The Foxground Pavilion

With an idea to build a passive solar home with a low-carbon footprint, owner-builder Joe Cato decided to build a home on an 80-acre property in Kiama, NSW. With the vision of a four-bedroom, single storey rammed-earth home, Joe and his wife Maura pushed their craftsman elements to the limit to produce this bespoke home. 

After meeting Evolution Window Systems at a Grand Designs expo, Joe worked with Evolution through the design process. They put together a window and door brief which was to provide a product that would perform the best thermally, bearing in mind that the site is in one of NSW’s wettest areas, receiving 2m of rain annually. Because of this, double glazing and the thermal break system became the obvious choice. 

Commercial ThermalHeart™ Series 804 thermally broken 100mm CentreGLAZE™ framing was used. It delivers excellent thermal performance and is ideal for commercial and high-end residential projects where minimising heat or cold transfer is desired. A ‘thermal break’ is incorporated which separates the inside and the outside elements of the frame providing an insulator to minimise the transfer of heat or cold between the elements. 

The Series 731 thermally broken sliding door reduces internal condensation. A major reason why this product was chosen was because it has a high water resistance of 300Pa. 

Large window spans facing south don’t contribute to a building from a passive solar design perspective but they do showcase the extraordinary view. Because the home has a north-facing frontage, provisions were made to capture the winter sun in the living area. Raising the ceiling height in the living area and utilising louvered windows achieved just that. 

”The service provided by Evolution Windows was excellent. They accommodated changes to our construction program and changes to our scope of works admirably. Evolution Windows provided excellent advice on our final specification. The products are of exceptional quality and the heat transfer properties of the windows and doors work just as we intended.” – Joe Cato