The Illawarra Flame Tree House exemplifies resilient design. Photo: Dee Kramer/UOW
DROUGHTS, FLOODING RAINS & RESILIENT DESIGN By local architect Ben Wollen
“Of droughts and flooding rains.” Dorothea Mackellar’s famous poem My Country always comes to mind when we experience Australia’s weather extremes. Last month, as I wrote about bushfire-resilient design, millions of hectares were on fire as Australia experienced one of its worst bushfire seasons. As I write this month, most of the east coast of NSW is under threat of flooding. There was a time when designing a house was pretty straightforward. It was shaped by locally available materials, trades and generally applied the default regional (or ‘vernacular) style that houses nearby were built in. With climate change in mind, we need to build homes that are resilient to the elements of today and future-proofed for tomorrow. While a sustainably designed home will go a long way to future-proof a house, the new buzzword for future-proofing our homes is ‘resilience’. Resilient design takes into account the historical climate conditions a home needs to account for, and it anticipates the more extreme events to come. Here are three design tips you can use to make a new or older home more resilient: THE ROOF The basic element of a home is that it provides shelter and therefore it goes without saying that a top-down approach is super important! While traditional roof coverings, such as tiles, might be preferred by many home owners, the benefits of a sheet metal roof outweigh those of tiles when it comes to long-term resilience. Pitched roofs are better than flat roofs, but the pitch shouldn’t be so high as to require anyone working on them to have a harness. Ideally, there’s a large roof plane that pitches towards the north so as to accept a good
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bank of solar panels at their optimum angle. A roof should be simple in form and have deep eaves to protect from rain and summer sun. INSULATION It needs to be everywhere and it needs to enclose the entire house – roof, walls, floors and windows. Yes, even windows; think double-glazing, curtains or blinds. The majority of wall insulation in most homes is batt insulation. While it’s effective in between a timber frame, there have been studies to show that up to 10% of heat losses or gains can be through the timber frame. Ideally, it creates a complete and well sealed but breathable envelope, like a new winter thermal onesie. LONG LIFE, LOOSE FIT When it comes to buildings ‘long life, loose fit’ means that the home is built to last but has the ability to suit more than its current set of occupants. This can have many impacts on the overall design, but an example is wider doorways. As the Australian population is ageing and our lifespans get longer, there are more chances that the elderly among us will require walking aids – a standard door width of 820mm doesn’t allow enough clearance for those. Wider doorways with 1m clearance or more will be better placed to allow for the future needs of the home’s occupants (it also makes it easier to move furniture!). Luckily for us, there are two great examples of resilient housing that you can visit at the Innovation Campus of the University of Wollongong: the Illawarra Flame House and the Desert Rose House. You can even book the Illawarra Flame House for an overnight stay. 2515