Off-grid, warm in winter, cool in summer, and entirely self-sufficient – when Jess from Jessica Hardwick Architecture designed a home for her parents on a hinterland block above Queensland's Sunshine Coast, the brief left no room for compromise.

"The vision was to create a home that feels generous and warm without being oversized – a place grounded in connection to land, ritual and family," Jess explains.

Designing off-grid meant every decision carried more weight – what went in, how it performed, how it sat within a home that had to sustain itself completely. The fireplace was no exception.

Escea_Legacy_House_Jessica_Hardwick_Architecture_TFS1000_Wood_Fireplace1.jpg — *Legacy House sits quietly in the Sunshine Coast hinterland – off-grid, self-sufficient, and designed to belong to its site.*

A fireplace that earns its place

Off-grid passive homes are carefully balanced systems – solar, batteries, thermal mass, insulation – each playing a role. But all of that careful design can be undone by the wrong fireplace.

Most traditional wood fires draw air from inside the home to keep the fire burning. In a tightly sealed home, there often isn’t enough airflow available, which can affect how the fire burns and creates pressure issues that impact the performance of both the fireplace and the home.

The Escea wood fireplace was designed to avoid this. Its Direct Vent system draws combustion air from outside and exhausts externally. That means no draughts, no internal venting required, and all the warmth stays exactly where it should – inside.

For a home engineered this carefully, the right fireplace wasn’t a footnote to the design. It was central to it.

Escea_Legacy_House_Jessica_Hardwick_Architecture_TFS1000_Wood_Fireplace2.jpg — *The Escea TFS1000 Wood Fireplace anchors the living space without dominating it – visible from the kitchen, present without demanding attention.*

There’s a practical reliability to it that suited Legacy House specifically. Off-grid living means the solar system can only store so much – and long stretches of overcast weather are a reality in any climate. A wood fire asks nothing of the battery. It’s simply there when you need it.

Jess understood the placement mattered as much as the product. The most expansive of Escea’s freestanding range, the TFS1000 wood fireplace, was positioned to radiate warmth directly into the concrete slab – storing heat in the floor to keep the home warm long after the fire has settled.

With the technical brief resolved, the question turned to how it would feel.

Escea_Legacy_House_Jessica_Hardwick_Architecture_TFS1000_Wood_Fireplace3.jpg — *Concrete, tile, timber. The hearth was designed to extend the material language of the home – robust, tactile, grounded.*

Architectural, not ornamental

The fireplace’s clean-lined form suited the home's restrained interior palette – confident without visual weight, architectural without being decorative. The surrounding hearth and joinery were designed to feel robust and tactile, extending the material language of the home: spotted gum linings, stone flooring, and recycled timber crafted by local makers from trees felled on-site.

"The palette was drawn directly from the landscape. The site was previously cleared grazing land, and we wanted the home to feel grounded rather than imposed."

The hearth itself is generous – wide enough to function as a social edge, with space for timber storage, display, and informal gathering. It anchors the long axis of the living space without dominating it.

"It was important that the fireplace felt architectural, not ornamental, reinforcing the calm, enduring quality of the interior."

Escea_Legacy_House_Jessica_Hardwick_Architecture_TFS1000_Wood_Fireplace4.jpg — *Spotted gum, concrete, firelight. The living space in winter, exactly as intended.*

A natural gathering point

Jess’s parents moved into Legacy House in winter. It was everything the brief asked for – and warmer than expected.

Now, the fireplace is the natural gathering point – evenings around fire, the rhythm of slower living, the particular quality of warmth that no other system can replicate. Off-grid living asks a lot of a home. Legacy House delivers – and on the coldest nights, so does the fire.

"It performs exactly as intended, complementing the passive design strategy rather than compensating for it," Jess reflects.

A home grounded in connection to land, ritual and family. The fireplace didn't just fit that vision – it completed it.

Project details

Project: Legacy House

Location: Sunshine Coast Hinterland, QLD

Design: Jessica Hardwick Architecture

Product: TFS1000 Wood Fireplace

Photography: Jessie Ann Harris

Architecture & Design Team

Escea

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