Striking Australian Home is Shaped by the Sun’s Path

This amazing modern home in Northcote, <a href="http://inhabitat.com/2010/08/09/recycled-circuit-board-installation-maps-out-melbourne/" target="_blank">Melbourne</a>, features a building envelope that was carefully shaped to ensure maximum sun exposure in the backyard. The owners wanted to be sure they had full sun exposure in their <a href="http://inhabitat.com/2010/09/09/new-submission-115/" target="_blank">garden</a> to be able to grow vegetables year round, so Australia-based firm, <a href="http://www.haw.com.au/" target="_blank">Harrison &amp; White</a> focused upon smart solar design as one of the home's most important strategies. The architects used a technique called "reverse shadow casting" to design the exterior and included sustainable materials like <a href="http://inhabitat.com/2010/06/09/australians-get-a-bike-path-made-from-recycled-printer-cartridges/" target="_blank">recycled plastic decking</a> for the shade screen.

The Foyn-Johanson House was designed by Harrison &amp; White in order to receive maximum sun exposure in the backyard.

The home is built on a long narrow lot and includes a living area and kitchen on the ground floor, two bedrooms and bathrooms on the first floor, and a usable attic space under the roof ridge.

Computer modeling and reverse shadow casting were used to shape the home's exterior in order to provide maximum solar exposure for the backyard.

Reverse shadow casting takes the area of space that is to have direct light and extrudes it along the different paths of the sun. This area is then removed from the volume of the home, leaving the complex facade.

Now the home's backyard receives sunlight all day long and the home owners are able to grown vegetables year round.

Recycled plastic decking made from milk bottles and rice husk is used as the exterior shade screen and ballustrading.

The living room and kitchen open to the back yard and garden via accordion style doors, which promote natural ventilation.

Bamboo flooring is used throughout, and the home is infused with natural daylight.

The project features steel and timber framing for the structure of the home, and the exterior is covered in Zincalume, a powder-coated steel material.

The digital model was used in the creation of the documentation drawings both in 2D and in 3D and was used throughout construction to describe the geometry of the home.

The three story home was completed in 2009 and cost approximately $450,000.

The complex exterior also creates a very private space in the backyard.

Metal was used for the exterior cladding because it was easily capable of being bent and curved to fit the shape of the home.