The concrete arrives before the water does. At Alba, architects Hayball set a run of sculptural concrete forms into a Fingal hillside and let the geothermal pools follow the fall of the land, so you move downhill through the bathing as the Mornington Peninsula opens out around you. Fifteen hectares of it. The material is raw and grey and deliberate, softened by MALA's planting, warmed by mineral water that has done its own slow work underground. There is a spa built into the same architecture. It reads as landscape first and building second, which is the point. Concrete, steam and a long view south. Very few places get this balance right.