2012 GreenSmart Award finalist x2

-
Principle 10: Use and value diversity


Richard and Peter with the certificates at yet another owner-build collaboration in Tallarook
"Owner-Building is an important part of the building industry, and has many benefits beyond the experience and possible cost savings. In recent years, both the banking industry and the building industry associations have made it tougher for Owner-Builders. This is regrettable for Australia."
- Peter Lockyer GreenSmart professional, architect and builder.

When Peter Lockyer suggested that we enter Abdallah House into the HIA GreenSmart Awards, I laughed. Not just because the HIA represents the industrial housing system - which is the opposite angle of where we are coming from, but because of the really tight deadline that we had to make the submission - two days! Frankly, I felt that the effort would be a waste of time  - I was wrong.

In the rush that followed we put together a half-decent submission. The award would only recognise Peter, being a member of HIA GreenSmart, while I am not. Still, we made our submission pointing out that the project was a collaboration. When our submission was received we got this message from one of the co-ordinators "The home looks, and obviously is, amazing!", which gave us a bit of a lift.

A month later we were informed that we were finalists in the Custom Built Homes and Resource Efficiency categories, the only two that we entered. We were invited to the Awards at Chouder Bay on Sydney Harbour. While initially Peter was keen and I wasn't, it was I who went with my partner Kunie. A trip to Sydney for lunch, the least sustainable thing that I've done since I started the project.


'Sergeants Mess', for a business attire function
As neither of us own a suit, this was the best we could come up with. Photo: Maureen Corbett
Making the most of our long journey we caught the ferry across to Manly to check out the sunset and beach

In a strange coincidence we bumped into Maureen Corbett (our energy assessor) and her partner in Circular Quay. I had a couple of spare tickets for the function and managed to wangle them in. We certainly looked out of place, it was quite amusing.

While we didn't win any awards, we did have quite an adventure. When you look at the competition that we were up against (and the money that they spent) it's pretty amazing the we got as far as we did on a shoestring. See the winners for the Custom Built Homes and Resource Efficiency

Getting into the awards pushed us to open the house up for the Sustainable House Day, and submit some info to the local newspapers. This article appeared in the North Central Review a couple of days before the Awards, in which Abdallah House is declared as a "landmark in sustainability and clean living". Wow.
North Central Review - 4th September 2012

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crazy paving with urbanite

-
Image
Principle 11: Use edges and value the marginal I collected a large pile of concrete which had been sitting out the front for a number of years. It had become habitat for snails mainly. Originally the concrete blocks were footpaths from around the original house, so they hadn't traveled far. This material is more commonly known as 'urbanite', and is used in some pretty creative ways . I've been thinking about creating a space for an outdoor kitchen for some time now, and figured that I really needed a paved area in between the shed and cellar to set it up. The urbanite seemed like the perfect answer, allowing me to clean up around the front and create a great space round the back. My mate Dylan suggested that I make up a form and mortar mix to set the concrete block pieces onto. Seemed like a good idea to me, so after thinking about it for a few months and with summer just about to start, I decided to get stuck into it. After clearing the space I set up a
Read more

The 'Super Fridge' (upright freezer conversion)

-
Image
Principle 12: Creatively use and respond to change I'm one for trying out different things, and I like to see what we can get away with before committing to something bigger and 'better'. Fridges and freezers are one of the biggest energy consumers in the household - usually behind heating / cooling and hot water systems. Our upright freezer to fridge conversion in action We've trialed a number of fridge systems here before settling on the upright freezer conversion. First we used an old 150lt bar fridge that used around 670Wh per day Then we bought a 150lt chest freezer (using around 466Wh per day) for preserving bulk food - with the idea of a possible conversion. Our bar fridge died two weeks later so we used ice from our freezer to create a 'ice box bar fridge' We then tried a smaller old Engel fridge (about 50lt) that I had in the Kombi that used about 420Wh per day. After not being entirely satisfied with any of the above I finally decided
Read more

Cool cupboard completed

-
Image
Principle 7: Design from patterns to details The cool cupboard project has been a very long one. While it demonstrates most of the permaculture design principles I thought that I'd focus on 'Design from Patterns to Details' because it really was the way in which the project evolved and was finally completed. The design was inspired by the cool cupboard that I saw at Melliodora, the home of David Holmgren and Su Dennett. David includes a section about the design of his cupboard in his eBook about the property. Since then I've seen other designs that use the same principles including a pantry in an old house near Sheparton that had a mesh covered hole in the floor and one that was covered up in the ceiling and 'Adelaide House' in Alice Spings which I visited in 2004 and wrote this short report on for my Permaculture Diploma: My cupboard is based more on David Holmgren's design, with a few differences. It draws air through the cellar (with a water tan
Read more