Indholdsfortegnelse for #90 Mar-Apr 2023 i Green Magazine

BEST PRACTICE IN BALLARAT With zero gas, a 27.65kW photovoltaic array, low embodied energy materials, a 16 000 litre rainwater tank and heat pump hydronic heating, Nightingale has gone all out with its fifirst regional building in Ballarat. Designed by Breathe, the building has ample communal areas, including café and landscaping at ground level, productive gardens, and a rooftop with laundry and social spaces. The building's brick design references Ballarat's late 1800s architecture, and a historic McK's Jelly Crystal sign was restored by the architects with help from the council's heritage team. Materials are hard-wearing, recycled, and locally sourced wherever possible. breathe.com.au nightingalehousing.org BRISBANE'S BIOPHILIC HEART Architecture studio Refresh Design prioritised performance in terms of energy consumption and occupant comfort for all 16 units in the Habitat on Juers social…

Houses With its clay and limestone soils, and a microclimate protected from the worst bite of the weather, the Waipara Valley in New Zealand's North Canterbury is wine country with an edge. Savvy boutique producers have known this for around two decades, but it remains pleasingly undiscovered as a holiday destination, despite being an easy 45-minute drive north from Christchurch. At Omihi, the owners of this property fell in love with the quiet beauty of the region, not too far from the city and literally next door to a winery. They bought a house that wine pioneer Russell Black had designed for his wife Kumiko and, frontrunners themselves, set about crafting a lifestyle that involved welcoming guests who had a nose for the finer things in life. Trouble was, each…

Architect Tom Mark Henry tommarkhenry.studio Builder Rosato Projects Location Gadigal Country. Darlinghurst, NSW. Passive energy design The house is mostly oriented to the north and west with new steel-framed doors with low-E glazing installed to the north-facing kitchen and west-facing bathroom on the ground level. A retractable awning spanning the western wall provides shading to the courtyard and glazing. Three operable glass skylights were installed to the north-facing roof planes to increase light and ventilation. The addition of a low-E glazed door and Juliet balcony in the attic space bedroom provides norther light and breezes into the upper level. Doors are positioned on the southern and northern façades utilising cross ventilation. The design provides comfortable living with low energy use year-round. Materials The ground level of the rear addition has…

Getting to the end of a jar of honey is always sad, partly as it's so hard to get those last bits out! Instead of scraping madly, fill the jar with water and give the honey a few minutes or so to dissolve, shaking the jar with the lid on to help. Now gift this nutrient-rich water to your favourite plant or tree in your garden, as your soil microflora will love the sugars in the honey water. Honey is precious, in fact one honeybee only makes around one and a half teaspoons of honey in her lifetime. So that small amount of honey in the jar could be one sixth of a bee's life endeavours. Speaking of bees, autumn can be a lean time for them, as many flowers…

Upfront Garden Circle 06, 2022 and Circle 07, 2022 are a series of works by Australia-based collaborative artists Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler. Fascinated by the healing and regenerative qualities of charcoal, the series draws on Bae and Lawler's research into charcoal's symbolic and physical purification, and detoxification uses across cultures. Their unconventional use of the material continues their investigations into materiality and abstraction. When the view changes, the rigid, darkened mass becomes dynamic as the multiple surfaces and obtrusions capture light, revealing unexpected transformations and subtle complexities. wonacharlie.com…

Self-effacing yet self-assured, “Berta's Chair” – made by furniture brand Charlie Campbell-gives indoor spaces an ultra-subtle pop. Elevating the distinctive patterning of American oak, the timber frame supports a sturdy sling that contours the body when in use. The chair is made to order in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, allowing choices between a stained brown or natural timber frame, and a light hazelnut, off-white, or cushioned leather sling for a comfort overload. charliecampbell.com.au…

Upfront Rícino is a series of table, wall and floor lamps, created by Brazilian design studio Estúdio Rain and made from plant-based resin. While searching for a sustainable replacement to petroleum-derived polymers, studio founders Ramos and Innecco came across a mouldable plant-based resin developed by the University of São Paulo, a material that's normally used in civil construction as a waterproofing agent. With its thermal, physical and chemical stability, elasticity and ability to adhere to porous materials, Estudio Rain recognised it as the sustainable material they'd been seeking. Plus, made from castor oil, it's biodegradable and made from renewable sources. For the Rícino series, the transparent amber resin is combined with structural aluminium supports and concealed linear LED light systems giving a formless, ethereal glow, resulting in an almost incorporeal…

Upfront Émilieu Studio custom designed and built the interior of the 2000-square-metre Camondo Mediterranee design school (in Toulon, France) entirely out of recycled materials – a radical and innovative choice for such a scale. The built environment itself has become a pedagogical tool, a playground for the designers of the future with modular, mobile furniture that can be moved around, touched, experienced and transformed allowing students to learn to design spaces through sensibility and tactility. Throughout their education, each student builds their ‘toolbox’, extensions transforming the furniture into carts, whiteboards, mobile desks, sofas … the possibilities are endless. Codesigned with the learning community, the school is rooted in place. Materials have been sourced locally, such as the scrap marine plywood panels from a local factory, or the reused sails from…

The longer you spend at this deceptively simple home, which seems to float effortlessly above its floodplain site, the more alluring it becomes. Like the great escape feel of bush and Birrarung (Yarra river) that drew the young family here six years ago, this double-fronted Federation house was recently renovated with a rear timber addition that creates natural connections and easy flow throughout: between indoors, outdoors; old and new; and structured and unstructured spaces that invite spontaneous transformation and play. To adults it feels a lot like a beach house in the ‘burbs, which invites you to go slow, perch awhile, drink in the natural world. For kids, a better hide-and-seek, tear-around, make-it-up-as-you-go-along house is hard to imagine. “Before this house we lived in a terrace that was about fourand-a-half…

