GreenSmart Sustainable Home

This elegant, understated yet beautiful solar passive home was built upon a challenging block, with north to the front (on the diagonal), on an upward slope, and views to the south. The home sits back, and very gently, in its established streetscape and steps diagonally across the block to allow northern light to penetrate into three different sections of the home. The floor plan is space-efficient and flexible delivering an accessible, single level, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom + multiroom home in a 154 m2 footprint. At under 200 square metres including the double garage, it has a significantly smaller footprint than typical new Canberra home but feels and functions like a much larger home. The colour and material palette, fixtures, fittings, and finishings combine to give this home a timeless and understated elegance reminiscent of mid-century modern design but with thermal comfort, energy efficiency and health properties of an ultramodern 21st century home. The end result is a beautiful, super-functional, solar passive 7.9 star home in place of an incredibly leaky, cramped, south-west facing, energy-guzzling 1960s house. This home has much lower embodied energy, and requires significantly less operational energy, than other typical new homes in Canberra. At 7.9 stars Evatt House is predicted to require half as much energy for heating and cooling per square metre, compared to a 6 star home in Canberra. Given its space efficiency, and the reduction in resources used to create the home, this equates to a roughly 60% reduction in carbon emissions and global warming potential compared to a typical new Canberra home. In addition, with the high levels of air tightness achieved, the environmental impact of the home will be even further reduced. High energy efficiency, comfort and health was ensured by combining solar passive principles with a building physics focus on a well-insulated and sealed building envelope. Taking full advantage of the northern aspect, a light-filled, energy efficient and comfortable and healthy home has been created with thought and detail. Judges remarked on how well the extremely considered build met and exceeded the clients needs whilst maximising site and sustainable sensitivities.