Within 15 years, homebuilders may be living in prefabricated houses made almost entirely from steel, timber, clay, glass, concrete or even cardboard, according to New South Wales Government Architect Chris Johnson.
Referring to an exhibition that began last Friday at the Sydney Opera House which showcases six futuristic houses, Johnson says having the prefabricated houses on display is a way for the industry and the public to be exposed to modern concepts of efficient, environmental and affordable homes.
Each house was designed by a team of architects who had a brief to produce prefabricated houses that could be erected on-site in less than four days, were futuristic in appearance and compliant with NSW BASIX and Victoria’s 5 star ratings standards.
Johnson says the demand is growing for such innovation in housing concepts.
“Land shortage means we need to rethink houses, and the environmental agenda is getting stronger,” he says.
“Added to that, we’re seeing a demographic change where the average number of people per household in Western Sydney has more than halved from 5.3 to 2.3 over the last 30 years.”
The exhibition, which features houses made out of steel, timber, concrete, clay, glass and cardboard comes exactly 50 years after Harry Seidler designed Australia’s first ‘house of the future’. The exhibition is a feature of the City of Sydney’s Art and About Festival, and celebrates the Year of the Built Environment 2004.
Project managed by Multiplex, the initiative is designed to promote new ideas in architecture and construction, resulting in high-quality, environmentally sustainable, affordable and easily constructed abodes.
The steel house, designed by Sarah Bickford and Paul Lucas of Modabode and sponsored by Integrated Steel Solutions uses a simple, light-filled interior that showcases all things steel, and uses photovoltaic cells for electricity and a ‘warterhog’ tank to collect water for recycling.
The timber house was designed by Stephanie Smith and Ken McBryde of Innovarchi, with sponsorship by the Timber Development Association. Its focus is on the relationship between single family and the environment, and blurs the distinction between natural and built environment – the surface is simultaneously roof, wall and floor.
The New South Wales Government Architects (GAO) also got involved in the project, with GAO architects Peter Poulet and Michael Harvey designing a concrete house. This team exploited the advantages of concrete’s properties such as its inherent thermal mass and its ability to be cast into curvilinear forms, while incorporating it into a series of enclosed spaces which open up to the north for sunlight exposure.
The glass house, which was a collaboration between James Muir and Carl Masens of the UTS Institute of Nanoscale Technology and CSIRO, demonstrates how nano-technology can be incorporated into glass to create an environmentally responsive, ultra low-energy design.
The showcase also features a house built out of clay. Designed by Tone Wheeler of Environa Studios, this house shows how acoustic privacy is achieved by combining high-mass clay products with a courtyard-style house. It features rare clay products such as non-standard bricks, a ‘slick brick’, terracotta louvres and Terracade external cladding.
Perhaps the most unusual of the six, the cardboard house, designed by Stutchbury and Pape Architects, uses 100 per cent recycled and recyclable materials – cardboard and HDPE plastic. Extremely low cost, light weight and flexible, the cardboard is seen as a genuine short-term housing option.