“Fashionable free-standing houses set in curly mazes of streets make for wasted space”.

That is a theme I heard thundered to an audience by a staunch grid man visiting from California. And I was very taken by it – unfavourably.

The particular locality being discussed, in most disparaging terms, happened to be an undulating landscape.

Worse, I happened to be part of the team which had provided the information from which streetscapes and housing could be designed. The resulting design was a best fit of topography and significant components of existing vegetation. Opportunity remained within that framework to give due respect to the great God Ra (pity about Osiris). It was not cheering find planning tenets demanding supplication to the God Mars via the grid style of vintage Roman military encampments.

I live in the same non-grid suburbia, unrepentant, on an 860 square metre patch of land. It cheers me no end to be able to assist, via my veggie patch etc., in slowing-down water run-off when heavy rain does fall. And there is enough space so that the blue-tongue lizards don’t need to pay rent, nor the parrots ask permission to cadge an apricot.

Why should I live high-rise, and have vegetables and fruit imported all the way from the dessicated landscapes of the Murray-Darling – aren’t they already doing it tough enough without more pressure?

What is more – why should I save water and squeeze-up with a neighbor for the sole purpose of enabling an increasing population? That increase will certainly proceed towards an ever-lower standard of living, while increasing pressure upon the problems of climate change and environmental assets.

It's difficult to decide where to start given the number of canards this article contains: (poor) people in less developed countries don't use air conditioning because their houses are properly designed; housing developments are stealing fertile farmland; houses cause population growth; two storey houses are more sustainable than bungalows (this one is particularly odd, given the author's attitude to 'McMansions' which are generally two-storey); etc., etc.

Accurate information on some of these topics is available from the likes of: http://www.demographia.com/

Thanks Valerie, there is indispensable core wisdom here. You have actually described the Andalusian village housing model, going back to the Middle Ages but still standing hundreds of years later under accumulated layers of whitewash. I wrote about this in the chapter on Spanish villages in my book 'Walking the Camino'.

How to reproduce this today in Australia's individualistic housing market? Not so easy. But the basic pinciples you set out so well - of spending money at the outset on building heavy thermal mass walls and well insulated roofs,combined with intelligent use of the human capacity to open and close doors and curtains at different times of the day and night (it is actually quite essy to do this) is almost as applicable to free-standing houses on individual blocks as to well-designed connected terrace housing, as in a Spanish village.

My two pennys worth is that the government should set building codes that are appropriate for what ever is comming aditionally First home buyers grants should be restricted to efficient designs and constructions. I would also suggest stamp duty be reduced on these effecient homes. If people want Mc mansions etc they should pay.

It would make much more sense to provide incentives to the owners of Australia's 9 million existing homes to make them more sustainable (rainwater tanks, solar PV, solar hot water, insulation, etc.) than to keep fixating on the design codes for the 130,000 or so new homes that are built each year. Even if all the new homes were state of the art, it would take 50 years for only half of the homes to be at the desired standard.

While I can see the sense in the original article, I think the posters who have already given their opinions make a lot of sense as well. A sustainable future should, perhaps, be built upon improving the sustainability of existing homes and ensuring that new homes meet stringent standards.

In addition, I maintain that the "need" for air conditioning is a state of mind. I have lived in my tropical home without air conditioning for some time and, admittedly, there are days when I would kill for aircon, but most of the time I am content to rely on the high(ish) ceilings and large windows to keep me cool. My energy bill has never exceeded $120 a quarter, and that includes ambulance cover.

As for the beautiful crescents of terrace housing, the first image that springs to mind is one of London townhouses, built during the enlightenment and Victorian eras. What is missing from the picture is the wide expanse of green space. Sure, there are private gardens for the pleasure of local residents, but these "pockets" do not allow for the needs of our native wildlife. My windowsills constantly need cleaning thanks to the geckoes and green tree frogs; my car is carefully parked out of the firing range of the bats that inhabit my front yard. And I have long given up on flowering plants, much to the disgust of my local wallaby population. They have to make do with my lawn instead. Take all of this away from suburbia, and what do we have? Another desolate urban wasteland and a large number of homeless critters.

What a plague of busy-body know-it-all social engineers.

Well since such opinion is free, and seems to be in fashion, my two bobs worth: anyone who disobeys my whim should be shot. This would make for the ideal society.

That is essentially what you are all saying, only the content of the whim differs.

Did you actually read any of the posts, Wing Ah Ling? Or perhaps you responded to the wrong discussion? I can't see any such attitudes in this forum. All I can see is people responding to an article discussing how we should live in the future. I said that I liked some aspects of the article and some aspects of other people's posts; other people tended to respond in a similar vein.

As I, for one, plan to live in the future, I think I am entitled to share my opinion on the matter. As are you. Unfortunately, you have not shared your opinion on the matter; instead, you have shared your opinion on our right to share our opinions. That probably belongs in another discussion. But I, for one, am happy for you to share your views here if it makes you happy.

What a wonderful Idea.

