Grigg Place 2019

House Notes – Grigg Place

Over the past two decades, house prices have risen dramatically throughout Australia. This has contributed to a general decline in housing affordability, especially for first home buyers & lower income households. This has brought about the “Project Home”, which to me, personally I find to be a mad, modern day epidemic.

Energy performance standards for buildings in Australia are lower than most countries in the developed world.There are fewer financial restrictions on their size which results in Australian’s having the biggest m2 houses than anywhere else in the world. In WA, 72% of new residential buildings are project homes designed for mass production & consumption. Home purchasers and developers have sought to capitalize on the value of the land by building larger, more ostentatious, status orientated “Mcmansions”. These overblown, gaudy, mass produced, cheaply constructed & environmentally destructive eyesores are a constant blight through out the urban landscape.

Despite the decreasing number of house inhabitants, the increasing size of houses has resulted. Instead of the small, energy efficient houses being heralded as the architectural solution for our future, countries such as Australia have almost double the energy use per capita than the rest of the world. West Australian’s share the increasingly dishonorable status of being the most unsustainable people on the planet.

For all these insane reasons, but simply also just personal preference, I chose to make my future home something contrary to this illogical and unsustainable trend. Personally, I find it only seems to make rational sense to build a smaller, comfortable dwelling that would still provide everything I may need, whist having less of an impact on our planet and also at the same time on my hip pocket. Both these achievable outcomes allow us to enjoy life to the fullest, with minimal debt, hence less time working and more time enjoying the planet which we are also having less of a negative impact upon.

Designed by Solar Dwellings and built by Cercon