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SpartanStyle

In the coldest reaches of Gippsland a modest newhome makes the most of its stunning surrounds byusing colour, light and simple design principles.

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LocaLs in this Part of giPPsLand say that the

rain falls for 51 weeks of the year, and drips off the trees forthe remaining week. That’s enough to deter some, but forothers, cool green Gippsland is their very idea of paradise.It was in Neerim East, in the Victorian pastoralheartland, that a Melbourne couple found the perfect blockfor their home. However it would be 12 years before Michaeland Robina built a permanent dwelling on the site; in themeantime they weekended in an unpowered shack in aforest clearing on the block.Ryan Strating of Tasmania-based Core Collective washired to design the house, a happy coincidence as he’dgrown up nearby. Michael and Robina’s brief to Ryan wasfor a modern house with a theme of “durable rudiment”.To Michael, this implied a “simple, spartan place, yet stillmodern: spaceship stuff, not haybale”. Ryan puts it another way, “The design had to be elegant and adaptable, and thematerials had to be simple and low maintenance”.To that end, the form of the building is a simple,extended rectangle that mimics the look of a rural shelter, built with materials that will endure with little or nomaintenance. These include metal cladding and unfinishedconcrete blockwork in the meeting room and living area,solid timber joinery in the kitchen and bathroom, and highlevels of thermal mass throughout.Ryan adds that the house is in a fire-prone area, and thematerials extend the house’s durability “not just to normal wear and tear but to extreme events”.Due to the site’s remoteness, all power, water and waste needed to be taken care of onsite. Water is collectedin three 27,000 litre tanks; treated waste is dispersed via asystem of trenches and reintegrated into the soil. A 1.5kW solar panel array and an inverter provide power and there’sa diesel generator for backup during winter if necessary. A wood stove offers a boost to the solar hot water during longovercast periods.While there is electricity to meet daily needs, it can’tcompete with a grid-connected building. This didn’t deterthe occupants. “We don’t need hair straighteners, sandwichmakers or clothes driers,” says Robina, “and we know how to use candles!” Ryan adds, “The house requires a certaindegree of mindfulness and careful consideration to live with, and the result is worth so much more: living an elegantand simple life in a beautiful place.”The house is surrounded by scrubby ash, messmateand wattle bush, which brings a high fire risk. The house’slocation in a clearing on the ridgeline was chosen inpart to provide fire protection, and further “passive”fire protection is built into the property. Fire-resistantmaterials like toughened double glazing, double masonry and metal cladding were used throughout the house. Anexisting pump from a spring-fed dam in the bush provides water to a dedicated fire-fighting water tank on site, a CFA requirement. [Ed note: A good source of information forfire-ready new building standards is available at www. buildingcommission.com.au.]Michael and Robina envisaged the house as a dual-use building: both a family home (for them and their teenagedaughter) and a conference facility for city workers. A spacious meeting room was designed as a space where“eight to fifteen people could kick ideas around in view of the landscape, eat lunch, have recreational walks aroundthe bush paths and get back to the south-east suburbs of Melbourne by 5pm,” says Michael.The meeting room has an unrendered south wall inline with the theme of “durable rudiment”, with a row of tall, north-facing double-glazed windows looking out ontospectacular views of Mt Toorongo and the Baw Baw plateau.Meanwhile the east-facing wall opens as a massive dooronto an outdoor terrace.Ryan explains that the idea behind the large door fromthe meeting room to the outside terrace “was to encouragegroups to spill out onto the terrace. We wanted to createmaximum openness between the two spaces, so we madethe wall into a door. It’s insulated like a wall, but hinged likea door. The view is wonderful in that direction.”Two modest bedrooms, a cosy living area, a bathroomand an elegant kitchen complete the house. The solid timberkitchen was built by Ryan’s brother, and incorporatesrecycled light fittings from Michael’s grandfather’s house.The bathroom is a self-contained room between the livingarea and the meeting room, which allows light to flood inthrough the north-facing windows. Doors and windows were sited to permit the through-flow of cool breezes insummer, and to bunker up and hold the heat during winter.“It’s 17 to 22 degrees all the time,” says Robina. “There’sno need for a fire on cold nights.” For one of the coldest, wettest parts of Victoria, that’s an impressive achievement.

he meeting room in thehouse has a large, fullyopenable door. he dooracts as both wall and doorand allows the meeting roomto be fully openable to theviews. t cost around $3,000fully installed.

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he house is completelyo-grid with 81,000 litres ofwater storage and a 1.5kWsolar panel array with dieselbackup.

he house is tiled with aForbo marmoleum ooringin merald ($76.40 per sqm).Forbo marmoleum is lowmaintenance, C certied,emits very low to low VCs(depending on the adhesivesyou use) and is made fromnatural materials. here are noheavy metals in the pigments.

“We don’t need hair straighteners,sandwich makers or clothes driers,and we know how to use candles!”