Visitors to Tasmania’s Bruny Island will undoubtedly swoon over the pristine beaches and incredible rock formations, but they might also fall for the rural sheds and cottages that stand alone in the island’s paddocks, some immaculate strongholds of tin, others Georgian ruins of tin, timber and brick. FMD Architects’ overall approach to Coopworth, a new residence on South Bruny, was inspired by these humble buildings. The resulting design is, like the sheds themselves, deliberately simple and born from function, but it is also idiosyncratic, possessing a range of quirks that are aligned with site, use and occupant.
Bruny Island is a place of both wildness and civilization, with one never far from the other. The site for Coopworth is a rural property on a gradual slope down toward Little Taylors…