Recalling The Start

Once Glenn & Wendy had agreed that they would undertake Moonlight as project the process of information gathering started. The first information request from Glenn & Wendy at the start of the design process for Moonlight were the wind roses and climatic information for the region as well as geologic and soil type data. This was followed up with topographical information from the site survey from the surveyor to gain an understanding of landform, drainage systems, development of vegetative systems across the site.

Glenn & Wendy outlined how crucial water management was for all places of habitation in Australia. For a person who had spent 16 years living in London, where rain is a frequent event throughout the year, I understood the advice but took the information rather casually after all when we purchased the block we where aware that the annual rainfall was circa 1100mm pa. This is a reasonable amount of rain. Now that I have lived in Sydney for a year where rain is almost a celebrated event, I appreciate that 1100mm of rain is a lot but if the fall is dominated by one season, there is typically only so much that you are prepared to capture and store.


The following set of wind roses from Cape Otway show the seasonality of wind direction and strength as just one element that Glenn & Wendy considered when preparing the site masterplan for Moonlight.