A LIMITED HOUSE

Queenslander houses are part myth and part misconception. These splendid constructions range from elegant timber homesteads to austere workers’ cottages that are little more than imsy wooden tents. Despite their ubiquity in the subtropics, Queenslanders are poorly adapted to their climate, vulnerable to termites and rot, and occasionally blown down the street in a cyclone. Yet, the timber houses of north-eastern Australia persist. For many who have lived in a Queenslander, they not only transcend their apparent limitations, but engender a lasting affection.

Words Aaron Peters Artwork Margaret Olley, Cane farmer’s house, North Queensland 1955, oil on canvas 60.0 x 75.0 cm, UNSW Art Collection

As with many mythical creatures, the origins of the Queenslander are not entirely clear. These houses were typically constructed almost entirely from timber; capped with corrugated iron roofs; entered via a front verandah; and raised above the ground on timber stumps that happily serve to facilitate air ow and ventilation in the hot and humid climate. Undoubtedly, the availability of building material was a signi cant factor (the region was endowed with forests of suitable timber, ripe for plundering), but many also point to the Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act 1885 that precipitated generous boundary setbacks and large subdivisions, giving rise to the equally iconic rambling Queensland garden. Some say the timber stumps were designed to guard against termite infestation and manage the undulating terrain, or to accommodate the nineteenthcentury pseudoscienti c fear of low-lying miasmas. The increased air ow appears to be more of an accidental effect than a planned feature.

For extolling their virtues, few rival the Brisbaneborn writer David Malouf when it comes to evoking the haptic qualities and cultural resonances that cling to the Queenslander. His memoir 12 Edmondstone Street—named after the address of his childhood home in South Brisbane—perfectly captures the essence of the Queenslander:

They have about them the improvised air of tree houses. Airy, open, often with no doors between the rooms, they are on such easy terms with breezes, with the thick foliage they break into at window level, with the lives of possums and ying-foxes, that living in them, barefoot for the most part, is like living in a reorganised forest. The creak of timber as the day’s heat seeps away, the gradual adjustment in all its parts, like a giant instrument being tuned, of the house-frame on its stumps, is a condition of life that goes deep into consciousness.… Air circulates from room to room through a maze of interconnecting spaces; every breath can be heard, every creak of a bedpost or spring; you sleep, in the humid summer nights, outside the sheet and with as little clothing as decency allows; and yet privacy is perfectly preserved.

What I nd most remarkable about Malouf’s retelling of his childhood experience is an emphasis on the apparent imperfection of the building. He loves its creaks, its darkened recesses. This is how the Queenslander becomes indelible in the minds of its occupants: the minor inconveniences, the disturbances, the oddities, the supposed limitations.

The strategic aw, the mild inconvenience, the prolonging or withholding of ful lment are some of the most powerful tools that an architect can deploy. A aw disconcerts, arouses a reaction or arrests attention. It’s a way of engaging an audience that doesn’t require grand, overt gestures: it can be small, subtle, and economical, leaving a nagging itch that requires a second, third or fourth visit. This type of engagement between a building and an occupant grows gradually, laying down a foundation upon which lasting affection can prosper.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be the owner of a newly built Australian project home—the kind of house that is intended to conform with the majority of people’s expectations for what a home should be and de nitely not a building that ‘adjusts its parts’ or that is on ‘easy terms with the lives of possums’. Fortunately for me, our family is lucky enough to live in a Queenslander of our own.

Our journey started, not in a timber house, but with an apartment on the top of a hill. When our young family expanded, we found ourselves leaving our lovingly renovated apartment and stepping through the door of the stereotypical ‘worst house in the street’: a timber workers’ cottage in Brisbane’s West End.

The house had been heavily ‘customised’ with DIY modi cations and an assortment of teetering backyard structures. The building had been painted in a riotous cacophony of primary colours that had served an odd sort of purpose by deterring would-be

buyers and lowering the sale price to the level at which we were able to make an acceptable offer.

The privilege of home ownership isn’t always a straightforward affair. After removing the desiccated oor linings, we discovered that the pine oorboards had been eaten out by termites and borers, and that the undersized and overspaced oor joists needed wholesale replacement. As a result, I had the dubious privilege of opening the front door to our new house only to be confronted by an expanse of bare earth, interior partitions hanging in the void. It was going to be pricey. The architect in me was not deterred.

A few weeks later, as I stood on the footpath staring up at our crooked, garish and newly- oored house, I tried to visualise the next step of the restorative process: a big can of white paint. At that moment a young woman walked past and enquired whether I was the owner of the house. When I replied that I was, she smiled and said, ‘Every time I see those bright colours it makes me so happy’. Good for her, I thought, but I still hopped in the car to go and buy those tins of whisperwhite. Again, the architect in me was not deterred.

Our trim, white cottage now sits somewhere around the midpoint of its journey. We don’t have an elaborate kitchen, just an old sink screwed to the wall, but we do have a vegetable patch and a little outdoor terrace that can t a garden table. The process has taken about four years to reach its present state, the product of limited attention from its architect/amateur tradesperson and our equally limited funds.

Our experience of stripping back a hundred-yearold home to its original core, clearing out the backyard, and shoring up the structure has, for me, truly made this house our own. Imperfection feels like an opportunity to realise something remarkable. After all, it’s hard to take for granted what you’ve toiled hard to bring into being. We know our house because we’ve crawled under the oor, clambered about in the ceiling cavity and stood on the peak of the roof with one arm wrapped around the roof ventilator watching the chooks scratch around in the garden. Limitations have long been seen as the nemesis of the designer: obstacles cast in the way of the creative process, robbing the creation of its full potential. This is a concept I’ve never really understood. Designing a building is a process of imposing constraints to slowly eat away at the enormity of the challenge, like a sculptor working at a slab of stone until the outline of a gure begins to emerge. I’m equally enamoured by limited art: the song that de es the conventions of its genre; the

Limitations painting with the disconcerting have long been perspective; or the novel with seen as the nemesis of the abrasive tense. Re ecting on the Queenslander house reveals a timely and prescient the designer: lesson that, sometimes, the obstacles cast in most imperfect works of art are the way of the in fact the most compelling. As creative process. an architect, the Queenslander also reminds me that the creative process is often easier, more cohesive and, frequently, more successful with a rm tether of limitations to guide the process. It’s an immense privilege to be able to own a home, and a greater privilege still to be in a position to ‘choose’ restraint and live within self-imposed limits. However, the truth is that our very survival as a species may depend on our ability to place limits on material culture. On average, Australians are now building some of the largest, most well-appointed houses on the planet, and this trend doesn’t appear to be slowing down. But there is an alternative. When we consider the pleasures of moderate inconvenience, deferred grati cation and uncomplicated living, we begin to see the greater pleasures to be found in living within our limitations. In my view, perfection is not only unattainable; the very concept of it leaves a lot to be desired. 