To be sustainable, buildings must be adaptable and flexible.

They must meet the current occupants’ needs efficiently and enable rearrangement or repurposing to accommodate future needs with minimal work and material waste.

In today's episode we continue our exploration of the sustainable design fundamentals. We investigate the design of a new house on a standard 600m2 suburban site in Yuggera Country, Samford in subtropical Brisbane. This house contains three different parts; a four bedroom home, a self-contained office and a self-contained secondary dwelling.

Architect Chris Bligh, a director at Bligh Graham Architects, shares the inside story on his Live Work Share project

Today we'll learn:

• ideas for creating a flexible floor plan that can accommodate multiple functions and adapt to changing needs,
• design strategies to optimise cross ventilation and passive cooling, and
• the process for using recycled hardwood from demolition yards.

Australian Architects can earn formal CPD hours by listening to these podcasts and completing an online quiz.

MORE INFORMATION

Find everything you need on the Renovation Collaborative website.

www.renovationcollaborative.com.au

• PODCAST Key points summary, timestamps and resource links
• FREE RESOURCES Transcript edited into clear Q&A.
• CPD Australian architects can find more information on CPD, and
• COURSES Eleven easy to read courses demystifying the entire home design and construction process.

KEY POINTS SUMMARY

1. The design brief for the average Australian home is not what it used to be, and it keeps changing.

More people are working from home, children are staying at home longer or they leave only to return with their partners and young children.

There is a serious shortage of smaller affordable housing suitable for couples, young families or single parent families. For anyone looking for a source of income, incorporating secondary accommodation into your house plans can often provide much needed housing options for others and offer additional flexibility for the future.

2. Reducing your building footprint to maximise green space is critical and provides multiple benefits, such as improved access to passive ventilation, areas for productive food gardening and support for nature and natural processes.

3. Ideas to maximise cooling through passive ventilation included providing openings to at least two, if not three sides of every room. Chris used internal courtyards to achieve this. And security solutions that allow the house to remain open and ventilated while locked up.

4. Ideas to control access to sun in winter and shade in summer included retractable awnings over courtyards, using windows with solid infill instead of glass to provide shade and privacy while allowing ventilation, and adding retractable outdoor curtains to block hot low angle afternoon sun.

5. Create a floor plan that will enable air conditioning of selected rooms with optimal energy efficiency. Only air condition reasonably sized rooms. Avoid air conditioning really large open plan areas with voids. Ensure the rooms designated for air conditioning are well insulated and can be effectively sealed to prevent constant energy draw, and install ceiling fans in all rooms.

And finally,

6. Chris sourced all his hardwood, including structural members from demolition yards. Chris had the engineering drawings so he knew the sizes that he needed and his engineer performed stress testing of the timber on site to ensure compliance. While using demolition yard timber offers significant environmental benefits, it requires considerable effort. The timber must be sourced, often requiring searching across multiple demolition yards, transported to site and stored on site, often well before construction begins. Once on site, the timber needs sanding to remove splinters.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

[01:26] Tell us about your practice and how you got into sustainable design?

[02:35] In your experience, is the interest in sustainable design increasing?

[03:51] What is the project design brief?

[06:14] How do the three parts of the building work on the site?

[07:09] How do the three parts adapt to other uses?

[08:43] How is the self-contained accommodation used?

[11:06] Tell us about the climate responsive design strategies you used?

[15:38] Do you have any heating or cooling?

[19:03] Tell us about using recycled hardwood from demolition yards?

[21:29] What environmental materials are used for the exterior?

[25:17] What is the green balustrade made of?

[26:31] What did you do for doors and windows?

[27:06] What exterior finishes did you use?

[27:30] What are the challenges of using demolition timber?

[29:10] What interior materials and finishes did you use?

[30:57] What did you do in the kitchen?

[32:27] What did you do in the bathrooms?

[35:59] When did you engage the builder?

[37:01] What advice would you give to anyone considering a sustainable home design?

IN THE NEXT EPISODE

Next week we move on to our next sustainable design theme, Renovation and Reuse.

Actively looking for ways to reuse what is already in place is central to environmental decision making. We'll investigate the renovation of a 1940s timber cottage on a suburban site located in the beachside town of Fingal Head in subtropical northern New South Wales.

I talk to architect Rob Norman, director of Symbiosphere Architects, who'll give us the inside story on his Bambury bungalow project.

RESOURCE LINKS

BLIGH GRAHAM ARCHITECTS WEBSITE

Project Page (images) https://blighgraham.com.au/project/live-work-share-house/

Media Page (floor plans, materials, consultants, builder) https://architectureau.com/articles/a-mini-metropolis-live-work-share-house/

OTHER INFO

Orange aluminium shutter windows

Window Manufacturer – G James Glass and Aluminium https://gjames.com/

Orange coloured solid window infill – Alucobond https://alucobond.com.sg/products/alucobond-plus/

Exterior Cladding

Ecoply https://chhply.com.au/ranges/ecoply/products/

Green Balustrades – Flat Fibreglass sheet https://www.ampelite.com.au/

External timber finishes

Cutek Penetrating Oil https://www.cutek.com.au/

Resene finishes - paint and stains https://www.resene.com.au/

Kitchen Cabinets

Ikea kitchen carcass (Always select the highest quality options with the longest warranty) https://www.ikea.com/au/en/cat/kitchen-cabinets-700292/

Blum cabinet runners (used in some Ikea cabinetry) https://www.blum.com/au/en/

Internal plywood and other timber finish

Whittle Waxes Evolution Hardwax Oil - https://www.whittlewaxes.com.au/collections/hardwax-oils

GET IN TOUCH

If you've got any comments or questions or there's any topic you'd like to know more about, please send me an email at [email protected].