Translator: Dauhalevich Valeria Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
Some of my friends have bought a house,
a reasonably priced, three or four bedroom.
Not expensive, but enough to tie them to a 30-year mortgage.
They work a nine-hour day, and travel two hours to get there and back.
By the time they get home, relax, sleep;
they have to get up and do it all again.
Sometimes they say they feel a little bit trapped.
Realistically, half of the rooms in that house are empty all the time.
And they're always looking forward to their next holiday,
away from it all -
the house included.
Apparently, this is quite normal.
My partner Andrew and I are at about this point in our lives.
But the idea of striving for this kind of lifestyle seems out of balance.
Health, nature, and time feels like it's being traded
for house, money, and stuff.
I guess, most of us follow the same path: buy as much as we can afford,
in the best area we can afford, and adjust our lifestyles to suit.
Usually this means a big house in the suburbs
with a bit of a commute.
The problem I have with this is that I believe our physical environments
enforce habits, both good and bad.
We build the world's biggest houses, and fill them with stuff,
worsening our ecological footprint.
Many of our houses are quite insular,
turning their backs on neighbors and the public street.
We take out crippling mortgages
in our pursuit for the great Australian dream,
and sacrifice our welfare, our relationships, and our hobbies.
So this was a bit of a problem for us.
What we really wanted was something a lot smaller and more flexible
than what the market offered.
We wanted to buy something within our means,
and have our lifestyle adapt our home, not the other way around.
Our homes could be so much more, and take so much less.
They could offer us easy ways to process our own waste,
or recycle our water.
They could offer us ways to collect and monitor our energy usage,
or foster connected communities.
And of course, like many problems, this isn't just a personal problem,
this issue is broader; it's on the national and global scale.
Our homes demand huge amounts of energy to build and operate.
Not only this, but they produce large amounts of waste.
And the land clearing required for new low-density development
is an ongoing problem.
And yet, we stubbornly march forward, building bigger and bigger houses yearly.
The average floor plan size or the average area of our houses
has steadily grown over the past 15 years.
And simultaneously, the number of people living in these houses has declined.
And to top it all off, many of us can't even afford to buy a house.
The average price of our houses in Australian capital cities
is now more than seven times our average annual income.
That's huge.
So the last year my partner and I, and a builder-mate of ours,
teamed up with his small crew as well, to design and build an alternative.
Something based on our desires, and not the market expectations.
You may have heard of the term, a "tiny house" before.
In our case, it's essentially a fully functioning house
condensed down into 18 square meters,
which is two car-parking spaces.
The product is a home that is transportable,
more affordable than the average house,
and also, more environmentally friendly.
So let me give you a quick tour.
The house is built on a trailer,
so you can tow a fully functioning house onto site and park it there.
You enter the house via the deck.
The deck is made up of modular panels, that attach to the side of the house
when you arrive on site, doubling the width.
The doors and windows are made of recycled floor joists of old cottages,
and this recycled timber-fill is continued through on the bench tops,
the shelves, and the decking boards.
Because space is such an issue,
it was important to maintain good views through the house.
So the front entry windows and doors
line up with the windows in front of the kitchen.
Once inside, you are presented with long views through the house.
The rhythm of the portal frames helps to organise the space,
and reduce the feeling of clutter.
Up one end, is an L-shaped lounge space,
and behind that is floor-to-ceiling storage.
By day, this is a lounge space,
and by night, a bed is lowered down from the ceiling.
In the central space, on one side is the kitchen bench,
and on the other side is a narrow bench,
which turns into the vanity and the laundry space.
And at the far end is the bathroom,
which is separated from the main space by a sliding door.
The bathroom contains a full-size shower, and a composting toilet,
because this one was designed to be able to be off-grid.
Above the backroom space is a loft,
which could be used as additional sleeping space
for a double or a queen bed, or for more storage space.
It was really important for us
to make the space feel a lot bigger than it actually is.
And some of the strategies we used for this
were the high ceilings with the louvers,
white walls,
views were carefully organised through and down the space,
and strategic placement of some mirrors.
Of course, aesthetics aside,
it was important that it functions really well as a house.
So in such a small home, storage was really important.
We had to exploit every opportunity we could:
under the floor, in the walls, around the wheel-arches, in the furniture.
Of course, as well, we had to enact different scenarios
of how the space would be used.
So, what would we do when we had guests over?
How could the space be rearranged for different activities of the day?
So far, the capacity has been 30.
(Laughter)
In designing the house,
we had to fit a lot of things into quite a small space.
But for us, the ultimate measure of success
was were we able to retain the essence of a home.
Sure, it's not for everyone, but it suits us well.
Being built on a trailer meant that there are many alternatives
for how the space is used.
People who own land could expand their space
by adding an additional bit of accommodation.
Those that don't own land, it can open up many options for them.
And that is the case with my partner and I.
Arrangements can be made, and if you bring your home with you,
it's amazing where you can find places to live.
There's also opportunities for people who have live-in workers
or dependent family members,
even holiday accommodation.
Of course, there's also further things to consider
with movable, small modular homes
about disaster relief housing, and communities that want to be off-grid,
or more remote properties.
And a tiny house that can function fully off-grid
works well in those scenarios.
Another issue that is worth briefly mentioning is our aging population,
and various different ways our housing
might not be tailored well enough for that,
and how small dwellings could be used
either in the property of children for elderly parents,
or even in the back of their own properties,
and they could rent or sell their larger house,
and still stay in their own community.
With a bit of creative thinking and collaboration with counsels,
developers, neighbors, friends, family,
I believe we could overcome a lot of issues we have with our housing.
Whether we like it or not, our housing is a reflection of who we are
and what we value as a society.
So the status quo of Australian housing should concern us.
We are building bigger and bigger houses, and we need not; perhaps we should not.
I don't want to try and convince you all to live in a tiny house.
What I would like to pose is a challenge
to dismiss our preconceptions,
to put aside those preconceptions about our home and to really think
what do we want our home to provide.
I think that only when we get to that point
can we reflect on what's really important in our homes, and our lifestyles.
It's very difficult to put a price on a lifestyle.
But for me, it's definitely worth more than the fourth bedroom.
(Applause)