Recently I had the privilege to listen to the discussion of some very esteemed architects at the Fencing of Architecture and the Villa of the Architect event held at The Mint in August.
Each presenter offered a very different and valid point of view which I found somewhat surprising and in many ways challenging. Given my own circumstances I agree strongly that as a society we need to minimise the relentless urban sprawl, but it is a lot harder to determine how we got here and why.
As an adult I have always lived in an apartment, even with two teenage children, as I prefer the benefits of location, lifestyle and convenience over having a house per se. My wife and I also spent 3 years in London earlier in our marriage and are extremely happy having a smaller footprint and more access to people and places. So it is very easy for me to agree with the argument that we need better and more efficient ways of living which may include better designed higher density living.
What I took away from the discussion was the sense from all these great architects is that despite their best efforts, there are many factors getting in the way of better buildings, and the challenging environment we find ourselves in fiscally with the rise in cost of living and interest rates, we need to do more to push for better long term design outcomes, rather than focus on short term pressures to build anything as cheaply as possible.
It seems incredibly challenging to persuade a population of people to shift the perception in Australia that owning a house is the end all and be all of a person. Hopefully over time we can transform the sentiment from “owning a house" to “owning a home". It may be argued that if we can influence clients to invest in better medium and high density solutions, and reduce the NIMBY mentality of established neighborhoods we can build more and better homes for people that helps alleviate some of the cost of living pressures and reduce the truly ludicrous cost of housing in Australia.
It was a truly inspired conversation and am so glad we are having these discussions. I kind of feel like we should be focused on efficiency and joy, rather than just consumption for consumptions sake.