Gold Coast to Pupua New Guinea

The Brise Soleil House is a compact 2-bedroom, 173SQM dwelling situated at the top of a steep, west-facing block Port Moresby Harbour, Pupua New Guinea. Designed by Gold Coast based Studio Workshop, the house is a cast-in-situ concrete building partially clad in an undulating wave-like timber wrapper which provides shading, privacy, and ventilation to the master suite. The wrapper flattens as it continues around the building to become a full-height operable screen for the upper level gallery to control the western sun and capture views to the Coral Sea beyond.
From a design perspective, the wrapper pays homage to local traditions of timber craftsmanship seen in the lowland stilt houses and intricately carved canoes (lakatoi), utilizing a system of complex joints and a high degree of surface articulation.
The wrapper and doors are constructed from 50×50 mm rough-sawn acetylated pine timber which is glued and doweled at digitally-executed complex half-lap joints.  The wrapper and doors, with a total area of over 80 square meters, contain over 2200 pieces in total and over 700 unique pieces with CNC milled half-lap joints, often on both ends. All milling, joining, finishing, and assembly into panels took place at the designers’ workshop on the Gold Coast of Australia, and was shipped via container to Papua New Guinea for installation.

Photo Credit – Peter Bennetts