Energy

Who wants to live a spec life?

The average doesn’t exist in real life. There is no ‘normal’ person. No ‘standard’ homeowner. No ‘typical’ first home buyer.

So why is building spec homes, for average people, big business?

Probably because it is profitable.

And because it’s possible to employ a marketing team, in an ad-saturated society, to sell it to us.

Why should the homes we get to live in be dictated by what’s profitable to build?

There are many possible alternative bottom lines. Here’s a few:

  • Connection: Homes designed to encourage connection with people and promote better mental health.

  • Environmental Impact: Homes designed with a low carbon footprint over the entire lifecycle so that the next generation can enjoy the planet.

  • Anti-Consumerism: Homes designed to make it easier to buy less stuff by being small and efficient.

  • Low-energy: Or overall low-consumption (i.e. water, energy).

  • Sufficiency: Homes that prioritise the ability to grow food.

  • Proximity: Homes designed to encourage a low-commute, village-style day-to-day

Suburban Redevelopment

Pick up a property. Demolish the building. Rebuild what was there, but better, and make more spaces for more people.

A crucial piece of the puzzle of trying to transform a neighbourhood, is how to get hold of the land in the first place. The Nightingale 3 project in Melbourne took the above approach, you can read about it here.

But how about suburbia? We don't have the option of taking a single-storey building and adding space by building up, but could we take a similar approach? Could we find four connected titles, demolish, and rebuild with eight households?

It could be possible if we used the following principles:

More shared spaces: Shared laundries, storage, workshops, maybe even ditch the cars and use a fleet of electric vehicles.

Smaller spaces: Design for what we really need, learn to live with less, and just generally do bette design.

Common ownership: Whether it is a body corporate, a company structure or some other legal delight, sharing more requires a shift from a 'my house, my castle' property mentality.

Energy efficiency: Environmental considerations aside, this is a smart financial move. Keeping running costs low not only makes a higher build cost/mortgage affordable, it provides longer-term financial security by making living costs less tied to market variations in energy costs.

Around here, a typical section could be around 600 sqm. Four sections would give us 2400 sqm to play with.

I'm sure an architect could come up with an 8-household development using the principles above on 2400 sqm, even if we're limited to two storeys.