When I bought this block it was really quite affordable compared to smaller
green grassy blocks and I couldn't understand why and then the locals said it's just
because it's all rocky but secretly I would have paid extra for the rocks.
There was a nice natural
flat spot almost at the top just below the ridge line that was screaming for a house to be built.
There's even along the ridge rocks with river pebbles in them and I'm
told that means a long long time ago that was part of a river or a creek.
I promised council I would do a side cut so I could tuck the building into the hill.
The house as it's weathering, the steel's uh blending in with the rocks and the dirt up here,
and I'm hoping the earthworks will soon look like we haven't been here.
The house is a long rectangle, we have 24 metres of Nort facing glass and
here you wake up and you come out of the darker rooms at the back and the views of the sun coming
up over Bulla are pretty amazing, there's a lot of mornings you're just like 'whoa'.
In the centre of the room is the the kitchen and then at the East end is the living room and then
a more sheltered outdoor area and there's another outdoor fireplace which heats a little hot tub.
Behind that you walk into a hallway and the East end is the master bedroom
with an ensuite and then a longish corridor with all the kids bedrooms.
Half the house is built like a bunker and you can hide from the weather and
then the other half of the house is a glass box so it doesn't take away from what you
saw when you would come up and visit the site with nothing on it, you can still see all of the views.
We have an entrance courtyard and a garage that face
West. The West is nice you get lovely sunsets but it is also
that's where the more aggressive weather comes from and that's why I put the garage up that end.
The traditional country house with the verandas the whole way around and the
eaves the whole way around, that makes a lot of sense and this is sort of a
version of that because you do need that up here to protect you from the weather.
Having spent time up here living in the shipping container,
knowing how cold and how hot it gets, I had to build something that would
handle the wind and the wild weather and be able to perform being off grid.
The screens at the West end swivel so I can adjust them as the sun sets in different locations
and then there are some screens along the front which slide. I play with the positions and we're
trying to find the right balance of blending the building with the landscape but still getting
as much solar energy and solar heat gain as we could to keep the building working.
What's cool is you're off grid up here because you have to be and the thermal
mass plays a massive role in this house, we can store so much heat or cool that the building,
it doesn't react too quickly to what the outside temperature does so you can keep on top of it.
Having a big roof space we have a big catchment for water, we have three concrete water tanks
that are buried. We buried them because I like the idea that there was just one
box sitting on top of the hill.
This building is just concrete floors, concrete blocks, plywood and raw steel.
Just different versions of that is is all there is to the whole house. Materials
that are easy to get and are tough and rugged and weather well in an environment like this.
This house was designed to be really careful and use materials well.
There's not one off cut from this ceiling, it's all full sheets of plywood and
exact half sheets of plywood. There's no wastage and the island bench was the exact size a sheet
of steel came in and that didn't have to be cut the sheet lengths six metres by 1200.
The bench top is coated with oil so it doesn't rust but the rest is
just raw and with the help of a friend of mine
who runs a laser cutter in Melbourne we came up with a cabinet size and a door size
and depth that got the most you could out of a sheet of plywood with the least amount of waste.
The dimensions were also worked out that the blocks on the walls are all full blocks,
half blocks or quarter blocks. The top row of blocks they have ducting on the other side of
them. The rooms along the back they're all South facing, they always stay cool. They're warmed when
I turn on the transfer fans and suck the warm air out of the living room. There are also some
of the blocks positioned on their side to allow some of the light to trickle into the hallway.
I like the idea that this building is simple and that every part of it is on show, there's
the structures on show and the way it works is on show and even down to the pipes, you see where the
electricity comes down the wall and you see where the hot and cold comes down the wall.
The bathroom has worked well the hot water comes down from the ceiling and then becomes a towel
rail and then goes back to the shower head so when you're having a shower your towel is also
being heated up at the same time and it's not just there to be tricky it actually does work.
We also have to have fly screens because we're in a bushfire
zone. You have to stop embers from a fire far away flying into your house.
So I needed to make a blind that would also be a fly screen, so I'm with the plywood did like
a timber shutter and then they have a door in the door that if you open you can see a fly screen.
I think it's more common now that things aren't built to last and
I wonder if we'll be passing as much stuff down to our kids or our grandkids.
Everything I do I try and build things that will last forever, I try and build a lot of my own
furniture and I try and build them tough enough without looking too rugged but strong enough
that'll last a long time. So I do like the idea that this building I think is strong enough and
powerful enough that it will be here forever and I think we'll only get better with age.
One day my kids will have this house when they're older and
grandkids will still be coming to this house.
Yeah I think this house will only get better over time.
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