House and land: an architectural review of bulk housing in Australia

Abstract

Australia is a suburban nation, and Australians value home ownership highly. The standalone house on a “quarter acre” block is seen as almost a natural birth right. Yet architects only design about 3% of housing in Australia, the vast bulk of Australia’s housing is designed and built by “volume builders” who buy up huge tracts of land on the urban fringe of the major cities and roll out vast areas of new housing every year. This paper examines the role of the volume builder from an architectural perspective, looking at the design and planning of suburban homes and suburbs, as well as at their environmental and urban design performance. Data were collected and analysed from two suburbs in outer Melbourne using observations and interviews with the residents. Our findings indicate that social and environmental outcomes are often poor and suggest ways that these might be improved.