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Often there can be Architects engage in a certain degree of experimentation with the homes they design. Unfettered by external briefs, the architects were free to explore their own curiosities about design, craftsmanship, spatial organization and habitation patterns.
Western Australian architect Joshua Duncan’s own home is equally experimental but still constrained. Joshua said he has always been interested in designing homes for ordinary people on an everyday budget. Joshua said he could, in fact, sympathize with his potential clients because his own home in the suburb of Busselton in Western Australia’s south-west was built “with limited funds”.
“It’s the perfect proving ground to show that architects can design something that’s low-cost, interesting, and a livable place even in a normal suburban context. At the same time, I’m designing something that I actually want to live in.” Something,” he added.
This simple low-rise timber-framed house occupies a typical 450 m2 plot, surrounded by a large number of built project homes.
The house is arranged as a pavilion 28 meters long and 5 meters wide, with a narrow balcony on the north side. Each room faces north and has openings to a balcony.
The house has a symmetrical plan and consists of two pairs of non-specific rooms (separated by bathrooms) located on either side of a larger central living area.
“They’re actually bedrooms,” Joshua explained. “There are no built-in robes or anything that would define them as family bedrooms. It has been designed to be a reprogrammable, flexible space that can adapt to a variety of uses and lifestyles.”
“For example, in the front room, that’s where I practice,” he continued. “If the house were occupied by a family, this would be the bedrooms. The access from the deck allows the clients to enter directly without having to go through the house itself. I have a few others who live at the other end of the house.
“But conceivably it could have been occupied by a family with two children, [where] Kids can be on one end and parents on the other, or share a home with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. “
Joshua’s house was built with a budget of $260,000 and took 7 months, making it much cheaper and faster than the average custom home.
He said he achieved this not by building smaller buildings, but by utilizing readily available elements from traditional residential architecture. The house is built with simple concrete floor slabs that are polished rather than polished after being poured. The walls are timber framed with prefabricated roof trusses. Windows and doors are standardized proprietary units used in most project homes. Internally, the walls are lined with construction-grade plywood, which typically serves as a base or support board, but it also eliminates the need for drywall (and plasterers) and paint (and painters).
“This is not an explicit reduction in floor space, but a reduction in the cost of materials used. Beautiful cabinets are all omitted, any novelty of form is omitted. There is none of that kind. Cabinets are almost non-existent in the house ,” Joshua said.
“Doing this allows for more flexibility in how the space is used. You don’t have built-in robes. So you could have a desk or a dressing table, or any number of things, depending on how the room type is used.
“The aim of the scheme is to keep it relevant to the average West Australian who might buy a house in the suburbs. It still needs to be a four-by-two for them to live in and, unless the asset is considered traditional enough, the bank won’t I will lend them money.”
Like any forward-thinking experiment that stretches people’s imagination, this residential building is not without its critics. Joshua said it was initially derided as a “toilet block” because of its utilitarian aesthetic. But Vasse House won the People’s Choice Award at the 2023 Western Australian Architecture Awards, with one reviewer describing the house’s appearance as “divine” – proving that achieving such a house is just a matter of trusting the (architectural) process.
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