About Symbiosphere
Symbiosphere was formed as a company in 2008 to provide design assessment services on behalf of the Village Design Panel of The Ecovillage at Currumbin, a multi-award winning sustainable residential development in Currumbin Valley on the Gold Coast. The Ecovillage at Currumbin is a leading ecologically sustainable development with Architectural and Landscaping Codes founded in best practice sustainable design and building principles. Working in this context has given us a strong foundation in the principles and strategies required to overcome the challenges facing sustainable housing and promote quality sustainable design.
Servicing Areas
Sunshine Coast to Northern New South Wales
About our practice
In parallel with the Ecovillage design assessment role we have been engaged in residential design, growing a body of built work in the region which reflects our practice philosophy of creating streamlined, elegant spaces connected strongly with their landscape context, in buildings with very low environmental impact.Working to budget is a high priority for us and we have a particular focus on making sustainable design affordable, with a good track record of achieving this goal. Our practice involves in ongoing research into strategies for making affordable, sustainable buildings, including:
- modular and (partially) prefabricated designs
- compact and efficient dwelling forms
- shared/co-house models of land purchase, building and living, and building local networks of suppliers and contractors
We would like to expand our design work into: low environmental impact project housing and multi-residential projects, retrofits of commercial and residential buildings to improve environmental performance, and urban infill projects (particularly super-compact buildings).
About the Director Rob Norman
- Bachelor of Architecture (Honours 1) from QUT
- Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) from UQ
- Experienced in design and documentation of residential, multi-residential, and commercial projects, and in design assessment against building covenants
- Tutors in Principles of Sustainable Design & Sustainable Studio at Griffith University Gold Coast
