Award for Resource Saver – Coolum Duplex – 2010
Award winner sure to impress
Architect-designed duplex offers feast of features to enable a comfortable, eco-friendly lifestyle
By ERLE LEVEY
A HOME for all seasons, a home for all reasons. This duplex property at One Spring-field Ave, Coolum Beach, is turning heads for a variety of reasons: the location, the sustainability features and the lifestyle options on offer.
Architect designed, the award-winning two-level duplex is filled with environmental features.
Yet, after the first open home last week, marketing agent Karine Wright, of Amber Werchon Property, said it was the privacy as well as the liveability of the two units that were the main talking points.
Unit 1 is a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit with a double garage. As well as looking over the adjoining neighbourhood park it has north-easterly views over Stumers Creek towards the beach.
Unit 2 is a three-bedroom, two-bathroom unit with a double garage as well as an undercover cement slab that can accommodate storage of a boat, caravan or trailer. It is the more private of the two units and enjoys the parkland out-look from its living area and balcony.
“This unit is fully wheelchair friendly with lift,” Ms Wright said. “So it could suit an extended family with ageing parents or a buyer with a disability who wants independent, comfortable living in an awesome location.
“Most of our initial inquiry has been from people wanting one unit or the other yet there are also those looking at buying both because of the way it can accommodate self-contained living”.
A winner of the Sunshine Coast Glossies Awards for embracing energy-efficient living, the duplex embraces eco features such as solid concrete block construction for low maintenance and the passive designs by architect Adrian Just, of Archicology, to encourage natural light and cross-flow ventilation.
Eco Housing Building Systems have been used in roofing and the western/southern walls for effective insulation.
There is bamboo flooring upstairs and rain-water tanks plumbed for laundry and toilet use.
Photovoltaic power, each of 1.08kw, is installed for each unit, along with solar hot water and UV-tinted windows. Light switches are big enough for elbow use while bathroom fittings come with longer handles.
The sharp design features distinctive stainless-steel front doors. The laundry is at ground level with the double garage, which has high ceilings. The timber stairs lead up to bamboo flooring in the living areas where the raked ceilings come with stainless-steel fans.
The louvres and the staircase encourage air flow up and through the apartment.
Mamone Caesarstone benchtops are in the bathrooms and the kitchen, which is fitted with a Blanco under-bench oven and induction cooktop plus a Whirlpool stainless-steel dish-washer.
By Earl Levy, Domain magazine cover story, Sunshine Coast Daily