The township of Forrest, nestled within the picturesque Otway Ranges of Victoria, Australia, served as the designated site for our project.

Working as part of a team of three, I was tasked with designing an art museum that responded thoughtfully to the site's unique weather conditions, contextual nuances, and rich heritage.

A central directive of the brief was to ensure that the structure diverged from the typical aesthetic of a commercial building.

To address this challenge, our team chose a general portal frame structure as the foundation of our design. However, we sought to imbue the building with a distinct, non-commercial character through our selection of materials. Chief among these was Silvertop Ash timber, applied in board-and-batten cladding, which provided a natural, refined, and contextually sensitive finish to the design.