7 minute read
RESIDENTIAL STORY
In a world gone mad, the home has taken on another identity
WORDS PRUE MILLER
A renowned and erudite architect such as Andrew Maynard of Austin Maynard Architects has been asked so many questions over his career, you’d think it would be hard to stump him. Yet when asked the rather humble question ‘what makes a home?’ and the more than affable Maynard goes quiet.
“That’s a good question,” he says, and after a few beats he answers with genuine enthusiasm.“Joy.”
It has always been thus. We have an emotional relationship with our homes; they are a reflection of where we are (and where we hope to be) as a society. The ebb and flow of good fortune and bad can be seen in our residential architecture.
Free settlers and those trying their luck in the new land built what they could themselves from whatever they could lay their hands on; from wattle branches to oyster shells. Simple, uncluttered, utilitarian and home. A reflection of a harsh life where a low profile was the best option.
For those with money and means, and with the luck of the 1850s goldfields on their side, the next wave of citizenry could afford to bring the architectural beauty, and emotional security of mother England to the antipodean outlands.
Michael Lech is the curator at the quite marvellous Caroline Simpson Museum in Sydney where researchers, and the just plain curious head to in search of our history of interior design.
“A home has always meant security, however in a strange new country with new animals, new flora and fauna people were unsure,” observes Lech. “If you had a choice to remember where you came from, that was very comforting.” So, the style of England became the style of ‘out here’.
“The general feeling is that they (colonial settlers) were houseproud. And as more people settled here, more skilled tradesman became available and the architecture began to change,” says Lech. And yet in many ways, it didn’t change at all – from the European style that is.
Small rooms of the well to do were filled to the brim with ornate detail despite being hugely incongruous to the circumstance, but people needed to hang on to the familiar.
It was a boastful time in the growing cities, while in the rural areas conservative, isolated homes were more practical, and under less social influence. Open spaces created in timber, often elevated, with deep wrap-around verandas and a far sparser sense of decoration. An Australian vernacular began.
Fast forward to the 1900s and another national mood swept the nation; post war optimism came with a flood of returning soldiers and waves of European migrants, and everybody wanted to build, to start again, to look forward not backward.
ABOVE Pictures courtesy Austin Maynard Architects.
For six shillings, a lovely set of plans could be bought from a newspaper, a magazine, even Grace Brothers. You buy the land, you buy the plan – and often, with little experience but a true ‘give it a go’ enthusiasm, you built it yourself. Across the country simple homes with a timber frame and fibro sheeting was all that was needed to make the dreams and hopes of a generation come true. For a while.
America, the uncouth uncle to Australia had become the next influence as the middle class emerged in the sprawling suburbs. Mid-century modern. As low slung as it was slick, it was a rebellion with Laminex accents. We became part of the global space age.
The Australian home was breaking ties with traditional thinking left and right. We had hope and a rampant consumerism. Bulldoze the old, bring on the new. Mining resources assured us of a never-ending source of energy, excess imports were a source of pride and if all else failed, the farmers would keep the good times rolling.
It was as if all of Australia was looking through a giant Stegbar Windowall, and what they saw was good.
By the 2000s Australians were different, very different. Woken from the deep slumber of ignorance and irresponsibility consumers found a social and environmental conscience. A more critical society, a more questioning society, a more challenging society complete with an untethered voice of judgement thanks to social media.
These home owners are again different. The oversized (some would say) homes of the 90s gave way to more socially responsible sized homes, with the renovation industry expanding exponentially. Reuse, recycle, reimagine – do not destroy in the name of progress. Green homes with wide open plan living was what people were asking of their designers and architects.
Then we had to learn an even more grim social concept. Living with a pandemic. Our worlds, more than ever before, were condensed to what became for many a claustrophobic space. And that space was home.
A wave of economic and emotional turmoil unsettled home owners yet again. You would have expected that architectural briefs for homes would have followed the rest of industry which had sunk back into its shell, virtually dormant. But that wasn’t always the case.
“Instead,” says Andrew Maynard “Everything took off.”
“People learned to hate their homes,” says Maynard with a laugh born of astonishment. “This time [isolating in lockdown] highlighted what didn’t work in people’s homes. There was increased pressure with families living, working studying all under one roof and it was everyday things that aggravated people. We had a shifting relationship with our homes.”
Architects across the board were put on the spot to help Australians find their smile; to create homes that could morph into office space, school rooms, exercise zones and oh yeah, a place in which to find peace and shelter from the raging storm outside the walls.
Separation was one of the new requests, as well as the creation of designated work spaces. And there was a need to find a space to be alone. Just to sit, alone.
Architects are now being asked to find a way to combine that pre-requisite of sustainability with a new range of changing human needs.
Skylights, interior courtyards, bigger windows, and where possible greater access to gardens was expected in briefs, while hidden but equally important was the ability for independence – and survival. “Our home will become our energy store,” says Maynard whose Garden House is a classic example of what people now desire.
That project, a single fronted home in Melbourne, has a 17kw solar array, produces 100kw per day, has a 26kw Tesla battery, 15,000 litre underground water tank, heat pumps… the list of what can and is being done post Covid will become the norm not just for those with an ecological agenda, but those who feel the need for guarantees in an uncertain world.
So, our homes now? They reflect our need for security, sustainability, and liveable isolation. Our homes have become our islands, that satisfy not what the Joneses next door think, but how we thrive on our own terms.
BELOW For six shillings, a lovely set of plans could be bought from a newspaper, a magazine, even Grace Brothers.
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