Kangaroo Valley Bushfire Resistant Hemp House

Kangaroo Valley
bushfire Resistant Hemp House

NSW South Coast Home. Simple shape, powerful sustainable design.

Project statistics

location

Kangaroo Valley
South Coast NSW

block

32,007m2 semi rural block
North to front

house

187.2m2
3 bed / 2 bath

build type

Bushfire Rebuild
Single story dwelling

materials

Hempcrete walls
Colorbond roof
Concrete slab on ground with slab edge insulation
Double glazed aluminium windows

completed

2025

Kangaroo Valley
Bushfire Resistant
Hemp House

There’s a particular kind of confidence in simplicity. This Kangaroo Valley Bushfire Resistant Hemp House, a single-storey, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home on a 32,007m² semi-rural block, makes its case not through complexity but through precision. Designed by Kirstie Wulf of Shelter Building Design and completed in 2025, it was born from the same circumstances as the Malua Bay project, rebuilding with one non-negotiable at the top of the brief. Non-combustible. Everything else followed from there.

Hempcrete was the answer, as it increasingly is for fire-prone sites on the NSW South Coast. With a Colorbond roof, concrete slab on ground with slab edge insulation, and double-glazed aluminium windows completing the envelope, this is a home built to perform across every dimension – thermally, acoustically, and in the face of fire.

Performance Features

Non-combustible

Special Features

Large eaves around house

The rectangular form of this home is a deliberate design choice, not a limitation. Simple shapes minimise material waste, reduce the complexity of achieving a well-sealed thermal envelope, and make it easier to control the building’s internal environment year-round. Fewer corners means fewer junctions to detail, fewer opportunities for thermal bridging, and less offcut waste leaving the site. In sustainable building, restraint in form is often the highest expression of design intelligence, and at 187.2m², this house uses every square metre well.

The massive eaves are one of the home’s most important passive design features. North-facing with eaves sized to the latitude, the house admits low winter sun deep into the living spaces to warm the concrete slab — which then acts as a thermal battery, radiating heat back into the home after dark. In summer, when the sun is high, those same eaves block direct solar gain, keeping the interior cool without mechanical intervention. It’s an ancient principle executed with precision, and in combination with 250mm hempcrete walls, it means heating and cooling loads approach zero on most days of the year.

The standout interior moment is a feature wall corner area of exposed hempcrete — left unrendered to reveal the natural texture of the material, with bands of wavy hemp fibre highlighted in oxidised colours. It’s earthy, warm, and entirely unique to this build. No two hempcrete walls carry exactly the same surface, and this one has been given space to be seen. Plywood internal partition walls complement the palette, adding warmth and a lightness of touch that keeps the interior from feeling heavy. Together, the exposed hempcrete and plywood create an interior language that is honest about its materials and beautiful because of it.

Like the Malua Bay rebuild before it, this project sits in landscape that carries the memory of fire. The bush around Kangaroo Valley is spectacular and it is vulnerable, and the families who live in it deserve homes that can withstand what the climate is increasingly likely to deliver. The Kangaroo Valley Bushfire Resistant Hemp House doesn’t just meet that standard — it redefines what rebuilding after disaster can look like. Durable, calm, carbon-storing, and quietly beautiful. This is what it looks like to build back better.

Kangaroo Valley bushfire Resistant Hemp House