Five winning terrace and apartment designs will be pre-approved in a new NSW government “pattern book” in a bid to fast-track housing development in the state.
The designs were selected from more than 200 in the state government’s Pattern Book Design Competition, submitted by architects from Australia and around the world.
The winning designs, along with a sixth winning student entry, “were picked because of their accessibility, adaptability to changing lifestyle needs, affordability and environmental sustainability,” the government said.
“They respond to the unique Australian climate, including a focus on indoor and outdoor living and how to incorporate shade and ventilation.”
The five winners will work with Government Architect NSW for inclusion in the NSW Housing Pattern Book, launching in mid 2025. A people’s choice vote for most popular is still open.
The pattern book intends to fast-track construction by pre-approving selected designs, cutting through red tape and lengthy development applications.
Display homes for public viewing will be built on five government-owned sites from Homes NSW, Landcom and Sydney Olympic Park Authority.
The winning designs
Prof Philip Oldfield, the head of UNSW Built Environment, said that natural shade, light and ventilation were the consistent themes across the winning designs.
“If you look at housing that is sometimes built, we see a lot of curtain wall and a lot of glass,” Oldfield said, compared to the winning designs which utilise a “really nice balance between glazing and views, shade and opacity”.
The architects had considered the comfort of people living in the apartments, he said, with many including two exterior frontages and windows on both sides.
Neeson Murcutt Neille, Finding Infinity and Monash Urban Lab’s winning entry in the mid-rise category was one such design that included two exterior frontages in their apartment design, with windows on both sides to allow better light and air circulation.
A winning terrace entry by the Housing is a Verb team also focused on maximising natural light, while allowing for additional height or separate structures to be added according to budget needs.
Flexibility and adaptability of design was another consistent theme, including in the winning student entry from the In Common Studio team, who designed a dual-frontage terrace house incorporating a flexible granny flat.
Officer Woods Architects’ terrace design had “double-height space above the living area that can be adapted to add a bedroom, study, or extra living space on the first floor”.
In the mid-rise category, Andrew Burges Architects won with a two-storey mixed house and apartment living design, which includes terrace houses with private entries and individual gardens.
Similarly, Spacecraft Architects’ apartment block design was described as “wide and spacious,” with each apartment featuring a front porch “similar to a house” and balancing public and private spaces.
The winning designs implement one or two materials “sensibly and thoughtfully,” Oldfield said, including white render and sandstone, among others.
“There’s a kind of modesty to the architecture … which I think is really appealing.”
One of the challenges of pattern books, Oldfield said, can be implementing pre-approved designs across different sites.
“There are many different sites across NSW that have different characters, different contexts, different topographies. The challenge will be applying a pre-defined design to those different kinds of contexts.”
Done effectively, however, the designs could fill a much-needed gap in the landscape of housing development, he said.
“If you look at these types of buildings … we don’t see too much of this being constructed at the moment, which is a real shame. We see a lot of high rise going up … We see a lot of suburban standalone housing. We don’t see a lot of new terraces. We don’t see enough of three to six storeys.
“I hope this pattern book will spark that imagination to foster this new generation of that missing middle.”
