With the original home destroyed in the Black Saturday fires, instead of bulldozing and sending what remained to the tip, Hamilton Design reconstructed an examplar in sustainability. Callignee II’s journey began with reclaiming the embodied energy from the original home and by then employing initiatives including rain water harvesting, solar power and a Biolytic Blackwater system.

Director of Hamilton Design, Sean Hamilton, says they were thrilled to be selected for the Landscape category, especially among such a high calibre of finalists.

“Callignee II has so many sustainable and energy efficient features designed into it, thanks to its bush isolation and therefore independence of services such as electricity, water, gas, and sewer,” says Hamilton.

“The standout sustainability feature is the recycling of existing embodied energy, retained in the salvageable, albeit burnt, bucked and twisted rubble of building materials, structural elements and fabric,” he says.

He explains the key to capturing embodied energy was to allow the home to express a character and ambience that reflected the journey it had travelled.

The judges note how the circumstances and horror of Black Saturday focused the nation’s eye on what to do to recover.

“The Callignee II not only ticks the right boxes, but blows away old notions of ‘recovery’, and with delightful beauty, thumbs its nose at fear.” It is a delightful building that demonstrates a much needed approach to sustainability, and design for the bush.”

 

Special Mention: Castlecrag House by Neeson Murcutt Architects

The judges note how the architects delivered sustainable initiatives and sentimental design aspects intelligently by recycling materials from the client’s grandfather’s old house.
A minimum of 85 per cent of the construction waste was recycled and reused on site including brick façades, sandstone facing, retaining walls and thresholds, timber flooring and joinery units, basins, sinks, appliances and light fittings. The judges say it not only honours the character and topographic response demanded by Walter Burley Griffin’s original, but also honours the original house and makes outstanding reuse of the demolished raw materials.