Caravanserai – French Island | Lai Cheong Brown

Lai Cheong Brown designed Caravanserai a prefabricated farmhouse which was brought, by truck and barge, largely complete, to the remote French Island in Victoria, Australia. The home is entirely self-sustaining and off-grid as the Island is without basic services, made roads or even local government. The house was prefabricated off-site in Wonthaggi by specialist pre-fabricators Ecoliv.

The project’s principal design decisions were driven very much by the location of the house on an Island disconnected from mainland Australia by road and not serviced by any public utilities or Council amenities. The site sits on a ridgeline looking out across Philip Island to Bass Strait and back across bucolic, pastoral landscapes to the French Island National Park.

This leads to views in almost all directions which the architect was keen to capture but also to an intense exposure to the winds and driving rain coming in off the Strait. The solution was to design a simple square form courtyard house which would provide a sheltered outdoor space while also maximizing daylight and natural ventilation into a house that was going to need to be self-sustaining in terms of power.

This worked well with the prefabricated nature of the build, enabling an easy module breakup, and allowed us to route circulation around the courtyard while living and bedrooms were given the opportunity to look out to sea. A family project, the Caravanserai house needed to accommodate ageing grandparents while also allowing friends and extended family to stay over when occasionally marooned by bad weather.

Project Info:
Architects: Lai Cheong Brown
Location: French Island, Australia
Area: 192 m2
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Jaime Diaz-Berrio
Project Name: Caravanserai – French Island