The Millennium House
From Sanctuary magazine issue 9. Buy or subscribe.
By Jenny Brown
Ever since Strine Design founder Ric Butt commenced working in environmental design in the 1970s he has been leading-edge. So many architects and builders adopt sustainable principles these days, but Canberra architect Ric Butt is still at the forefront.
Ric Butt came up with his house template at the turn of the century, appropriately called the Millennium House. It is made principally of pre-cast concrete walls and is mostly prefabricated, which “keeps costs down”.
The architect is a country-raised boy who grew up with the make-do or do-it-yourself ethos of the bush. Even after almost four decades of practice, Ric still talks with passionate conviction about his rules of design.
His unapologetic mission is to make sustainable houses as affordable as possible, to create “the most efficient buildings that cost the least and that are enjoyable to live in. It’s about quality of life.”
Through his Fyshwick, ACT company, Strine Design, Ric has created a 140 square metre “ecological machine for living” that he says can be at lock up in a week at a cost of $250,000.
“Sustainability features are about fundamentals,” he says. “We keep it simple and affordable both in terms of the build cost and the running costs.”
The form of the Millennium House is a strict 6.5 metres in width to afford maximum sun penetration through to the interior north-facing walls. To him, “they aren’t walls, they’re heat collectors.”
According to his reading of environmental physics, the best performing roof option is a curved roof because it creates “a natural, internal thermal cycle in which air is subtly being moved”.
Ric’s long-evolving philosophy of “thermal isolation” sees his buildings routinely dug 880mm into the ground. “It couples them with the earth. More ideally, they should be a metre dug in.”
Having single-glazing to the north might seem heretical to some, but to Ric it makes perfect sense. “We want to maximize the heat coming in during winter.” Heat loss at night is mitigated by good quality Roman blinds; heat gain in summer is mitigated by a pergola and, again, blinds.
Though the width of the Millennium House is fixed, it can be lengthened at the client’s discretion. Canberra public servant Penny Pardoe-Matthews and her partner Robyn Black elongated their Millennium home by two smaller bedrooms and an extra bathroom when they had Strine build it two years ago.
Apart from the build process being “easy on time and on budget”, they got the house that they wanted and more, says Penny. “It’s the perfect size for us. In mid August we can walk around in t-shirts. Every room is accessible to the outside and we get beautiful cross-ventilation in summer.”
It was a catalogue design, but the householders have found themselves loving their Millennium House so much “that we feel like it was built expressly for us. It is tailor made and comfortable”.
