Council's Living for the Future Home Expo was launched in 2013 as a free, family-friendly event offering a one-stop-shop of stalls and practical workshops to help people embrace sustainable living principles and find out more about smart housing designs and renovations.
Home Expo 2018
Kingscliff TAFE, Saturday 15 September, 9am – 3pm
Be part of this year’s Sustainable Living Home Expo as we provide an all-day program of activities for the whole family to help create more affordable and environmentally-friendly homes and lifestyles in the Tweed.
Be inspired and informed:
- See the creative, inventive display of children’s Sustainable Shoebox House design entries and find out who will win this year’s prizes
- Join in workshops such as keeping backyard chickens, bee keeping, easy food gardens in small spaces, and practical, inexpensive ideas for sustainable living
- Go in the draw to win fantastic prizes
Visit local trade stalls, community groups and talk to Council for all you need to know about smart, sustainable living in the Tweed. Enjoy delicious food and local coffee, and make the most of music and free kids activities available all day.
Home Expo is a waste wise event: BYO cup and bag
Kids Sustainable Shoebox Design competition
Open to all Tweed Shire primary and pre-school aged children.
Construct an eco-friendly ‘sustainable house’ from items found around the home and go in the draw to win great prizes.
Tell me more about the
Kids Sustainable Shoebox Design competition.
Sustainable House Day Open Homes
Seeking sustainable homes to showcase, Sunday 16 September 2018
We are calling on sustainable builders, designers and visionaries to open their homes, hearts and wisdom and share their sustainable building stories with their local community.
If you would like to showcase your home and share your passion and knowledge about sustainable living and what you learned we would love to hear from you.
Find out more at www.sustainablehousedaynr.org, email sustainablehousedaynr@gmail.com or register on the national website www.sustainablehouseday.com/submit-your-house.
Inspire, educate and share your story!
Become a Home Expo Stallholder
Register for a stall at this year’s event to reach over 1000 local residents.
Share the sustainability credentials of your service, product or community group and provide visitors with all the enthusiasm, information and support they need to take the next step to more environmentally-friendly homes and lifestyles.
Submit an expression of interest to be involved in this year’s event.
Information for Stallholders - 2018 (29kB DOCX)
Stallholder Application Form - 2018 (34kB DOCX)
Kids Sustainable Shoebox Design competition
Open to all Tweed Shire primary and pre-school aged children.
What does your sustainable house look like?
Construct an eco-friendly ‘sustainable house’ from items found around the home and go in the draw to win great prizes.
Put your smartest and most innovative design and construction ideas into practice and share your ideas about the clever ways our homes can be more environmentally friendly:
- stay cool in summer
- keep warm in winter
- made from natural materials available locally
- made from recycled products or innovative materials
- make clean energy from renewable sources
- use electricity wisely
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- catch rainwater
- use water wisely
- send less waste to landfill
- grow your own food
- attract local wildlife and protect the special biodiversity of the Tweed
- make space for sustainable transport options like bikes, electric cars and hydrogen cars
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Competition rules
Size: your house should be approximately shoebox or cereal box sized so it is easy to bring and display at the event for judging!
Materials: any recycled or found items that help your model’s eco-friendly features stand out
Label your entry: name, age, postcode
Enter
Describe your design’s sustainability features. Fill in the
Kids Sustainable House Design competition entry form.
Bring your model and entry form to Council’s Sustainability Living Home Expo at Kingscliff TAFE on Saturday 15 September 2018, from 9am.
You can also make your sustainable house at the event. There will be loads of reusable materials to use and Local art teacher Carleen Joy will be available from 9am to help you construct your small, smart, sustainable home.
Judging
Will happen at 2pm, prizes will be awarded at 2.30pm.
Prize categories:
- Best team entry
- Best individual entry < 8 years
- Best individual entry 8 – 12 years
Great prizes to be won
Terms and conditions
Promotion starts 21 August 2018. Entries close 2:00pm AEST 15 September 2018 at Tweed Shire Council’s Sustainable Living Home Expo, Kingscliff TAFE Automotive Centre. Open to Tweed residents who are pre-school or primary school students. Must have consent from parent/guardian and teacher to enter. Limit 1 entry per person in either or both the individual and team entry categories. Entries will be divided into categories: Team, Individual < 8 years, Individual 8 – 12 years. Winners will be announced at the event. Winners not at the event will be notified within 7 days of the event and efforts will be made to arrange for the relevant prize to be given to the prize winner. Prizes may have their own terms and conditions. Promoter is Tweed Shire Council (ABN 90 178 732 496) of 10-14 Tumbulgum Road, Murwillumbah NSW 2484.
Previous years' events
See below for information relating to previous Home Expos.
Sustainable living really came home to roost for more many Tweed residents, when more than 1000 people attended the 2017 Living for the Future Home Expo.
The event, held at the seagulls club in Tweed Heads West on 16 September 2017, continued a rise in attendances each year and equipped most visitors with clear goals on how they could make their households more energy and cost efficient.
A survey of this year’s expo visitors revealed many people found helpful solutions and would act upon them. Sixty per cent of survey respondents left with a definite plan for their household power, recycling, food waste or building plans.
A quarter of survey respondents would pursue options for renewable energy or improved energy efficiency. The high proportion of newcomers to the 2017 expo was also very encouraging, continuing to spread the message about the sustainable living options that can bring substantial benefits to households, as well as benefits to the broader community.
