Merchant Builders were true innovators, challenging the orthodoxies of the conventional Australian house in a way that current project home providers absolutely do not. Merchant Builders used a number of young Architects that went on to significant careers in Victoria, but Graeme Gunn stood out as the key contributor. The Ridge house also included the work of other key Merchant Builders collaborators, Jan Faulkner designing interiors and Ellis Stones, the garden. Key elements of the Merchant Builder house are evident – courtyard planning, a balanced relationship between interior and garden, an emphasis on native Australian plants, expressive structure, a reduced construction palette, textural materiality, passive solar design and a serious investigation of a modern Australian vernacular. At the Ridge house, these elements are elevated and amplified by raked ceilings, spatial variety and complex engagement with terrain. While the house doesn’t have heritage protection it certainly should, and our strategy was to approach the design as if it had.
