House Blong Miranda, Port Vila, Efete, Vanuatu, 2014
Post-Pam...
We had just completed (Christmas) a ‘house-as-resort’ over ‘the Hill’ from Port Vila, on the beach at Havannah Harbor. It was built with amazing energy and unstinting, precise skill, using local villagers through a contract with Fletcher Construction, right down to our wonderful client’s engagement with local weavers and ladies-of-the village sewing.
There’s 3 bedroom pavilions, a living pavilion and treehouse (witha cyclone shelter-bathroom beneath). The property is cared for by a Caretaker family from a purpose-built dwelling at the site entry. Traditional, free-form structures complete site development. Primary materials are locally won kwila, coralstone, crushed coral, and natangorah thatch. Bush timbers & reeds were used in landscape screens – but we’re now missing them.
The structure is fully engineered and employs the ‘good principles of tropical building design’ to deliver thermal comfort without air-conditioning – and, in enabling ‘the breeze to blow through, to release pressure impacts through cyclones.