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residential design | landscape hybridisation | process multidisciplinary opportunities

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Been busy on the new projects front – finishing off the specification and documentation of this Senior’s Garden in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, as well as these site meetings:

A bit of fun collaborating on the Charlie’s Cookies shop/cafe fitout with graphic design extraordinaire, Lauren Abbott. In its very early stages, we will encapsulate the homely rustic playful nature of Charlie’s through the interior of their Bentleigh store.

 

 

 

 

 

A new multi-generational dwelling on the peninsula – two families aim to live on the same block of land. An interesting proposal that has much merit that could prototype a new way of living to curb housing affordability and encourage inter-generational cohabitation. All to be designed around an existing pool and two beautiful oak trees.

If you’re considering having someone design your place – feel free to drop me a line or an email for an initial consultation. Details here under ‘services’ – would love to hear from you!

When it comes to residential design for the masses, architectural commissions in Australia are something along the lines of 3-4% of the pie. That means that the vast majority of new housing built today is NOT authored by architects. This is of concern to me, as I believe that good design is necessary to responsibly densify this city, and this can only be achieved by a sensitive contextual response that an architect can provide. A standardised volume builder home cannot deliver the precise requirements that a site demands. So where are the barriers? In my opinion:

  • Architectural commissions are viewed as expensive and unaffordable, and don’t offer a return on investment
  • Architects are viewed as elitist and unapproachable
  • Most people cannot understand the design/planning/documentation/building process, and don’t know who to ask/where to start
  • Most people view residential design as a product, not a service, and commoditise housing to an end product

Unfortunately, a lot of these assumptions are somewhat true to a degree, however it needn’t be this way. I feel a shift in mindset needs to take place to increase the proportion of well designed housing:

  • Value needs to be placed upon the process of design
  • Perception of status needs to be shifted from quantity of space to quality of build
  • Consumerist attitudes must change to encourage living with less items and less space
  • Global thinking in relation to environmental and social impact must be at the forefront of a client’s motivation
  • Education of the market (real estate agents and developers) to rethink flexible models of living will result in adaptable housing types – e.g. multi-generational families, home/office environments
  • Rethinking the client brief with the client – for example, perhaps a client thinks they need 3 bedrooms, but in reality only requires transitional sleeping areas to accommodate 4 people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In short, design costs money – this includes the process of design as well as the construction of a good product. We need to spend MORE on the quality of the build, and LESS on the amount of floor area, and rethink how spaces can be evolve over time. In this way, longer term and bigger picture thinking demonstrates that housing will cost less, reduce environmental impact, be more specific to a client’s requirements and be sympathetic to the site. There is certainly more than one way to address this issue, one of which is photographed at the top – Habitat 21 in Dandenong features small 6 star housing by local architects to fit onto smaller sized land parcels. Wiki-houses is another option, which utilises open sourcing for the design of house plans allowing the local building economy to prevail, but still treats housing as a commodity. The list goes on.
Another method is something I’m proposing – a starting point to enter the jungle that is architectural design. I’m offering initial consultations for your residential design needs. For $200 per [metropolitan] site visit, I’ll come out and view your site, have a meeting with you to discuss your needs, provide a list of steps and a general timeframe, as well as provide ideas for what can be achieved. On a broader scale, what is actually happening is that you are partaking in some critical thinking of your block of land, factoring impacts beyond the micro needs and opening up the possibility of a customised solution that seeks to achieve the shift in mindset as outlined above. Seemingly overwhelming, but together we can workshop to synthesize the competing interests to reach an outcome far greater than any volume builder home can deliver. It may not involve myself personally providing architectural services – I may act as an agent for another architect that is a better fit for your needs/ethos.

Are you interested in taking the first step? Drop me a line or an email: esther@socialarchitect.com.au.

http://fourdesigners.tumblr.com/

This project happened in the space of about 10 days – the four shortlisted landscape designers participating in 2012′s MIFGS (yours truly being a part of it – see here for details) decided to collaborate and create one central website where all of our designs could be showcased for the general public to see. Our design statement, contact details, biographies and photos are available online.

From one initial email, we all jumped on board and contributed necessary information. The tumblr platform was chosen as the simplest blogging site with suitable themes that deliver bang for buck. Photos were updated, and links were sent out via various PR and marketing means.

See here for the link: http://fourdesigners.tumblr.com/

Screenshot of the website.

