In the 18 years between 1985 and 2003 the floor area of new homes in Australia has grown by nearly 40%. In 2005 28% of homes had four bedrooms or more compared with 17% in 1976. During the same period the number of people in each household has dropped from 3.1 to 2.5.
Fewer people live in bigger houses, with more stuff.
In contrast, Australian homes of the 1920s and 1930s became smaller than their earlier counterparts. Building materials were expensive and families were becoming smaller and a period of house-size rationalisation began. Hallways disappeared, bedrooms were functionally sized and sleep-outs became popular. Wirelesses replaced the piano and in smaller homes dining rooms disappeared into an all-purpose living room. A focus on outdoor activity placed the family car in sharp focus with garages and driveways widening suburban blocks.
a 1920s home offered by Knight & Harwood builders, Melbourne*
House design naturally alters over time to accommodate changes to the way we live. The demise of service staff in the home means that the working areas such as the kitchen and laundry are now at the heart of the house; living areas now accommodate televisions rather than radios or pianos and many homes have a computer room, home office or study. However homes are also larger taking up more of our suburban blocks than ever before. Rather than a focus on the outside, there is a focus on the inside (with the exception of the outdoor room, which is the inside taken outside).
I live with my husband and two children in an early Arts and Crafts style home built in 1919. It was probably built for an upper middle class family of the time and there is evidence of the dividing walls between the private and ‘service’ areas of the home – there was likely a live-in maid. Our house has had minimal changes to its layout over the years.
Recently we decided to update the kitchens and bathrooms of the house. We are in the early stages of this process and have found the first hurdle – trying to find an architect that respects our wishes not to increase the size of the house. The first desire of architects we have seen is to make our house bigger, add more bedrooms (we already have four) and create an enormous master suite.
According to Archicentre the top trends for renovations are the rumpus room, parents’ retreat, ensuites, walk-in-robes, decks and outdoor kitchens. In addition storage is a big issue because our big houses need lots of stuff to fill them and lots of stuff needs storage.
I feel all out of date requesting none of this (I do want a back verandah – is that a deck? I guess so). These trends would be alien to an era before our time when children shared bedrooms, when the main living area was the back lawn and kids playing outside meant that parents didn’t need retreats.
I feel our house is big enough, I just want it to work better. I like the rational approach of building a house to meet your needs, not exceed them. A refocus on getting outdoors rather than cocooning indoors.
Wish me luck, because I can feel a fight with the trends coming along. Will I cave in or will I stick to my guns?
What would you do?
References:
The Australian Bureau of Statistics
*Chuffley, P Australian Houses of the Twenties and Thirties, The Five Mile Press, 1983
Archicentre - Trends Renovations 2008
Newspaper House, (247 Collins Street)
David Jones, (294-296 Bourke Street)
Australian Natives Association Building, (28-32 Elizabeth Street) 