A high-performance house at Geilston Bay
Monika Lobe thought she had missed her chance to live at Geilston Bay. But fate intervened and she built her dream high-performance home
High on the hill overlooking Geilston Bay is Monika Lobe’s high-performance house. The view is incredible: gentle slopes disappear into the deep blue of the Derwent. In the background, kunanyi/Mt Wellington, with its distinctive Organ Pipes and transmission tower, rises above it all.
“Yes, isn’t it great,” says Monika, a surgical nurse and self-described gypsy. “I’m so lucky to have this view and a passive house, too.”
Designed by sustainability expert and architect Detlev Geard, the highperformance house is oriented so that even on the shortest day of the year the building’s central thermal mass walls get direct sunlight – ensuring Monika the warm house she had wanted since arriving in Tasmania in 2008.
“I’m from Germany where the temperature gets down to -20C or -30C,” she says. “There we have all the insulation, the double glazing, the right orientation. In the middle of winter you can sit inside in a T-shirt and it’s fine. But I have never been colder than I have been here in Tasmania because so many houses are built so badly.”
Lobe is a keen bushwalker and proximity to parks was important. Her new home fits that bill, with the Meehan Range Nature Recreation Area right at her back door. “I was originally looking at the block next door but I really liked this one,” she says. “Unfortunately, it was sold, and my offer wasn’t big enough on the other block so I thought I’d missed out.” Luckily, the block she really wanted came back on the market. “So I got Detlev up here to make sure the site could work and it was mine,” Monika says.
Having the architect involved before she bought the land was critical. “I’d looked at other blocks but Detlev said the orientation wasn’t right for a passive house to work properly,” she says.
Monika never thought she would build her own home. “In Germany, renting is cheaper than buying, and a nurse could never afford to buy, anyway,” she says. “But I got a small inheritance from my mother and I thought I’d better do something with it.”
The result is a deceptively discreet orange house. Inside, splashes of vivid colour stand out against the white interiors, but the orange exterior cladding blends in to the bush palette and suburban context, too. Modest in size – just two bedrooms – it doesn’t really feel small. The open plan and large windows create a leisurely airiness, with the living room spilling outside under deep eaves. There are also two bathrooms – one particularly generous. “Detlev is really keen on big bathrooms, which suits me fine because I have a few friends in wheelchairs and they like to spin around,” Monika says.
The house is very much the embodiment of architect Le Corbusier’s famous quote: “A house is a machine for living in.” The building’s thermal mass – two interior brick walls, perfectly rendered bright white, join the kitchen to the living room and form the backbone of the house – are critical to the building’s performance. “I thought about not building one of them to save some money but Detlev just rolled his eyes,” Monika says. “The house wouldn’t work without them.”
She also has to think twice about where she puts her furniture. The big windows and the thermal mass walls alike need to be kept clear to let in and absorb sunlight. “A big wardrobe or bookcase would just get in the way,” she says.
The pay-off is a house with a 9.5-star energy rating. There is no air-conditioning and no heat pump, just a small pellet heater for use a couple of days a year. “We’re lucky in Tasmania that we don’t have that many grey days so the house stays warm,” Monika says. “In summer, it’s protected by the deep eaves and it always cools down overnight.”
Solar hot water, LED lighting and an electric induction cooktop further reduce the building’s energy consumption.