Planning & Inspiration Stuff

Clare and I spent a lovely Friday & Saturday night in front of the tellie on the weekend playing catchup. Not having commercial TV means we we pick and choose what we want to watch & download it generally get our news from the internet. One show that used to be our thursday ritual but has recently fallen behind is "Grand Designs".

Anyone who aspires to design and/or build their dream house will have probably seen this great tv show. Last year saw the addition of a "Grand Designs - Australia" so after a week or so gathering our missed episodes I had 14 eps of season 11 from the UK and 8 eps of Season 1 from Australia.

I have to say the Aussie derivitive was still a good watch but as expected not as entertaining as the original. I think what makes a great episode of GD is the combination of an interesting design coupled with the colorful & passionate characters who build it. There were 2 great eps in the Aussie season that fitted this bill, however some of the others just didn't do it for me. On the positive though, Over 20 episodes of GD not only made for a couple of great nights in with the children in bed early. It also left me chomping at the bit to get some of my ideas down on paper.

I've started a shopping list for gathering requirements, basically a notebook (as much as a tech head I am I need a pencil and paper to create) with pages divided into rooms: Kitchen, Lounge, Dining, Mud Room, Master BR, Ensuite etc etc whereby I can list any requirements I have down as I think of them or am inspired to add them.

We've also both started jotting down floorplans that we like and while I never like everything on one of Clares, she never likes everything on mine. This works well though as each versions brings us closer to the ideal floor plan.

I'm still to'ing and frowing on shape though, while I want the simplistic design of a post and beam I'd really like to have more than just a rectangle. I'm currently looking at the possibility of joining two post & beams structures creatively via a shared corner and intersecting roof beams or possibly using 2 separate structures with a third more simple framed corridor linking the two.

I pulled this floorplan from my copy of "Strawbale Floor Plans" which I highly reccomend for any person looking for straw bale inspiration. It certainly works for me in terms of wings and a central living area, of course I'd omit the garage for a few more bedrooms.

Until next Time

Design Stuff

A family of 8 in these modern times can potentially leave a hefty environmental footprint.

In giving serious thought to what sort of house we wanted over the past few years we knew that our dream house had to be environmentally sustainable as well as energy efficient. Modern homes may be built with water tanks and solar panels but they are rarely designed to be easy to heat or cool.

Our ECO home journey goes back about 5 years when we decided to renovate our three bedroom house on its aprox. 706 square meter block north of Melbourne and sell up with the intention of buying land and building our "last" house.

Here are just three of the many design types I've considered along the way:

RAL Homes - http://www.ralhomes.com.au/

These are a uniquely styled kit home where there is no frame and roof per say just a single continuous arch made up of 8 sections encased in curved color bond steel roof.

There are no internal walls required by default as they are not load bearing. Windows are fitted at the ends of each "Tunnel". This design is not only flexible, it can be built on a slab or 3 or 4 bearer sub floor. The components that make up a RAL home are all separately priced allowing you to assemble your house in sections virtually beforehand to estimate the final costs. There are also energy benefits, the tunnel design means less energy is required to push air through the house meaning heating and cooling use less power & effort. The benefit of having no walls, just a continuous roof also allows every drop of water to be caught for storage, the curved roof also hides the gutters preventing build up of leaf matter.

While the internal appearance is quite striking I feel the curved walls would prove difficult when fitting out the house with items like book shelves, cupboards and anything requiring a flat wall. need to be included in the design. Another advantage is being able to store water underneath the structure should you opt for a bearer flooring.

These homes are 5star energy rated & would still require conventional heating and cooling. Some other issues with curved walls is that items like evap coolers are quite difficult to fit. This desgin also suits a more minimalist interior design which really isn't us.
http://www.ralhomes.com.au/Butler%20int.jpg
http://www.ralhomes.com.au/Bak%20snow.jpg
http://www.employees.org/~mattc/

YURT - http://site.yurtworks.com.au/

Another favorite of mine is the YURT, a multi sided design available again in kit from of various levels of completion. The Yurts are available in several different diameters with multi story options also available. The YURT doesn't really provide the heating and cooling benefits of the RAL but more so a straw bale. A compromise would be taking the "round house" style concept and working perhaps a section of our straw bale design to accommodate this type of structure

Log Home - http://www.greatbearloghomes.com.au/

Another alternative was a log home, specifically the styles built by Great Bear Log Homes. I checked out their operation in Mansfield a few years back and priced one of their hand made off site (then broken apart, transported and assembled on site) homes and it was outside my budget While these homes look so commanding from the outside the inside can be sometimes a bit of a timber overload.

These are just a few of the design styles I've investigate over the past few years. I highly recommend checking out the websites above to see just some of the many awesome house that have been completed.


Cheers


Steve