EcoVillage House Designs, Cape Paterson

7.5 star housing designs founded on research showing that the financial benefits of an environmentally friendly home now far outweigh the costs.

Overview
Specifications

Award for Built Environment – Design Category
Victorian Premier’s Sustainability Awards 2013

Cape Paterson EcoVillage
The Cape (Cape Patterson Ecovillage) was winner of the Victorian Premier’s Sustainability Design Award 2012 and is founded on research showing that sustainable technology has reached a tipping point, where the financial benefits of building and living in an environmentally friendly home now far outweigh the costs.

These first of these house designs on offer to potential buyers has north-south living spaces connecting front and rear yards, each with a generous pergola covered deck and direct pedestrian entry to front door from street and rear parkland alike. The second, a courtyard house design, has living spaces opening onto a generous pergola covered deck to the north and a protected courtyard space to the south, giving shelter in all forms of weather, also with direct pedestrian entry to the front door from street and rear parkland.

Both have three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a double lock-up garage, airlocks to both front and rear doors, a 7.5 star energy rating, 10,000 rainwater tank, and a photovoltaic panel installation of up to 5KW, enough to power the house and an electric vehicle the whole year round.

Against a neutral backdrop of rich painted timber and metallic Zincalume cladding, each house has coloured signature panels painted to match the livery of various local bird species, in these examples the blue wren and the firetail. The idea is that houses closer to the ocean would take colours of local ocean birds such as the silver gull or the albatross, and houses in more protected, vegetated areas would take the colours of native coastal bushland birds such as the firetail, crimson rosella or blue wren.

The ecovillage project includes a huge habitat restoration program, restoring heathland, coastal woodland and wetland habitat, designs highly sustainable housing into the landscape and builds kilometres of walking tracks, parks and community facilities. It encourages an active community engaged lifestyle, and sets up a planning and management framework that protects these initiatives for future generations, setting new standards for sustainability in housing and coexistence with the environment.
Design Specifications
Services Provided
- Detailed Concept Design
Architect
Workshop Architecture
People
Project Team: James Staughton, Tony Styant-Browne, Simone Koch
Visualisation: Workshop Architecture
Date completed
2013
Location
Cape Paterson, Victoria

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