Lysaght’s Inspirations Design Awards have shed light on some of our country’s best up and coming architects and designers, with judges having to sift through dozens of high quality entrants, before announcing Sandra Clarke as the Student Design Winner.
A recent graduate of Granville TAFE in New South Wales, Sandra’s winning design called ‘Chatterbox House’, took styling cues from the Sydney Opera House as well as an origami chatterbox, to create stunning rooflines for her submission.
Materials chosen for the project included EASYCLAD® in COLORBOND® steel colour Cosmic® for use on eaves and ground level extruded walls, Lysaght’s new CUSTOMFLOW™ cladding solution in COLORBOND® steel colour COSMIC® which was applied to the lower edge of window extrusions and corrugated CUSTOM ORB® in COLORBOND® steel colour DUNE® for all roofing.
Design highlights include steep roof pitches that vary from 22.5 to 66 degrees and with exception of the valleys, the house is a gutter and downpipe-free home, instead relying on strategically-placed rain collection points.
“My inspiration was a roof that makes a feature of the rain – as a child, I liked to watch the rain collecting in puddles and running off down the street in random pathways,” Sandra said.
“The home’s pitches cast a myriad of shadows at different times of the year which are quite fascinating. The use of multiple pitches lends itself to CUSTOM ORB®, which in itself, casts its own mini shadows within each groove.”
Lysaght’s new CUSTOMFLOW™ cladding solution was selected because of its neat FORMFLOW® C90™ Corners and was applied to the bottom edge of the slanting extruded walls, with remaining wall sections finished with EASYCLAD® cladding, running vertically.
“The eaves are also clad with EASYCLAD® sheeting in COLORBOND® steel colour COSMIC® as well – whilst this is primarily a walling product, I think it is a good choice for eaves lining as it matches the wall cladding,” Sandra said.
Her journey into the design and architecture field has come through a different path to most. Having spent 25 years working as a nurse, she decided to pursue her childhood passion for buildings, drawing and architecture, and enrolled in the building design course at Hornsby TAFE and finished her second year at Granville TAFE.
“I was always interesting in buildings and architecture and drew in my spare time,” Sandra said.
“Over the past 10 years I worked as a nurse visiting patients in their homes and during this time saw many stunning buildings as well as the not so glamorous, and this increased my interest in buildings – I then stumbled across the course at TAFE and decided to enrol.”
Since winning the Lysaght Inspiration Design Award, Sandra has begun casual employment with a local building design company – Fyffe Designs.
“I encourage students to get involved in future Lysaght awards and also encourage educational institutes to promote the competition to their students, it’s a great experience and the prize money is substantial,” Sandra said.
