Bethanga House / t UG workshop

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+ 11

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Text description provided by the architects. Encampment

The site is located on the shore of Lake Hume, an artificial agricultural water body created in 1936 at the base of the Australian Alps.

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The new house is the owner’s primary dwelling. The owner announced his idea in 2004. “A low energy house, before the end of the decade,,,and the other things.” tUG developed a first principle solution to the problem of the idea – a concrete interior to act as a moderating radiator.

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The House has an attic bedroom over a basement wine cellar with a ground floor, not between, but beside. Eating, Cooking and Drinking occur in a single triangular space.

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In the centre is a courtyard (Kopor) designed by the Indigenous Artist Kevin O’Brien. The house U-turns around Kopor (trans. Belly Button – Language of Meriam Mir, Torres Strait) in acceptance that dwelling in Australia occurs in de-ritualised Country.

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Kopor is made of rock (Beechworth Granite) cut from Country – weathering iron-oxide amber. Kopor momentarily touches reflectively the panorama in a triangle window eliminating in-between land (farm) to make a place only near and far.

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Environmental Statement

The building was designed to be energy efficient by avoiding orthodox Australian construction techniques (massive thermal bridges) - instead it Aggregates Masonry as a Platform dressed with an Isothermic Shell forming a tent and with Infiltration Sealing toward Passivehaus Standards.