View from northwest. 

LONG WEEKEND HOUSE 
GINGIN, WESTERN AUSTRALIA 

Simon Anderson and Kate Hislop 

Granville Community Centre, Gingin WA. 

118 

The Long Weekend House is situated on a 1.3 hectare site in the town 

ofGingin (population 540), 85 kilometres north of Perth and 35 kilo-

metres from the coast on the Dandaragan Plateau. The site has north 

and west distant views over gardens to the Beermullah and Swan Coastal 

Plains. It is designed to be used by the architects three days a week as 

a house/office/holiday house. It is the sort of house that cannot be readily 

accommodated in the city: expansive, pool, tennis court, gardens. 

The House adjoins the town football and show ground and its 

nearest contempora1y neighbours are the town Recreation and Com-

munity Centres, both built in the spreading Gingin vernacular of col-

umned brick commanding lowly-elevated landscapes. The clients have 

spent many years working in the heavy and numerous colonnades of 

UWA and holidaying at Rottnest Island in the colurnnated cottages of 

Herny Vincent (1840s) and R J Ferguson (1970s). Together local con-

text and history conspired to produce a colonnade, in fact a double 

colonnade, here formally superior to the exigencies of the domestic 

programme, save for the removal of one column around the hearth. 

The plan owes its length and narrowness to the late Shingle Style 

houses of McKim, Mead & White (such as the Low, Appleton and 

Cowdin Houses), and its siting to John Horbury Hunt's Pittington Bun-

galow. 

It is gabled form of the Low House made lower, inflected by 

Hunt. It is spread form from the rural sheds of "Belltrees" and the 

Swan Valley and it is the reverse timber frame of traditional construc-

tion, especially seen in Queensland. It is terraced from the Carre House 

of Alvar Aalto. 

It is post-colonnade rather than post-colonial, post-modem rather 

than post-modem: a post-post house. 



1 Driveway 
2 Pool 
3 Tennis court 

3 

EB 
~ 

0 2 5 10 

ALVAR AALTO . Carre House , Bazoches-
sur-Guyonne, France. 

Gingin Recreation Centre, Gingin WA. 

Cattle sheds, "Belltrees," Scone NSW. 

Shed, West Swan WA. 

119 



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I I 

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. a a 0 ~~------.. I 

2 

a D D 
5 

3 

L_o ______ _ _ g _ ___ _ _ J;J _______ g_ _____ _p _ ____ g_o _ _ _ __p _ _ __ __ _g __ _ 

0 1 2 5 10 

LJl 

EB 

HENRY VINCENT. S up erinte nde nt 's 
House, Rottnest WA, 1842. 

RJ FERG USON. Holiday cottage, Rott-
nest WA. 

120 

1 Carport 
2 Store/workshop 
3 Verandah 
4 Entry 
5 Bedroom 

I II 

South elevation. 

North elevation. 

Longitudinal section looking south. 

6 
7 
8 
9 

3 

I 
I 
I 
I 
I 
I 

D : 
I 
I 
I 
I 
I 
I 
I ____ g_ _ __ __ _ Q ______ Q..J 

Bathroom 
Study 
Kitchen/din ing 
Living 



r l1111 111i111 1 
East elevation. 

West elevation. 

Cross-section through living room looking east. 

CAMERON CHISHOLM NICOL . Reid 
Library, The University of Western 
Australia . 

FORBES & FITZHARDINGE. Mathemat-
ics Building, The University of Western 
Australia. 

RJ FERGUSON. Lawrence Wilson Art 
Gallery, The University of Western 
Australia . 

MCKIM, MEAD & WHITE . Low House, 
Bristol , Long Island USA 

JOHN HORBURY HUNT. Spurling House, 
Brighton Victoria . 

JOHN HORBURY HUNT. Pittington 
Bungalow, Mt Victoria NSW . 

. ··<_ 

121