Echo living: Australia’s first passive house development

Australia’s first off-the-plan Passive House development features a swag of energy-saving technologies, including appliances from sustainability leader V-ZUG.

“Australian homes are closer to tents than insulated eco-buildings” screamed one headline back in June as we shivered through a particularly sharp start to the colder months. The poor thermal performance of residential buildings in Australia – summer or winter – is infamous, but in a country that has traditionally enjoyed relatively affordable energy it’s been left to the committed conservationist to explore efficiency solutions beyond the minimum housing regulations.

The climate crisis has jolted a segment of consumers to think otherwise, encouraging Melbourne developer, C Street Projects, to offer Australia’s first off-the-plan certified Passive House project. This forward-thinking company has done all the hard work in researching and navigating the mountains of technical information involved with Passive House certification, leaving the eight future owners of the Echo town houses in Hawthorn to enjoy homes that are optimised to perform, and professionally built with the economies of scale of a multi-res development.