Philosophy

Our real passion lies in creating self sufficient, affordable housing and communities that use the best of modern materials and technologies combined with age old design philosophies.

In order to achieve a truly self sufficient community with all the niceties of modern society, many of today's preconceptions of Western life must be re examined.

We have finally come to a time where the cost of eco living is becoming affordable while traditional fossil fuel based living is not.

This requires the design and construction industry, local government and the development community to embrace the new materials and methods of building.

Our vision for sustainable development not only provides 6+ star affordable housing, but also incorporates solutions that reduce infrastructure requirements such as on site sewerage and stormwater treatment, solar/wind energy production, permaculture, home office features, and local retail/shops.

All these combine to reduce people's ongoing costs of living, and reduce the need to do more than walk to get errands done.

We have designed a building system to specifically address the affordable, sustainable housing crisis.

This system not only features eco sustainable design, but it also is modular to expand a dwelling as the family grows. The entire house is designed from the beginning, but only the first bedrooms and living areas are built initially. Future living areas and bedrooms can be added easily as required, and enhance the look of the house as originally intended.

Unlike current neighbourhoods where, when your family is expecting their third child, has to move away from their neighbours and friends because they don't fit any more, scalable houses allow a young couple or single to buy a small house in a good community, and grow the house as their earnings, and family grows.

This is an issue that demonstrates the changes in thinking required for government and developers. Most developments have covenants that do not allow small homes, so the scalable, affordable concept cannot be used even if the lot owners want to.

The concept of generating a surplus of energy from your house, so it makes money instead of costing money is another new concept near reality. With energy efficient house design, lighting, and appliances, a combination of a 1kw photo voltaic system, and a 315l solar hot water system can cover approximately 70% of a typical households energy requirements. With the addition of a vertical axis wind turbine(the cheapest energy/system cost ratio for domestic use) the house would be generating a surplus of energy the majority of the time.

This sets up a scenario where instead of paying $400 every 3 months, the power company is paying the home owner. From a bank's point of view, this represents added value to the house, and less payments for the home owner in addition to their mortgage.

Our overall housing concept is very favourable to the banks, as the building system is also very strong typically built to a C2 wind rating, can be fireproof, and termite proof. The walls and roof are made of structurally insulated panels which have no cavities, eliminating potential pest havens. All of these qualities translate into home owner peace of mind, the bank's confident that the house will withstand extreme conditions, and the insurer has a much lower risk than on a typically built house.

Another way to make houses affordable is by selling the house and leasing the land. This system is currently used in some caravan parks and retirement, relocatable home communities. It works out well for the developer as they keep the equity of the land, and the home owner's mortgage is much less than if they had to buy the land. This concept has huge potential in affordable housing developments.

The concept of permaculture is another idea incorporated into new developments. With transportation costs escalating, and the large supermarket chains dictating prices, growing your own is making more sense everyday.

With drip irrigation from rainwater tanks, and ergonomic garden beds designed into the house and garden, becoming self sufficient can be made easy.

This is the underlying belief behind our drive towards sustainable, affordable housing. The majority of people want to be eco responsible, but the difficulty in doing so prevents most from doing much.

We believe that if there is a house containing all the eco features described above that costs the same as a typical project home, the majority of people will choose the eco responsible one.

While this has been a dream for a long time, it is only in the last few years that the timing has arrived. We have finished the first of these houses, one of which has survived a CAT 5 cyclone undamaged, and others being lived in up and down the Queensland coast.

Knowing from past experience, the concepts and ideas will be continuously refined as new materials and methods are developed, and this vision of a sustainable future will continue.

This is why we are Future World Concepts, because the future is always the future.