Lets all move into the type of housing enjoyed by the near slave labour of the factories of the industrial revolution. The type of stuff we took a hundred years to escape from, which still makes much of midland UK so depressing.

We can shut all the doors, windows, & blinds, [& thick, heavy backed curtains], & live in the same airless gloom as our unfortunate forbears. No lights either, we must avoid all that CO2.

We will have to make sure that all young doctors are well schooled in looking for rickets. They will never have seen them in the modern population, but these "NEW" living conditions will soon have it making a major comeback.

To have a life worth living, we must gather all those who have the words "plan", or "planner" in their job description, along with all social commentators, & stick them on a slow boat to China.

No, what has China done to deserve these buffoons being dumped on them? Lets send them to Iran, or North Korea, or some such, where their unique talents{?} will be fully appreciated, before it's too late, for us.

Just like wire coat hangers, in a dark closed wardrobe, these people are multiplying like crazy.

The main point of this article was how future AND EXISTING housing (not fixated on new housing, O617) might be more livable with least air-conditioning. The implication that we should NOT have a growing population is clear, although not stated.
Alas, Melbournians are told they cannot have their dream home with yard and garden. I lived in well-off British terraces which had both, plus parks, but no waste side-spaces.
Lovely crescents can follow topographical contours with a basic grid design – mazes are stupid in flat areas.
O617, there were no ‘canards’ (‘unfounded or false, deliberately misleading stories). I did NOT say (poor) people in less developed countries don't use air conditioning because their houses are properly designed. I said we can learn some design strategies from (not poor) housing overseas (not all ‘less developed’) so that we need less air-conditioning.
Our cities still take fertile farmland (see what’s happening on the Hawkesbury river) and rack up rates so farms must sell out. We need food grown nearby– I remember market gardens on the Yarra at Collingwood.
I did not say that houses cause population growth! But the more people, the more housing needed.
I did not say that two storey houses are necessarily more sustainable than bungalows. They can have advantages. Not everywhere.
O617’s URL http://www.demographia.com/ gives facts about housing development which appear to me to back up need to stop population growth, Re O617’s ‘etc etc’ what are they?
The ‘plague of busy-body know-it-all social engineers’ do not think they ‘know-it-all’, they are concerned, and seek discussion, not out to make profit-first-pay later. Australians jibe too much at those who put up ideas, Wing Ah Ling. Without social engineers we would still have cholera, no streetlights, and dreadful slums.
To shut doors, windows, blinds and awnings on the days over 30 degrees, and open them in evening cool does not produce rickets.
I like hearing the criticisms, and constructive ideas from the critics, apart from methods of disposing of those who irritate them.

How personally sensitive some people are to the idea that the present Australian suburban housing model is anything less than perfect. We live in a 1950s-built double brick bungalow on a 1/4 acre block. We have 18 chooks, fruit-trees and a vegie garden. We like the separation from neighbours of freestanding housing. There are good things and bad things here. If we ever move, I will build something that borrows from the good and avoids the bad. I'll build a two-story cube, the most efficient practical shape for materials saving and keeping heat in or out according to the season and temperature. 3.5 metre ceilings and big light open spaces downstairs – not dark or fusty. Good thick thermal mass walls, masses of roof insulation, as fireproof as iI can make it with two 45,000 litre rainwater tanks in the under-house cellar permanently tapped to a petrol firefighting pump always filled and firehose-ready. Solar cell electricity and hot water on the roof. No airconditioning. Planned redundancy in heating and cooking systems – separate electricity and gas and woodburning options. Double glazing. Yes, we will open and close windows and curtains and doors by hand to even out inside temperatures summer and winter, day and night. We won’t get rickets from the minimal exercise. Lockable flyscreen security doors make it safe. Either on 45 or 5 degree days a house like this stays comfortable. It costs more to build initially but over its planned lifetime of 100 years plus, more than pays for itself in comfort and security.

We can do better suburban housing. I don’t care what houses look like - McMansions with Corinthian-columned doublestorey porticoes are fine by me, if they have sound energy design principles built into them. It is about giving home buyers value for money. Who wants to live in a badly-designed stage set that doesn’t work as a home without many thousands of dollars a year and excess carbon emissions spent on air-con and heating?

We can also improve existing housing, applying such principles to extensions and renovations. Let’s keep an open mind.

Ozideas – the elephant of burgeoning population needs exercise wherever it can get it. Yes, you had it resting at the back of the tent for this event, so I sought to act as ringmaster and lead it out so that it could stretch its legs up-front and ringside.

Re. double-brick construction – its thermal mass means temperatures will be maintained: On a sequence of overcast frosty days perimeter rooms can become grossly miserable. After several days above 35 degrees Celsius, in the absence of shading or plenty of reflective white such as the old Spanish whitewash on the exterior, they behave like a traditional Greek bread oven.
About ten per cent of world energy use is expended in the crushing of rock – that relates to production of gold, copper, --- cement, brick.
Double brick is not as robust as brick veneer construction for one-storey residences, where the timber frame does the hard work of holding up the roof.

