2022 Houses Awards: Sustainability

Jury comment

This house sets a new standard for practical and measurable sustainability, delivering an oasis-like family home on a challenging site that aspires to both net-zero energy and carbon neutrality.

With a rail corridor immediately adjacent to the site and a noisy road nearby, the building strategy was to counter the busy locale with high-performance fabric and systems. The finished project represents the opportunities of sustainable development over the sacrificial mindset that often ensues.

The home delivers an aspirational objective of ultra-low environmental impact, including consideration of its inhabitants’ comfort and wellbeing, and offers a resilient environment ready for the trials of a harsh and changing climate. The CLT fabric and extensive natural finishes both reduce embodied energy and enhance biophilic outcomes, and the obvious deliberation is to be commended. The use of simple but high-performance technologies and dematerialization further enhance the credentials.

With a very small internal footprint of just 78 square metres, the home exemplifies the sustainable ideal of doing more with less, and the site selection and response represent gentle urban densification for deliberate small-footprint living. The house generates a significant portion of its own energy on-site, which is especially commendable given the vertical scale. The considered garden complements the house with natural beauty and multifunctional approach, including the accessible green roof.

Hütt 01 Passivhaus is a place where its occupants can thrive, and it exemplifies a new standard with no sacrifice of architectural outcome.

The Award for Sustainability is supported by Sussex. See full image galleries of all the winning and shortlisted projects here.

The Hütt 01 Passivhaus is built on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people.

Project credits

Architect: Melbourne Design Studios Project team: Marc Bernstein-Hussmann, Felicity Bernstein Builder: Hütt in collaboration with G-Lux Builders and Felicity Bernstein Structural engineer: GCE Landscape consultant: Eckersley Garden Architecture Water-sensitive urban design: Biofilta Life cycle assessment: Clare Parry