This beautiful contemporary all-electric, biophilic strawbale home is off-grid with completely self-sufficient power, water and waste all-electric AND has just been officially Certified Passivhaus Premium!

Passivhaus Premium Certification means the home generates more renewable energy than it uses – and this is the first strawbale home in Australia that has reached this standard.

Could this be one of Australia’s most sustainable homes? Could this be a truly regenerative development?
The intention was not only to do less bad, but also to do more good; exploring what’s possible for the future of housing.
Doesn’t it just look like another beautiful home?
Our clients do think it’s lovely to live in (and that is important!) but this home’s real beauty is more about what you can’t see. Its inner beauty – its genuine ethical responsibility and loving kindness towards people and the planet – is what really makes it shine.

The brief was to design an efficient and self-sufficient home on a beautiful remote site in Ruffy, Victoria (Taungurong Country) that had a low carbon footprint as it was off-grid. It would function as a weekender, and become their permanent residence after retirement, including separate guest accommodation. It needed to be resilient and future-proof – secure and protected from bushfire, responsive to a changing climate, and able to adapt to age in place.

What started as a brief for an off-grid “strawbale home” soon led to the Passivhaus standard to ensure the home was healthy, comfortable and energy efficient. So the aim was for a real regenerative ethos.
The site also has lovely views in all directions! Whilst important to maximise solar gain from the north, we needed to capture the south views too! This posed a new challenge – was it possible to achieve a net-zero-carbon, off-grid Passivhaus built using bio-based materials, with south-facing glazing?!

The design balances the integration of Passive Solar Design Principles with the site constraints and local climatic conditions – view, orientation, site slope, sun, wind and rain. It has been designed with zoning of spaces, creating a flexibility of use with one wing of the house occupied by its permanent residents whilst the second wing can adapt to fulfill the needs of visiting family and friends when required

Some of the benefits/credentials that you won’t see in a photo:

• True Zero Carbon Home
• All-electric home (no gas!)
• Self-sufficient with Solar PV
• Passivhaus Plus standard
• Low Operational Energy
• Low/No heating/cooling 
• Passive Solar Design
• Low embodied-carbon 
• Less construction waste
• Healthy indoor air quality
• A modest sized home 170m2 TFA
• Biophilic Design
• Non-toxic materials
• Sustainable refuge 
• Bushfire-resistant
• An accessible dwelling
• Self-sufficient with water harvesting, and wastewater disposal
• Regenerating the land 
• Self-sufficient with growing food too