sustainable building design

2nd hand hardwood frame, lime and ochre paint, clay infill, 2nd hand floorboards, "Livos" natural floor oil

waste water irrigated orchard

Passive solar design

Design for climate. The energy costs of heating, cooling, daylighting and refrigeration are reduced or eliminated by correct design. In warm temperate/ cool subtropical areas, strategies include correct orientation and plan shape, eaves size, room use allocation, placement of glass, cross ventilation, thermal mass and insulation.

(see Your Home Technical Manual, www.yourhome.gov.au/technical)

Green building materials

Materials are selected with consideration of their environmental impact throughout their life cycle (cradle to grave life cycle analysis). The life cycle includes extraction of raw material, manufacture, use and disposal. Environmental impacts include loss of biodiversity, loss of a limited resource, degradation of resources (soil, water), energy consumption, pollution. Comparisons between materials are often difficult to make because of lack of data/ knowledge and the need to prioritise different forms of environmental impact.

(see Ecospecifier, www.ecospecifier.com.au

On site resource management

Optimal design for generation of solar power and solar hot water: Ideal set up in temperate areas is orientation as close to true north as possible and panels tilted at the same angle as the latitude (30o in Coffs Harbour). Systems will perform adequately in less than ideal positions. Water collection via tanks can be re used via reed beds and/ or evapotranspiration trenches planted to useful species. These methods recycle nutrient carried in the waste water. However, compost toilets recycle the most nutrient and best protect water ways from potentially excessive nutrient.

Not so big house design

Australians have on average the biggest houses in the world! This is excessive consumption regardless of the materials used. It also costs more! With building costs typically $1500- $2000/ m2, it only takes a minor trim of wasted space and our fees have paid for themselves. Mc Mansions don't work well anyway. The spaces are often too big to create any intimacy. Space can be saved by minimising pedestrian movement, banks of vertical storage, multi purpose rooms, nooks and "psychological space" - techniques to make smaller floor plans feel bigger.

(see "The not so big house book", Sarah Susanka)