Darwin-based architect Jenny Culgan believes that the density of housing developments in the top end and poor design is resulting in inefficient homes that are costly to keep cool.
Cyclone Tracy forced a rethink of housing design in the territory, doing away with lightweight houses sitting high above the ground. Culgan describes the modern day NT house as a ‘windowless esky’ to the ABC, with dense housing lots resulting in heat bouncing from property to property, unable to be alleviated.
An insulated frame held together by studs, with plasterboard-laden interiors and a corrugated iron facade forms the basis of lightweight housing design, much like the dwelling in the image at the top. Culgan says this design achieves one very key objective.
"That's the premise of the old elevated tropical house: the heat gets out the windows, down the floor, through the roof, wherever, just to get out of the house," she tells the ABC.
"You might pay more for a tropical house at the start, but your running costs are much less, and I don't think that's something that people appreciate enough. You might have to have a slightly smaller house, but you can live in it, and you're not spending thousands on air conditioning all the time."
Blocks that are less than 600 sqm stacked closely to one another are difficult to cool. Culligan believes bigger blocks and better urban planning allows for breezes to flow between dwellings.
The NT’s Urban Development Institute CEO Catriona Tatam attributes poor housing design to inclement weather and economic unrest.
"The pressures of development and the higher construction and living costs mean that affordability has become the critical issue, rather than energy efficiency and sustainability. The design of many of these homes has meant it's become the norm just to turn on the air conditioning.”
"We have to work out which combination of built environment options, whether that's changes to roof materials, planting trees, pavements et cetera, would best serve those objectives, and then for each mitigation option, we need to choose a combination of which policy mechanisms and instruments are needed, whether that's zoning incentives, tax rebates, regulations, or guidelines."
