Sustainability. From the start.

Designing more sustainably has material, performance, energy, lifecycle and community dimensions. It also has financial implications. Thinking these things through effects the size of the buildings we design, their siting and orientation, the way they look, the materials they are made from and the technology they employ to keep their occupants comfortable year-round.

We apply the following principles to the buildings we design.

Chris and Nat’s home in Bingie repurposes two existing structures. A new roof and glazing is designed to bring winter sunshine deep into the house and naturally cross-ventilate key rooms. An additional layer of sliding screens allow occupants to respond to insects, privacy and sunlight independent of the weather sealing doors. **House Bingie**

Designing in response to the natural environment

Sun, shade, wind, and rain are free resources that, when understood, can be harnessed to enhance a building’s performance year-round. Siting our buildings carefully and designing with specific site conditions in mind provides the foundation for an energy-efficient home.

Energy

Smart architectural decisions reduce the need for active heating and cooling. Our homes are typically fully electric, generate energy via solar panels, and use heat pumps for heating and cooling through in-slab hydronic systems. Batteries often supplement the PVs, improving energy autonomy.

A family of free-standing circular bronze-ribbed structures create a generous covered area creating presence and functionality with minimal intrusion. They are places of information and exchange but at the same time act as playful markers and meeting points; elements of urban furniture who’s structural immateriality acts in gentle opposition to Utzon’s heavy orthogonal platform and impossibly beautiful ‘clouds’. **Visitor Information Centre & Ticketing Booths at Sydney Opera House**

Less, but better

In every project we seek a poetic economy of means where aspects of siting and planning are resolved efficiently to ensure the building has strong bones and is affordable. Once these key elements are in place, we explore the spatial, material, and detailed aspects that make each project sing.

Doing less means projects are cheaper to build, more energy- and carbon-efficient, and leave more space for gardens.

Materials

Every material in a building has environmental, lifecycle, and aesthetic considerations. We work with a small, durable, and locally sourced palette that performs well over time and contributes to the building’s overall sustainability

Stained hardwood cladding, galvanised steel and recycled clay bricks constitute the material palette of **House: Tempe**. A new room stitches into its sandstone host bringing northern light deep into the floor plan, opening the house to the north easterly breeze. A series of deep steps elongate the living area connecting house to garden.

Eco Prefab was a construction system designed to allow temporary buildings to be disassembled, moved and re-erected in the same or in a new configuration. **Eco Prefab I & II**

Longevity and flexibility

Quality construction, simple details, and durable materials reduce long-term costs and ensure buildings age well. Flexibility in design allows the space to adapt as our clients' needs and the environment change.

Good architecture responds to its context—whether physical, cultural, or economic—creating a meaningful connection to place and making a positive contribution to its surroundings.

Adapt. Reuse

Adaptive reuse means repurposing existing structures, sometimes even buildings of poor quality, to reduce waste and cost. Old buildings have a certain beauty and history in their fabric, and when their structure is sound, we try to incorporate them into the new design. Sometimes the puzzle is not working out what to do but what not to do.

**House Bingie** aggressively repurposes an old timber barn and brick project home. Stage 1 (barn) is complete in this image with Stage 2 yet to begin.

One wall of this studio is clad in a triple-skin of translucent polycarbonate that seals, insulates, provides informal shelving whilst bathing the interior in light. At night it becomes a lantern animating the garden. **House Tempe**

Affordability & sustainability

A sustainable house need not be an expensive house. The two most significant gains we can make are reducing time - saving on consultant and builder fees - and reducing size through good design.

In the long term, investing in quality materials, a well-insulated envelope, high-performance windows, solar PVs, and efficient heating/cooling systems results in lower running costs and greater comfort.

Start with the garden

We value the outdoors as much as the indoors and consider garden spaces as rooms - outdoor rooms - rather than landscape being a tack-on or after thought.

Starting with the garden and designing the house around green space gives every room the opportunity to bring nature in through beautiful thresholds. This allows the architecture to reduce, to simplify and be calm. And when we say nature, we don’t just mean leaves and rocks and trees, we mean any place that sunlight is invited into or wind blows or any place where leaves can fall .

**House in a Garden in Marrickville** is informed by context, landscape and topography. The roof is a wild, native garden set out at the upper floor level. Additions cascade down the site, each level informed by topography, each living space opening directly onto new garden spaces. The building steps back to the southern boundary maximising winter sun penetration and focusing attention on a verdant garden - imagined as a kind of family square or piazza. The natural pool is filtered by aquatic plants.

The hit-and miss brick ‘chimneys’ at KLCC are playful signifiers of the home and away change rooms whilst allowing them to naturally ventilate and bringing in dappled sunlight without the need for glazing, heating or cooling. **Kings Langley Cricket Club, Blacktown**.

Wellbeing

None of these ideas talk directly to the things we love about beautiful buildings - the quality, warmth and comfort beautifully designed spaces and gardens bring into our lives, not to mention how inspiring it is to live and work in a considered environment.

Designing sustainably doesn’t sacrifice beauty. In fact, by focusing on performance and place, each project becomes more beautiful, comfortable, and inspiring. Well-designed, sustainable buildings and rooms enhance the lives of those who live and work in them.