Our interior designer, Lou purchased her home with the view to renovate and give new life to a 1950’s Coolbinia landmark home. The “bones” of the home were sound with ample space albeit somewhat compromised by some wall locations. A feature stone wall at the centre of the living areas and sunken lounge with feature timber ceiling set the tone for the renovation. The design solution was to open the home up and inject a mid-century modern theme that would work well with the existing features of the home.
Client Priorities
Lou’s family goal was for us to transform the existing premises into a comfortable home that doesn’t require the excessive use of grid power and with minimal new materials and waste.
The home needed to enhance the family’s lifestyle. With three young children, the flow both internally and externally, needed to maximise the useable space for the whole family.
Challenges
One of the drawcards of the property were the expansive external areas, however the existing configuration was disjointed and not well connected to the house. The main barrier being the garage which, being built as an under croft and accessed via a driveway from a side street, dissected the yard from the house.
Sustainable Features
Whilst the existing site has good orientation to north, the former layout did not effectively capitalize on this. Our approach was to build on and enhance the benefits of a well oriented site. Glazing was increased to the well position north facing kitchen and dining. Poorly positioned eastern windows were shaded naturally through extensive strategic landscaping, a solution that helped with natural cooling of a previously problematic area without a large impact on budget as.
A solar PV system adds to the efficiency of the building allowing the family to run an air-conditioner throughout the day powered by solar energy cooling masonry by day and allowing it to absorb heat during the evening stabilizing the home’s temperature.
Very little was used in the way of materials to transform the home, so the net result has been a very low carbon footprint in the reinvention of this building.
