Smoke, Fire & Architecture (no mirrors)

The Light House team are excited to be working in collaboration with Jeff Dau from Ember Bushfire Consulting to update the 'Planning and Design for Bushfire Protection' paper published by the Australian Institute of Architects back in 2003.

There's been lots of great discussion about emerging issues, and findings, in designing for bushfire protection. Several members of our team were closely affected by last summer's fires and they, in particular, are finding working on this resource incredibly rewarding.

Back in February, our principal architect, Sarah Lebner, had a discussion with Tony Trobe about this topic. You can read that All Homes article: ‘Bushfires bring lessons on better ways to build’ at this link.

We’re currently developing concept designs for two homes destroyed by the 2020 fires and, increasingly, even those clients who have not been directly impacted are including bushfire protection as an important consideration in the ‘brief’ for their project.

The latest issue of Sanctuary magazine (hot off the press) includes an article about smoke and air quality by our director and scientist, Jenny Edwards. You can download that here.

The good news is that bushfire and smoke (or indoor air quality) protection go hand-in-hand with good sustainable design so integrating our learnings will not require a complete overhaul of the way we do things but more of a refinement. Climate responsive design has always been our priority.

We're also sending a contingent to the Australian Bushfire Building Conference later in the year. It is a HOT topic!