When Grace and Fernando Ferreira walked into the meeting rooms of Collins Pennington Architects to meet with director Andrew Collins, their first sentence was this: we have champagne taste on a tap-water budget. A far cry from the opening statement architects dream of, Andrew and the team took it in stride ? recognising in the couple an eye for the clean, timeless architecture the firm are known for. Photography by Stefan Postles.

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The site

A 30-minute drive out of Canberra?s centre, just across the New South Wales border, are the sprawling hills of Googong. The area is dotted with properties: some hobby farms, some family homes, all filled with those after the kind of tranquil lifestyle rural life offers.
The property is on Swan Drive, an aptly named street as bird-life is plentiful in the area: black swans, ducks, swallows all in permanent residence. By chance on the first site visit in 2012, the retention dam on the property was flooded after recent heavy rain. This larger body of water roughly divided the site, and became an integral part of the design concept ? sparking an idea that would lead to a truly modern piece of architecture. ?We suggested the dam become a permanent feature and the new dwelling could engage with it in a deliberate manner,? says Andrew, director and principle architect on the project.
The house

The brief was simple: to design a modest, modern home that integrated into the landscape, one that emphasised the connection...