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AStudy inContrAStS
New and old, light and dark.Brian Steendyk used his own housein inner-city Brisbane to put someof his ideas about sustainabilityand aesthetics to the test.
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t the rear of the house,the bedroos ad vgsaces ejoy a deaorth-east asect. Beeaththe garde are 14,000 tresof rawater ta odues. hot, dry days a waterfeature hes re-coo areterg the house throughevaorato. he waterfeature ad garde bedsare art of a cocreteretag wa set agastthe adjog roerty.
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tWelve years ago, architect Brian steendyk
bought a cottage in Brisbane’s Spring Hill. It wasfreezing in winter and riddled with termites and borers, but it had potential. Brian would sit on his back (northfacing) steps and think how glorious it was to have acoffee in the winter sun.“I knew I could do something to turn it around,”he recalls. “All buildings talk to you and there are things you learn by inhabiting them.”Fast forward to today. Brian still enjoys his coffeein the winter sun but in his living room, not on the backstep. The house has been transformed, and in many ways it has become his own personal experiment insustainable housing.“When I started, things like water tanks and solarhot water were expensive. I was building sustainably because I wanted to have this house as a manifesto, as astatement of belief of what you can achieve.“I recycle as much as I can but at the end of the day,once it goes beyond my bin you don’t know where itgoes. So this project was one thing I could control. It was important to me to actually do it for myself andlearn from the experience. I started to build as an owner builder so I implicitly knew what the line on the drawingmeant.”The front stone wall was built from Brisbane tuff stone (a local building stone) sourced from the back yard, the chimney and the outhouse. “By recycling withthese foundation stones we were using history to informthe building. I think buildings should tell a history, tell where they’ve been. Some people get concerned if they put in a new floor and they have an old portion of thehouse that has two different timbers – but that’s thedelight. Because then you can unveil its history.“The way I devised this house was old and new,respect though contrast. The original house was an 1875 worker’s cottage. I had to breathe new life into it and atthe same time I wanted to respect and prolong its life.“Lifecycle perspective of material selection was alsoa priority. As well, I wanted to use very low maintenancematerials.“The flooring in the bathrooms is Corian (a solidsurface by DuPont), not ceramic tiles. That has been a
“Lifecycle perspective of material selection was a priority. I also wanted to use very low maintenance materials.”
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godsend from so many perspectives. You only need toclean one flat surface and if it scuffs you can use bakingsoda or water and vinegar to clean it down. Tiles andgrout can require caustic cleaners.“The existing timber house was always highmaintenance and you can’t do anything about that, butthe rest of the house, such as the concrete, is low to nomaintenance. With concrete I also don’t have to worry about termites.”The house sits astride a hill. Raising it half a level sothat it sat above the ground on the high side eliminatedsome termite problems. The old timber house now sitsatop concrete walls, separated from them by a steelframe with a glass clerestory window that ties the timbercottage to its concrete base.On the low side of the slope the floor level of thehouse is dug into the ground half a level. Brian saysthat this, combined with the concrete, gives the housethermal mass. “Now we don’t need a heater in winter.The awning at the back allows the winter sun in, and when the sun is higher in summer and more vertical itexcludes it. In winter, the sun comes all the way to theinternal back wall. In summer it stays out.”The home’s aesthetics were also a majorconsideration for Brian, a designer as well as anarchitect, and a believer that a beautiful living space canimprove quality of life.“The composition of the house from an aestheticperspective was an issue as far as using concrete.Concrete is a cold material. The contemporary ‘minimalist’ design aesthetic requires the extensive useof white with concrete. But in south-east Queensland, if you get sun on white you need sunglasses!“White works in a European context where you aretrying to maximise the sun, but in Queensland I think weshould actually use dark colours to reduce the reflection,as well as add visual warmth.“You can see in this house that all colours are dark,and the house has soul. The concrete could have beenstark and cold, but because of the dark colours it actively complements the rest of the composition, along with thetimber used in the internal joinery.“With my own home I could experiment, as well asmonitor what works, what doesn’t, and from that comes what I would recommend for my clients.”As Brian says, he’s put his money where his mouth is.
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