Inside the 2026 Sustainable House Day Tabloid: 16 Pages, 8 Homes, One Big Idea
Sustainable House Day has always run on a simple premise: real people, opening real doors, sharing what actually worked. This year's tabloid is our love letter to that idea — a 16-page snapshot of the homes, the people and the practical know-how behind SHD 2026. Here's what's inside.
Eight homes, eight very different paths to sustainable living
From a bushfire-rebuilt mudbrick home in the Adelaide Hills to Australia's smallest certified Passivhaus tucked into a Glebe backyard, this year's featured homes prove there's no single blueprint for sustainable living:
- Mylor Bush Retreat (Adelaide Hills) — rebuilt after the 1986 Ash Wednesday fires, now a passive-solar mudbrick home running on rainwater, reclaimed hardwood and seaweed carpet.
- Abdallah House (Seymour, Vic) — a 50/50 new-and-recycled owner-build showcasing permaculture design and 500kg+ of home-grown food a year.
- Slopes of Kunanyi (Tas) — a compact, single-level downsizer home using water-filled walls for thermal mass instead of brick or concrete.
- FZ Off-Grid House & Pocket Passiv (Blue Mountains/Glebe, NSW) — architect Simon Anderson's bushfire-country experiment that led him to Passivhaus design.
- The Shed (owner-built) — Markeeta Culley's hand-built off-grid workspace, carried up a hill piece by piece.
- 380 Albert (Brunswick West, Vic) — a 1960s apartment "hotbox" turned cosy, low-energy home with cork floors and secondhand furniture.
- The Earthen Retreat (Byron Bay) — architect Thaís Pupio's rammed-earth home built on connection to place and thermal comfort you feel more than measure.
- Coburg Comfort Upgrade House — a 1930s California bungalow fully electric, now running at net -$1,050 on energy bills.
- Bonus SHD word search!
