• A tiny house in Berry was designed to be a “permanent tent” in a paddock in Berry, accessible only by foot.
• Rob Brown, the design architect who brought the project to life, said it was built for two people, with a fireplace and solar panels the only sources of heat and energy.
• “This building has everything you need and nothing you don’t,” Brown said.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

This tiny house, a mere three by three metres and located on a remote property on the south coast of New South Wales, is only accessible by foot.

It’s the second iteration of the house, with the first built in Mudgee on a sheep farm on the side of a mountain.

Designed by Casey Brown Architecture, it was created for an existing client with a farmhouse in Berry who sought a permanent dwelling that could replicate the experience of camping.

Design architect Rob Brown said the home fulfilled the project’s brief, which was to create ‘a retreat’.

The building is designed to include only the essentials for shelter, Brown told Business Insider Australia, and to be “a very private place to go and be with nature and to enjoy a panoramic view over the fields in peace and tranquility.”

With a small loft bedroom hidden behind the ironbark cladding, a fireplace, a water tank that collects rainwater and solar panels on the roof providing enough electricity for lights, the house was designed to replicate the self-sustainability of camping – but in a permanent location.

“We always use the explanation that this building has everything you need and nothing you don’t,” Brown said.

“You can’t fit much in a building three metres by three metres.”

He said the home was designed for two people to coexist comfortably, explaining that the philosophy behind the sizing came from Japanese tea houses, which are never any smaller than these dimensions.

The house was designed to merge with the natural landscape, with the ground level exposed to the outside world, and the loft bedroom enclosed with only tiny windows, heavily insulated walls, and accessible by a ladder.

The “movement” in the design of the building, “requires the building to actually taper three degrees, so that the bottom of the building can open up and still remain waterproof,” Brown explained.

Brown said the building doesn’t necessarily subscribe to a design school, but was created so that “form follows function.”

“I don’t think it really has any particular category other than that it relates to, you know, a permanent tent, he said.

“It’s comfortable. It’s very small, but it keeps you warm. It provides everything you need. But in a whole lot more luxury than a piece of canvas.”

The house was fabricated in Sydney before being transported to the site, where builders assembled it.

The structure is made from recycled ironbark, sourced from an unused wharf float, with three panels that lift and lower over the sides of the house to protect against the elements.

Water is collected on the roofs, which feeds into a tank supplying water to the shower and kitchen. A pot belly wood fired stove heats the cabin at night. Solar panels on the roof provide power for lighting.

The solar panels and battery generator, which would once have been unwieldy, are now small and inconspicuous.

“It has other little refinements inside and out, which just make it an upmarket version of the first, the first model I suppose the very first experiment, and this experiment by the same builder, architect, and a different client,” Brown said.

“It’s kind of exciting to work on the same project some decades later.”

The building was also created completely without nails, which “allows you to put it together and to take it apart.”

“The building could be recycled and moved to another place, but it’s designed to last 100 years or more.”

The house was built to feel like part of the landscape, and mimic the seasons as they manifest in the natural world.

“The building opens up and you can see the world through nature,” he said.

“When there are elements from the rain, wind, snow and beating down on it, you can close the building up and protect it.

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.