Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 69 i Sanctuary: Modern Green Homes

HOUSE PROFILE Scarborough, WA AT A GLANCE - All-electric, 7.9-Star family home for $680,000 - Innovative, recycled and low-maintenance materials - Northern garden spaces maximised When Wynand and Amy started thinking about owning their own home, they decided that building a small, highly sustainable house would be the most economical and ethical way to meet their environmental and performance requirements. The couple bought an empty subdivided block in Scarborough, a coastal suburb of Perth, and engaged MDC Architects to design a modest three-bedroom, two-bathroom house. “They came to us with a brief for a sustainable house that was realistic and affordable,” says architect Matt Delroy-Carr. “It needed to be built with standard construction techniques, but using as many sustainable initiatives as possible, as well as interesting, innovative materials.” These initiatives read as a…

HOUSE PROFILE Mt Gravatt East, QLD AT A GLANCE - Fun and functional backyard retreat - Designed to help make much better use of the garden - Low-tech climate-responsive design While they loved their simple 1960s home in Brisbane’s southern suburbs, this young family found themselves rapidly outgrowing it. They needed space to accommodate visiting grandparents, a home office, and a play space for their young boys, as well as a music room. They also wanted to better connect their home with their garden. Architects Cloud Dwellers saw creative opportunities to achieve all the family’s desires. The first step was to remove the rear deck that obstructed access to the garden and was often too hot to use comfortably. It was replaced with a covered walkway stepping gently down the slope and connecting…

HOUSE PROFILE North-east Melbourne, VIC AT A GLANCE - New-build townhouse sensitively increases urban density - Focus on biophilic design - All-electric, 8-Star home “The lovely thing about designing a home for yourself is that you get to experiment and go with what interests you at the time,” says architect Marie Carrel. And what she was passionate about when she conceived of her two-storey townhouse in Melbourne’s north-east was experimenting with biophilic design. Biophilia in home design is all about making our built spaces feel more organic and connected to nature. It taps into an instinctive affinity for the natural world through elements such as materials, colours, plants, breeze and sunlight, and fosters connections to the outdoors. [Ed note: see our series on biophilic design in Sanctuary 67, 68 and p62 of…

CASE STUDY Designed by Brett Hulley Architecture, the Canopy House in Whangārei, New Zealand, beautifully demonstrates how the biophilic elements of natural patterns, light and space can be integrated to foster a deep connection with the natural world. The home features a simple floor plan, with living spaces on the northern side and private spaces on the southern side, connected by a large covered deck. This layout encourages year-round outdoor living and daily interaction with nature. The house incorporates natural patterns and processes through its use of materials harvested from the surrounding forest. Whole logs, natural-edge slabs, and rough-sawn timber bring the organic forms and textures of the outdoors inside. Hexagonal patterns in the flooring and decking are a reference to nature’s geometry. On the northern deck, two of the…

THE BRIEF - Renovate and reconfigure the house for increased performance and liveability - Retain the existing footprint and as much of the structure as possible - I mprove connection to the large north-facing backyard (with planned natural pool) PROJECT TYPE Renovation LOCATION Reservoir, VIC (Wurundjeri Country) EXISTING HOUSE SIZE 138m2 PROPOSED HOUSE SIZE 140m2 LAND SIZE 966m2 BUDGET $200,000 Matt Piper and Steph Rich are experienced renovators, having made many upgrades to their previous home to improve its energy efficiency and comfort. Last year they took on a new challenge, buying a small 1950s brick veneer house on a large block in the northern Melbourne suburb of Reservoir. “We love gardening and the outdoors,” says Steph. “The back of the house faces north, and we’re looking to do a modest renovation…

These eight featured products are independently selected by our editorial team. If you have recommendations for products you think would be of interest we’d love to hear from you. Email: sanctuary@renew.org.au 1 Freeing up space The Bora X Pure cooktop combines induction cooking with built-in downdraft extraction, freeing up space by eliminating the overhead rangehood. The central fan quietly removes steam, smoke and odours at the source, automatically adjusting to cooking intensity. Users can control the cooktop manually or through the Bora Joy app. Easy touch controls add functionality and smart design to modern electric kitchens. Available in gloss or matt ceramic glass, the 83-centimetre unit costs $7,449. bora.com/au 2 Adjustable extraction The built-in extractor fan is a central feature of NEFF’s updated N90 induction cooktop, improving air quality by…

