The environment here is beautiful but the elements are often harsh. Balancing the functionality needed for a busy family home on a productive farm with making the most of the views, providing shelter and ensuring protection from overheating was a challenge the architect relished.
This off-grid farmhouse sits on a ridge with dramatic views to the west, across eucalypt forests to two extinct volcanoes on the horizon. Its unique design stretches three fingers out over the landscape.
The fortress-like, curved rammed earth wall is all that can be seen of the house upon arrival. The views are suddenly revealed on entering the private domain of the home. This strong mass wall visually anchors the building to the site and links the outstretched fingers. The window openings in the earth wall create a colonnade that echoes the rhythm of the railway trestle bridge spanning the nearby creek.
This construction is a SIREWALL (Structural Insulated Rammed Earth), a modern variation on an ancient building technique. EPS with an insulation value of R2.0 is sandwiched between layers of rammed earth. Together with the insulated concrete slab (polished and exposed in living areas), this provides a lot of thermal mass that buffers indoor temperatures. Underfloor hydronic heating ensures thermal comfort even on the coldest winter nights. It was important to the owners that the whole house be easily heated.
The home needed to gracefully accommodate three teenagers (their parents joked they might never leave home) and this is achieved through the physical structure of the three fingers, which house bedrooms and a kids’ rumpus/media/music room. There’s space for their grandparents to visit too.
The form makes the most of the views on offer and also ensures each bedroom can drink up the maximum winter sun. Winters are long in the Ballarat region! The fingers create outdoor areas that offer shelter from the cold southerly winds. The different bedroom wings are linked by a sweeping hallway that runs along the length of the rammed earth wall. Cladding is a mixture of corrugated metal–a homage to the humble farm shed typology—and radial sawn Victorian ash, an abundant native hardwood that is sustainably harvested.
This home was built in 2018. Envirotecture would now use Passivhaus Planning Package software (PHPP) to energy model a new home, even if the project wasn’t seeking Passivhaus certification. PHPP accurately predicts energy use and people’s comfort and helps architects get the best performance for the client’s budget.
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