It’s kind of like an Eschler paint ing. Although the evidence is plainly right before you, it still doesn’t make sense. Australians have been building bigger homes on smaller blocks, for fewer people to live in. Huh?
Research commissioned in 2009 by CommSec, though the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) indicated that “the average floor area of new homes hit a record high of 214.6 square metres in the last financial year.” This made our homes eight per cent larger than even those of the United States, giving us the dubious honour of having the biggest homes in the world.
Yet we don’t even find this suffi cient. The self storage market in Australia is said to have experienced over 20 per cent growth in the past two years alone.
Another study by the ABS showed that whilst house sizes were growing, the size of the block they were being built on had steady decreased by about eight per cent for the eleven years prior to 2003-04.
‘Small House’ in Sydney by Woods Bagot architect Domenic Alvaro exemplifies house design which does more with less.
Against this background the 7th Annual International Housing Affordability Survey (2011) by Demographia concluded that, “Australia, once the exemplar of modestly priced, high quality middle class housing, [is] now the most unaf fordable housing market in the English speaking world.”
Whilst Demographia, and others, lay the blame on high land prices, not on house construction costs, it can’t be denied that larger dwellings are simply more costly, both financially and environmentally, to construct than smaller homes.
As suburban land blocks shrink in area, homes have expanded to fill a greater portion of that shrinking land area. This has, for example, seen the likes of highly practical roof eaves all but disappear as dwellings squeeze closer to property boundaries. Without the climatic protection pro vided by eaves, households have resorted to unprecedented rates of air conditioner installation, to make their homes comfortable.
As homes suck up every available square centimetre of a block, the area of porous land, i.e., yard and garden, is radically diminished, leading to increased stormwater problems.
Patrick Fitzgerald, a builder in the Southern Highlands of NSW, with an eye towards green design, is in the process of designing and building a home for himself. However, after the initial plans were drawn up, Patrick decided the house was too expansive and redesigned it to be smaller.
“I was onsite with the engineer and we were all set to go, when I sudden ly said, ‘No, I can do this’.”
Instead he went back to the drawing board to finagle his initial 330 square metres of floor area into a more mod est 220 square metre footprint.
He located the garage under the house, and through judicious applica tion of the right style beams and trusses, fitted 40 square metres of liv ing area into the design’s roof space, without technically adding a full sec ond storey.
What benefits did he see in opting for smaller homes? “There’s less exca vation, fewer materials consumed, less area to light and heat. Fewer win dows, so you can save some money to afford more efficient double glazing, where you do have windows.”
One of his most notable reasons for advocating smaller houses is that they, “allow you to turn it on the block [during the design phase] for improved passive solar heat gain.”
At first glance a smaller house might seem more restrictive. But Patrick Fitzgerald sees things rather differently. With greater flexibility in the house’s orientation, Patrick reck ons small home owners have enhanced control over their privacy. “You can personalise a block more, allow more plantings in the garden.”
Whereas large ‘McMansion’-style houses press up close against fences and neighbour’s houses, a smaller home is free to be set further further away from boundaries. “It just feels better, emotionally the overall feel is less claustrophobic,” says Patrick.
He’s not alone in his views. Kevin Doodney, CEO of LJ Hooker Land Marketing, and architect, Brett Blacklow, of Earth Spirit Homes, some years ago conceived their Smarter Small Home. When compared to a traditional brick veneer house on a slab with and concrete roof tile construction, the environ mental benefits of the Smarter Small Home design are said to be 38 per cent less carbon emissions, 39 per cent less embodied energy and approximately 50 per cent less build ing wastage during construction.
Additionally the Homes obtain a 6 Star Energy Rating. Designed to fit onto smaller land area (down to a weeny 300 square metres), the basic Smarter Small Home model is 65 square metres over two floors. The driving force behind its development was to make housing once more affordable. Hence the notion that house and land package including a Smarter Small Home should sell for no more than $300,000.
Such a figure may not impress David Bell, who built his own 10 square metre ‘Tiny House’ in Birchip, Victoria for less than 20,000, inclusive of his half acre of land and photo voltaic solar system. The savings made on building a small house allowed David to also invest in double glazed windows.
Admittedly, David only needs a house sized to suit himself. However, such a demographic is increasingly common. In 1911 our homes housed 4.5 persons, but by 2006 this had dropped to 2.6 and is forecast to fall to 2.3 by 2026. By which time single person households are projected by the ABS to represent 30.2 per cent of all Australian households.
This is not a uniquely Australian phenomena. The largest homebuilder in the United States, D.R.Horton, is currently developing a community of ‘micro homes,’ in what is known as ‘Division 43’ of Portland, Oregon. These energy efficient apartments range from 34 to 64 square metres. Avoidance of car parking allows more dwellings to be located on the site, as the neighbourhood boasts high num bers of cyclists, metropolitan buses and nearby car share stations.
Similarly, Graham Hill, founder of the world’s most visited green lifestyle blog, TreeHugger.com, and holder of an architecture degree, sees the same writing on the wall. He devised a $70,000 USD web-based, crowd- sourced design competition, known as LifeEdited, to get architect’s brains engaged around creating more habit able small spaces. Buying a 39 square metre apartment in New York, Graham challenged the world to make it fully liveable. His brief required accommodating a sit-down dinner for 12, lounging options for eight, space for two guests, and a home office, amongst other criteria. The jury winner developed a ‘mobile modular piece of furniture’ to be pulled into the middle of the space, on tracks, acting as a partition wall. Slots for two folding bikes were also hidden into the apartment’s walls.
Christian Schallert, a photographer living in Barcelona, Spain, had already been tackling the same issues with his 24 square metre apartment. The only items to protrude into the amazingly compact space are, surpris ingly, a shower and hand basin. Everything else folds away into the walls - bed cum sofa, kitchen, fridge, dining table, television, etc. One con sequence of such a neatly ordered liv ing space is that Christian remained trim and fit, opening, closing and rearranging the furniture in what he termed his “action apartment.” Fair Companies, who produced a wonder ful online video of Christian’s trans forming flat, noted that he did move out of his bachelor pad once he began a long term relationship.
Returning to Australia for a final example of the emerging trend of housing designs that do more with less, we should make mention of a Finalist for two categories of Houses magazine’s Australian House of the Year Award. The ‘Small House’ has also been featured on the TV show Grand Designs Australia. Woods Bagot architect Domenic Alvaro, and his partner Sue Bassett, took a 42 metre square car parking space in a lane in Surry Hills, Sydney and creat ed a multi-level, vertical home, com plete with basement garage and rooftop garden. Like the aforemen tioned Christian, their small space design will keep them fit as they tread the 67 step staircase to access the various floors of their home. Though the stairwell does perform double duty as a thermal chimney drawing air up though the building.
Building smaller Australian homes may be be as culturally confronting as getting us to drive less, but both will become imperatives as humankind’s environmental impact looms larger.
