Taking appropriate design measures might minimise the future damage from bushfires, but Victoria should avoid a “knee-jerk reaction” in rebuilding, Tim Whitefield, MD at the Collingwood-based practice Whitefield McQueen Irwin Alsop told Architecture & Design. When Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin, the immediate reaction was to build concrete boxes. Now, there are hundreds of concrete boxes abandoned because the tropical climate makes them
difficult to live in, Whitefield said.
“We need something that takes into account the conditions and the climate, but appreciates that Mother Nature throws unpredictable things at you,” he said.
Whitefield supported the right of people to live in the bush. “I don’t think the government can, or should, legislate against rebuilding,” he said. “Settlement began in the bush and will always be in the bush.”
Whitefield fought the Victorian bushfires with his own hands and found the strangest buildings survived the disaster. When doing search and recovery as a volunteer with the Country Fire Authority, Whitefield found houses that “should not have survived” because of their location or materials still standing, he said.
“We found a three-storey pole house, made of timber, with timber cladding, completely black on all sides. It had a 5,000-litre water tank and one pump. That house should have gone. And yet it’s standing there with no explanation to why it survived,” he told Architecture & Design.
