When you come across clients who are 6’7” tall, father and son who are living in a poorly designed house where they have tin foil on their windows to keep out the sun during the summer months and then freeze in the winter because the house is so cold you realize there is something wrong, very wrong with the project homes and group houses in the world. Yes, I have seen this across the world and it simply comes down to poor design.

We took this house as it was and with sustainability in mind decided to redesign the home so the clients could retire in a home they would find cool in summer and warmer in winter.

It is simple considering the sun never changes, ever since the human race has lived on the earth the sun has always risen on the east and set in the west. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere the sun rises to the North but in the Northern hemisphere, it rises to the South. It never changes and the sun arcs to almost vertical the closer you get to the equator and then goes to around 30 degrees in the winter that is why it is so easy to design and make houses comfortable through the seasons.

This house was no exception and ironically if it had been built in a reversed position it would have been much more comfortable. Rectifying that fact and reversing the design while keeping the footprint we were able to produce a house that would keep comfort all year round.

The design however contravened 3 different Residential Design Codes bylaws laid down by the Building Commission and followed by all councils but the R-Codes are standardized and hold no sensibility in some cases as they don’t consider the effect of the sun otherwise this house would never have been built. We managed to get the council to overlook those 3 points as the clients were so tall. Imagine giants living in standard houses, it would be so uncomfortable for them and the council was good enough to overlook the standards after reading the letter of justification and granted approvals to build.