Paperbark House

Clients Alex & Kim wanted a low maintenance and sustainably sensitive design that would serve the needs of their future young family. With the adjacent Lake Claremont public open space able to effectively serve as their ‘back yard’, they wanted their living spaces to be at ground floor to the rear of the site where they would open directly to the public reserve. 

‘Lake Claremont (previously known as Butler’s Swamp by the early settlers and as Galbamaanup by the Noongar people) belongs to the complex wetland systems of the Swan River & coastal plains. According to Nyungar tradition, the wetland was created by the Waugal and continues to be of religious significance to the Noongar people. The area was traditionally used for camping and hunting. Noongar families continued to camp there until they were moved on by the Government of the day in 1951’. (Sourced from the Yargine Track map – Town of Claremont Museum).

‘Lake Claremont was a freshwater swamp that had shell fish, tortoises, frogs and reed rhizomes for damper and other bush food like Zamia nuts as well as paperbark resources to build shelters’. (sourced from the Town of Claremont website).                      

John Butler arrived in Western Australia January 1830.  Part of the selection of land was 250 acres at Freshwater Bay covering most of the land known as Peppermint Grove.  The family developed a farm in this vicinity and also conducted the Bush Inn at Half-Way House on the track from Fremantle to Perth. This area was known as Butler’s Swamp by association with his lands and farming activity.  The first recorded reference to Lake Claremont was in a letter written by Mr John Butler to the Surveyor General Mr J.S. Roe on the 15 November 1831.

"I wish to have a grant of ten acres on the east side of the lagoon about one and a half miles north of my home at Freshwater Bay, in the name of William Burton Butler, my eldest son". Official records of Butler's occupancy are lacking, and it is possible that he used the land for a considerable period without ever receiving an official grant. His farming activities gave rise to the name "Butlers Swamp" (Morris and Knott, 1977, 155). There is however no record of a Certificate of Title to this land being issued in his name.

In 1850 the Colonial Office used the Government Reserve known as Butler`s Swamp to form a village for military pensioners.  Seventeen families were settled on grants of 10 acres, each having 1/2 acre of Freshwater Bay and 9 1/2 acres of swamp land for cultivation. This was the beginning of the first community in this District.

In Galbamaanup the Swamp Paperbark (or Freshwater Paperbark) (Melaleuca rhaphiophylla) remains prevalent but would once have been found in far larger numbers. Melaleuca’s are sometimes called ‘teatrees’ or ‘paperbarks’ and are characterised by their flaky, textural, layered bark. The Noongar name for the Swamp Paperbark is Yowarl (or Bibool Boorn, Yiembak). 

Various melaleuca species are extremely important to Aboriginal people. For local Noongars, the Swamp Paperbark is probably one of the most significant plant species in the region. The bark of this melaleuca is thin and papery and can be used for a variety of purposes. Long strips of the bark for example, can be used as roofing for mia-mias (shelters) and smaller pieces can be used to carry water or to hold food. Melaleuca bark is frequently used in Noongar cooking. Meat dishes, such as kweeyar (frogs), djildjit (fish) or yonga  (kangaroo), are often wrapped in the bark of the Yowarl before being placed on hot coals or in an earth oven. The bark of the Yowarl can also be used as a torch. After tightly rolling long pieces of bark, one end can be set alight, and the high oil content of the bark keeps the torch smouldering. Melaleuca leaves are also used by Noongar people for medicinal purposes. The leaves are either sucked, chewed or crushed and inhaled to treat head colds and flu. Green leaves from the Swamp Paperbark and the Chenille Honeymyrtle are also used for smoking ceremonies because of the pleasant aroma the oil in the leaves lets off. A type of tea can also be made by soaking the leaves in boiling water, which is why the early colonists used the term ‘Teatree’ to refer to this plant. (Source: Plants & People – City of Joondalup).

Geologically, Lake Claremont lies in a depression in the Spearwood System of coastal sand dunes. It is a true swamp geographically, that is it is the above ground part of the massive underground water system common to most parts of the Perth coastal plain (Morris and Knott, 1979,145). This subsoil water flows continuously towards the river and ocean in a northeast to southwest direction.

The swamp lies in a valley between coastal dunes where the ground rises rapidly from 1.5 metres to 12 metres. Immediately prior to 1950, the swamp at high water mark enclosed an area of approximately 20 hectares. During the 1950s and 1960s areas were reclaimed and this reduced the area of the open water to approximately 15.7 hectares at high water mark (Emory, 1975, 35). At the northeast and southern end of the swamp are two valleys and it has been hypothesised that these valleys may have been scoured out by river action (Evans and Sherlock, 1950, 152). Apart from these two openings, the area consists of coastal sand dunes of aeolian origin, partly consolidated by low shrub vegetation and intermittent wattle (Evans and Sherlock, 1950, 151).

Designing a new house on this narrow site Neil sought from the outset to provide the best possible access to controlled sun access, excluding summer sun while allowing winter sun penetration, and for an excellent standard of cross-ventilation to all rooms. These issues were fundamental the design process despite the complexities of accommodating the client’s accommodation brief on a very small & narrow site particularly given the proximity of the neighbouring existing house to the northern boundary. The external form of the house is a result of the design process in assessing the most efficient way to obtain north facing windows to as many rooms as possible. The first-floor master bedroom has been setback from the northern boundary to allow the Velux openable skylights to the roof over the living / dining space below to ensure winter sun to penetrate the rooms at the ground floor. The north facing highlight windows above bedrooms 1 & 2 ensure controlled northern sun orientation and warming winter sun penetration into the rooms. This also ensures that these rooms will always remain bright light filled rooms during daylight hours. These high-level windows are coupled with strategically located windows to provide excellent cross-ventilation to all rooms. The house designed as one of three in this immediate precinct over time, is intended to reflect its location now adjacent to, but once within the ecology of the Galbamaanup swampland.  

The design of this house is intended to reflect the colours and textures of the many paperbark trees (Yowarl) of the area, as is the house designed immediately next to this house for another family member. The selected face brickwork has the same dappled colours of the paperbark, and the brick bond pattern provides variation and texture to the external walls and to internal feature walls within the living room.

The design of the house has considered the possible end of life salvageable use of the selected building materials. The first-floor material is a panelised screw fixed material than can be deconstructed at the end of the buildings life by simply unscrewing the panels and transporting them to the next site. Similarly, the selected carbon neutral timber studwork and roof timbers can also be deconstructed, salvaged and used again. Working closely with the structural engineer through the early design stages, the design deliberately reduced the required amount of steelwork through using timber wall panels clad in structural plywood to brace and to support the timber roof purlins to the roofs at radius.

The Velux skylights to the living / dining space allow the winter sun to penetrate the rooms to heat the honed finished ground floor concrete slab to enable the resulting stored heat in the slab to radiate back into the room. Insulation below the ground floor concrete slab enables the winter gained radiate heat to be provided back into the internal rooms and not lost into the earth below.

Covering finished materials over the structural elements has been minimised to ensure that no additional materials have been used if not necessary, thereby reducing the buildings carbon footprint. This reduction in finishing surfaces occurred in ceilings by expressing the structure without a plasterboard ceiling, expressing the concrete ground floor slab as the honed finished floor and through the reduction of wall tiles in bathrooms to a minimum.