Less Walls, More Life

Less walls, more life is the modest and clever house renovation featured in Shaneen Fantin’s TEDx talk in 2014.

This was a 1970s brick house in suburban Cairns that was poorly designed for the tropics. We gutted the house and reorganized the internal layout to capture the south easterly breezes and engage with the back yard. The wet areas were moved to a new pavilion connected to the house with a breezeway. What has been created is a house that is comfortable and sustainable for the tropics, spacious and connected to the garden, is small, durable, cost effective and easy to maintain.