Urgent carbon emission reduction is a top priority. But in Australia, we face increasing housing shortages, too. Just bulldozing lots of buildings and rebuild at higher density is not the main solution.
The embodied emissions of new buildings are big: building 200,000 new homes would add around 15 million tonnes of embodied emissions to Australia’s annual 465 Mt carbon footprint. And, given shortages of materials and workers, planning issues and the time involved in construction of a building, it is too slow and expensive.
We don’t have enough time, workers, materials, money or carbon budget. So what do we do? One option is to adapt existing buildings. Our family homes are among the world’s biggest, averaging around 200 square metres to house an average of about three people.
An example of a Vicurban Sustainable Affordable Home with potential to house two households or a bigger family
A concept developed by students at Western Sydney University that would convert a large home into an upstairs, downstairs and studio apartment
Before Covid, almost half of Australian homes had at least two spare bedrooms. We need to increase the occupancy of existing homes. But this doesn’t mean we need to share our personal spaces.
Friends of mine in London own part of a three-storey home that has been divided into three apartments. Flexible design could allow new home buyers to rent out part of their home but use it when they have children, as was demonstrated by Vicurban’s Sustainable Affordable Housing Initiative over a decade ago. A student project in Sydney showed how a “McMansion” could be divided into three homes – upstairs, downstairs and a garage studio apartment.
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Regulations and policies must be adapted to support such changes. Efficient ways of adapting buildings to manage noise and fire risks and streamlined kits to “drop-in” kitchen fittings and bathroom modules will be needed. Methods of allocating energy costs for shared heating and hot water may be needed. And while modifying the homes, their operating carbon emissions and energy costs should be reduced.
This approach could leave local streetscapes largely intact while doubling population densities, slashing carbon emissions and addressing rising living costs much faster than demolition and rebuilding, and making better use of public and active transport. We need to get creative.
I agree but dividing existing large houses into small residential flat buildings faces numerous obstacles in Australia, such as our current building codes and a lack of regulatory support.
Than you Alan Pears. What a refreshing approach. It can be part of a mix of solutions, including some mid rise; and in some areas, the wonderful design shown in Singapore high rise, which integrates green areas. Sadly densification has a bad name because developers are allowed to maximise profits at the expense of community amenity. Good design can bring charm, diversity and ammenity. For this we need more regulation, not less. Local governments need the power to impose good design on developers.