In recent weeks, Tone on Tuesday has been looking at suburbia: ways to make it more sustainable, how to develop good quality social housing, and addressing homelessness. This week the iceberg issue: How to increase housing density in our suburbs.

We know that suburbia at its present densities is the least sustainable form of urban living. Too much land, too much infrastructure and too much energy is needed for too few houses to support too few people. It’s an increasingly big problem as we build out at the edges, not in the middle.

But many fear that the answer to a big problem is a ‘big solution’. High rise towers, once restricted to inner city areas, are spreading to the ‘burbs. Whilst high-rise might suit the rich, singles or transient students, it doesn’t meet the needs for a majority of Australians who value being close to the ground in a suburban setting.

Obviously, it would be better to service more homes and people with the investments we’ve already made in the existing network of roads, electricity grid, water, stormwater and sewage systems.

We can make the existing complex infrastructure work much harder. And increasing the density of suburbia will improve the catchment efficiency for retail, schools, hospitals, and the like.

So, how to increase density in the middle suburbs without losing all the good things suburbia has to offer: low scale buildings that allow lots of sun, gardens and trees that offer relaxation and potentially food, and the peaceful ambience?

In addition to the ‘Housing Map’ published by the NSW Department of Planning, I’m suggesting three possible solutions with ‘six’ in the answer (not six answers).

Six bedrooms

Given that we build the biggest houses in the world, let’s put them to better use. Occupancy at less than 2.5 people/dwelling is half what it was 50 years ago. Large old-style family homes are inflexible, increasingly occupied by aging couples or singles. We need to make far more of our housing stock much more flexible.  

Why not allow the subdivision of existing single homes into 2 or 3 ‘flats’, possibly increased in size with additional bedrooms, from the current average four to 6. More people living together, with privacy and amenity, not only addresses sustainability but community as well. Old and young looking after each other.

If not used by families, they could provide an income, in much the same way that post WW1, the widows of soldiers adapted their houses as B+Bs. Suburban houses could be money spinners as owners rent out their rooms or studios, preferably full time rather than for holiday lettings.

All of which could be encouraged by tax arrangements. For instance, you could end stamp duty, and install rates that are inversely proportional to the number of full-time residents, encouraging oldies to either take in lodgers, or making it easier to downsize.

Six packs

Many of the houses of the 60s and 70s are knackered, but sit on largish blocks of 700 or more sqm, often on wide streets. At present the key option is either a KDRB (knock-down re-build) McMansion project home, or a duplex. In NSW a ‘manor home’ of four units (more correctly a ‘mansion apartment’ as in London’s Maida Vale) is possible.

Why not get several times better. Replace a single suburban house with six apartments, no more than 2 to 3 storeys tall. Keep the trees and driveways, use the existing infrastructure and build up to six small corner units, sharing an open stairwell. Already it sounds more sustainable. A six pack.

Two issues are key: get the scale right and manage the cars. Scale, or more pertinently size, can be governed by the use of volumetric controls such as those developed by Ralph Knowles.

Car parking is the secret to designing all housing. Take the de Bono approach and think laterally. Restrict on-site cars by promoting car-share, and reconfiguring streets – making them one way with right angle parking.

Finally, encourage their development through Compliance Codes: very strict rules to preserve amenity, rigorously enforced by state appointed certifiers to by-pass the NIMBY Councils. It can be done, witness the recent successes of duplexes and ‘manor homes’ in Sydney under a CDC.

Again it harks back to past successes, the 3 storey walk-ups, between and after the world wars. They’ve successfully housed a million people for all that time. Small size and low energy, their offence is mostly the unrelenting use of horror bricks. We need to look to better materiality, better scale and more landscape, but a successful, sustainable precedent is there.

Six-storeys

On the high streets that thread through suburbia, we need an ‘up to six-storey’ solution. That’s the ideal height and density for ‘shop-top’ housing: a variety of apartments for families, couples and singles over retail and commercial spaces, along every busy high street, serviced by trams, buses, or railway lines.

This scheme is 4 storeys overall, with setbacks to respect the nineteenth century houses and 4 storey red brick flats as neighbours. ‘Up to six storeys’ is chosen carefully: a height that allows contact with the ground, the most efficient use of stairs for access (as well as lifts), fire services and restricts the amount of car parking needed to either a single basement or on ground at the rear of the shops.

This scheme is 7 storeys overall, to the south and well setback from the single storey houses in the local area. More than six storeys demands two (as here) or three basements, increasingly expensive, needing mechanical ventilation, and hugely disturbing to the water table and ground ecology of the city. Notably Meriton has built to 20 storeys nearby, causing considerable disruption.

Six and out

Starting at the high streets, we can dramatically increase the population without resorting to high-rise. For the next two to three kilometres we can double and treble the population with six-packs, that keep the suburban amenity, and beyond that lie the six-bedroom houses, preserving the detached two storey appearance, no bigger than current McMansions, but more attractive and far better culturally and sustainably.

Title image: Aria, 12 single level apartments on two levels with a single level basement facing north on Darley St West, Mona Vale NSW. 2007. Architecture by environa studio.

Next week: Sustainability in apartments is the subject of next week's Tone on Tuesday.

This is Tone on Tuesday #210, 28 May 2024, written by Tone Wheeler, architect / Adjunct Prof UNSW / President AAA. The views expressed are his. Past Tone on Tuesday columns can be found here. You can contact TW at [email protected].