MPBAA 2022 Gold Award · Inverloch · Bass Coast
Award-Winning 7.15m X-Trainer Slimline with Spa, Inverloch VIC
2022 MPBAA Australian Pool & Spa Awards Gold — Best Prefabricated Residential Courtyard or Plunge Pool. The house itself sits over one end of the pool — an engineering brief that required integrating a structural house post with the fibreglass shell, something concrete pools handle in their footings but fibreglass pools had never solved this way before.
Pool
X-Trainer Slimline 7.15
Colour
Evolution
Install
House post integrated
Awards
MPBAA 2022 Gold
The Build
Inside the install
Nine angles — from the engineered Nexus edge between pool and spa, through the integration with the house structure, to the finished courtyard zone.
The Project
A pool engineered to share a footing with the house above it
A very restricted beach-holiday block, a house designed to sit partly over the pool, and a brief that called for the pool and spa to read as part of the house rather than dropped into the yard. The result won the 2022 MPBAA Gold Award for Best Prefabricated Residential Courtyard or Plunge Pool — and required engineering work we hadn’t done on a fibreglass build before.
The site challenge
The house was designed to sit over one end of the pool — with a structural post landing where the pool needed to go.
On a concrete pool, a house post over the pool can be incorporated into the footing as part of the same pour. On a fibreglass build, the shell is a complete object — integrating an external structural post wasn’t something we’d done before. The brief came with the engineering problem already attached.
The engineering solution
Custom fibreglass work to seal around the structural post, with full watertight connection between the pool and the spa.
We engineered the house post into the pool structure with custom fibreglass work, creating a watertight seal around the post itself. The pool and spa are connected via a Nexus edge, with the fibreglass continuing through the joint to maintain shell integrity across both vessels. The kind of solution that sounds straightforward in a sentence and requires a fortnight of engineering to actually execute.
Reading as part of the house
The brief said ‘an overlay’ — pool and spa integrated with the house, not dumped into the yard.
The design intent wasn’t a courtyard pool in the literal sense — it was meant to feel like part of the house. Once complete, the courtyard zone came into clarity: cosier and more protected than the clients had imagined from the plans. Their comment afterward was that they hadn’t appreciated on paper how much the integration would change the feel of the entire ground floor.
Built for remote owners and B&B guests
Fully automatic — the owners live in Melbourne and let the property as a B&B between stays.
The clients are based in Melbourne; the property is a holiday house and occasional B&B. In-floor self-cleaning runs on a timer; sanitisation and circulation are automated; phone connectivity lets the owners check chemistry and pool status from anywhere. When holiday-makers arrive, the pool is clean and ready — no last-minute drive down to manually prep.
At a Glance
Project specifications
Pool & design
- Shape
- X-Trainer Slimline 7.15m × 3m
- Spa
- X-Trainer spa 2.8m × 1.8m, Nexus-edge connected
- Colour
- Bi-luminite Evolution
- Install type
- House structure sits over one end of pool; custom fibreglass work around structural post
- Location
- Inverloch VIC (Bass Coast Shire)
Features & equipment
- Cleaning
- Vantage in-floor self-cleaning
- Automation
- Full phone connectivity for remote owners
- Use
- Family holiday house + B&B
- Award
- MPBAA 2022 Gold — Best Prefabricated Residential Courtyard or Plunge Pool
Why Compass For Tight Coastal Sites
Four reasons this build won Gold
Restricted block + integrated house + holiday-house automation. Each one would be a notable project on its own. Together they were peer-judged as the best prefabricated courtyard pool in Australia.
MPBAA Gold 2022
Best Prefabricated Residential Courtyard or Plunge Pool, peer-judged at the Master Pool Builders Association of Australia awards. National recognition for the integration work between pool, spa and house structure.
House-post integration
A first for our fibreglass work — engineering a structural house post into the pool envelope with custom fibreglass sealing around it. The kind of solution that’s standard in concrete builds and used to rule fibreglass out of jobs like this.
Nexus edge between pool and spa
Two separate fibreglass vessels joined at the Nexus edge, with the fibreglass continuing through the joint for watertight integrity. One body of water, one filtration system, two engineered shells.
Remote-owner automation
In-floor cleaning, automated sanitisation, full phone connectivity. The Melbourne-based owners can check the pool from anywhere — essential when B&B guests are arriving to a property no-one’s been to in a fortnight.
Holiday house on the Bass Coast?
Inverloch, Cape Paterson, Wonthaggi, Phillip Island, Leongatha — we build across the Bass Coast and South Gippsland. Free site inspection.
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