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The 20/20 House
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream from an energy efficient home into a reality.
The 20/20 House Part 15 – Other Little Challenges
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream from an energy efficient home into a reality. Other Little Challenges It has almost been 3 months since I last posted an update on our own passive house and lots of people have been asking me what’s going...
The 20/20 House part 14 – Landscape Design
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream from an energy efficient home into a reality. When designing and building your home the landscape design and the garden is often the last thing on the list and more often than not there isn’t much money...
The 20/20 House Part 13 – Designing the Kitchen
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream energy efficient home into a reality. In the last blog I wrote about the catch up I had with our builder and how it got us thinking. Originally, I was always imagining a home with a nice polished concrete...
The 20/20 House Part 12 – Getting The Design Right
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream from an energy efficient home into a reality. Over the last couple of months, we kept fine-tuning the design for our own house. Typically, all my ‘actual’ projects are a priority, so I only ever work on the...
The 20/20 House Part 11 – Locating Services
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream for an energy efficient home into a reality. In November I spent 2 weeks doing some further professional development and did the PassivHaus/ Passive House Designer course. Although a lot of the principles...
The 20/20 House: Cost Saving Ideas – Windows
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream from an energy efficient home into a reality. Windows are essential for a house and the comfort and well-being of its habitants, as they let natural light and fresh air into the building and enable views....
The 20/20 House Part 10 – Design Challenge: Stairs
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream from an energy efficient home into a reality. After several weeks not looking at the plans for our dream home we finally managed to find some time together to work on the plans. As I have...
The 20/20 House: Cost Saving Ideas – Kitchen
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream from an energy efficient home into a reality. Kitchen Ideas Life has been a bit crazy again at our house. We had backpackers staying with us. My niece arriving (who will be staying with us as an...
The 20/20 House Part 9 – How big does your house need to be?
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream from an energy efficient home into a reality. Again, it’s all about you. Think about you and your family. How do you use the house? Which rooms do you really use? Do you really need a...
The 20/20 House Part 8 – How to put together a Design Brief for your Dream Home
The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream from an energy efficient home into a reality. When we bought our land/house I was excited and wanted to get started with the design straight away. Well, I did start with some rough sketches. But...
Sustainable Design blog
Have a read through our latest blogs about sustainable design
Report and Consents – What are they and do I need them?
Getting a report and consent is a fairly common process and is requested by the building surveyor for most projects. In short, this is required if your design is seeking some sort of variation from the standard building regulations. For example, if you want to...
How much does it cost to maintain a passive house?
How much does it cost to run a passive house? What maintenance cost is involved? The short answer is barely anything! As most of you that have looked into passive house and what all the hype is about should know by now that you barely need any additional...
Town Planning – 50 Shades of Grey
Yes, you are reading right. 50 Shades of Town Planning Grey! When it comes to town planning and planning regulations, sadly there are a lot of rules and guidelines which have many grey areas. There are no strict laws or rules so to speak. Even if you follow all the...
Do I Need A Town Planning Permit? What Does It All Mean? Or How Can I Avoid It?
Depending on the type and complexity of the project you are embarking on, there is the possibility that you may need a planning permit / approval from council. Each site has its unique zoning, overlays and regulations. This means just because someone in your street...
Getting Costing Advice from Builders During the Design Phase
We at Gruen Eco Design are big believers of getting a builder on board early. There is no point in getting a beautiful design done and spending many months and lots of money just to find out during the tender process that what you have designed is just not affordable...
Building Energy Efficient and Sustainable Homes to Bushfire Standards – Part 1
Good friends of ours live at the bottom of Mount Dandenong, in the Eastern Melbourne Suburbs. They are located in a bush fire prone area and have a state forest backing their property. So, each year when there was an extreme fire danger forecast, they would sit and...
10 Years of Gruen Eco Design
Even though my business properly started in 2013. It was in January 2010 that I received my registration as a building designer and subsequently registered the business name Gruen Eco Design. Thanks to Linkedin reminding me about my 10-year anniversary, I had totally...
Who is on board to donate their time and services to help communities devastated by the bushfires?
Over the last week I have been constantly thinking about the bush fires. And how we can support and help in any way. Yes, the first priority is to support the front line, the heroes out there fighting the fires and helping with emergency services and resources....
Come and Join our team: EXPERIENCED DRAFTER – REVIT SUPER STAR
EXPERIENCED DRAFTER – REVIT SUPER STAR We’re seeking an experienced REVIT draftsperson who is as passionate about sustainable design as we are to join our Gruen Eco Design family. This role is perfect for someone who just loves drafting and REVIT almost as much as...
Key Learnings From The Building Physics Forum, Part 2 – The Invisible Enemy
As I had explained in Part 1, in October I attended the Building Physics Forum in Melbourne, where over 2 days experts from all over the world spoke about healthy and energy efficient homes and the dangers of condensation and mould. The biggest takeaway for me was...