Hive Architecture Anchors a Timber and Stone Residence into Queensland's Hinterland

Some houses sit on their sites. Others inhabit them. Pomona House, designed by Hive Architecture and led by architect Damian Goode, belongs firmly to the second category. Stretched low across a grassy hillside in Queensland's Noosa Hinterland, the 355-square-metre residence reads as a geological event: stone masonry walls emerge from the earth, timber volumes slide between them, and the whole composition defers to the eucalyptus canopy and rolling hills that surround it. The project is an exercise in calibrated horizontality, a house that earns its views by refusing to compete with them.

What makes the project genuinely interesting is its material logic. Rather than defaulting to a single cladding system, Hive Architecture treats stone, dark vertical timber, concrete, and exposed structural rafters as distinct characters in a spatial narrative. Each material marks a threshold or a shift in program: stone signals permanence and arrival, timber denotes domestic warmth, concrete grounds the communal fireplace, and the pergola structures frame the landscape like open parentheses. The result is a house that changes register as you move through it, never settling into one mood for too long.

A Landscape First, a House Second

From a distance, the residence barely registers against the hillside. Its roofline stays below the treeline, and the palette of grey stone and dark timber absorbs into the greens and ochres of the bushland. This is a deliberate act of deference. The long, horizontal massing avoids any vertical gesture that might punctuate the landscape; instead, it stretches laterally, mirroring the contours of the terrain beneath it.

Up close, the front elevation reveals more complexity. A stone masonry core anchors the composition, flanked by dark vertical timber cladding that gives the facades a taut, almost textile quality. Glazed openings are placed surgically, not as curtain walls but as framed connections to specific views. The entry facade is restrained to the point of austerity, directing attention past the house to the forested hills beyond.

Arrival as Ritual

The approach to Pomona House is choreographed with care. A stone veneer wall and timber pergola define the entry path, compressing the visitor's sightline before releasing it into a planted courtyard of red soil and native vegetation. The cantilevered roof soffit overhead signals shelter without enclosure, a half-interior condition that blurs the line between garden and building.

A narrow passage between vertical timber cladding and stacked stone opens to the lawn, offering an alternative reading of the threshold. The fire lounge sits just inside the main entry, and through the depth of the house, a view opens to the Hinterland. Goode understood something important here: in a house this connected to its setting, arrival should be an unfolding, not a reveal.

Stone and Timber as Spatial Grammar

The stacked stone walls are the project's spine. They run through interior and exterior spaces alike, anchoring the pergola structures, defining courtyard edges, and framing long views of the rolling countryside. The stone is local in character if not in origin, with a rough, horizontal coursing that rhymes with the layered geology of the region. Where the timber pergola beams land on these walls, the joint is left exposed and legible, a small but telling detail that communicates honesty about how the building is assembled.

The pergola zones are arguably the most compelling spaces in the house. Neither fully inside nor fully outside, they create deep shadow patterns on the concrete paving below, and their rhythm of timber beams provides a measured cadence to the transition between house and landscape. These are not decorative additions; they are the connective tissue of the plan.

Living Spaces That Earn Their Views

The main living room pivots around a board-formed concrete fireplace wall, a massive element that grounds the otherwise airy space. Timber-lined ceilings with exposed rafters run overhead, pulling the eye toward full-height glazing and the pool terrace beyond. The fireplace is positioned so that it anchors the room without blocking the through-view, a pragmatic decision that gives the space two focal points: fire and landscape.

In the adjacent kitchen and dining area, dark vertical wall cladding meets timber ceiling beams, and the palette shifts subtly cooler. Full-height glazing along the terrace side dissolves the edge of the room, making the bushland an active participant in daily life. The kitchen corridor is handled with particular skill: dark cabinetry recedes into shadow, letting the glazed wall at its end do all the talking.

Private Rooms and Quiet Frames

The private rooms operate on a different register. Bedrooms are fitted with corner windows that frame specific fragments of the landscape: distant hills, garden vegetation, the silhouette of a single tree. These are not panoramic gestures but deliberate crops, more portrait than landscape in sensibility. The effect is meditative. You are given one view and invited to sit with it.

A hallway glimpse into a bathroom reveals the same material discipline at work: concrete floors, a timber vanity, a framed window filled with tree foliage. Every room in this house, including the utilitarian ones, participates in the dialogue between interior warmth and exterior wildness.

Pool, Terrace, and the Dusk Condition

The rear of the house opens to a timber deck and lap pool aligned with the main axis of the residence. At dusk, this becomes the center of gravity. The pool's board-formed concrete edges catch the last light, and the terrace extends the living room outdoors without any awkward transitional fumbling. The covered outdoor dining terrace, with its timber rafters silhouetted against the darkening hills, is the house at its most cinematic.

A view through the covered terrace shows the stacked stone wall framing distant hills at dusk, and the layering of foreground structure against deep landscape is handled with real precision. These outdoor rooms are not afterthoughts; they carry as much architectural intention as any interior space.

Threshold Details

One image captures the timber soffit framing a view of the elevated pool deck and hillside beyond, and it reveals how much of this house's quality lives in its transitions. The soffit is not a decorative ceiling; it is a framing device, directing the eye and compressing vertical space to amplify the horizontal panorama. Similarly, the kitchen corridor's full-height glazing turns a circulation zone into an event, a moment of contact with the bushland that might otherwise be lost to a blank wall.

Why This Project Matters

Pomona House succeeds because it treats its landscape not as scenery but as structure. Every material choice, every threshold, every framed view is calibrated to a specific relationship with the Hinterland topography. Hive Architecture and Damian Goode have avoided the trap of the glass pavilion, where transparency becomes its own cliché, and instead built a house that mediates between interior comfort and exterior wildness through mass, shadow, and carefully placed openings.

The real lesson here is one of restraint. At 355 square metres, the house is generous but not extravagant, and its ambition is focused on spatial quality rather than spectacle. In a region where the temptation to maximize views often produces buildings that look like aquariums, Pomona House demonstrates that the most powerful way to honor a landscape is to frame it selectively and let the architecture recede where it should.

Pomona House by Hive Architecture, lead architect Damian Goode. Located in Pomona, Australia. 355 m², completed 2026. Photography by Cam Murchison.

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