Posted on 12/09/2022

How has the Australian home changed?

From dark boxes to light-filled living, Aussie homes have come to embrace the great outdoors. Now, there’s another shift underway.

For a country flooded with sunlight, it’s odd that so many traditional homes were quite dark, small and internally focused. However, it makes more sense when you consider the origins of Australian house design – the settler experience. Most homes were simply a masonry box with windows, sitting around a very symmetrical layout with a roof on it.

Things have certainly changed, with light, space and the outdoors now embraced and celebrated in home design. But it has been quite an evolution – and there is more change on the horizon.

The new community rising out of an old cotton mill

We sometimes take it for granted, but almost every built community across Australia was at one point merely lines on a drawing board. Of course, communities are much more than physical structures or institutions — they’re a place where you feel you truly belong.

The best new residential developments are those embraced wholeheartedly by the community. While established suburbs have had years for people to forge connections, for new communities to flourish, property developers need to get the ingredients right from day one.

And if you’re attempting to breathe new life into an area with a rich history like the old Bradmill factory in Yarraville – before you start you need to consult those that it means the most to, the community.