Murcutt is a long-time supporter for reverse brick veneer (RBV) in temperate climates and claims that the high percentage of air conditioned houses in NSW is an indictment on an architect’s inability to design buildings appropriate to place and climate.
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"The problem we have mostly is the buildings we're putting up are totally inappropriate. From Darwin to Melbourne to Western Australia, it's a disease … They've all got to have air-conditioning because they're built the wrong way around."
Murcutt says the mass of material ought to be on the inside and the lightweight material on the outside so there is good insulation between the two, "so the outside takes up the thermal lag [and] the inside takes the response of all the internal factors so that you keep the hot sun out from the mass inside … so that in the summertime it's beautifully cool inside."
And that’s what he did for Magney House.