What’s wrong with Australian domestic architecture?
Home Design July 17th, 2008
I am on holidays in Europe right now and I’ve got to ask: What’s wrong with Australian domestic architecture?
The more I travel the more I realize how much boring contemporary residential architecture there is in Australia. There are too few attempts to step outside the brick veneer mindset that seems to have taken a pathological grip on the thinking home builders and housing estate developers. One rarely sees poor residential housing in Europe and never in France. Is it because the average French home builder, due to his country’s aesthetic history, appreciates architectural form more than us uncultured, beer swilling, yobbos in Australia?
It seems that many European developers are much more willing to step outside the box and produce innovative, attractive residential environments.
Here’s what a Dutch developer is trying to do. They take a street and build ten modestly priced houses that are all quite different but still sit harmoniously together. This streetscape works because it plays with volumes. Has any residential developer in this country ever tried to be so innovative?
Written by Guest Blogger: Writer and Copywriter, Steve Connard
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:09 PM
I can say the same about the interior design of many Australian homes, especially the renovated ones - boring, look-alike, almost as if there was a ‘protocol’ to the way renovations are done. The interior design of most properties I’ve seen shows complete lack of imagination, pretty disappointing.
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October 29th, 2008 at 12:45 AM
Good for people to know.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:50 PM
what ’s wrong with Australian residential architecture? Most of the mass home maket caters to a market where people have know idea about design and ‘eat’ what whatever they are feed by the mass market housing suppliers. Although I must say in the last 10 years things have improved greatly. But ultimatley if you want a architecturaly savy house it needs to be designed by someone who knows what they are doing and that is generally unaffordable for the mass market.