DIG HOUSE
TYPE
LOCATION
STATUS
CLIENT
SITE AREA
FLOOR AREA
TEAM
Residential Alteration & Addition
Beaconsfield, Western Australia
Development Approval Granted
Private
749m²
105m² alt — 130m² add — Total 235m²
Craig Nener
James Russell
A house of history and quiet symmetry, DIG House connects two volumes through a raised library bridge, encircling a courtyard garden of preserved limestone ruins.
Beaconsfield, WA
DIG House is a project rooted in history—both personal and geological. Designed for a pair of academic clients, an archaeologist and an anthropologist, the home explores themes of memory, order, and the quiet presence of time.
An original limestone cottage has been carefully restored and connected to a mirrored new wing at the rear, creating a cloistered courtyard in between. The two buildings are linked by a raised corridor—the library bridge—which houses the clients’ extensive book collection. Dark and elevated, this space preserves the delicate archival material while allowing flora and fauna to move undisturbed beneath, joining the internal garden with the surrounding landscape.
The courtyard garden itself is shaped by the remnants of a 1970s annex, its limestone footings retained as ruins and reimagined as low seating and hearth around a central firepit—an archaeological dig reinterpreted as living space.
The new wing contains guest quarters, a study, and the open kitchen-living-dining space, designed with simple materials, crisp form, and full-height, north facing glazing that opens to the garden. Together, the plan reads as a quiet circuit—a considered rhythm of past and present, shelter and exposure, permanence and change.
TYPE
LOCATION
STATUS
CLIENT
SITE AREA
FLOOR AREA
TEAM
Residential Alteration & Addition
Beaconsfield, Western Australia
Development Approval Granted
Private
749m²
105m² alt — 130m² add
Craig Nener
James Russell
A house of history and quiet symmetry, DIG House connects two volumes through a raised library bridge, encircling a courtyard garden of preserved limestone ruins.
Beaconsfield, WA
DIG House is a project rooted in history—both personal and geological. Designed for a pair of academic clients, an archaeologist and an anthropologist, the home explores themes of memory, order, and the quiet presence of time.
An original limestone cottage has been carefully restored and connected to a mirrored new wing at the rear, creating a cloistered courtyard in between. The two buildings are linked by a raised corridor—the library bridge—which houses the clients’ extensive book collection. Dark and elevated, this space preserves the delicate archival material while allowing flora and fauna to move undisturbed beneath, joining the internal garden with the surrounding landscape.
The courtyard garden itself is shaped by the remnants of a 1970s annex, its limestone footings retained as ruins and reimagined as low seating and hearth around a central firepit—an archaeological dig reinterpreted as living space.
The new wing contains guest quarters, a study, and the open kitchen-living-dining space, designed with simple materials, crisp form, and full-height, north facing glazing that opens to the garden. Together, the plan reads as a quiet circuit—a considered rhythm of past and present, shelter and exposure, permanence and change.