September 8, 2026
We recently had the pleasure of sitting with Hello Sunshine Magazine to tell the story of Ecolibrium Designs.
Read the interview with Charlie Shelley below.
What if your home could be kinder on the planet – and feel better to live in? Charlie Shelley explores the benefits of sustainable building.
There’s a particular feeling Brett Grimley is chasing with every home he designs. It’s the moment a client walks through their front door after a long day, takes a breath, and thinks: “It’s so good to be home.”
For Brett, that moment is the whole point. And for the past 20 years, his Eumundi-based practice, Ecolibrium Designs, has been quietly making it happen – one considered, sustainably-built home at a time. Brett’s passion for sustainability started in the rainforests of Far North Queensland, where childhood days spent outdoors fostered a bone-deep connection to the natural world.
After school, he spent a decade in Brisbane working as a freelance draftsperson on multi-residential, developer-driven projects across some of South East Queensland’s fastest-growing corridors. It paid the bills, but something nagged at him.
“I became more and more frustrated with it,” Brett says. “Working for architects on bigger commercial and multi-residential projects, it just didn’t have any soul to it for me.”
Needing a change, he headed back up north and completed a science degree at James Cook University.
It was a turning point. Steeped in research on what human activity was doing to the planet, Brett found himself at once alarmed and galvanised into action.
“I was exposed to the urgency of it,” he says. “We were seriously heading in a very bad direction, and I felt a really strong need to try and be part of the solution.”
Realising scientific research wasn’t his calling, he pivoted back to design – this time working alongside multi-award-winning house designer Chris Vandyke in Cairns, whose holistic approach to residential architecture reignited Brett’s love of the craft. When Brett eventually relocated to the Sunshine Coast hinterland with his family, he felt the need to continue pursuing his passion for sustainable, climate-responsive design – and just like that, Ecolibrium Designs was born.
So what does a sustainably designed home look like in practice? From the outside, it might surprise you. There’s no singular aesthetic, no obligatory rammed-earth wall or green roof overflowing with vegetation. What Ecolibrium homes have in common is something less visible but far more valuable: they’re designed to perform.
Orientation is the first and most critical design decision – positioning your home so that it blocks out the sweltering summer sun while still allowing winter sun in for warmth. Then natural ventilation – capturing prevailing breezes and drawing them through the home. And then materials – choosing environmentally-friendly products that create what Brett calls “the esky effect”, a well-insulated, well-sealed building envelope that holds a stable internal temperature without the need for air conditioning.
“The better you make the actual structure of the building, the less solar you need, the less air conditioning you need,” Brett says. “The higher the thermal performance, the more comfortable it is for people to live in, and the cheaper it is to run.”
He recalls one of his early designs at the Currumbin Eco Village. The clients’ only complaint? That he’d installed ceiling fans. The home was so well insulated it stayed comfortable year-round – meaning they never once switched them on. Brett’s test for any building material
is refreshingly straightforward: what happens if you threw it in the bush? What does it look like in a year? In five years? In 100? If it dissolves into microplastics, that’s a hard no. But if it eventually becomes soil, then it might just be the sort of thing he’s looking for.
The design process itself goes deep. Before a single line is drawn, Ecolibrium clients engage in an extensive briefing process that Brett describes as being built around the idea of “enoughness”. The goal is to build exactly what the client needs in order to achieve the lifestyle they desire; no more and no less. Learning what clients hold dear is essential.
“We ask them how they want to feel in the kitchen, how they want to feel in different spaces,” Brett says.
“It’s a values-led process rather than a prescriptive one.
“Because the bigger the building, the higher the cost. Often, that means working harder to pay for the home and having less time to enjoy the fulfilling lifestyle it was intended to enable.”
It’s an approach that demands honesty from both designer and client. But the results speak for themselves. Job number 380-something is currently on the books. Brett jokes that he doesn’t get repeat customers, but he does get lifelong ones: the kind who’d welcome him in for a cup of tea and happily talk about how much they love their home.
For those eager to expand their knowledge of sustainable building, Ecolibrium Designs now offers small-group talks and workshops to raise awareness about the options available.
“I only have 15 or so clients a year, which is maybe 30 people,” Brett says. “But I’ve got 35 years of knowledge – 20 years of intensive, sustainability-based knowledge – and I have an enormous feeling of responsibility to share it.
“I want to inspire people and help them see that sustainable building is within their reach – it’s not too hard or too expensive, it’s truly achievable and affordable.”
Asked what he’d say to someone who’s unsure whether they should invest in building sustainably, Brett doesn’t reach for statistics or scare tactics. Instead, he poses a simple question: if you were living in the house you decided to build in five years’ time, and you could look back and choose between the sustainable path and the conventional one, which route would you wish you’d taken?
“You only get one chance to get the bones of a house right,” he says.
“You can change floor tiles, you can change kitchens – but you can’t change how it’s fundamentally built without enormous expense.
“Get that right, and in five years’ time you’ll be grateful. Because that’s what gives you a comfortable home. And that’s what it’s all about, really – human comfort.”
Ultimately, the story of Ecolibrium Designs is about choosing better, from the ground up. After 20 years in business, the practice is still finding new and exciting ways to answer the same question: how do we make homes that people love now, and that still make sense for the world they will live in later?
Read the original article here.
Hero Image by Ian Waldie, Hello Sunshine Magazine
Featuring Megan Lee and Brett Grimley, Ecolibrium Designs
