16 The Dell Shack.
YALLINGUP HOLIDAY HOME
16 The Dell Shack is an architect-designed Yallingup holiday home, currently under construction in Western Australia — a relaxed South West escape built for family stays, weekends with friends and short-stay guests.
It sits on a private, sloping site dotted with protected peppermint trees and Western Ringtail Possum habitat, so this was never going to be a generic holiday box. It’s a site-specific mi shack®, shaped around the slope, the outlook, privacy, bushfire, the retained trees and the easy rhythm of Yallingup living.
A holiday home with a bit of grit and a lot of South West soul.
PROJECT SNAPSHOT.
Project: 16 The Dell Shack.
Location: Yallingup, Western Australia.
Region: Margaret River Region / South West WA.
Design system: MIDS — Modular Integrated Design System by mi shack®.
Home type: Architect-designed Yallingup holiday home.
Use: Family retreat, friends’ getaway and short-stay accommodation.
Setting: Private sloping South West site with protected peppermint trees and Western Ringtail Possum habitat.
Bushfire rating: BAL-29.
Indoors: 273 sqm.
Outdoors: 187 sqm.
Sleeping zones: 4.
Bathrooms / bathe zones: 2.
Status: Under construction.
Design idea: A relaxed Yallingup holiday home shaped around family, friends, guests, slope, bushfire requirements, protected habitat and easy South West living.
Why it matters: Proof that MIDS adapts to a sensitive sloping Yallingup site without losing the holiday feeling.
THE SITE.
The Dell sits in Yallingup, with a strong South West character — private, sloping, and close to the coast, the bush, local food, wineries, walks and beaches. But the land itself is anything but simple. It carries protected peppermint trees that form part of Western Ringtail Possum habitat, and it sits in a BAL-29 bushfire context.
So the design had to do more than deliver a relaxed holiday home. It had to work carefully with slope, outlook, privacy, arrival, the retained trees, bushfire requirements and outdoor living — shaped as much around responsibility as lifestyle. Rather than dominate the site, the home is built to settle into it.
THE BRIEF.
The brief was a relaxed Yallingup holiday home that feels easy, warm and comfortable — one that works for the owners, their family, weekends with friends and short-stay guests. That calls for clear, practical planning from the start: good bedrooms, simple circulation, useful storage, robust finishes and generous shared spaces.
It also had to feel special without ever turning precious. A good holiday home should feel calm and memorable — and still work hard when people pile in with bags, food, beach gear, wet towels and a full weekend of plans.
THE DESIGN RESPONSE.
The design response is simple, warm and site-specific. The Dell starts from the MIDS system, which organises the home into clear zones — sleeping, gathering, cooking, bathing, outdoor living and retreat. (Worth noting: modular here doesn’t mean prefab or factory-built. For mi shack®, modular means working with clear, predefined zones and elements that adapt to the site, the brief and the budget.)
On this project, the system is tuned to the Yallingup site — the slope, the outlook, the brief and the way the home will be used. Clean lines, strong roof forms, dark cladding, warm interiors and carefully placed glazing pull together into a relaxed South West retreat. The result is practical without being plain: calm, but not boring; simple, but never generic.
SLOPE, TREES AND HABITAT.
The Dell is shaped by more than lifestyle. The protected peppermint trees and Western Ringtail Possum habitat give the project a real layer of responsibility — the home has to respect the retained trees while still delivering a comfortable holiday house, and respond to the slope without ending up awkward or overcomplicated.
That puts site planning front and centre: arrival, level changes, views, outdoor areas, privacy and construction logic all needed careful thought. The goal was never to flatten the site into submission — it was to work with it. That’s where the design earns its keep.
BAL-29 AND HOLIDAY LIVING.
The Dell is built to a BAL-29 bushfire rating, which shapes how the home is detailed — openings, external materials, gaps, decks, screens, cladding and construction junctions all need careful consideration. The challenge is meeting that without killing the holiday feeling.
The house still has to feel relaxed, warm and easy to use — built for long lunches, quiet mornings, fresh air, beach trips and slow South West weekends. So the brief is clear: a more robust skin, but a soft centre.
THE HOLIDAY EXPERIENCE.
A good Yallingup holiday home has to do more than photograph well — it has to feel easy from the moment you arrive. That means a clear entry, simple movement through the house, practical bedrooms, generous living spaces and outdoor areas that connect naturally to the home.
It also has to cope with real holiday use: bags, beach gear, food, wet towels, kids, guests and long lunches. That’s why The Dell is built to feel relaxed, durable and genuinely easy to enjoy — a place to arrive, unpack and slow right down.
DOWN SOUTH CONTEXT.
Yallingup has its own particular South West feeling — coastal, relaxed, close to beaches, caves, bushland, wineries, food and walking tracks. That context shapes The Dell. The home isn’t trying to be a sealed box; it’s designed as part of the broader Yallingup rhythm.
Beach in the morning. Lunch somewhere local. A walk through the trees. Quiet time back at the house. That’s the lifestyle the design supports — a holiday home built to make the South West feel easy.
THE MIDS BENEFIT.
MIDS isn’t a fixed house product — it’s an adaptable design system. Through Map iT and the Shack Map, the brief gets tested early using predefined modular zones, which on a sloping Yallingup site is exactly where the value sits. It helps test the right house size, sleeping zones, outdoor areas, arrival sequence, views, privacy, storage and construction logic — and what the site, budget and builder can realistically carry.
That early testing matters because budget blowouts usually start early, when a project races into full design before the scope, scale and site conditions have been properly tested. MIDS brings some discipline to that stage — a clearer starting point for client and architect before the project gets too expensive to question. After that, the build method follows the project: a mi shack® can be designed for in-situ construction, prefab or a hybrid. The benefit, as always, is structure without sameness.
BUDGET GUIDE.
The Dell is a customised, architect-designed holiday home on a demanding sloping site, so think of its build cost as a band rather than a single figure. As an indicative guide, a comparable Yallingup holiday home would sit in the range of $1.5–2.0 million to build, depending on floor area, specification, site complexity and approval pathway. That excludes land, consultant and approval fees.
On a site like this, the cost drivers are real — slope, access, BAL-29, retained trees and habitat requirements, energy performance, external works, builder availability and construction timing all move the number. That’s exactly why early budget testing matters. A Map iT and Shack Map won’t replace builder pricing or consultant input, but they give the project a disciplined starting point — and a realistic band — before design, documentation, approvals and pricing firm it up.
RELATED PROJECTS.
16 The Dell Shack is part of mi shack’s broader work designing architect-designed homes for coastal, rural, metro and regional WA. You might also like:
01 White Shack — the first mi shack® and the origin of the design system.
15 WAMO Shack — a Yallingup rural retreat on 100 acres.
12 Eagle Bay Shack — a generous Eagle Bay holiday home above the bay.
14 Cannon Shack — a Dunsborough family home shaped around rural South West living.
17 Driftwood Shack — a Peppermint Grove Beach coastal home shaped by BAL-29, salt air, screening and wellness.
Start your own shack map
Thinking about a family or holiday home — in the bush, at the beach, or in the ‘burbs?
Start with a Shack Map. It’s the first step in testing what’s possible on your site, before jumping too quickly into full design, approvals and builder pricing.
Live. Love. Shack.
