Western Australia
New homes planned around old trees
SEED is a Western Australian developer. Every new home we design stands on a timber floor raised off the ground, and each design starts with whatever established trees are already on the block.
Artist's impression
What we do
We see each project through from end to end: buying the land, designing the homes, having them built, and looking after the place for the long term.
As the developer, we decide which land to use, what goes on it and how each home is put together. Those decisions set how efficiently a home goes up, how well its shape works and how well it serves the people who live in it. They are also the hardest to change once a home is standing, so we make them early, while a line on a drawing can still be moved.
From the block up
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The block
We start with the block as it is. Before anything is drawn we look at how it slopes, where the sun reaches it in June and in January, and which of its established trees the design can keep. Then we plan the home around them.
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The footings
Work on site starts here. We see it through with the builder, from the first footing to the finished home. The footings are Surefoot footings: each is a galvanised steel plate, set level on the ground and fixed there by angled steel pins that are driven down through it with a portable jackhammer. No concrete slab is poured.
With no trench to dig, the footings disturb far less ground than a slab would, and each one can be placed or turned to miss a tree's larger roots. How close a home can stand to an established tree is decided tree by tree, with an arborist's advice.
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The timber floor
A post stands on each footing, and the timber floor is built on the posts, raised off the ground. So the home touches the block only where its footings sit. Everywhere else there is open space between the ground and the floor.
Pipes and wiring can run in the space under the floor, where they can be reached, repaired or re-run from below without anyone cutting into concrete. On a sloping or uneven block the footings go in at the ground's natural level and the posts are cut to suit, so the block does not have to be cut and filled flat for the floor.
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The walls and roof
The walls and roof go up on the floor, with the windows placed for the Perth sun. In June that sun sits low, and we design each home to let it in through the glass and across the timber floor. In January it sits high, and we design to keep it off that same glass.
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The finished home
The aim is a home that keeps you comfortable through a Perth summer and a Perth winter on little energy. And any tree the design kept is already grown. A tree that has stood on a block for forty years throws deep shade on a February afternoon; plant its replacement today and you will wait decades for the same.
Green villages
A green village is our name for five or more homes planned together as one development. Planning them together lets us decide things for the whole site that a single block cannot do alone.
This is the village we are aiming for. Rain that falls on it is caught and used again on site. There is plenty of solar, so the village leans less on the grid. More of the big old trees are still standing when the homes are finished. On most sites the question is how many homes fit; we ask that too, and then we ask what the ground between them is for. It is shared, and laid out to be somewhere you would choose to spend an evening.
If you care how much energy your home uses, want trees outside your window and think about the carbon in what you buy, a green village is planned with you in mind.
Our goals
Over the next three to five years we aim to bring around 67 of these homes to market, two green villages among them, as planning approvals allow.
We support new thinking in sustainability and building science, and we hope local builders will look closely at those villages and take what works back to their own jobs.
Homes for sale
To hear when one of our homes is for sale, email homes@seedwa.com.au with 'Homes list' in the subject.
We keep your email and use it only to reply to you and to tell you when a home is available to buy. We don't sell it or pass it to anyone else to use. To come off the list, email homes@seedwa.com.au with 'Remove' in the subject. We delete entries we have not used for 24 months. See our Privacy page.
Land for green villages
We are looking for new sites for green villages. If you own land that might suit one, we may be interested in buying it, or in helping you plan and carry out your own sustainable development for an agreed fee. You stay the owner and the decision-maker.
Write to land@seedwa.com.au.
We use what you send only to reply to you and to look at the land. We don't sell it or pass it to anyone else to use. If an enquiry goes no further, we delete it after 24 months. See our Privacy page.