Suburban shift
Retaining the quality of the suburb, such as existing tree canopies, was integral to the proposals. Image: Daniel Jan Martin
Nic Temov
A glimpse into the future of suburban Perth.
Throughout 2020, 30 talented local design practitioners and students got together to explore different possibilities for suburban renewal. Their brief was to discover, educate and inspire us all about the outlook for Perth’s middle-ring suburbs, using Ashfield as a laboratory to test new ideas for suburban land, garden and homes.
Ashfield: The testing ground
The suburban ideal – to live in a connected place with access to nature and a modest garden – is sought by many. Ashfield can offer this at an affordable price. It has good rail access and connections to the Swan River, and is close to employment and a short distance from historic town centres at Bassendean and Guildford. Houses were originally built as part of the war recovery effort in the late 1950s; they were laid out in a loose grid along with schools and generous grassed parks. Now, Ashfield is on the cusp of change. Many of the houses are at an age where renovation or redevelopment would be considered. The area has been spared from blanket upcoding of the residential codes as they pertain to density – surrounding suburbs have not avoided this – so it’s time to do density differently in Ashfield and do it well. The Place Value Ashfield designers, arranged into six teams, showed us how.
Valuing spaces between: the land
Green spaces in which to play, grow food and relax were prominent in schemes across all teams. The Home Amongst the Gum Trees proposal by Team C (Sophie Giles, Amber Martin, Felix Joensson, Yangyan Ou and Samantha Dye) addressed the fact that mature trees are being lost in many suburbs, and that it’s time to imagine new links between houses, where large trees can provide shade on hot days. Their design response included terrace housing fringing a path network to break through typical suburban blocks that were once impermeable. Their proposed communal spaces included high-quality raised walking areas, and wildflowers beside an established tree canopy where “something is always in bloom throughout one of the six Noongar seasons”. These vital links would encourage sharing between neighbours as the local climate becomes warmer and drier.
The Future Maidos scheme by Team F (Simon Anderson, Richard Hassell and James Rietveld) responded to COVID-19’s impact on the quality and reliability of the complex supply chains that put food on our tables. Anderson and Hassell presented a design response that included courtyard apartments wrapped around productive communal open spaces, with fruit and vegetable plots reminiscent of the community gardens seen in large European cities.
But it’s not just about the space between buildings. Strategic connections to the river were encouraged by Team A (Rene Van Meeuwen, Craig McCormack and Liam Mouritz). Their scheme, Living Stream, sited apartments on higher ground and created room for a restorative landscape down to the water’s edge. The publicly accessible green spaces joined large blocks together to improve access to the river and create a living stream out of a major stormwater drain running through the site.
Valuing quality internal layouts: the home
Interrogating the size and configuration of living areas inside the home was a focus throughout the exhibition, given the paradox that our new suburban houses are swelling in size while households are getting smaller. The approach of Team B (Fernando Jerez, Belen Perez de Juan, Joshua Cobb-Diamond and Stephen Thick) in their scheme The Scale of the House was to challenge the site coverage of current infill models that build on most of the land. Team B shared a system for suburban housing based on 4 x 4-metre prefabricated living modules that could be added over three stories and modified as families grow and shrink.
Team F thought of the capacity for our suburbs to be places for work. They presumed the future rollout of a national universal income scheme that would reduce typical work hours, with more time spent on casual pursuits from home. Their building designs included adaptable spaces for shop and home office conversions facing onto the street.
The transformative potential for coordinated development was presented on Ashfield’s main street leading from the station. Geoffrey London and Nigel Bertram of Team E showed the Community Hub scheme, which proposed flexible housing structures that could be programmed with different living arrangements for those inside. Key to the scheme was how buildings meet at the important corner of Colstoun Road and Haig Street. This was achieved through thoughtful thresholds between private and public space, where residents’ privacy was balanced with opportunities to overlook the street and activate a community heart for Ashfield. Team D (Emily Van Eyk, Jessica Mountain, Matthew Delroy- Carr, Serena Pangestu and Anika Kalotay), in their scheme Small Wins, freed up their site by pushing car parking to the edges, in response to an expected uptake of ride-share and automated vehicles. These trends are likely to reduce the number of two-car households we see in middle-ring suburbs, reducing the need for expensive fully enclosed garages that can dominate the street front.
Valuing new development models: the funding
Place Value Ashfield designs have been conceived at a time in which the financing of homes is changing as a result of COVID-19. Direct economic stimulus is stabilising the market and keeping construction ticking along, and many believe we’re unlikely to return back to fully market-based financing models in the short to medium term. Teams discussed ways this shift could influence the design of their projects with representatives from OP Properties, LWP, Sirona Capital, Golestani Developments, Codev and Yolk (each team partnered with a representative from one of the developers).
State contributions could help to fund more affordable and social housing, in ways we haven’t seen since the coordinated postwar construction effort that built Ashfield in the first place. About one quarter of Ashfield properties are government owned, meaning teams could leverage off discounted land values or leasing arrangements, access favourable conditions for lending and lower returns on investment typically afforded to Department of Communities-led or partnered projects. Teams also discussed the opportunities presented through build-to-rent models, where the true community value of the housing asset can be realised. As the developer retains housing assets, the construction, operation and maintenance of them can be linked to better design decisions.
Our suburbs rely on this experimentation to make them more environmentally healing, social and affordable places into the future.
