Our client sought a relaxed family holiday house for 6 to 10 people, on an elevated site at Point Lookout on Stradbroke Island, with extensive northerly views towards Moreton Island. The topography is knoll-like from the street and the site is bounded by bushland to the south and east, triggering a requirement for BAL29 bushfire-rating to the building fabric. The design cleverly distributes the client’s large brief across the slope within a ‘fibro beach shack’ typology, in scale with its context. The architecture lightly frames a series of indoor + outdoor living spaces, protected from the sun, wind, and private from the street. The house consists of 2 buildings linked by a central courtyard. This breaks down the mass and allows the brief to fit within a single-room-depth structure. The north building cantilevering over the edge of the knoll is small in scale, reminiscent of beach houses on the Point, and is half-buried to escape the wind. This smaller pavilion masks the larger volume behind, evoking the deceptive spaciousness common to the Island’s typical beach shacks. The south building extends the full length of the site. It is grounded on the top of the knoll and extends out towards the street. To the east, the main bedroom is perched higher, to avail of extensive northern views. The living spaces are spread over 5 levels providing both a connection to the ground and maximising northerly views. Counter-intuitively, the primary living spaces are arranged on the north-west to frame key views while providing year-round protection from the south-easterly weather. These spaces are screened from the western sun with a pattern of Fibre Cement strips and timber. This screen extends to the ground providing a “skirt” for the building, concealing services underneath. The house was awarded Commendations at both the Brisbane Regional and Queensland State AIA awards and was a finalist for Australian House of the Year.