Affordable Building - Helena Bubica

'BUILDING CHARACTER ON A BUDGET' Article from The Age Newspaper, Sat August 15, 09.

This article, written by Kerrie O'Brien shows that sound design principles and a strong aesthetic need not have a large price tag and big footprint.

A major point of discussion and debate is the affordability of GOOD DESIGN...

When we look back to Robin Boyd and Peter Corrigan, they have been well known for their egalitarian approach, and arguing that good design should be available to all and should not be expensive.

Karla Martinez, a young architect (29) who has graduated from RMIT in 2003, has worked for Paul Morgan Architects and also for Ashton Raggatt McDougal.

This design concept she has come up with is featured in the article.....

Two three bedroom units in Wonthaggi.

I have found that this article is a really good source of information in terms of sound design principles and strong aesthetics.

Some key features are:

• Reducing building footprint (ecologically sistainable development, something which volume builders are known for).
• New housing should reduce the need for urban growth and urban boundary expansion - Karla Martinez argues this can be achieved by building compact homes on smaller blocks of land.
• To reject what a house should look like, therefore affordable houseing should challenge and reject percieved ideas of what we believe a house should look like.
• "The product should be challenged by proposing new ideas".
• Martinez tackled the problem by running the driveway on the easment, which also increased the solar penetration into the house.
• "The design was inspired by rock formations".
• Savings have been made in the following areas, all of which can potentially be adopted in other projects: orientating the house so it faces north; avoiding west-facing windows; choosing standard finishes and fixtures; sticking to standard building details; cutting brick where plywood commences; building eaves around the windows in lieu of standard eaves; building window frames on site; and using a skillion roof, which was cheaper than a pitched roof.