Dream Home Comes True on Impossible Site

A West Australian designer has built his client's dream home on an 'impossible' site using an economical new flooring system. The property, just below the crest of Mt Melville in Albany, West Australia, consists largely of solid granite with a slope of 1:2.5. It had previously changed hands many times due to prohibitive building costs.

However, the house's 220 square metre steel platform required only 12 rock anchor footings onto the bed of granite using the Podium steel flooring system.

Builders have completed about 30 projects using this new steel flooring system made from BlueScope Steel materials.  The system was invented by designers David Gervas and Chris DeVaney.

The floors are constructed with LYSAGHT TOPSPAN® steel joists over trusses, sheeted with waterproof particle board and finished with terracotta floor tiles over fibro cement sheeting and in other areas with tongue and groove floorboards.

"The house was built by local steel fabricators/erector Brett Turpin within budget, aided by the off site fabrication advantage of steel.

"All components can be lifted by two men - which means no cranage and the ability to walk everything on to the site."

Mr Gervas said the client was especially concerned with the preservation of the natural beauty of the site.

"The low scrub, mosses and small winter streams of the site remain undisturbed as a beautiful low maintenance garden," he said.

The water flowing through the site also needed to be taken into account when selecting a suitable construction method.

The home's external walls are clad with a combination of LYSAGHT CUSTOM ORB® corrugated sheeting in Off White COLORBOND® steel and LYSAGHT MINI ORB® corrugated steel sheeting in Shale Grey™.

The roof is made of LYSAGHT CUSTOM ORB® steel sheeting on LYSAGHT® Cee-purlins.

Mr Gervas said it was important all components of the house were of high strength and light weight.

"The aesthetics of the steel combined with low maintenance made it ideal for this site," he said.

David Gervas specialises in translating commercial building practice into domestic applications using lightweight, prefabricated materials.