The home of James Goodlet, the director of Alteco Design, and Claire Thomas, the studio manager Claire Thomas, proves that it is sometimes less.
After the couple had designed countless sustainable and certified passive houses for customers, it endeavored to build their own high -performance house from scratch when it decided to leave Melbourne in 2021 for a life “closer to nature”.
“We always had a strong connection to the surf coast – James grew up in Apollo Bay – and searched for the open country between the Lockdowns. This untouched corner block in Anglesea immediately attracted our attention,” says Claire.
They had a design for a modest household house. But after a particularly stressful fourteenth day work, Claire questioned whether a simpler design could be the better approach.
“This was actually our second design for the website,” says James about the resulting “Harry High Performance House”. The original design was not bigger, but it was more complex to build, which meant higher costs.
“At that time we lived in a simple sheep's hut in Freshwater Creek,” he adds.
“It let us think about what was really important in a house. We returned to the drawing board and aimed at something reserved yet beautiful – built with passive house principles and sustainability in the core. '
As a result, they turned to the classic archetype from the middle of the century, which was designed by the influential Australian architect Nino Sydney.
However, these retro beach houses that were raised on stilts that were aligned with the couple's vision to preserve as much natural landscape as possible, but also ensured that the new building in the context of its small coastal city would not look out of place.
The exterior seems to be very similar to a classic beach comber. A home office and a garage are hidden in the Unter -Croft, and the vertical fiber cement panels are a nostalgic pastel blue. Inside, blankets lined with wood, a terrazzo bench and blackbutt doors form a warm and quiet atmosphere, which is improved by the view of the surrounding trees.
Perhaps one of the most important parts of the sustainability of the project is the size of 138 square meters and the use of passive house principles to minimize energy consumption. All devices are electrical, and a 6.6 kW soleal system and a battery helps to supply the house with electricity.
'The house is exceptionally comfortable all year round and keeps a temperature between 18 and 25 ° C with minimal mechanical heating or cooling. The eaves are perfectly calculated to block the summer sun and at the same time curb winter heat, ”says James.
Although James is an accredited passive house designer, the project realizes that the project has achieved official certification, but for good reason.
They opted for the installation of large sliding windows on the south side to maximize their leaf prospects. However, this function led to the passive House heating load threshold of 15 kWh per square meter of only 2 kWh.
“In view of the scope of our house, this is still very efficient, and for us it has the opportunity to combine nature visually, the need to meet an arbitrary benchmark,” says James.
It still exceeded the national 7-star benchmark for newly built houses and reached a natural rating of 7.4. At the end of the day it was a compromise that they were ready to make: “simplicity is the key,” he adds.
“Customers, designers and builders are usually enthusiastic about the prospect of optimizing the Nten degree. We have learned to always decide to get back to the basics and to gain clarity about what we wanted to achieve before we could. '