Klein Bottle house | McBride Charles Ryan

Architecture, House, Residential Buildings

Klein Bottle house designed by McBride Charles Ryan
This 2,777 square foot holiday home is located in the Mornington Peninsula, south-east of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. The house has become the mathematical concept of the Klein Bottle. The walls of this house have origami-like facets and folds. This strategy has unlocked a new series of relationships and sequential spatial experience. The ‘contents’ of the ‘bottle’ are a rectilinear platform and walls which make the abstract geometry inhabitable.

“The surfaces that mathematicians have developed hold intrigue for architects as they hold a promise of new spatial relationships and configurations. Technology (CAD) has played an important part in all this, it is now more possible to efficiently describe more complex shapes and spaces and communicate these to the build. Previously the more orthogonal means of communication – plans, sections and elevations naturally encourage buildings which are more easily described in these terms, i.e. boxes.” Says McBride Charles Ryan

The house revolves around a central courtyard picking up the bedrooms of the house as it ascends, the journey ending in the great living room. There is a sense of both being near and far to all occupants. Its endless, curling shell-like quality particularly in the tee tree brings about a comforting togetherness. Externally the building is predominantly clad in cement sheeting, simultaneously recalling both folded origami, tents and the ubiquitous ‘fibro-shack’. The building is supported on a traditional timber stud frame – pushed to its physical limit.