To help create more resilient communities we partnered with industry leading experts to design, build and test a home resilient to fire, flood, storm and cyclone. One House is a prototype created by Suncorp, in collaboration with James Cook University, CSIRO and Room11 Architects to help us understand how resilience against extreme weather can be incorporated into house design. We know that every house is unique and factors such as building type, location and weather conditions can help you to further determine how you can build or renovate with resilience, so we have provided some further information and resources that may help.

Australia is no stranger to extreme weather. Every year we see homes destroyed and billions spent on rebuilding while our communities carry the emotional toll. But the truth is, our weather is only getting worse. But there’s another issue. Australian homes just aren’t as resilient as they could be - and homeowners aren’t necessarily aware of what they can do to reduce the impacts of extreme weather without compromising their way of life. For example, approximately 100,000 older North Queensland homes may be below the minimum standard for cyclone safety while The Bushfire Building Council of Australia estimates 90% of our homes aren’t resilient to bushfires.

We can’t prevent extreme weather - but we can make our homes better equipped to withstand it. With this in mind, we set out to design, build and test a prototype house that we could learn from. One that would help to show us what it will take to build a safer, more resilient Australia. Collaborating over many months, the team combined existing research on home resilience and their own scientific expertise explore what resilient features would make a home safe, liveable and easy to maintain – while remaining comparative to the cost of any standard architecturally designed home built today. An architectural concept was created incorporating pioneering ideas and sustainable building innovations. In partnership with the full team, this blueprint was evolved into a final design that took inspiration from a quintessential ‘Queenslander’ home. This is One House to Save Many.