Dear Valerie,thank you for your lovely description of a lifestyle we all (most sensible people) would love to occupy, safely sharing our land with other people, native plants and animals in a house with a backyard landscaped and designed outside the box of social engineered conformity. Individual applications in design are very hard to apply to the rigid prescriptive planning and approval process designed to satisfy councils profit motives,and the nimby class of shallow outcomes and envy driven conformity. I too, will not entertain having to walk up those highly treacherous steps to suit some others passing whim with no consideration of life's lessons. Most Australians wouldn't have a clue how big the country is and population growth seems to difficult to handle once locked up in those tiny shoebox type dwellings which governments find easy to count when they are all in one line.

Well, I live in a double fibro, large rambling house, with very wide overhangs, on 20 acres, 25Km from town. I ask nothing of the state, or the council, but that's not what I get.

For my $2,000+ rates, I get 3 hours of mobile library a week, the rest goes on some damn planner, sitting in his AIR CONDITIONED office, trying to think of something else I can be stopped from doing, on my own land.

I have a large air con system, which is used only when we have city type guests. I find it unhealthy to have the inside temperature too different to the outside.

I was brought up on an orchard, & realised, by the late 50s that doing anything usefull, like growing food, was a mugs game. Those romantic market gardens that have now disappeared were a life sentance, not a life style, except for masochists.

After making my living in the city, designing natty plastic "things", & up north, carting tourists around the islands, I made sure I did not do anything usefull, when I came here, either. I grew flowers, & advanced shrubs, for the landscape trade. I have watched as those who tried, the dairy farmers, & the market gardeners, all gave up the struggle with the big 2 grocery chains. It had nothing to do with land prices, for housing, some damn planner decided these people could not subdivide, but just up the road, one developer can chop up 3000 acres.

I have planted a couple of hundred trees around my place, to help keep it cool, & they are getting pretty big, 20 years later. But any public servant who even thinks of telling me I can't cut down any one, or all of them if I decide they are a storm, or fire hazard, had better watch out.

I am not quite sure just what we should do to those planners, who's damn fool regulations have just killed a couple of hundred people in Victoria, but it should be something much harsher than a slow boat to China.

It is a constant source of frustration that I have clients who want energy efficient houses but have blocks that have long East-West boundaries and short North-South Boundaries.
Given a site that enables a home to have long North and South elevations and blank East and West elevations it is easy to keep (in Perth) a house within the range 18 to 28 degrees all year round.
In Perth the best con construction is brick veneer with the brick on the inside and insulated veneer on the outside. This way the internal walls can be used as a heat sink in winter whilst being shaded in summer, and the outer wall stops any heat transfer through the wall.
Provided the orientation and sun penetration is correct it is easy. My preference would be for bigger blocks, say 8 houses on 8000 sq metres so that common bio systems and water collection/storage systems could use economy of scale to bring down costs. And also landscape to bring about a balanced ecology.
All the things you are asking for you can have. The expertise has been around forever. All that is required is to bring in planning requirements that allow for correct orientation and sun penetration.
In other areas Architects who understand the local conditions know exactly what they need to minimise energy use without compromising living standards.
Urban renewal is happening all over Australia and if the appropriate by-laws are adopted the change over to energy efficient housing could be rapid.
If you want it you can have it. Just do some basic research and collectively demand government and councils listen.

Daviy:
“Given a site that enables a home to have long North and South elevations and blank East and West elevations it is easy to keep (in Perth) a house within the range 18 to 28 degrees all year round.”
“--if the appropriate by-laws are adopted the change over to energy efficient housing could be rapid.---If you want it you can have it. Just do some basic research and collectively demand government and councils listen”.

It is painfully obvious that subdivisions fostering solar orientation have not been to the forefront of most developer’s minds - which have been fixed on the main dictate of their enterprise. Councils get leaned upon mightily by developers. Yes, Society would be greatly advantaged by even greater pressure being applied by informed citizens. The price of not doing so is leaving a nasty legacy of discomfort, poor social amenity, unnecessary costs, and wasted energy.

I've had some experience building with MUD.
I worked on the complex in Stroud, just north of Newcastle, it was built for occupation by Nuns in the CoE.
Load bearing mud bricks as walls and waxed mud for floors. But for the being Nuns none of it could have been built, because council put such absurd laws on building.
In all three or for seperrate buildings were constructed under supervision of a NZ builder, all done by hippy labour.
The chapel was a masterpiece of high ceiling and a stone shadehouse with louvers in the wall, on hot days open at bottom and top. Any water applied to plants and aggregate in the shadehouse brought cool air into the building.
Well worth a visit you NSW men. The mud bricks were often made by school chidren, they were 12inches by 12 inches and 4 inches in depth.
Cool in summer and warm in winter.
I have wanted to to build again, but am now too old.
Any wanting to visit need make an appointment and be shown around by the Nuns.
Stroud is not a high rainfall area but still long eve;s can protect from driving rain, to reduce maintainance, which is still easy to do.
All you need is MUD!
fluff4