Mountain views
This is an excerpt from an article in Sanctuary magazine issue 5.
Nestled in the tiny village of Mt. Beauty in the foothills of the Victorian Alpine National Park are the aptly named Dreamers tourist apartments. These self-catering apartments boast the rare accomplishment of meeting all the criteria for a 4-star, AAA accommodation rating while simultaneously attaining a best-practice, 7-star energy rating. Still in its first year of operation, with two apartments open and two more on the way, this luxury accommodation has put environmental sustainability at the forefront of its design.
“Environmental sustainability as we practise it here is site specific. So, for example, we don’t have greywater recycling,” says Malcolm Lee, Dreamers’ building designer and owner, and former lecturer in energy-efficient building design at Melbourne’s Swinburne University. “We’re on a river flat and the water table is only two feet under the ground, so it’s fairly sensitive. Also, with the groundwater so near to the topsoil, watering is not as necessary [as in places where water is less plentiful].”
Passive systems of energy conservation feature strongly at Dreamers. Mal made a conscious decision to build apartments rather than free-standing dwellings, because shared walls enable each unit to “borrow” from next door’s warmth and reduce the need for extra heating. The party walls are made of locally-sourced rammed earth, which produces a heavy mass for excellent soundproofing.
The external walls are made from timber studs that are thicker than standard walls, which allows for a greater amount of insulation. Additionally, all ceilings and exterior walls are insulated using polywool batts of greater-than-average thickness. Thermal mass, which helps to hold heat, is provided by the rammed earth walls and concrete bench tops and floors. All windows are double-glazed to reduce heat loss during winter. This combination of a highly insulated external envelope and significant amount of internal thermal mass creates a stable and pleasant internal temperature that requires little in the way of additional heating.
“This is a challenging climate to design for,” admits Lee. “During summer it gets hot in the day but cool at night. In winter it’s cold both night and day. In effect, you have to design for two extremes of climate. But that’s the point of sustainable design, to use your local microclimate to keep you in your comfort zone.”
At Dreamers’ apartments, the second storey, which consists of the master bedroom and ensuite, is made from a lightweight timber frame and plasterboard. The effect of rising heat means that the bedroom is warmer than the rooms downstairs all year round. It was designed this way so that during the heat of the day in summer, the cool rooms downstairs could be enjoyed during the day. At night, the bedrooms would have cooled sufficiently thanks to the lightweight structure and a specially-designed natural airconditioning system.
Rather than use energy-intensive airconditioning, Lee built a natural evaporative system that draws cool air from a nearby cascading stream into the apartments. This simple, low-impact cooling technique was inspired by centuries-old Turkish technology.
