the interior living spaces and the natural bushland surrounding the building.
Robin Boyd designed this home in 1967 for designers Grant and Mary Featherston, with construction completed in 1969. The project introduced innovative residential concepts to Australian architecture during the post-war modernist period.
The building incorporates Japanese design elements through its natural ventilation system and maintains a strong connection between interior spaces and the surrounding environment.
Visitors can observe how service areas occupy the western side while bedrooms and private spaces remain tucked behind the eastern wall. Walking through the house reveals how the glass surfaces flood the rooms with daylight and how the platform arrangement guides movement and sightlines throughout the interior.
The roof features translucent cellular polycarbonate that bathes the interior in soft, diffused light from morning to evening. This uncommon material choice in the 1960s demonstrates Boyd's willingness to experiment with contemporary materials for residential design.
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