MELBOURNE'S RESIDENTIAL CONUNDRUM

December 2020

As the economic impacts of COVID-19 destabilise the Melbourne housing market for the first time in generations it is creating an important nexus of ideas that should be explored. This reframe is turning the spotlight on the substandard housing that over recent decades has become the prevailing built form of contemporary Melbourne – namely the poorly built inner city apartments, the haphazardly clad suburban townhouses and the volume built urban sprawl dwellings.

The underlying issue of Australia’s contemporary residential development stems from its shift away from the needs of the occupants, with the developer’s profit margin instead becoming the primary motivator of the industry. It is critical at this time of COVID-19 to re-examine what our ambitions are for Australian residential architecture. This is especially pertinent given the $5 Billion pledged to reform the Victorian public housing sector and the need to ensure this is enacted with the best intentions of Melbourne in mind.

The bedrock of Melbourne residential architecture was formed in its late 19th century houses, which populated the inner city suburbs. These areas were sparked by the prosperity of the newly formed metropolis. Melbourne residential architecture has evolved to now be dramatically different from its early modest, handcrafted roots. The contemporary housing stock of Melbourne has improved to include many modern amenities, but has also developed many flaws that need to be addressed to ensure better outcomes for Melbourne.

After European settlement in 1835 Melbourne quickly became a pioneering town fuelled by the gold rush with rich English architectural influences. The city and its inner suburbs at the end of the 19th century started to formalise into the built form that we see today. These buildings quickly replaced the simple timber cottages of the earlier settlement with more permanent brick dwellings in a Victorian Era design style – a typology that is typified by brick dwellings with elaborate timber and cast-iron embellishments.

The Victorian era of design evolved into the more detailed and crafted Federation style of design around the turn of the century when the urban environment became more prosperous. These styles were heavily embedded within the mindset of handcrafted dwellings bejewelled with details and grandeur. The scale of these buildings were predominantly modest terrace or cottage forms, with the detached versions of larger scales for the more affluent.

The Victorian and Federation era dwellings construction strategy focused on the charm of bricks, generous ceiling heights and decorative elements as the budget permitted. These dwellings understood the idealised scale and proportions of the ‘motherland’. This combination of timeless palettes and established streetscapes have allowed these areas to remain the most sought after dwellings in the urban fabric of the city.

These periods of design in Melbourne slowed during the early twentieth century due to two World Wars and the Great Depression. The interwar period and post Second World War period saw the Californian Bungalow and Art Deco styles becoming a staple of Melbourne architecture. These typologies, usually in brick, were a natural extension to the Federation style.

The rise of manufacturing and material innovation during the War periods was a defining factor behind the rise of modernism – a style that embraced large openings, expansive glass and flat roofs with the intention of upending the incumbent styles. This era of design was intentionally minimal and dismissed all forms of ornament - prioritising the efficiencies and clean lines of contemporary manufacturing.

This shift away from the hand-crafted design theories with the rise of modernism created some stunning residential outcomes – especially those that were still able to embed some regional characteristics into their form. This combination is often best achieved in areas of existing natural beauty, where the recessive palette allows for the house to blur into the landscape – becoming more like a tree house of open platforms, than a classical home of enclosed spaces.

The influx of modernism on the Melbourne streetscapes lead to a welcome inclusion of efficient and dynamic forms that in general complimented the existing early 20th century housing stock. This success was thanks to the inherent adherence to classical proportions and the unit of construction – whether it be the brick, weatherboard or shingle.

The bond between contemporary modernism and Melbourne’s early dwellings began to lose connectivity with the rise of postmodernism. This new mindset gave credence to the residential developments across Melbourne to explore the rise of expanded manufacturing and cost efficient techniques free of classical adherences to proportion and scale. Whilst the intentions of Robert Venturi and other postmodernist masters were pure, the resulting outcomes in the typical streetscape adoptions were not so gracious with their artistic touch.

The arrival of postmodernism was the culminating step architecturally towards a departure from the early Victorian era of design. This century long evolution slowly moved the typical residential project to be free of any adherence to hand-crafted materials, scale, proportion or design consistency, which was unfortunately resulted in the last four decades of housing stock being of a standard that will be either discarded or regretted.

The modern day streetscapes of Melbourne are littered with contemporary houses that now prioritise achieving the largest possible house from the cheapest possible materials. This steady shift away from the modestly scaled well crafted dwellings was a decision that was made consciously – initially due to the innovative ideas of pioneering architects and then subsequently due to the profit driven push of the developer.

There were attempts to focus the enthusiasm of modernism into high quality suburban development. Regrettably these efforts were swamped by lower cost alternatives that were adopted as the Australian suburban dream instead. The coupling of three key forces: Profit Driven Development, Oversized Houses and Cheap Materials, with no conscious pushback from the mass market, created a setting where the modernist alternatives were not given the chance to flourish.

The idea of the detached house on the suburban site is rooted in good intentions, however as Melbourne has grown to become a centralised city of over five million residents this dream has become unhinged. The pressure to densify has put stress on the feasibility of the detached house. This angst has been further exacerbated by the ever-growing typical house size, which curiously continues to rise in contrast to the declining quantity of occupants per household. With each generation houses have gotten bigger, with the size of the dwelling becoming the priority.

The impulsion to create the largest possible house to ensure it is desirable to the market, whilst also constructing it in the cheapest possible manner to guarantee the highest profit for the developer is Melbourne’s sad new reality. This desire to construct in a profitable manner is going unchecked and has lead to the steady loss of all semblance of craft, scale and proportion.

