Sharpen your pencil. After overwhelming interest and response last year, the Sustainable Housing for Life Design Competition is back.
The 2015 competition now open to residents, architects, designers and young people in the northern rivers.
Last year’s design competition saw 50 entries that were enjoyed by over 1,000 viewers.
The Byron Shire awsard was won by Kelvin Daly, of Brunswick Heads, who is offering his hand-drawn plans of a ‘green granny flat’ for free to locals who wish to use them.
This year, the talk is all about ‘the world’s first carbon-positive prefab home [which] has just hit the market in Australia,’ according to event coordinator Alice Moffett from Self Seed Sustainability, who adds that ‘people are loving it.’
‘Called the Archi+ Carbon Positive House, it’s been on display in Melbourne’s City Square and its so efficient it can put energy back into the grid’. With all the hype for easy-to-build, modular sustainable homes, we thought we’d bring it to our local designers and sustainable home lovers’ said
The 2015 Design Competition will culminate in a Showcase Awards and Expo at Lismore City Hall on Saturday 19 September – so residents will be able to view the entries, meet the designers and vote for their favourite design.
‘This year the designs will demonstrate ecological, social and economic sustainability – it’s a triple bottom line approach that speaks volumes for the future sustainability of our region and it’s contribution to the planet’ said Vanessa Tallon from Lismore City Council.
Byron Shire Mayor Simon Richardson said last year’s competition generated great local conversations.
‘It stimulated ideas and demonstrated ways we can live sustainably in a small space. With rising housing affordability, looking at best practice housing designs that have a light environmental footprint is an outcome that many families are aspiring to achieve,’ he said.
Now the northern rivers is invited to join the movement and show their best by designing the most sustainable modular home designed for the sub-tropics.
Interested people can find more information and enter at www.sevenonsibley.com/shd2015. There’s $5,000 in prize money to be won.
Entries close September 4.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
