‘Morton House’ 12-28 Forest Glen Rd, Woodford NSW

Just as exposure to activity imbeds action in the memory of muscle, we are reminded of the comparable imprint into the soul when formative life is spent within great architecture. ‘Morton House’ is an impeccable example of Australian 20th Century domestic design stemming directly from the childhood experiences of second-generation Modernists. Designed and built (c.1979) by Deirdre and Ivor Morton, a couple who had both been raised in Walter Burley Griffin’s Castlecrag Estate and thus so inescapably immersed in the progressive and creative lives which these, our first bohemians, pursued. Here we find a home stemming from such illustrious foundations, literally placed inside glorious Australian bushland, a courtyard with magnificent eucalypt at its heart and blanketed in roof-garden where lyrebirds nest. Built as a light and shade dappled retreat of mudbrick, slate and timber, embracing ideals of indigenous environmental allegiance and architecture elemental yet optimistically futurist all at once. A place which exudes a set of philosophies in which one seeks comfort more and more these days, while the outside world remains adrift, fighting against itself in a ceaceless parade of screaming digital and political milieus. *Sigh*