Cairns is wet from December to April and warm the rest of the year, and the ideas that make a house work here are old ones. The Queenslander got them right a century ago: raise the floor, make the rooms one deep, put a verandah on the shaded side, and let the air move through. This concept keeps those ideas and drops the fretwork.
The house sits on a sloping block above the city, so it is raised at the front and close to the ground at the back. Through the middle runs a breezeway, open at both ends, and every room opens off it. A breeze that comes up the hill goes straight through the house.
One room deep is the rule. If a breeze has to cross two rooms, it won't.
A hip roof, because of the wind
Cairns is in wind region C, cyclone country, and a hip roof is the one that shrugs off a cyclone best: no gable end to catch the wind, every edge tied down. The Studio hips the roof by itself the moment it hears a cyclonic town, unless you pick a different one yourself. The eaves are deep for the rain and the shade, and they stop where the tie-downs need them to.
The deck on the shaded side
The deck faces south-east, away from the afternoon sun, and looks down to the water. The kitchen opens onto it through one wide door, so on a wet-season evening the kitchen, the deck and the breezeway are one space with the rain coming down beyond the eaves. Louvres on two sides of each bedroom keep the air moving at night.
What the Studio does with this
Start a home from this look and the Studio sets a Queenslander under a hip roof, warm timber inside and out, and a kitchen that opens onto the deck. Tell it Cairns and it will keep the rooms one deep, draw a deep verandah on the living side, keep the west wall small, and hip the roof for the wind.
What HWD does here
Tropical, climate zone 1. Hot humid summer, warm winter. Shade and moving air decide this house: a deep verandah on the living side, rooms one deep so a breeze crosses them, wide openings, and a court or breezeway where the plan allows. Keep the west wall small.
The Studio reads the climate from the town or postcode you give it. The zone boundaries follow a map, not postcodes, so it prints its reading as a note, never as a compliance statement.
Draw your version of this home.
Opens the Studio with the hip roof, warm timber and the Queenslander style already chosen. Change the rooms, the block and the state, and HWD draws it for where you are.
