Creature Comforts – Oculus House

It sounds like a dream gig for Ben Callery Architects. A “crappy old house beyond repair”. A long, narrow block oriented north. A family of five craving light filled, airy spaces but quite open about how to achieve them. Kids with a sizeable age gap needing flexible spaces for privacy and connection but able to change along with them. One client, a town planner with a decades-long commitment to environmentally sustainable design and a deep appreciation for the year-round comfort and energy efficiency of high performance homes with great passive solar design. Another who works full-time from home, keen to crown a single-level house with an inspiring home office that captures views to glorious streetscapes of towering eucalypts.

This elevated space is clearly everyone’s project highlight, so let’s start there. Opening to a deep west-facing balcony that provides privacy within and a shaded outdoor space with killer sunsets, the office interior features three enormous windows bringing in views, light and fresh air from multiple directions. “It’s pretty spectacular,” the client says. “It must be the most used study ever.” It naturally invites use by everyone, day and night, all year round. Whether for yoga, study, reading, games or impromptu magazine interviews, it’s a serene eyrie delivering precisely the mesmerising vistas, thermal comfort, and moments of contemplation it was designed for. “I really like how it’s always the right temperature,” says the clients’ teenage daughter. “Warm in winter and cool in summer.”

Architect Ben Callery describes Oculus House as “a beautiful, healthy and energising space to live in”. But the challenge of opening each room in a single-storey home to northern light and southerly breezes was significant. The floor plan was not unambitious either: four bedrooms, two living rooms (one a multipurpose space currently used as a second study and gym), a rumpus room for the younger kids, a hardworking laundry, and bathrooms including an ensuite for the oldest child. Outdoors, the long, narrow block needed to integrate outdoor dining, a pool, and a garage with EV charging. “The owners … had an emphasis on passive solar design, thermally sound materials and very low energy use,” Ben recalls. “They wanted to harness the elements to be naturally comfortable using warming winter sun and cross ventilation in as many rooms as possible.”

Ultimately, the design solution flowed from the site’s constraints. “The house has a sunny side yard instead of a back yard,” Ben says. “Its form is elongated along the southern side of the block to maximise passive solar gain to living rooms. A high ceiling over the main living room bathes it in sunlight, and … operable highlight windows draw in prevailing southerlies. Further down the block, the kids’ bedrooms are in a separate wing accessed via a rumpus room which shares light and warmth with the rooms adjacent.” The oculus that gives this project its name is a circular extrusion through the timber slatted roof. “Cut out of the pergola, it invites warming winter sun in while providing summer shade to the living rooms adjacent,” Ben says. It’s one of many fine features deftly integrated into the compact side garden by regular BCA collaborators Truewood Construction. “They’re a dream to work with,” Ben enthuses. “The oculus really defines this space as an outdoor room – a geometrical flourish that makes this a really lovely place to sit and focuses your attention up to the sky while expressing the passive solar design in a nice way.”

With thermal efficiency paramount, the highly insulated envelope features pre-fabricated insulated roof panels, operable external venetians, heavy window furnishings, and the kind of timber-framed, tilt-and-turn windows and lift-and-slide doors that seal tightly shut to European standards. This necessitates a heat recovery ventilation (HRV) unit that brings in fresh air, maintains stable temperatures, and further reduces the need for mechanical heating and cooling. “I really like the HRV,” the client says. “The house rarely feels stuffy, there’s far less pollen blowing in, maintenance has been quite straightforward so far and probably takes less than an hour every three months.” For the client, the home’s efficiencies and savings are well worth the investment, and fun to use without a second thought. “For a tech guy I wasn’t really that into the home automation stuff,” he concedes. “But as I’ve come to live with it, I’ve really quite enjoyed it. Each space’s adaptability is another gift that keeps on giving as the kids grow up. You can fit 20 guests and kids in the pool, or multiple sets of friends, and it all works. Weekdays, weekends, nighttime – you can all be off in your own space, but here together as well.”

“They wanted to harness the elements to be naturally comfortable using warming winter sun and cross ventilation in as many rooms as possible.”

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