The architects of Brise Soleil House wanted to cover the facade with wood and create a compact 2-bedroom apartment with 173 square meters of living space. This lies at the top of a steep, west-facing block close to Port Moresby Harbour. The house overlooks the city's former freight terminal.
Thanks to modern construction methods, you can cover a facade with wood
The building is largely made of in-situ concrete, and the house facade is clad with a wave-shaped covering made of wood. This simultaneously allows for shade, privacy and ventilation in the master suite. The cladding flattens as it continues around the building. This provides full-screen protection for the upper gallery to control the western sun and gain views of the Coral Sea.
From a design perspective, the wood cladding pays homage to the local traditions of woodworking seen in lowland stilt houses. A system of complex connectors and a high degree of surface type are used. In addition, such a design draws on a broad discussion about facade cladding in equatorial architecture. This can be found in the modern and 20th century canons of Ossipoff, Ferrie, Rudolf and others.
Use natural materials
The facade and doors are made from 50 x 50mm rough acetylated pine, glued and dowelled to digitally engineered complex lap joints. The house cladding and wooden doors with a total area of more than 80 square meters contain more than 2200 pieces in total and over 700 unique pieces, overlaps milled with CNC machine, often at both ends.
The milling, joining, finishing and assembly of panels took place in the designer workshop on Australia's Gold Coast and were transported by container to Papua New Guinea for installation. The entire assembly was organized as a system of seamless 1200mm long panels and doors. These are not only used for transport and assembly, but also minimize the need for skilled workers on site.
Although each panel is unique, the method of installation was identical. It took about 2 days for a team of 3 construction workers working entirely by hand on scaffolding. The 8 door panels were similarly assembled in one day.
