St Andrews Beach, Victoria, Australia

The site is on Bunurong land two hundred metres from the sea on the Mornington Peninsula. The client brief included two main components, biophilic design and cavernous voids.

Kinetics of the environment underpin form making of the house. After undertaking fluid dynamics exercises a performance shell is created.

In the design of the Aeolian House two actions are present. First, space is enclosed and a mass created. The drivers are brief, orientation, aspect, regulations and a spatial stacking arrangement, a spiraling array. In the second action, flows, representing speed, pressure and erosion, yield a particular surface, a topology. Mass forms a reciprocal relationship with its environment and microclimate. That which is invisible is rendered visible, most notably in the surface striations.

A preliminary Passive House Analysis of the proposed multi-level house was produced by the environmental engineers. Based on the architectural drawings and summarising the building performance, thermal insulation levels, windows and other components, the house can meet the Passive House Institute (PHI) Low Energy Building criteria.

Peter Felicetti led the investigation into various techniques of structural optimisation including the diagrid. The final structural frame hybridises a triangulated SHS monocoque and portal frame and supports a shotcrete envelope.