home : : Australian architecture: Built around the Tuckeroo
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Denese Bottrell
Denese isn't a designer and doesn't live in Australia but she visits us often. She's also so passionate about thoughtful design that she's committed a good part of her career to it.
She believes that while there is a science behind green design, equally important is confidently creating a space you’ll love. After all, if you love it, you'll take care of it and maybe even pass it along to someone else. She says that’s the ultimate in sustainable, green design.
Denese lives in Tucson, Arizona just south of Frank LLoyd Wright’s Foundation in Scottsdale. When she’s not scouring design blogs and magazines, she helps companies create more thoughtful, human voices through their blogs and brands. ThoughtfulContent.
Denese isn't a designer and doesn't live in Australia but she visits us often. She's also so passionate about thoughtful design that she's committed a good part of her career to it.
She believes that while there is a science behind green design, equally important is confidently creating a space you’ll love. After all, if you love it, you'll take care of it and maybe even pass it along to someone else. She says that’s the ultimate in sustainable, green design.
Denese lives in Tucson, Arizona just south of Frank LLoyd Wright’s Foundation in Scottsdale. When she’s not scouring design blogs and magazines, she helps companies create more thoughtful, human voices through their blogs and brands. ThoughtfulContent.
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Australian architecture: Built around the TuckerooDesign Ambassador, Shane Denman, chose Fingal House as his Ambassador’s Choice this month for the way the design wraps around a 135-year old tree to really blur inside and out. |
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The changing seasonal patterns and a close relationship with the environment have become part of everyday living at Fingal House. That’s largely due to designer Justin Twohill’s philosophy that dwellings should closely interact with their environment while working with the local intricacies including climactic patterns, solar paths, topography, flora and fauna. “He’s really captured the feeling of being quite a modest house that feels grand when you’re there. With the blur between inside and out - you really feel like the whole site is the house, which is fantastic.”  Interacting with the environmentThe entire design of Fingal House centres around a 135 year old Tuckeroo Tree native to Queensland.“The house has been centred on that tree to give a fantastic outlook from the main house, off the deck and from inside.” “You just feel like you are in the natural environment most of the time with the large glass panels above which let in the natural light that’s filtered through this big tree and other trees on the property.”  Natural cooling systemBuilt on the sand dunes of Fingal Head in northern NSW, the foundations of Fingal House use a screwpile system with a sub-floor structure of bearers and joists.This means that the home is elevated above the natural ground slightly.”This allows the breezes and ventilation through under it because it is quite a hot area in the summertime.” Sticking with a classic Queensland style design, Fingal House is almost a single room that makes full use of ventilation and natural airflow, without the need for air-conditioning. “They just rely on the natural breezes and the mezzanine level is actually a home office. It would be quite warm up there if they couldn’t get the breezes through so the use of high level ventilation really can dump all the hot air out quite quickly.” “On the other side of the lounge room you can open the windows which are up at the level of the lap pool. The lap pool is actually above the ground level so that the breezes can all be dragged across that water for evaporative cooling so that’s a great design feature as well and the house feels big when it’s only quite small.” “Denman also points out that instead of “agreat big garage that’s going to stop any of the breezes going through” Twohill designed a lightweight carport and minimised fencing to maximise the breezes.  Built on a moderate budgetWhile Denman wasn’t privy to the actual budget, he says that the biggest expense for Fingal House would have been the steel structure and the lap pool.However he explains that the use of traditional, standard materials with simple detailing including the hot dip galvanised steel, natural decking and plywood ceilings from sustainable forests kept the construction of Fingal House within a moderate budget. “All those things do make the house feel like a nice beach house but they do save on cost as well.”
Fingal HouseDesigner: Justin Twohill Designs Website: www.justintwohill.com Photos: Justin Twohill |
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