Queensland Architect Eddie Codd - Living Steel

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Featured Architect: Eddie Codd

Queensland architect Eddie Codd's fascination with steel cladding began during his earliest days in the profession 45 years ago.

His preoccupation with steel as a building material is evident in the homes he has developed through the years. A recent project of his practice Codd Stenders was designed for Eddie's daughter and son-in-law at Anstead on Brisbane's outskirts. The home features exposed steel structural elements incorporated into its design.

It sits lightly in a bush environment, with extensive use of cladding for walls, roofs and ceilings defining its style, and steel used in an innovative gutter treatment.

"The lovely thing about the steel cladding shape is that it is a soft profile," Eddie enthuses. "People don't think of steel as a soft material, but in fact it is actually soft and leaf like in nature and it's comfortable in the Australian environment, particularly for domestic work."

Eddie Codd

"As for the steel gutter profile (which uses BlueScopeSteel's LYSAGHT MINI ORB®), it gives the architect an opportunity to use a product with a smaller scale than the traditional corrugation. There are numerous elements on a house which lend themselves to that treatment."

Codd has played a significant role in advancing the profession of architecture in Australia, particularly through his position as the inaugural head of the School of Built Environment at the Queensland Institute of Technology. He established the School of Built Environment in 1975 where he reviewed and restructured courses in all building disciplines, as well as introduced 13 new courses. A registered builder, Codd has also designed and patented new construction technology and home and building products including space frames and workstation systems.

This continuing challenge to use materials in innovative ways has been with Eddie Codd from his days as a nine year old, leafing through a book titled "How It Is Made".

"I was devastated to learn then that houses in Britain were still being built in the same way they were in Roman times; they hadn't progressed at all," he recalled.

Eddie Codd

Eddie Codd's early fascination with how things are made not only steered him in the direction of architecture as a career, but also influenced a design approach of exposed structural elements. "In a house such as this, it's wasteful and unnecessary to line under the eaves," Eddie said. "We get tied up trying to make things look pretty, hiding the bones in the process. The roof (of this house) is expressed for what it is and presents as a light membrane."

The ceilings over the living areas of the house are clad in perforated LYSAGHT CUSTOM ORB® sheeting in ZINCALUME® steel, another often-used material in Codd's projects.

"We've even got it in our own office over the boardroom with fluorescent lights around the edge so that the light filters through," he said.

"I think I was among the first in Australia to pick up on the potential of perforated sheeting," he said. "For the very first project I completed as a student I used it for a ceiling treatment.

"I had to convince a supplier to set up equipment for the one off job, which in that case consisted of perforating the pans of a ribbed profile."

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