Palm Garden House by Richard Leplastrier Revisited
Enduring without imposing, Richard Leplastrier’s influential Palm Garden House thoughtfully coexists with plants and animals alike on its lush, vibrant site.
For 45 years, a quiet yet radical home has continued to connect its owner to life’s rhythms.
It seems little more than two rooms – a bedroom and a living pavilion tucked into a palm-filled gully on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, on the land of the Garigal or Caregal peoples. Yet Palm Garden House by Richard Leplastrier AO powerfully illustrates the philosophy of one of Australia’s most mythologized architects.
Like many of Richard’s works, Palm Garden House has remained something of an enigma. The architect, who worked with Jørn Utzon on the Sydney Opera House, has spent his long career studiously avoiding accolades, instead sharing his ideas about frugality and craftsmanship through teaching and advocacy.
When Palm Garden House was completed in 1974–76, it appeared in a select few architecture journals internationally. In 2020, it won the Enduring Architecture Award from the Australian Institute of Architects at both the state and national level. Philip Thalis, the architect and urban planner who nominated the house for the award, says it is considered within the profession as one of the best houses built during the 1970s anywhere in the world.
“The clarity of its plan was revolutionary. The linear arrangement where two pavilion rooms are anchored by the connecting spine comprising gallery and services has been enormously influential on the legions of students that Rick has taught,” Philip says.
The house is anchored to the southern boundary of its small site by a rammed-earth wall the colour of Uluru. This wall skirts along the street boundary, enclosing the compound. Entry is via a small vestibule through a tangle of leaves and vines, leading into the living pavilion, where the sensory experience of garden takes over: the trickle of water, the rustle of leaves and the play of dappled light and shadow on fabric walls.
Living room and bedroom are joined by a central corridor paved in milky terrazzo. Along this spine, a steel framing system supports the two skins of the house: its timber and canvas linings and a twin roof of rolled copper. The architect describes the tension between the fine steel frame and the rough rammed earth as “two musical instruments in a duet,” each a counterpoint to the other.
A natural spring in the centre of the site has been formalized into a pond, where a deck cantilevered off the bedroom is a favourite place for the resident water dragons