Robinson’s Run is a 70-acre block of Australian bushland, nestled below a stone escarpment in Budgong, near Kangaroo Valley. Homeowners Ian and Michelle operate Southbound Adventures, an outdoor education company. With a deep love and appreciation for earth-design and the bush, the couple wanted to renovate the existing 1970s brick house that they used as a weekender. However in January 2020, the catastrophic Currowan and Morton bushfires swept through the property, destroying almost everything. Seeing opportunity within such tragedy, Ian and Michelle enlisted Dom Bennett and John Wilkin from Bennett Murada Architects to “reimagine and regenerate the property wholistically and write a new chapter in the story of this site”.
“The owner’s ability to accept catastrophic bushfires as an integral part of the Australian bush experience, regroup and reimagine the project, and then commit to deliver a more evolved and distilled version, is truly unique,” says Dom, co-founder and managing director of Bennett Murada Architects.
Evolving from a Weekender to Responsible Luxury
“While the original ‘weekender’ ethos remained intact, the scale of the project grew to become a five-bedroom house designed to suit short-stay, responsible luxury accommodation for small groups of up to 10 adults and their families. The house was to be supported by a maintenance shed with self-contained accommodation for owner/staff use. Dams were rebuilt, vehicle access clarified, and native vegetation re-introduced to the site.”
The main house is more than 500sqm, constructed in rammed earth, stone and zinc cladding. Spread over three levels, each aligns with the fall of the land. The ground level houses a television rumpus room, along with a bunk room, separate pinball room and cellar. Meanwhile, the middle level features the kitchen, living, and dining areas, with large glass windows framing views of two dams. Lastly, the main suite occupies the top level, with its own kitchen, living areas, celestial windows, and a fireplace.
surrounding environment
A Landscape-Integrated, Tactile Experience
“Part of the joy of experiencing this building is the way it is slowly revealed on approach through clever ground sculpting and soft landscaping, enhancing the arrival experience. Equally, the experience of both living and sleeping space is inextricably linked to the connection of those spaces to beautifully landscaped spaces at grade. Successful landscape design has allowed this building to sit comfortably and effortlessly in the landscape,” says Dom.
Design elements of Robinson’s Run draw on the “rhythm, colour and grain of the escarpment”. Rammed earth walls, some up to a metre thick, firmly anchor the home to the site. Similarly, chunky timber beams, expressed on the large terrace adjoining the kitchen, reinforce this grounded, tactile connection. When paired with off-form concrete, these elements create a simple, raw, and textural palette. This earth-design aesthetic echoes the regularity and repetition in the surrounding layers of rock and bush. It allows the home to blend seamlessly into its natural environment.
Honouring the Past with Sustainable Materials
While most of the house is new, elements from the former brick house remain, along with fallen trees from the fire. The team milled fallen bloodwood and ironbark trees on-site, seasoning them during construction. These were later incorporated into the building as joinery and feature timber elements. They also salvaged rusty star pickets from the wire fences, reusing them for the entry gate and screening structures. Additionally, they cast the puddle of molten aluminium—once a machinery shed wall—into the concrete pool wall structure.
Rammed earth is a low-embodied energy building material with fantastic thermal mass characteristics. It is a non-toxic material with no volatile organic compounds or toxic fumes, and it’s also termite resistant.
Additionally, rammed earth is a great material for bushfire-prone applications. However, the thick walls, large span openings, and complex detailing of the rammed earth design presented a significant challenge for the design and construction teams. Close collaboration was required with the rammed earth contractors to deliver a structurally sound and architecturally beautiful spine to the building,” says Dom.
“The architecture of Robinson’s Run seeks to distill Ian and Michelle’s learned experience of this place and offer the same raw and sensual experience to their friends and family. The result is unashamedly
Australian without being twee, sustainable without being overtly green, and prioritises sensory experience over opulence.”
Bennett Murada Architects acknowledges the Wodi Wodi People as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which this project is sited, and recognises their continuous connection to culture, community and Country.
