LOCATION

Bremer Bay, is the location of this new home construction. Bremer Bay is a coastal town situated on the south coast of Western Australia in the Great Southern region between Albany and Esperance, at the mouth of the Bremer River. Bremer Bay is 515 kilometres southeast of the state capital, Perth, and 180 kilometres east of Albany. The town has a population of about 240. Electricity is generated by a wind-diesel hybrid system.

Short beach W.A.

BACKGROUND

If you allow me a little indulgence, I will try to give a short background on the history of our project and the evolution of it to the present day.

We bought the block at auction in 2011 because of the orientation (E/NE), the view and close access to a pretty little beach called “Short Beach”. Also, the size of about 8 ha (20 acres) would give us a bit of privacy and room to move.

View: Short Beach & Glassy Island

Back door peg

N/E Point profile

N/E Point. Trees may have to go

Time to start clearing

EARLY DAYS – SITE PREPARATION

Vegetation going ..

…gone

Cleared Site

Site prep in progress

THE DESIGNER /ARCHITECT

Next step, to find a designer to bring to life our vision. From an internet search, enter Peter Downes  Peter Downes’ Website.  I liked his philosophy to design: “Never Live In A Boring House Again”. Peter flew  across the country from Sydney NSW and stayed with us for a while to get a feel for the site and Bremer Bay. The brief simply, was for him to  design a 4 bedroom house to capture the view from as many rooms as was possible.

We were lucky in that there was no boundary hindrances and so the house could be as imaginative as he liked. We were happy with his concept, which incorporated the E/NE aspect and so was solar passive, and with  high windows on the E/NE side, together with the  windows facing E/SE on the back of the house (where the sea breeze comes from) we will have a wonderful crossflow ventilation…..  with amazing views!!

Peter went back to Sydney, and working  with us he completed the design.

THE HOUSE PLANS

Early design

The idea begins to evolve

Winter sunlight penetration

North Elevation

Bottom room added

Final N elevation

As building height restrictions applied, and the house would sit on a naturally high hill, it was decided to go with the gull-wing roof and box gutter to lower the profile. And because there was now no roof space to house any ducting for a reverse cycle air con system, a new search began for an alternative.

FINDING A PROJECT MANAGER

The micro-planning remained fluid because we had no idea how it would be built, how we would heat it and how we would be incorporating the windows into this semi-elliptical design. The shape also posed many questions (to us anyway) on how easy it would be to meld our cabinetry  with the walls.

Glass problems/solutions were handed to Brad Deere whose company Mandurah Glass were going to work their magic.

We needed a builder that was able to be on site and project manage from start to finish. He would need to be able to problem solve, (as we assumed there would be many along the way)  to discuss and talk things out  with us , be patient with us and the build, be passionate about his craft and not just want to build another square brick and tile house and move on. He also needed to put up with me being on site.

Enter Nino Amato, from Katanning, who seemed to fit all the above criteria.