The Kingfisher is a four bedroom family home located in Ferny Grove, Queensland.
Winner: 2017 HIA Awards – Brisbane Region – Custom Built House $300K – $500K
Home owners, Tobias and Hilke Volbert, contacted Sustainable to deliver an environmentally friendly, open plan design home that captured the Queensland lifestyle they had fallen in love with.
Kingfisher House sits on an oblong shaped 1,100m2 north-east facing block with a 400m2 nature corridor along the rear boundary, and slopes to the east.
Using the Recipe Housing approach, minimal earthworks were required as the design steps down with the natural slope of the site.
High ceiling pitches unify the building design and maximise air flow through the space. Pods for living areas and connecting breezeways are light filled and have views to the dry-creek bed and planting surrounding the building. The kitchen and main living pod has a large outdoor deck wrapping around to create an integrated indoor-outdoor entertainment space and to capture the breeze from the gully below. Sliding doorways connect spaces between pods and to the outdoors, and provide flexibility within each space that can adapt as our family grows.
Sustainability
In addition to passive heating and cooling, Kingfisher House has been purposely designed for sustainable living over a 25 year lifecycle, with the design considering changes to climate over that period. The house was positioned to reference Solar North to optimise solar generation, and all three of the rooves pitched to further maximise solar power generation. A total of 24 solar panels were fitted.
Recycled or ecologically sourced materials contributed to reducing the build’s ecological footprint as well as provided character, such as bamboo flooring and recycled timber beams in the 5m high ceilings.
Want to know more? Watch the short documentary on the making of the Kingfisher House here.
View the benefits of Recipe Housing here.
