Howden
An outdoor area at Howden, on the steep ground between Blackmans Bay and North West Bay south of Hobart.
The brief
Make a genuinely usable outdoor room on a site that offers no flat ground and no shelter — the two things outdoor living normally depends on.
The build
Outdoor areas on steep southern blocks are structural projects wearing a landscaping disguise.
Level has to be manufactured. There is no flat ground here, so a usable deck or terrace means cut, fill and retaining — designed and engineered, not stacked. On a falling site the structure supporting an outdoor room can be as substantial as the one under the house, and it is carrying live load out over ground that is dropping away beneath it.
Drainage decides whether it lasts. Water moving down a slope will find any structure placed across its path. Subsurface drainage, falls and waterproofing where the outdoor area meets the building are what separate a terrace that is still sound in fifteen years from one that quietly rots the junction behind it.
Exposure sets the material palette. Howden sits close enough to the channel that salt reaches fixings and coatings, and it is genuinely windy. Marine-grade fixings are the baseline, and the detailing has to assume weather rather than hope for it.
Shelter is the whole point. An exposed outdoor area on a southern Tasmanian block goes unused for most of the year unless wind is designed out of it. Orientation, screening and roof cover are what turn a view into a place people actually sit.
The result
An outdoor room that works on a site that did not want to offer one.
See building at Howden, our outdoor projects, or the portfolio.
