iph was commissioned in 2003 to design 4 proto-type semi-transportable houses for Western Desert Mardu Aboriginal Communities. The brief was to design durable houses that were flexible in use, embodied ESD principals, and over came the poor perception of transportable buildings in Western Australia.
The designs were driven by the need to provide radically different plan forms, while making the buildings economic to build, transport and assemble on the sites, while exceeding the requirements of the brief.
Each house consists of 2 fully enclosed pavilions from a pre-stressed reinforced concrete, insulated steel frame walls, lined with 9mm fiber-cement sheet internally and clad with corrugated Colorbond wall sheeting externally.Conceived as an “outdoor” house wrapped around an “in-door” house- the dwellings effectively allow extended families to live in and around the houses often up a population of 20 people using the infrastructure of the house.