Return visitors to the expo shared details about the positive changes they have made since previous events. 77 per cent of return visitors gave examples of how they had taken information from earlier Living for the Future Home Expo events and put it into practice.
The community’s large appetite for design and construction tips was evident in the large crowds at many of the event’s workshops. Sessions on alternative building materials, such as bamboo and hemp, attracted some of the day’s largest attendances. That interest continued when many people signed up to ‘speed date’ a designer, to get advice for their own projects.
A workshop on the evolution of eBikes was also extremely popular, inspiring many people to take one of the electric bikes for a test ride.
The top prize in the 2017 Sustainable House Day Design Awards, this year hosted at the Home Expo, was claimed by Ballina and Brisbane-based firm Aardvarc. Its winning design in the Professional Category focused on recycling Murwillumbah’s industrial materials, in line with the competitions to use locally-sourced materials for a sustainable house.
Visit Council’s YouTube page to see clips from this year’s workshop presenters.
There's a big appetite in the Tweed for money-saving food preparation tips, smaller dwellings and more sustainable home and lifestyle options in general, if attendances at the Living for the Future Home Expo on 3 September 2016 are any indication.
More than 1000 people headed to Seagulls Club in Tweed Heads West for this year's expo, with a Tiny Homes workshop and Love Food Hate Waste cooking demonstrations attracting some of the day's biggest crowds.
A full house for the ‘Tiny Homes – Big Impact’ workshop showed there's a lot of local interest for smaller dwellings, for more affordable housing, to reduce the environmental footprint of Tweed homes or simply to suit people's lifestyles. Participants in the workshop were impressed by clever design and building approaches to make small homes increasingly comfortable and practical.
More Tweed households are set to have their own beehives, following the workshops on native and European bees, while a number of people helped Tweed Landcare plant trees to create a Green Cathedral on the Tweed River foreshore.
There was also great interest a selected display of tiny homes models from the
2016 Northern Rivers Sustainable House Day Design Competition.
Check out the More Information box for the list of over 40 stallholders which provided visitors with simple solutions to save costs, support local businesses, shape our community and make a positive contribution to the environment.
Over 100 visitors had an opportunity to ride in BMW i3 electric cars, while many others took the opportunity to ask questions at the Gold Coast BMW display of other purely electric, plug-in electric hybrid (PHEV) and standard hybrid vehicles.
Podcasts of the event and key workshops are available on
Council's YouTube channel.
The 2015 Home Expo was held at the Murwillumbah Civic Centre on Saturday 12 September from 9am – 2pm (NSW time).
The 2015 event included:
- Over 500 visitors, including more than 350 people who hadn’t been to previous Tweed sustainability home expo events
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Ideas and pledges from over 70% of visitors to:
- become a member of the Backyard Habitat for Wildlife program
- be a Wildlife Friendly Pet owner
- make homes more resilient to storms, design new homes and renovations to make the most of the local climate and be energy efficient and use building materials with a low environmental footprint
- improve backyard habitat
- enhance recycling efforts, set up a worm farm or compost bin, take e-waste to Sort Murwillumbah for recycling
- start growing food and set up vertical gardens
- do more to enhance water efficiency and reduce chemical use around the home
- improve general awareness about sustainability issues
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9 workshops including presentations from:
- 35 stallholders from local businesses, community groups and Council programs to give advice on everything from alternative building systems, healthy soils, locally designed and made solar power battery storage, green cleaning options, wall coverings, through to the best water and heat tolerant lawn options optimised for Tweed conditions
- 5 of the 15 entries to the regional ‘Housing for Life’ Sustainable Design competition were on display
- Over 20 prize draws including a 1.5kw solar panel system and installation valued at $3,500 from SAE Tweed
More than 350 people braved a wet and windy day to visit the 2014 'Living for the Future' Home Expo at Tweed Heads Civic Centre on Saturday 23 August.
The fun, free, family-friendly event celebrated eco-living at home, with an exciting program (141kB PDF), an appearance by former Ironman champion Trevor Hendy, and some fantastic prizes on offer, including a 1.5 kilowatt solar power system from SAE Group.
Visitors to the event connected with local experts (694kB PDF) from more than 20 local businesses, community groups and Council programs to access information, products and services to help them save money and make their homes healthier, more comfortable and environmentally-friendly.
A series of free workshops (343kB PDF) was also run throughout the day, offering tips on everything from bee-keeping and backyard biodiversity to designing homes that make the most of our beautiful Northern Rivers climate.
On behalf of the organising team, thank you to everyone who was involved in making the event such a great success.
For further information about the Home Expo, please contact Council's Sustainability Program Leader on (02) 6670 2555.
Council convened the inaugural Living for the Future Home Expo and Community Summit on Saturday 16 November 2013 at the Tweed Heads Civic Centre.
More than 600 people turned out to learn about smart housing design, renovations and sustainable living.
Presentations by a panel of local experts including architects, designers and sustainability leaders highlight opportunities to improve sustainability in the Tweed and more than 30 local stallholders were on hand to provide advice on the best products and services to:
- save energy costs
- be water efficient
- reuse resources and reduce waste
- enhance the local environment
- cut greenhouse gas emissions
- make households more self-sufficient in food or energy
- make homes more liveable as people get older or lose mobility
Further Information
2013 Home Expo flyer (3.06mB PDF)
2013 Home Expo presenter profiles (94kB PDF)
2013 Home Expo video