4 Archer St, Dickson ACT 2602

While some homes claim to be solar passive in design, 4 Archer St Dickson delivers on this promise. Designed and built in 2007 in conjunction with award winning Green Architects Strine Design, the brief from current owners, was to create a home specific for Canberra's climate. Its unique pre-cast sandwich concrete construction, provides superior energy efficient and acoustic qualities with the benefit of strength, durability and low-maintenance exteriors. Both living areas, plus the bedrooms and study have all been positioned to take advantage of the solar gain to the North with large format windows and sliding doors flooding the interiors with sunlight over the winter months and ambient light over the summer months.

Ideally suited to professional couples, families or those looking to downsize, there are separate formal and informal living areas with a recently re-modelled kitchen showcasing custom splash backs a real feature of the open plan family room. This space opens out to a living outdoor pergola which is covered in a deciduous Boston Ivy, cool in summer and brilliant red in autumn before shedding its leaves to allow sunlight in over winter.

For those with a green thumb, the yard boasts an array of raised vegetable gardens on both sides of the home with a large greenhouse to raise seedlings. There are two 4,500 litre rainwater tanks that can be used for the gardens and these are also plumbed to the toilets and laundry.