Sense of adventure

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in profile Terry Hodges

surfing the big adventure Taking the road less travelled has made all the difference for award-winning architect and West Coast Designs owner, Terry Hodges. We take a look at three of his best designs.

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hat was originally meant to be a short trip around South-East Asia became the adventure of a lifetime for West Coast Designs owner, Terry Hodges. As a newly qualified architect with the world at his feet, Hodges set off on an extraordinary journey around the world that, 30 years on, still drives his passion for residential architecture and ecologically sustainable development. In fact, it was the basis of what is now a wealth of experience gained on residential projects around the world, from England and Australia to Iran, Sudan and the Sultanate of Oman.

“I spent about seven years out of the country when I was newly qualified and worked in Tehran before the revolution,” Hodges says.

“I then went to London and worked on the refurbishment of Victorian workingclass houses before working at Khartoum in Sudan, as well as in the Sultanate of Oman. At that time, it wasn’t possible to go to the Sultanate of Oman on a tourist visa – there was no such thing – and the only way you could get into the country was if you had work there.

“It was a huge adventure being away for that period of time and working in all those very unusual countries,” Hodges says.

Reflecting on his experience abroad, Hodges says much of his time was spent learning about other cultures in order to understand client needs. He also studied different housing forms and was careful to develop solutions that responded to the local climate and social fabric of each community.

You really need to listen to your client to find out what they’re looking for and what they need…

That’s really the only common factor in design worldwide.

“You really need to listen to your client to find out what they’re looking for and what they need,” Hodges explains. “That’s really the only common factor in design worldwide.”

Words Maria Tan Photography Mark Cooper & sources

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1. cape rise in dunsborough Ultimately returning home to Western Australia, Hodges now lives in Dunsborough, where the avid surfer is often spotted carving up breaks on his local shores. “I used to haunt this place as a youngster, coming down here in a Volkswagen Beetle for a surf,” Hodges says. “All those years later it came full circle and I ended up living down here. I just thought, ‘This place is amazing.’”

… I saw what the project home builder was attempting to ‘plonk onto the block’.

It was really sad.

Inadvertently, Hodges landed the local Cape Rise project in Dunsborough by keeping his sense of adventure alive. The client was a friend and regular cocompetitor in the Anaconda Adventure Racing events, a series of national swimming, kayaking, running and cycling contests.

“He had gone along to a project home builder,” Hodges says. “He showed me the plan and I saw what the project home builder was attempting to ‘plonk onto the block’. It was really sad.”

As so often happens with project homes, Hodges says, there was minimal consideration given to core design basics. Neither climatic nor site conditions had been considered, and no thought spent on energy requirements.

“It was just a lost opportunity because there was this gnarly old peppermint tree out the back on the corner block, which was a bit tricky admittedly, but their plan meant this tree would have to be pulled down,” Hodges says. “So the builder approached me and said, ‘Look, we can do a framed house on this using the Scyon™ range of products. Just do it on a slab and design it to really make the most of the block.’ And that’s what we did.”

After spending considerable time on the site to get a feel for the project, Hodges developed a passive solar design that ticked all the client – and design – boxes.

Lightweight building materials rose to the fore as the ideal project solution.

“We deliberately set out to do something with the Scyon™ range of products,

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because we wanted the house to be pretty minimal with modern and clean lines,” Hodges explains.

“The builder was keen to keep bricklayers off the site and, as around these parts there are a lot of really good carpenters, he decided from the outset he wanted a big carpentry camp with lightweight frame construction. We chose Scyon™ Matrix™ and Stria™ cladding to give the house a good harmonious feel.”

Today, Hodges says the client could not be happier with the outcome.

“He’s just over the moon. He loves how the house works for entertaining and that there’s a really good separation between the teenage kids’ bedrooms and living areas so that everyone can live harmoniously without getting on each other’s nerves. It’s a really good success story, because the client’s happy and everyone who sees the house thinks it looks good.” And that gnarly old peppermint tree? Yes, it’s still there.

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2. yallingup winner Winner of a 2008 WA Building Design Award is this house in Yallingup, WA, that Hodges designed for a local builder in 2008. Built on a two-hectare bush block, it boasts northern bush and ocean views – and a client who knew what he wanted from the start.

“He was really clear about what he wanted,” Hodges says. “He wanted a house that was Zen-like and modern, with a skillion roof softened by local natural materials.”

To achieve that effect, the pair early on settled on a strategy of balancing new with old.

“Although it’s a framed house, we’ve got panels of local granite stonework dispersed throughout the project,” Hodges says. “There’s also the beautiful warmth of timber floors as well as the timber decking. So there are minimal, modern and clean lines, but it also has a warmth to it through the use of these gorgeous natural materials.”

Another key consideration for Hodges and his client was creating an energyefficient home for all seasons. Once again, passive solar design came to the rescue.

“It’s really all about the basic principles of passive solar,” Hodges says. “It’s about having the house orientated correctly to get good cross-ventilation while also taking into consideration the western sun – and keeping it out in summer. It gets pretty hot in the area and you don’t want this huge area gazing from the west. The east is far more amenable with the morning sun, so it’s about getting the north right.”

With so many architects and builders now in a race to bolt on as many stars as they can in the energy stakes, what Hodges believes is that everything starts with orientation.

“If you get that right, half the battle is over. From there, you build in good amounts of insulation, of course, but you can already achieve such a lot with basic design.”

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It’s about having the house orientated correctly … taking into consideration the western sun …

3. the nullaki peninsula Hodges’ latest residential project is on the Nullaki Peninsula in the City of Albany, overlooking the Wilson Inlet towards the town of Denmark.

With a house with this much north-facing glazing in it … we actually had to tweak glazing and materials in order to get the 6-star rating

“This block on the Nullaki was a perfect setup,” the architect says. “It was a large block and just about every single major room could front the north – and that’s where the views to Wilson Inlet are. It’s such an easy setup when you’ve got a block like that, because you can have major areas of glass on the north and a long narrow building to minimise the glazing to the south.”

To provide contrast to the overall look of the facade, Scyon™ Matrix™ and Stria™ cladding were used on the northern and eastern sides of the home.

“Stria [cladding] was a good way out for us, because for some reason or other the clients didn’t like the weatherboard look,” Hodges explains. “Stria [cladding] was a great compromise, because it’s in one flat plane and it’s got the horizontal lines, so we used it as a contrast against the areas where we used Matrix [cladding] a lot.” With its easy horizontal lines, Stria cladding was also used for the bedroom suite in the home’s eastern pavilion.

For Hodges, one of the project’s major challenges proved to be in meeting the site’s climatic zone regulations.

“Down in Denmark, it’s Climate Zone 6, whereas around Dunsborough and Busselton, it’s Climate Zone 5,” Hodges says. “With a house with this much north-facing glazing in it, in Climate Zone 5 it would have breezed through the minimum 5-star rating. Because it’s in Climate Zone 6, however, we actually had to tweak glazing and materials in order to get the 6-star rating.”

To meet the requirements, the team introduced solid internal walls as thermal mass and, in some areas, double glazing. “It really surprised me just how different the requirements are in terms of designing for climate,” Hodges says.

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