Obviously all is not doom and gloom as there is still a large amount of high quality work being achieved to improve the urban environment of the city. The most important of these comes in the form of the astute new home owners who are able to manoeuvre the volume built framework to achieve a successful outcome in a system that is geared to deliver the highest profit for the developer, not the best outcome for the new owner.

Architect designed housing is still at the forefront of high quality occupant focused dwellings. These bespoke outcomes whilst beautiful, are not accessible to the standard home owner due to the cost prohibitive nature of custom design. The quality of architecture work across Melbourne has potentially never been better, however it struggles to impact the housing market outside of the wealthy or well connected. The architect’s role still has the important role of defining taste and exploring innovative ideas that can be adopted by the greater market. Although as the architects message is adopted by volume built developments, much like Chinese whispers, the sentiment is often confused or misconstrued.

The involvement of critical design thought in the residential process does not mean that every outcome needs to be an expensive high-end piece of art. The valuable resource of architectural insight needs to be broadened substantially to ensure that the majority of new dwellings can benefit from its input. The architecture industry as a whole needs to find better ways to ensure that aspects of the typical architectural process can be unlocked and eventually engrained into the procurement process of the majority of houses - not only the wealthy exceptions as is currently the case.

The separation between architecturally designed houses and the mass-market developer housing is one of the key underlying issues of Melbourne’s current predicament. As an industry we need to find better ways to break down these barriers to achieve more thoughtful and considered outcomes - especially in ways that do not necessarily lead to a more expensive outcome. Often decisions that are leading to poor outcomes are done without consideration that a better option is possible, not purely due to budgetary concerns.

There are items that architects could help implement to improve the housing market that would come with an initially higher cost, but overall will lead to a better value outcome. These aspects need to be reframed, not just in regards to their up-front costs, but also in terms of the longer term maintenance and embodied energy concerns of the evolving trend of fast-architecture. It is also important to reconsider the cost of architectural design per square metre, as the growing size of houses has seen a direct link to the reducing cost of construction per square metre. As an urban population we need to reconsider this notion and push for the construction of higher quality, flexibly designed smaller dwellings.

It is also tough to talk about the diminishing prevalence of quality residential design without taking into account the growing cost of property in Australian metropolitan areas. In recent decades the price of inner city property has dramatically lost its connection to the average salaries in each area. Leading to the ability to buy a house to never be more cost prohibitive. This inflexibility on what the average person can afford, both in terms of new dwellings and existing dwellings, is having an impact on the ability of homeowners to be selective with their home options. This financial barrier is forcing owners to sacrifice items in their dwelling that previous generations had access to.

Recently there have been several well publicised advances in high quality, affordable densification. The work of projects such as Nightingale in Melbourne’s inner north have taken great strides in re-framing the discussion around the feasibility of apartment living – a crucial step in shifting Melbourne’s over-reliance on the detached dwelling.

The impact of well informed housing, streetscapes and the greater urban environment on the social and mental health of its residents cannot be understated. It is the bedrock of how a city is both defined and what it strives to be. Melbourne’s urban fabric grew in the timeless appeal of the masonry terraces and detached federation workers cottages. Typologies that are modestly scaled to suit its original middle class occupants and flexible enough to be loved and expanded upon for countless generations into the future. The street welcoming layouts and tactile aesthetic of these dwellings has allowed Melbourne for over a century to be one of the most desirable cities in the world to live – a title that is under threat if the current trajectory of residential development is left unchecked.

As architects and others try to push the discussion to positively sculpt the current status quo it is extremely difficult to disrupt the rolling collateral of the residential developers. COVID-19 has created a potential pivot point for the future of many aspects of our cities going forward – especially residential design. The key party in these discussions is the government bodies overseeing the planning and building regulations. These regulations need to place higher scrutiny on the thoughtfulness of built outcomes in a manner that still ensures adequate housing quantities. In a profit driven market it is in the developer’s interests to bargain down policy measures to the current unacceptably low benchmarks. As a city we need to push for bolder measures to ensure that the momentous quantity of building stock planned to be completed in the coming years is not eventually discarded or retained as sub-standard housing stock. 

The government has the ability to rectify some of the current momentum. This will obviously lead to backlash from all those who serve to make effortless profits from the current system. Although I struggle to envision a future paradigm where the measures that could be enacted to improve the design quality of housing do not simply become the new normal in the economic cycle of construction. For too long this industry has functioned with the developer reaping high profits and the occupants of these dwellings paying the cost for generations of subpar outcomes.

Building and planning policies are often endeavouring to find the counterbalance between two opposing ideals – for instance: the need to densify vs the requirement for exterior private open space; or the importance of material longevity vs the need to provide financially accessible housing. These ledgers seem to have shifted a little too far in favour of the developer. The policies, especially in terms of the quality of construction and street appearance do not seem to have kept up with the rise of cheap manufactured cladding techniques.

The conundrum of residential architecture in Melbourne is so entrenched that most do not view it as a concern that can be solved. The benefits of thoughtful design have been progressively whittled away and this trajectory needs to be flipped before we can even start thinking about achieving a typical residential outcome that is thoughtfully tailored to the occupants needs.

No one architect, project or post will solve this problem. Instead it will need to be a mass effort of both built outcomes, ideas and policy change that will slowly move the needle back towards creating future eras of design that will be looked back upon as a valued asset to the Melbourne landscape. 

Melbourne is an exceptional city full of positive people, expansive opportunities and one of the most liveable urban areas in the world. This is something that should not be taken for granted. It is essential that we acknowledge the importance of the residential built environment, not only for the quality of life, but for its enduring legacy as a part of the city of Melbourne.