Best part of this website is the collaborative nature of the four of us – Rourke Hartwig, Phillip Withers, Ross Uebergang (winner) and myself – to help each other out and provide support during MIFGS 2012. A case where strength in numbers has mutual benefit, as demonstrated here by reviewer Catherine Stewart on the Garden Drum website, where she states “How refreshing to hear of designers working in collaboration rather than competition! Generosity to your industry, as well as sharing knowledge and contacts with colleagues, is the best way to increase your own expertise and grow your business. Let’s hope entrants for the MIFGS 2013 design competition follow your lead.” Couldn’t agree more, Catherine!

This is a show garden for the 2012 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show.

Conceived from the competition theme ‘Sense Garden,’ this landscape design captures the genius loci of Carlton – the ‘sense of place’ of the site. It is a process-driven exploration of the multi-sensorial experience of coffee, engaging the public as the subject hunting for a caffeine hit down Canning Street.

With thanks to St Ali, Seven Seeds, Cavellero, Padre’s, Eco Outdoor, Plantmark, Landscaping Victoria and Birchwood Landscaping

Green wall of dichromatic plants in coffee cups to resemble stretcher bond brickwork in a typical Carlton terrace house; milk crate seating in front; walk up window behind

Detail of tubestock mondos and poa labs in coffee cups, mounted on a steel mesh frame

Dichondra ‘silver falls’ gently cascading from the gutter planter box – resembling cast iron lacework on a Carlton terrace

Coffee bean gravel amongst Melbourne bluestone paving evoking the scent of roasted coffee, thanks to Seven Seeds.

Blue chalk sticks in coffee hessian sacks, thanks to St Ali.

Mass planting of grassy carex varieties, resembling a frothing cappucino

Plant list:

1| rear terrace wall

ophiopogan nigrescens | black mondo grass

poa labillardieri | common tussock grass

lomandra longifolia tanika

2| hessian bag fence

senecio serpens | blue chalk sticks

3| porch lacework

dichondra silver falls

4| coffee feature

coffea arabica | arabian coffee tree

macadamia pinkalicious | macadamia tree

5| central mass planting

carex comans brown

carex buchanii | leatherleaf sedge

carex frosted curls

acacia cognata dazzler

 

See here for the competition brief

See here for photos under construction

While I was hoping that this garden would be purchased from eBay (see here for the listing) to prevent it from ending in the skip, thankfully, the good folk at Jobs Support dismantled it to reuse. From their website: “Jobsupport’s mission is to place, train and maintain as many people with a significant intellectual disability as possible into quality jobs in the regular workforce that meet both their employment needs and the needs of the employer.” The use of scrap materials will aid their cause by providing materials for skills training. Instead of throwing away your good quality building material refuse, drop them a line and pass it onto Jobs Support instead.

If you like what you see, drop me an email to discuss your own landscape design/installation project.

I recently wrote a post for my side hobby business, Melbourne Architours, which details the Melbourne iPhone applications available that document this city’s built history. As an architect, there are also several other apps that complement the way I work and broadcast to an audience.

Twitter - follow my daily musings on social_archi, there’s many other active users in the local architecture community to follow. Keeps me up to date and in the know of current issues and events. I personally use the Twitterific app.

 

Instagram - search under the #melarch or #melbourne hashtags for some good photos by other instagram users. I connect this to my Twitter feed for instant uploading of photos.

 

 

Heritage Victoria‘s Vic Heritage App – The database of Heritage Victoria is now available for free on your smartphone. Best of all, you can search for heritage listed buildings around you by location, and upload user content. This feature, in particular, is what I am most interested in.

 

National Trust‘s Trust Trees App – Again, another searchable app that verifies your location to find listed trees in your area. This is a good catalogue of species, health, details and why it is protected, plus has some great accompanying photos.

 

Plant File is a searchable database of plants, founded in the US. Usually costing up to $400, there is a streamlined version found an an app that gets you access on your phone for a fraction of the price. Best of all, I can create multiple ‘favourite’ databases that is helpful when illustrating to clients the planting themes I’m looking at for their project.

DPCD have released their property reports as an app. I use this when passing a property to research its zoning and overlays to do a quick back-of-the-envelope feasibility.

 

 

I use the Eventbrite’s entry manager app for checking attendance for Melbourne Architours. This encourages a paperless office and streamlines the role-call process at the start of each tour. It also aids our database by creating an instant list of attendees.

 

I don’t use the AutoCAD, SketchUp or Photoshop apps – this is a case where sometimes pen and paper are just far superior.

Missed an app? Let me know and I’ll post them up accordingly.

 

Endnote: There has been no sponsorship in the writing of this blog post.