The Australian landscape has long provided the backdrop to many a blockbuster film, from the sweeping dystopian dust planes of Mad Max, to the simulated streets of the Matrix trilogy. But Australia has also provided cinematic canvases in the form of architecturally designed houses. Here’s five Australian, architect-designed homes that have featured in film and television.
Wolseley House by McKimm in Upper Middle Bogan, 2013–2016
This striking concrete house is (fictionally) an architect’s dream. The ABC comedy features the character Danny Bright, an architect who designs and moves his family into his dream home that is variously described as “like a museum without the homework at the end”, “a mausoleum”, and a “five-star car park”. Danny Bright’s “House 01” is to be featured in Minimalist Modern magazine (“import only, very prestigious”) and he refuses to let his family unpack their “clutter” in his brand new “visually soothing” house, only for them to spend a night with his mother-in-law, so that “The [Eames La Chaise] chair, the concrete and the cactus can stay nice for Danny.”
For the home’s real owners however, the bold form and voluminous spaces reflect the family’s “strong desire for connectivity between shared spaces, wanting an uncomplicated flow between zones.”
“The Wolseley House invites you to linger longer,” Sarah Hurst wrote in Houses magazine (not imported, but still very prestigious), “to the point where you think you may never want to leave.” (A dangerous thought for Danny’s “bogan” in-laws.”
Upper Middle Bogan is streaming on ABC Iview.
Lune de Sang by Chrofi in Nine Perfect Strangers, 2021
Lune De Sang pavilion by Chrofi
Image: Brett Boardman
Based on a book of the same name, Nine Perfect Strangers is a psychological drama in which nine city-dwellers attend a 10-day wellness retreat at Tranquillum House, during which they are all micro-dosed with psychodelic drugs at breakfast.
The eight-part television mini-series set in the fictional town of Cabrillo, California, but it was actually filmed Byron Bay with Chrofi’s Lune de Sang and a yoga retreat called Soma sharing the credit for Tranquillum House.
Lune de Sang is a former dairy farm, transformed into a slow-growth hardwood forest. The property houses three structures: Lune de Sang Pavilion, Lune De Sang Sheds and Stone House, each conceived as “relics in the landscape.”
The pavilion is a hub for farm life, a robust and elegant setting for extended family gatherings, as well as private retreat for owner Andy Plummer.
Nine Perfect Strangers is streaming Amazon Prime and SBS On Demand
Killara House by Harry and Penelope Seidler in Pieces of Her, 2022
Killara House by Harry and Penelope Seidler.
Image: Brett Boardman
This home that Harry and Penelope Seidler designed together for their family is not only a seminal house in Australian architectural history, but it also plays a part in key scenes in the Netflix thriller series Pieces of Her. The home is used as a safe house for Toni Collette’s charater in the witness protection program.
Designed in 1966, the house is composed of four half-levels, which helps to fit the building into the sloping site. “It was what you’d call an architect’s block: steeply sloping, surrounded by trees, a creek at one end, a bush reserve at another, and no immediate neighbours,” Penelope Seidler said. “It was just what we wanted. Everywhere you go you experience the outdoors and the trees, which is what I’ve loved the most about living here.”
Pieces of Her is streaming on Netflix.
Headland House by Atelier Andy Carson in The Invisible Man, 2020
Headland House by Atelier Andy Carson.
Image: Michael Nicholson
There’s a bit of a theme of modernist architect-designed houses in horror movies, and this house is no exception. In The Invisible Man, Elizabeth Moss’s character Cecelia Kass escapes in the dead of night from the home of her abusive boyfriend – enter Headland House.
The sprawling home is sited on a ridge of the New South Wales south coast, with dramatic angular “extruded volumes that wrap around a protected courtyard,” described Atelier Andy Carson. “Fingers at each end cantilever toward specific framed ocean and rural views, incorporating a dramatic storm-viewing deck for those epic southern storms.”
The Invisible Man is streaming on Apple TV and Google Play.
Paganin House by Iwan Iwanoff in Thunderstruck, 2004
Paganin House by Iwan Iwanoff by Somno, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
This iconic Perth home is one of the best known works of emigre architect Iwan Iwanoff and it also plays a cameo performance in the 2004 Australian comedy Thunderstruck, about four lads on a quest to bury their friend next to their hero Bon Scott from AC/DC.
The original house, built in 1965, was shown in the movie, however, it was tragically gutted in a fire in December 2015. The current owners of the home painstakingly rebuilt it from Iwanoff’s hand-drawn blueprints found in the WA state library. (You can watch the story on ABC’s Restoration Australia hosted by Stuart Harrison.)
Thunderstruck is streaming on ABC Iview.
Daylesford Longhouse by Partners Hill in Home, 2022
Daylesford Longhouse by Partners Hill.
Image: Rory Gardiner
We couldn’t end this list with a mention of the Apple TV series Home, which in season two features a documentary of Daylesford Longhouse. The breathtaking cinematography of the series is matched with endearing personal stories of the people who created and live in some of the most daring houses in the world. (You can also catch Architecture Media editorial director and former editor of Houses Katelin Butler in the Daylesford Longhouse episode.)
Home is streaming on Apple TV.
