Neerim East House
Victoria
Completed 2009
A single family house in Gippsland incorporating a conference facility/meeting room. The site is remote and required provision of power, water and waste treatment on site. The only connection to outside services is the land-line telephone.
The client design brief was for a defining theme of ‘durable rudiment’ and for the house to be ‘in the view’ – so we used simple materials and forms to withstand the effects of the wild wind, cold and sun; and opened up the north facade with continuous glazing toward the Mt Toorongo and the Baw Baw Plateau.
Passive wildfire safety is built in with high fire resistance materials (including toughened double glazing, double masonry and metal claddings) and a suspended slab with partially buried fire refuge below.
There is a spring-fed dam in the bush below the site pumped to dedicated fire fighting water tanks to supply a simple active defence system that uses agricultural sprinklers to periodically dampen the area surrounding the house. This keeps the immediate house site both green and defendable.
High levels of internal thermal mass that result from the passive bushfire protection are protected by insulation from outside skins so that the indoor environment is both cool in summer and warm in winter with minimal energy input.
Builder: Ray Childs – Childs Hodson P/L
Structural Engineer: Ray Schneider – Schneider & Associates
