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The Challenges
When architect Matt Riley first saw the 25-acre property at Cedar Creek in the picturesque Samford Valley west of Brisbane, he had a vision of designing a sustainable ‘off the grid’ home for his growing family of six.
“Primarily we wanted the house to be as sustainable as possible and as open as possible while blending into the landscape,” Matt said.
“We designed the home to be long and low, orientated to the North / North West, so that it would sit into the sloping site to maximise the all-encompassing views and engagement with the surrounding landscape.
“We took mid-century modern inspirations to design courtyards, decks and other hard landscape spaces that blended the inside and outside spaces.
“We needed to meet the requirements of BAL (bushfire safety) while minimising the damage to the surrounding bush environment during the build process.
“Given the general isolation of the project, we also needed a prefinished panel system that minimised delivery, time on site to lock up and enabled hand-based construction rather than machine assisted.”
Bondor’s LuxeWall®, InsulWall®, SolarSpan®, BondorPanel® insulated panel and roofing products provided Matt with all he needed to make his ‘off grid’ vision a reality.
Check out this stunning project, as featured on Open Homes Australia here.
*Photo credit: Christopher Frederick Jones
The Solution
The end result is a stunning mid-century modern-inspired four bedroom, three bathroom home with a guest studio, home office, media room and a double garage / car port.
The home is separated into a living area pavilion and sleeping area pavilion, which is connected by a breezeway space centred on a converted precast water tank swimming pool surrounded by a timber deck.
The home is completely off-grid and is self-sufficient for power, waste and water, featuring Solar, an Ozzi Kleen waste treatment system and 45,000 litre rainwater tanks.
The house was masterfully constructed by Aaron Griggs and the team from Lions Pride Building, who have had experience using some of the Bondor product range previously.
Aaron’s dedication to the project is evident in the quality of the finishes. The Lions Pride team bought practical solutions to achieve some of the unique details evident in the design.
“We used SolarSpan® roofing – the trimdek profile colour COLORBOND® Basalt® and simple skillion pitch roof allowed the roofline to follow and blend in with the natural sloping contour of the site,” Matt said.
“It provided insulation and enabled clear simple spans without structure to improve construction time. The underside profile’s elegance allowed for the mid-century (country style) theme to be introduced to the home offering texture and light.
“Insulwall® for the walls allowed for a unified structural insulated panel system, which with the COLORBOND® steel Surfmist® Matt finish, enabled a durable and prefinished wall. Great with kids in mind.
“Luxewall® was used to finish and insulate the recycled shipping containers we used in the project for service / wet areas and the guest studio.”
Other Bondor panels were used for window hoods and awnings these provided a simple method to provide shade and weather protection for the windows on the flat façade and creates 3D effects to the façade.
“We’re only 30 kilometres outside of the city yet we’re completely off the grid; I often joke with the kids that we could survive the zombie apocalypse here,” Matt said.
Open Homes Australia, Season 7
