INNER SANCTUM

Built from hempcrete and stone, a sculpturally angular house in Perth, Western Australia, carves out an intriguing niche on a quiet suburban street

- CARLI PHILIPS

On the verge outside Proclamation House are two native peppermint trees, their weeping foliage and sapling trunks framing the home’s façade. So far, so typical in a Western Australia area where, in the mid-19th century, green-thumbed Benedictine monks established a monastery on the land and waterways of the indigenous Whadjuk Noongar people and, calling the area New Subiaco (after the Italian town of Subiaco, the birthplace of the Benedictine order), they lovingly tended to the terrain, planting orchards and olive trees. The vegetation of ‘Subi’ – as the locals affectionately call it – is still revered for its thriving, leafy streetscapes.

While the house, clad in an olive green render, is well suited to the naturalistic colours of the surrounding environment, its heavy geometries and aluminium window protrusions are the distinctly human-made and highly intentional contemporary work of interior designer Alessandra French and architect Ara Salomone. With its sculptural central scroll and angular planes, the intriguing dwelling adds a layer of mystery to a quiet suburban street.