Park House is a comfortable and enduring family home that balances technical excellence with a deep connection to place. Located on the edge of All Nations Park in Northcote, the home is designed to sit quietly within its environment, responding both to its immediate neighbourhood and to the expansive green landscape that it overlooks. From the outset, the ambition was to create a house that would be energy efficient, warm, and adaptable, while also celebrating the unique qualities of its site.
The project is accredited as a Low Energy Building by the Passive House Institute (PHI)—a certification that recognises buildings which achieve high performance in airtightness, insulation, ventilation, and energy efficiency. This international standard ensures significantly lower energy use while maintaining exceptional indoor comfort, reflecting the project’s strong environmental ambitions. Achieving airtightness was one of the most demanding aspects of the design, but through careful detailing and the team’s extensive knowledge of Passive House principles, the home now delivers outstanding thermal stability with minimal reliance on mechanical heating or cooling.
The design embraces its park-side setting at every opportunity. Living spaces are placed on the first floor, opening to generous northern light and offering elevated views across the treetops of All Nations Park. This outlook shifts with the seasons—lush and green in summer, golden in autumn, and textured in winter—bringing a sense of rhythm and nature’s presence into daily family life. By positioning the social areas to engage directly with the park, the home fosters a feeling of openness and connection, while bedrooms are distributed across both levels to offer privacy and flexibility.
Externally, the palette is inspired by the bark and muted tones of the surrounding eucalyptus trees, allowing the house to sit gently against the landscape rather than compete with it. This subtle response to colour and texture is complemented by the use of sustainable and environmentally responsible materials, chosen to minimise embodied energy and reduce the project’s overall environmental impact.
The landscaping reinforces the relationship with All Nations Park, extending its ecological character into the site. Native plantings encourage biodiversity and support local birdlife and pollinators, blurring the boundary between private garden and public parkland. This approach enhances the sense that Park House is not a standalone object but part of a wider living system.
At its heart, Park House demonstrates how rigorous environmental performance can coexist with sensitivity to place. It is a home that doesn’t turn its back on the city or the park but instead opens outward, finding joy and inspiration in the landscape it overlooks. As it matures, the house will continue to flourish as a living, breathing place—one where family life, sustainable design, and the rhythms of nature are intertwined.
