There’s lots of talk right now about what to build for the 600,000+ houses that Australia needs right now, and much of that focusses on sustainability. So, last week I weighed in with the proposition that the most sustainable precedent we have is right under our noses: it’s 3 to 4 storey walk-up flats.

Some scoffed. Some laughed. But I ask you to look beyond the stark outline, the textured red and orange brickwork and the wiggly wrought iron to see the inherent possibilities in a past modest form for a future sustainable typology.

I argued that there are nine criteria to achieve the triple bottom line (environmental, social, and financial) in residential design, and we can learn a lot by testing the 3-4-storey walk-up flats (WUF) against those criteria. The answer in every case is running in one direction: the WUFs of the 1920s to 1960s may be butt ugly, but are very sustainable.

There is much to learn from them, even if we can’t love them. There are ways to improve these much-maligned buildings for another eighty or more years, and there are key lessons for the new buildings in the next century.

Dwelling size

We need to build small. Smaller apartments cost less to build, operate and maintain. The modest WUF units, with simple but efficient plans, tick the financial affordability box. Abolish the codes that set minimum room and apartment sizes, derived from our grotesque obsession with house size. Instead introduce performance standards such as light and air and real energy efficiency to support the health of residents, not a continuation of our spatial greed.

Density

Research suggests the ’Goldilocks’ density of 50-60 dwellings per hectare (dw/ha) is the sweet spot. Not too cold at 10 dw/ha for detached freestanding homes (hugely car dependent) and not too hot at over a hundred dw/ha (demands for lifts and mechanical ventilation drive up energy costs). Proximity to services (education, health, shopping and so on) is a greater determinant of fossil fuel use than building performance. Suburbs of WUFs (such as inner-city Sydney and Melbourne) support those services, and are about 50-60 dwellings per hectare, and are ‘just right’ for sustainability.

Community

Grouped dwellings should be a community within the community. Eight to sixteen dwellings (the common number in WUFs) is ‘just right’: know your neighbours, look in and care for them, share resources; not feeling overwhelmed by innumerable people around you. The key social indicator is to feel you belong, to be supported and be supportive.

Open space

We love to live outdoors and can do so comfortably for six months of the year in most of our cities. But we don’t need a backyard, or it’s miniature - a balcony, for each dwelling. WUFs, often without balconies, offer two solutions: a communal garden area (admittedly not often well used for growing trees and vegetables) and the local community open space: from big playing fields to pocket gardens.

A balcony in a temperate climate is better used as a closed-in fully-glazed sunroom in winter, and then opened up as a veranda in summer. But a balcony has some value if it doesn’t intrude on privacy and can open up the interior. These two buildings were once identical, now both renovated in different ways, with balconies added to the street front (Warners Ave, Bondi).

Height

These front and back units in North Sydney tell a story (other than one of total ugliness). Market greed drives a desire for 6-8 storeys as the solution to replace low density housing, saying that it’s the only financial solution. And lazy strategic planners rolled over. Half that height is just as viable, and much better as a type. Cheaper per square metre to build and less disruptive in amenity to the neighbourhood when built.

Vehicles

Cars destroy good medium / high-density design. Space hungry, the circulation and parking sometimes take as much space as the apartment it serves. We can reduce the car impact three ways. First, build close to public transport for regular daily needs. Second, adopt car share on, or nearby, the property, perhaps even run by the small community of 12 units. Then we halve or quarter the number of cars that are needed. Most WUFs have sensible numbers, often used for storage, not cars. We would do well to learn from them.

Materials

Masonry and concrete meet the 3 ‘L’s’ of long life, loose fit and low impact. Unfortunately the visual quality is totally at odds with the sustainability of the project. Most post WW2 WUFs were built in load bearing brickwork and concrete slabs. High thermal and acoustic performance. But the choices of brick were often terrible tragic. No wonder the renderers or painters are often called in.

These two blocks of flats in Bondi were recently renovated: the weathered mortar replaced and in one case, metal roofing replaced the terracotta tiles with when they have reached the end of their useful life (a much better solution (especially for fixing solar PV and solar thermal upgrades).

Currently the chattering websites put great emphasis on new materials for cost-saving (CLT and AAC for instance), but in the marketplace builders say the traditional ways are more cost effective. A re-evaluation of the ‘old ways’ may be very instructive. In a similar way, lots of pre-fab and alternatives have been promoted to project home builders, who eschew the untried in favour of traditional brick veneer. Affordability is to the fore with conventional materials.

Energy

All dwellings must be designed for minimal energy use (heating, cooling, hot water, and lights). Insulation, thermal mass, natural light and ventilation are critical. In WUFs this often extends to the circulation areas. These images show the internal and external circulation for 1960s flats in Cremorne, without lifts, but encouraging the use of stairs. The front faces the sun and view, and the rear has elevated walkways to front doors, and do they really intrude on the views of the flats nearby?

AccessibilityThe corollary of accessibility is choice: is there a building to suit all needs? Whilst there was extraordinary variability in the WUF solutions (these are just a few examples from one street in Sydney (Edgecliff Rd) that shows the diversity, but the one failing of these flats is an attention to accessibility. The sooner the liveability code for every apartment is introduced the better.

In praise of the WUF

The 4-storey walk-up flat offers lots of lessons: when well located on or near a main transport route and built together they provide a community of a density that can support local, walkable, services.

With four dwellings per floor, a central liftwell, modest foyer spaces, they are of a scale, in form and height, that allows light (and often sun) into all units and cross ventilation to all corner apartments, and they are nearly all corner apartments.

The solid construction has good acoustic qualities and, with the addition of better insulation, provides good thermal mass and comfort. Without internal corridors, basements, lifts and mechanical exhausts, or excessive carparking, it has a low energy demand, and can be fitted with PV panels and better AC if needed.

The lack of balconies can be a benefit, although there can be much better landscapes for most WUFs, where the gardens are well underutilised. This where they can certainly do better. Remember Frank Lloyd Wright’s dictum: “surgeons bury their mistakes, architects grow vines”.

We can learn a lot from the ugly duckling.

Reference: ToT 166: week 23/ 2023. In praise of 4 storey walk up flats. All images by the author.

Tone Wheeler is an architect / the views expressed are his.

Short pieces are published every Friday in A&D Another Thing.

Longer columns are Tone on Tuesday, published then.

You can contact TW at toneontuesday@gmail.com

Tone Wheeler

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