Homes of the Ecovillage
sustainability and style
The beautiful home above is a multi-award winning, contemporary, energy efficient building. This home was awarded as Australia's Greenest Building of the Year by the HIA Greensmart programme.
The home showcases compact design and affordability. It features two spacious bedrooms and living areas that fully integrate with large connecting decks almost doubling the internal space. There are also full designs and approvals for an ensuited extra bedroom or home office.
The home is energy self-sufficient with its 1.5kW grid connected solar power system. Thermal mass elements in the form of beautiful highly polished suspended slab floors to the dining room and internal rock walls help the home to be warm in winter and cool in summer. The home also incorporates an innovative hydronics heating system to some slabs and the rock wall. The hydronics distribute hot water through piping in the elements free from a solar hot water system. Floors and walls are double insulated and the creative curved roof is the well insulated Ritek construction. Cross ventilation features throughout as well as all the passive solar design features. Construction utilises a range of environmentally sustainable products that ensure low toxicity for healthy and comfortable livability. Also, the home enjoys the unrivalled aesthetics of many attractive recycled components.
Water storage of over 50,000 litres capacity is provided through the use of both underground concrete water cells doubling as subfloor and thermal mass and galvanised above ground tanks. Solar panels provide energy and along with the water self sufficiency will ensure those high energy and water bills are a thing of the past!
Click on thumbnails for larger images (images courtesy of Zenstick Photography Brisbane http://www.zenstick.com.au)
