Riverview Rise Retreats was designed to a script rather than to an architect’s brief. In film nothing gets built until the script exists, and when I drew these three villas in 2005 the script was the 5-Star classification criteria published by AAA Tourism, the body that rated Australian accommodation at the time. I had spent the previous twenty years in scenic art and set design, on Gallipoli, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Street Fighter among others. Every decision here was made the way a set is made, from the height of the eaves to the matt black hob the television sits in, by asking what the guest should feel when the door opens.
In film, nothing is designed until the script exists
The script comes first and everything hangs off it. Before a single thing is built, it has already settled:
- the country and the location
- the period in history
- the class of people in the story
- the costumes they wear
- the machinery, tools and equipment they carry
From that comes two hours of believable escapism, built for as little money as possible and for the maximum effect. It is a discipline about feeling, not about building.
I came to it sideways. Four years at the Adelaide School of Art prepared me for no useful profession, which turned out to be the point, because it left me able to adapt and to think laterally. Set building and painting at the then new Adelaide Festival Centre came first, then set builder on The Survivor, released in 1981, staging a Boeing 747 crash on a vacant block at Panorama opposite the Pasadena Shopping Centre. After that Gallipoli, where the streets of Cairo were built inside an unused SAFCOL freezer at Port Lincoln, and where production designer Herbert Pinter taught me how to make a scene read as an authentic place on almost no money. The rest of my film credits are listed elsewhere and are not the point of this article.
| What the film work taught | What it became in the villa |
|---|---|
| A set is built for one viewpoint, so anything outside it is wasted money | Each villa is placed and angled so the river fills the outlook from the bed and the spa, and nothing else does |
| The script decides the build, never the other way round | The 5-Star criteria were locked in before the design process began |
| Convincing beats expensive, if the detail sits in the right place | Polished cedar and stainless steel at the basin, plain finishes where nobody looks |
| Scale and eye line control how a space feels | Low eaves outside, cathedral ceiling inside, stepped down flat over the kitchen |
The script for Riverview Rise was the 5-Star criteria
The concept was 5-Star from the outset, so the base script was the 5-Star classification criteria, spelled out in detail by the governing body, which in Australia in 2006 was AAA Tourism. I did not treat that document as a checklist to satisfy after the fact. I treated it the way a designer treats a script, as the thing everything else is drawn from before anything is drawn at all.
The Retreats are giant cubby houses for adults
That was the architectural instruction I gave myself, and it explains more of the building than any drawing would:
- Low eaves
- Cathedral ceilings through the main living area, stepped down to a flat ceiling over the kitchen and dining
- The building cut into the hillside, so it sits in the slope rather than on top of it
- The floor lifted about a foot off the ground
Low outside, tall inside, and slightly off the earth. A child knows exactly why that feels good. Most adults have forgotten, which is precisely why it still works on them.
The element a normal home never has
It had to have a naughty element, something you do not get in a normal house regardless of the owner’s position. So the bathroom and spa open directly off the king side of the bedroom, through an opening that echoes the cathedral ceiling. From the spa you look over the bed and out to the river. The wash basin is flanked by polished cedar top with black cabinetry and stainless steel edging and backsplash. Above it sits a very big mirror headed with Hollywood lights, reflecting the spa behind you, a dramatic visual array that makes you feel like a movie star. Twenty years on, it still brings on a wide smile for our guests when they first walk in.
The shower gets the movie treatment
The shower was given the same treatment:
- No glass
- No doors
- Twin shower heads
- A floor of natural jade coloured river stones that works as a foot massage while you stand on it
- Entry through a small maze, so from inside you look over a shoulder high wall, across the spa and the bedroom, and out to the river
It is a small thing to write down but a huge sensual engagement to see the river from the shower. Most domestic bathrooms have no view, let alone a deep riverine vista.
The television problem, and a set designer’s answer
A television is a black rectangle that dominates whatever room you put it in. It is the latest 4K panel, fine, but how do you make it special?
I built a hob raised off the wall for it to live in. The wall wraps up and around in the stone effect finish, and the hob itself is matt black, which gives it the visual depth it deserves, so the screen disappears into a dark void. It improves the picture as well. Then, because the conventional arrangement was not the interesting one, the lounge went in front of the television and the king bed behind that again. With surround sound you can watch a film in bed. Full blackout curtains do the rest, for a long sleep in or for viewing in the middle of the day.
An interior designer would not recognise that as a problem. A set designer sees very little else.
Neutral is a decision, not an absence of one
Giving a building like this a style is a trap, because someone will always dislike a particular fit out. I will declare my own prejudice: I cannot stand a busy paisley floral with lace. So the interiors are genuinely neutral, with wall renderings in colours that are soothing and coherent, and the character comes from the artwork instead. Real work, not prints and reproductions, because a reproduction never reaches out to you the way a real piece does. A good painting becomes a picture window in its own right.
The view is prescribed by design, not a random find
Where each building sits on the land was decided by the view, and not the other way round. The villa has to be part of the environment rather than something placed on it, which means the outlook is controlled by design: river and nature and nothing else in the frame. No guest should ever see another person walking the property. That is what put two hundred metres of ground between the three villas, and it is why the sightlines from the bed and from the spa go exactly where they go.
Twenty years, and they still say WOW
Imagine walking in for the first time in the late afternoon, the river below the glass and the spa already lit. That moment is the only thing the whole build was ever aimed at. I drew the villa three times over in 2005, we opened in 2006, and we still get the big smile and the audible WOW when a couple comes through the door. Twenty years is a long test to pass.
Why most places never feel like this
The basic principle of good design is simplicity, not complexity. It is a vision of what the function is to be, held at the outset, and it channels human emotion into a predetermined state of mind. Just like in the movies.
Where most accommodation goes wrong is not the architect. An architect answers the brief they are given, and generally answers it well. The trouble is that most briefs never say what the guest is supposed to feel. They describe rooms, budgets and compliance, and a building that answers that brief will be lavish and expensive and will still have none of the movie magic that makes a guest feel like a star.
Money rarely buys that which only the imagination can create.
FAQs
Do all three villas share these design decisions?
Yes. The same script produced all three, so the cathedral ceiling, the spa opening off the bedroom, the doorless shower, the raised television hob and the controlled river outlook are common to Bob’s Bungalow, Lazy Jane Lodge and Molly’s Hideaway. What differs between them is colour, aspect and one or two features particular to each.
Who set the 5-Star criteria the villas were designed to?
AAA Tourism, which ran the Australian Star Rating Scheme on behalf of the country’s motoring clubs and was at that time the only independent accredited accommodation rating system in Australia. Riverview Rise Retreats was independently assessed 5-Star in the B&B Self Catering category, property ID 97295, and held that rating from 2006 to 2013. AAA Tourism closed in December 2013 and the rating has not been renewed since. The criteria were published in detail, which is what made them usable as a design script rather than a marketing claim.
Is the artwork in the villas original?
Yes. Every piece hanging in the villas is original work rather than a print or reproduction, which was a design decision rather than a decorative one. A reproduction sits flat on the wall. An original behaves like a window.
Why is there no reception building at Riverview Rise Retreats?
Because a reception desk would undo the thing the layout exists to protect. Guests arrive at the door of their own villa and park there, and the property is deliberately arranged so that nobody is required to walk past anybody else.
Has the design changed since the villas opened in 2006?
The layout has not. Fittings, technology and finishes have been renewed over the years, but the ceiling heights, the sightlines, the spacing and the room arrangement are exactly as drawn, because those were the decisions that made the building work in the first place.