Steep Sites
Explore our collection of Steep Sites
featured on Lunchbox Architect.
Steep sites present challenges and opportunities in equal measure. The way you tackle a steep site dictates the style and functionality of your home.
Generally speaking you have two options when dealing with a steep site - hunker into the slope, partially submerging some of the home to tackle the incline. The other option is to rise above the slope on stilts of some sort.
Take a look at these houses and learn from the way they deal with a steep, challenging site:
Each room of this addition steps down with the contours of the site, while the plan zigzags to access light and connect to the garden.
A Melbourne home designed by Alexandra Buchanan Architecture creates a cascade of contemporary family living spaces in a bushfire area.
Hilltop House is a small, carefully crafted dwelling on the steep eastern slopes of Pittwater, a waterway to the north of Sydney.
This timber-clad four bedroom beach-side family home is perched on a steep dune in a quiet pocket of the Mornington Peninsula region.
Mount Ninderry House is a sustainable house that takes full advantage of its stunning natural setting without the extra cost. And check out that pool!
In accordance with a local planning law, Arrowtown House is a series of small buildings similar to the the surrounding historic sheds.
The compact Highway House takes full advantage of its difficult, but dramatic site — sitting lightly over Hobart and the Derwent River…
One of the challenges at Waiatarua House was to giving the home a sense of modesty and poetry in the sensitive bush reserve.
A new rear extension, much of which is under the existing house, creates a new-found connection to the backyard on this sloping site.
Venus Bay Bach is a beach home built on a tight budget, but spacious enough to house family and friends for the weekend. And it doesn't ignore the views...
Hereston Gardenhouse pops up in a disused back yard and demonstrates a way to make cities more dense and (importantly) sustainable.
When there's snow on the slopes, there's no better place to head after a long day than this finely crafted ski lodge. There's even a Japanese style bath to soak your aching bones.
Tackling difficult topography, a heavily treed site and a modest budget, Blackpool House defiantly lofts amongst the treetops - a modest, modern treehouse.
This coastal cottage proves that quality always trumps quantity. The small house will age gracefully thanks to quality materials.
Eco-friendly Bruny Shore House reaches out from one of the steepest parts of the site to take in the dramatic Tasmanian coastline.
A single tea tree on the site of this beach house became the focus of the project. The aim became to showcase nature, rather than try to dominate and control it.
Level changes in this home inspired its name, Jack and Jill House. It has fairytale-esque fun by the bucketful -- and not a broken crown to be seen...
You don't get homes much more unusual than Cocoon -- a zeppelin-shaped home lofts above its steep site, nestled in the canopy of Australian native treetops.
