Jerrabomberra Ocean Liner – Architect designed sustainable home

Awards

Features

The client brief requires a retirement house that is modern, demonstrates best practice, leading edge, environmental design and is low maintenance. The house is to capitalise on its location and views and suit easy entertainment for family gatherings. The construction is to feature natural materials including concrete, glass and steel in a semi-industrial style.

• The primary opportunities of the site are the possibilities of Northern orientation across the centre of the site and the dramatic views to Black Mountain and Mt Ainslie to the North West and North.
• Locating the house across the centre of the site also aligns it to the contours, minimising cut and fill on the block.

The design rationale is to create a modernist, minimalist, leading edge passive solar building that significantly reduces any need for heating or cooling. This is achieved by a strong orientation to True, Solar, North in the design, and significant areas of glazing to the North.  Good cross ventilation is achieved by the narrower North-South dimension, the capacity to open up the building on its North and South sides, and the 3 storey design that helps create natural stack ventilation through the staircases to the central upper floor Living area.

The North facade is to feature a nautical theme, reflecting the Owners successful maritime engineering business.

The primary bulk of the 3 storey building runs East-West to capitalise on the site opportunities for Northern orientation and views, allowing easy cross ventilation and visual linkages with the external environment from within the building.

The East and West facades are minimised with smaller window openings, to achieve both summer sun protection as well as privacy from adjoining blocks. Windows on these elevations all have blockout shutters.

The 3 storey design utilises the main environmental features of the block to achieve winter sun penetration and summer sun protection for alternative Northern winter and Southern summer private open spaces. The latter is achieved by the terrace verandahs opening off the living areas to the South at each level.