Architect Johnstone Callaghan Architects jc-a.co.nz Builder Clive Barrington Construction clivebarrington.com Location Waipara, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Passive energy design The heavily insulated 10m2 cabins are off-grid and positioned to maximise solar gain through north-facing picture windows and north/east clerestory glazing. Shutters, concealed within the cladding when closed, allow for natural cross ventilation through each cabin with low– and high-level openings. The cabins are insulated exceeding code requirements to ensure they retain warmth. Materials The cabins are fully timber-framed and supported on six piles per cabin, or deck platform. The cabins are clad in locally sourced macrocarpa with folded aluminium trims and, around window and door openings, complementary aluminium joinery and corrugated profile metal roofing. The decking is salvaged Tasmanian blackwood from the Lyttelton Wharves following the Christchurch earthquakes. Internally, the floors, walls…

Upfront ecoBirdy recycles discarded plastic toys and waste textiles and turns them into designer furniture and homewares. Their design process is centred around upcycling, longevity, and social responsibility and their products are colourful, comfortable, kid-friendly and easy-to-clean. Take, for instance, their “Richard Chair” and “Judy Side Table”, a chunky yet elegant set made from their patented material ecothylene, made from post-consumer plastic waste and 100 per cent recyclable. Or, their “Coral Blanket”, a soft, lightweight throw made from an upcycled cotton yarn and synthetic fibre blend and featuring a tactile 3D-knitted pattern that provides superior insulation. Selected ecoBirdy products are available from forerunners is a big claim in an industry fighting to be the most sustainable – maybe best to say committed as per rewording. K5 Furniture is a Melbourne…

Architect Oscar Sainsbury, OSA oscarsainsbury.com Builder Owner-builder Landscaping Amanda Oliver Location Wurundjeri Country. Fairfield, Vic. Passive energy design The new addition is sited out into the garden creating a central deck between the existing building and new addition, two different outdoor spaces and the opportunity for a three-sided building with excellent access to light, cross ventilation and views to the garden. The addition is designed to maximise passive solar gain and requires no mechanical cooling, instead encouraging active user participation to moderate openings and shading according to changes in the climate. Recycled pressed red bricks from the demolition and existing kitchen appliances and fixtures were also reused where possible. Materials The addition was built without structural steel, using locally sourced timber as the main material both inside and out (including…

Houses Darlinghurst, in Sydney, is a suburb rich with history. Originally called Woolloomooloo Hill or Eastern Hill, the area underwent a huge expansion in the mid-1800s when rows of new houses were built for the wharf workers of Woolloomooloo Bay. After a time as slums in the early 20th century, these houses have long since been gentrified, becoming trendy inner-city pads with modern conveniences, but with many also sporting original character details. The size of this worker's cottage is especially small, even for houses of this type – but that suits the new owner just fine; interior design studio Tom Mark Henry had been searching on her behalf to find a house in which to downsize. A fan of minimalism and small living, this property was the perfect fit. The…

Architect Bark Architects barkdesign.com.au Landscape Architect John Harrison Engineer Longview Consulting Engineers Builder Accord Homes Landscaper SJ Landscapes Location Kabi Kabi Country. Currimundi Lake, QLD. Passive energy design The tilted skillion roof canopy rises to the north and east and down to the south and west. The large north and west overhangs, external fabric screens, and endemic melaleuca vegetation provide filtered light and summer shading. In winter the sun can penetrate well inside the living spaces. Louvre windows and stacking sliding doors are positioned for maximum cross ventilation. North-east breezes blow from the coastal lake across the pool and contribute to evaporative cooling. Materials The plywood floor is elevated above ground and insulated. The main volumes are of highly insulated, lightweight, predominantly timber-framed construction with limited steel members. The interior…

These vintage-inspired pruners by Barebones are designed in line with Japanese aesthetic principles: simplicity, earthiness and subtle marks of imperfection. Extremely responsive, and ridiculously useful – not to mention a pleasure to handle – they're made with durable steel and have copper accents sparingly applied for a touch of subtle bling. Plus, they come with a weather-resistant waxed canvas sheath to protect them and ensure their longevity. A certified B Corp, Barebones creates a range of high-quality products that help connect people to food, nature and the primal pull of the campfire. barebonesliving.com.au…

Gardens The best ideas often feel inevitable, don't they? Concepts so smart, so simple and so clearly needed, it's bizarre to discover they don't already exist. So it is with Farm My School, on Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula, that's turning underutilised land at secondary schools into commercially viable, regenerative market gardens farmed by and for local communities. Co-founded by permaculturist Ben Shaw and regenerative educator James McLennan, Farm My School began in 2018 as a way to challenge globalised food systems, mitigate climate change, and bring regenerative small-scale farming back to the heart of local communities. By enlisting help from schools and surrounding communities, the program connects local people and organisations through volunteering that helps establish a school's market garden, which in turn creates a living wage for a regenerative farmer…

What I like about you Architect: Geoffrey Bawa In the late 1990s I visited Sri Lanka a number of times and, though he was in very poor health, briefly met that island's most famous architectural son, Geoffrey Bawa. It was during one of these visits that I spent a day at Lunuganga, his home and extensive gardens on the south-west coast, which he developed over a 50-year period. The seminal work Geoffery Baw a by Brian Brace Taylor (revised edition, 1995) postulated that Lunguganga and the house at 33rd Lane—Bawa's Colombo house and final office-were two manifestations of the same idea, to combine and interweave gardens and architecture. Having grown up in the discrete suburban houses of Melbourne, Bawa's architecture, and the traditional architecture of Sri Lanka more generally, was…