Hempcrete Retreat

Commendation

New Residential Buildings (up to $500,000)

HEMPCRETE RETREAT

Designer: Kirstie Wulf

Practice: Shelter Building Design Web: shelterbuildingdesign.com.au

DESIGN

The Retreat Home is a comfortable, livable, low energy home. The owners wanted a home that gave them the calm, relaxed and connected to nature feel of being on a meditation retreat. This was achieved through a pavilion style home with the quiet space containing the bedrooms at the front and the busier living spaces at the rear. The pavilions are connected by a covered walkway, which provides an experice of the outdoors but also protection from rain. The pavilions are each a single room deep which enables all bedrooms and living spaces to have north facing windows and good cross ventilation. The central courtyard creates a private north facing outdoor space and provides privacy to the north facing glazed doors of the living pavilion.

The owners wanted the project to be a showcase of sustainability. The walls are constructed of Hempcrete, a material that stores more carbon than is used in its production, as well as providing good insulation and vapour permeable walls. Timber for the kitchen and laundry cupboards and stair treads is ultra local, being from a tree felled on a neighbouring property and milled on site. Recycled materials were used for the floorboards and brick paving and natural lime and clay renders were used to finish the walls. The house is all electric, has solar PV, 10,000L of rainwater tanks and a CO2 refrigerant heat pump provides hot water. The end product is a light and airy house that requires minimal energy to operate.