BPN Project Profile: 9 Dot House designed by architect Rana Abboud from Codessi Architecture is an example of thoughtful application of fire protection products in a residential setting.
9 Dot House is a conceptual holiday house nestled within a grove of eucalyptus trees in regional NSW that draws inspiration from its natural setting. Designed using off-the-shelf Cemintel products for the 9 Dots Award, nine tree-like columns underpin the house design conceptually and structurally.
A retreat from the bustle of the city, there is a playful suggestion of the tree-house in the walkways to the upstairs bedrooms, and grandeur of the double height spaces above the living and dining areas. A kitchen and study are nestled beneath the bedrooms at the eastern and western ends of the house respectively, with a laundry and bathrooms at the internal corners.
Cemintel Designer Series products provide a rich palette of textures and colours that complement the hues of eucalypt leaves and bark outside. Woodgrain ‘Maple’ panels externally blend the house into its surroundings, while providing an extremely durable, non-combustible, and low-maintenance exterior cladding befitting a holiday house.
The external Woodgrain Maple wall cladding provides a light-weight, pre-finished non-combustible exterior cladding product. 9 Dot House also utilises CeminSeal BareStone panels as an operable external shading, privacy, and security device that provide additional fire protection to the glazed northern wall.
Each of the eight glazed bays on the northern facade can be protected by a mixture of nine solid and CNC stencil-cut panels measuring 1.8m x 0.6m. These operable panels are stored within the northern eave of the house and are retrieved by an automatic stacker that moves them from their stored position into vertical guides integrated within the external face of each mullion. The level of protection can be controlled independently for each glazed bay through manual or remote activation, or automatically by early warning sensor in the event of fire.
The dimensions of the house are designed to utilise full length fibre cement panels with minimal cutting required. Where panels have been cut to create the operable shading partitions on the northern facade, the remaining panel ends have been used to clad the internal laundry and bathrooms.
Additionally, durable pre-finished Cemintel I-Cube ‘Onyx’ panels are reconfigured as shutters to the upstairs bedrooms of the holiday home, and provide feature panelling to the kitchen bench downstairs.