HOUSE PROFILE Boomerang Beach, NSW AT A GLANCE - Small-footprint, energy-efficient home for a retired couple - Designed for accessibility and thermal comfort - Rammed earth and other natural materials - Stage 1 of a planned multigenerational dual occupancy “From a sound point of view, rammed earth is a very forgiving material. We can be playing music in one room and you can hardly hear it anywhere else in the house.” – Jetse When Jetse and Martine Kalma built their family home in Kaleen, Canberra, in the mid-1970s, they worked with the late Derek Wrigley, one of Australia’s leading sustainable design advocates (see ‘Design powerhouse’ in Sanctuary 57 for more). Their brief – to create a passive solar house that suited Canberra’s hot summers and cold winters – threw up several challenges that forced…

HOUSE PROFILE Glebe, NSW AT A GLANCE - One-bedroom secondary dwelling with a 27m2 footprint - Inspiring example of clever urban infill - Passive House Plus certified Scattered throughout the inner suburbs of Australia’s major cities are underutilised sites: empty, often neglected pockets of land. At a time when we’re facing a housing crisis – when there aren’t enough homes to meet demand, and they’re increasingly unaffordable, especially close to the city – Pocket Passiv demonstrates what can be achieved with clever architecture and thoughtful design on a tiny 27-square-metre urban infill site. Located in the inner-Sydney suburb of Glebe, the two-storey building has transformed the unused backyard of a Victorian terrace set on a street corner. The owners, Deb and Rhod, built the secondary dwelling to be used by friends and family…

ON THE DRAWING BOARD “Where will your kids live when they’re adults?” With Australia facing the triple whammy of climate, housing and cost of living crises, this is a question I’m constantly asking my peers in an attempt to engage people on this rapidly worsening issue. As someone who has been working exclusively in sustainable housing for 15 years, and as parent to three young adults and employer of several young people struggling to enter the housing market (as buyers or renters), it is something that I spend a lot of time pondering. It’s a complex problem and there is no one easy solution. Highrise apartments in cities and town centres – plus welldesigned new infill builds in our suburbs – are part of the solution, but far from enough.…

Australia’s landscape has been shaped over millennia through the active use of fire by First Nations practitioners. Fire has been used to clear the land, to assist in hunting and collection of food, for practical uses like warmth and cooking, and for cultural uses such as ceremony. The long-term curation of the landscape with fire in turn encouraged an ecology in which many plants depend on fire to regenerate, assisted by the heat and smoke. The end of active fire management of the land was one of the consequences of colonisation, and unmanaged bushfires are now intrinsic to Australia’s environment. Whether caused by natural events such as lightning or by human activity, bushfires increasingly lead to loss of life, destruction of property and damage to the natural environment. It is…

HOUSE PROFILE Northcote, VIC AT A GLANCE - Budget retrofit for increased liveability and reduced bills and emissions - Gas appliances replaced with efficient electric - Energy rating raised from 2 to 7.2 Stars Having worked in energy efficiency advocacy for over a decade, Rob Murray-Leach knows a thing or two about the state of Australia’s housing stock – “It’s shocking how bad our homes are,” he says – and what needs to be done to improve the health, comfort and emissions of the estimated 7 million houses that are falling short. The purchase of his own first home, a 1970s unit in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote, was his first opportunity to put his knowledge into practice. “My house really fits the bill as the ‘everyman’, bog-standard home,” he says. “Like the…

LIVING WITH NATURE When thoughtfully integrated, these elements can infuse homes with a sense of vitality that echoes the complexity and beauty of the natural world, positively influencing occupants’ mood, productivity, and overall wellbeing. NATURE'S GEOMETRY Nature is filled with geometric patterns that serve both functional and aesthetic purposes. Hexagons, for instance, showcase nature’s drive for optimisation, as seen in beehives where this shape maximises storage space while minimising material use. Similarly, the precise mathematical sequence of Fibonacci spirals found in sunflowers and pine cones allow these forms to grow efficiently while distributing seeds with minimal overlap. Snowflakes, with their six-fold symmetry, and crystal formations also demonstrate nature’s ability to form complex yet orderly structures. Such patterns resonate with us on a deep, instinctive level. One theory suggests that our…

FUNCTIONAL FARMHOUSES The difference between rural and urban life in Australia is a cultural chasm that we love to hate. Never was this clearer to me than when I packed up after a fifteen-year stint of study and work in Canberra and returned to my roots at the foothills of the Snowy Mountains, to start a practice specialising in low-carbon regional housing. A colleague in the city warned me that “rural people aren’t really interested in sustainability and high-quality homes”. Rubbish, I thought. Four hours down the road, one local client said “we’re practical people who know how to get things done – not like those shiny bums from Canberra.” Right-o, I thought, rolling my eyes. While my experience working closely with individuals and families in both city and country…