STRAIGHT INTO THE BUSH.

With extraordinary elegance and economy, this visitors' centre was inserted into a unique, untouched landscape.

Tasmania has one of the strangest flora in the world which flourishes in the moist, warm oceanic climate, producing a dense green temperate rainforest. The Mount William National Park in the north-east corner of the island was set up to preserve the strange and beautiful vegetation in which myrtle mixes with tea trees, celery-top pines, mountain peppers and many other Antipodean species, among which wander wallabies, quolls (marsupial cats) and wombats, while raptors soar overhead.

Naturally, many want to see the virtually untouched bush, and guided walks are organized for groups of up to 10 people. They last several days, during which parties camp out in the forest, but on the last two nights they come to the new visitors' lodge near Abbotsbury beach in the Bay of Fires, from where they can explore the almost deserted white sands, named by Captain Tobias Furneaux in 1773, as he sailed down the coast watching abundant signs of native life, so soon to be destroyed by colonization.

The lodge, which was designed, developed and built by its architect, Ken Latona, is carefully sited on a little hill so that its east end overlooks the sea, and its long body merges into the bush. It straddles a ridge, just below the brow of the rise, so scarcely altering the skyline when seen from the sea. The area was so sensitive that all building materials were flown in by helicopter.

What at first seems to be a single building turns out to be two long thin strips of accommodation with a broad path between them. Each pavilion is simply made, with timber frames on a 3x5m grid filled with either glass or hardwood skins, and each has what Australians call a skillion roof (monopitch with corrugated cladding) rising to the north and the sun. Planning is simple and almost diagrammatic: the southern strip contains bedrooms and ablutions, while the northern one (which looks towards the bush and brow of the hill) is largely given over to communal facilities. The two elements are joggled in plan so that the northern one projects as a shaded deck towards the east and offers dramatic views of the blue sea slowly shading to indigo.

Each of the double bedrooms in the south pavilion opens directly on to the central route, and draws sunshine from it through north-facing clerestoreys which, like most external glass in the place, are formed of louvres. So, in the bedrooms, through ventilation can be carefully controlled by the occupants. Window cleaning must be a problem though. The central route comes to a modest climax towards its west end, where it rises by a few steps, both east and west, making a small platform. This is where the building touches the rock of the underlying ridge (elsewhere it is supported on timber piles -- treated pine stumps).

Here, in the north pavilion is a sliding door which opens on to a big verandah that looks out sunwards into the bush over a small area cleared for evening barbecues. It is a generous space, made elegant by the carefully honed detailing, and the precision of the laminated Tasmanian hardwood structural members, the slenderness (and affordability) of which always makes European architects pale with envy.

To the right is the dining room, separated from the verandah by sliding glass screens. Beyond is the sitting room, and beyond that a further set of sliding glass panels opens onto the east deck and the sea. So the whole enfilade is capable of many interpretations, depending on weather, time of day and the mood of the company. On the south wall of this pavilion, in both verandah and dining room, is a kitchen range, as sparely detailed (in hardwood and stainless steel) as the rest of the building. A fireplace for cold evenings continues this line in the sitting room.

Additional space heating is discreetly provided by portable gas units, and gas also powers the cookers, hot water boiler and refrigerators. But electricity for lighting and power comes from solar cells on the roof. All rainwater falling on the building is saved, making the building, as far as possible, self sufficient. Waste water is filtered and treated before being led away to absorption trenches; lavatories produce compost. Tanks and other service devices are neatly coralled to the south.

The lodge is about as eco-friendly a building as you could hope to find anywhere, but, unlike so many buildings of this school, it has been made with extraordinary refinement, both in its composition and construction, and in its relationship to the bush it helps to interpret (in places the shrubs almost press against the building, and in future, doubtless they will). It really does sit on the ground lightly.

At the same time, like the guest house of a Japanese temple, it provides its users with a chaste, yet strangely luxurious atmosphere in which to contemplate nature. And it really gives hope for a profession which often seems clapped-out: all that sensitivity and elegance has been achieved, quite economically, by an architect who was daring enough to be his own developer and builder.

1. Looking south from the top of the knoll. Only three trees were demolished to make way for the new building, which was carefully sited through existing clearings. Roof form emulates vegetation, swept by ocean winds.

2. At its east end, the social pavilion develops into a generous shaded deck overlooking the sea.

3. Verandah in middle of social (north) pavilion looks out to hilltop over small clearing in bush. Laminated local hardwood provides slender and elegant timber members.

4. Central route between pavilions.

5. Dining area with verandah beyond.

6. Looking through verandah to central route. In wooden walls, vertical studs are expressed against predominant horizontality of composition which is emphasized by grooving joints between boards.

7. East deck, where the roof rises heraldically to embrace views of the coast. Library, right.

8. Library with deck beyond.