“I design each home to satisfy the living requirement of the proposed occupiers over as long a period as possible.” Edgar Merton Gurney, architect to A.V. Jennings, 1933-1954

Readers will know my fascination with project homes. We’ve designed quite a few, for several builders, and are re-starting our own business. I’ve written about the roots of project homes, the seminal work of A. V. Jennings, the changes wrought by brick veneer, and how it has morphed into today’s project homes.

But it was my lauding of Bert Jennings’ first architect, Ed Gurney, that raised some eyebrows.

Essentially, I said that Ed Gurney had single-handedly designed the basis of project homes. And I said that he designed more houses than any other architect in Australia’s history.

Let me go further. I think he was our most prolific architect, with a dozen masterplanned estates, over 10,000 individual homes, shops and community facilities, not to mention an ammunitions factory, military camps, and hospitals during WW2. But was the work any good?

Oh, definitely yes. Let me show you through a few images.

But before I do here’s a quick catch up on who we are talking about.

Edgar Merton Gurney

Ed Gurney was born in 1911, and post WW1 his family hit hard times and he left school to work in the architectural office of James Wood and Harry Burt. He left them to work with a steel fabricator, KM Steel, which greatly improved his knowledge of construction. He was only 21 when he was approached by Bert Jennings to work as A.V. Jennings inhouse (and only) architect.

Concurrently he studied part-time at Working Men’s College (now RMIT) to gain architectural qualifications. Working with Jennings, Gurney set about designing an ever-greater range of houses, along the way creating the basic templates for mass-produced houses that last to this day. And he designed ways in which each plan could be ‘customised’ to a customer’s wishes, without losing the main plan ideas and arrangements.

Highly creative and interested in new designs, his work over 22 years was crucial to Jennings’ success.

Hillcrest Estate

Gurney designed about ten houses for Jennings before Bert bought his first subdivision in Caulfield South in 1933. Called Hillcrest it had just twelve blocks. Every house had roughly the same layout (but not plan) and a different façade. The houses were about 110 square metres (or 12 ‘squares’) and, together with the land, they sold for about £195.

Here are the twelve houses, with their different styles, low fences, and gardens. Not bad work for a 22-year-old, working just after the Great Depression. The street, now a ‘heritage overlay’, has a lovely feel.

Beaumont Estate

The success of Hillcrest led to more estates, often with a ‘Beau’ prefix: Beauville in Murrumbeena close to Hillcrest, Beaumont in Heidelberg (94 houses), and Beauview in Ivanhoe (121 houses). In each one Ed Gurney designed the masterplan, the site sizes and configuration. Beaumont introduced the first ‘cul-de-sacs’ with low scale driveways, no fences and a community feel.

In the houses he expanded his repertoire of plans, and the accompanying forms and styles. He lived his work, building a house for his family in each estate. Here is a range of the typical houses.

Modern architecture

Ed Gurney also experimented with modern planning and forms, sadly referred to as ‘Moderne’ when claimed by Art Deco aficionados. He was amongst our first architects to use the modernist palette: open plans, integrated kitchens, cubic forms, extended internal volumes, honesty in materials, steel windows (sometimes at corners), not to mention curved spaces and flat roofs.

Here is a fine example on the corner as you enter Beaumont; a duplex that served as Bert Jennings’ family home on the left and the A.V. Jennings Construction Co. on the right.

Ed Gurney’s own houses were usually experiments in Modernism (except at Beauview) and here is an earlier image, with a photo of the house today (with its unconvincing extension).

And lastly here are some of the modern houses by Ed Gurney, in A.V. Jennings estates, and all before WW2.

What a tour de force, and all in less than 10 years.

His work after WW2, even more extensive, will have to wait for another day.

Tone Wheeler is an architect / the views expressed are his / contact at [email protected]