Chastleton House
2017 / TOORAK, VIC

The Chastleton House in Toorak is like Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit – every component engineered to perform well beyond the ordinary. Chastleton House is opulent, but not carelessly so – it wastes nothing and wrings potential out of every last bit. Opulence without waste.

The prefab concrete module that constitutes the external facade does all the necessary solar and sightline-privacy work with its deep profile. The modules are hardy and durable yet they use less concrete than other prefab buildings – the concrete layer on the prefab module is thin but each modules shape and internal structure allows it to be super strong, much like the thin layer of metal around the iron man suit. Externally it’s tough but internally the modules make the whole house open and porous by covering the facade with glass.

A timber-clad quadruple-helix spiral stair thrusts up through a massive void – an expansive space – but life inside remains invisible. Maintaining comfortable temperatures in such huge spaces usually means inefficiency, but we use the size advantageously – rising heat is pumped back into the rest of the house via the elevator shaft, and the internal layout allows different parts of the building to close down and open up in response to the number of occupants, so energy’s not wasted on heating or cooling unused spaces.

The basement, car parking and wine cellar are underground but naturally lit – its more a bat cave than a bunker. Food waste is kept in the cycle with an automatic compost system. There’s maximum coverage of solar panels on the roof. The heat exchange system sucks the warmth from outgoing air and puts it back into incoming air, meaning less energy is wasted on constantly heating the house.

This is a superhome, as empowering as an Iron Man suit, for the occupant to live a life beyond the ordinary.