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Abstract

What is it about home-making that it should touch us when it's lowly and repel us when it is
sumptuous?
A simple, cosy cottage may be a potent image of home, but when it comes to the design and
construction of affordable suburban housing, homeliness and place-making are often far from
the agenda. Affordable housing developments tend to be cheaply built, isolated, lacking in
infrastructure and services, and designed with little attempt to listen to community needs
or foster senses of place. The establishment of pressing sustainability concerns in the 1987
Bruntland Report for the United Nations and more recently the 2007 Stern Review" for the
United Kingdom Treasury has put pressure on governments to take action. Sustainability
guidelines, however, have tended to focus on quantifiable environmental assessment criteria,
and to give little consideration to place-making activities. Focusing on affordable housing
in Australian suburbs, we will argue that the notion of sustainability should be broadened
beyond environmental concerns, to incorporate the everyday practices of people - the livable,
lived-in dimension of space.

Item Type:	Book Section
Authors/Creators:	Fay, MR and Sellbach, U
Publisher:	National Museum of Australia Press
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