The Great Divide

Can the humble suburban villa unit provide “a good life”?

The suburban villa unit is generally perceived as an inferior housing stock perennially caught between the ideal single family house and low maintenance metropolitan apartment.  The villa unit aspires to be a house, but is instead a miniature with scaled down expectations and compromises; the subdivided lot projects density and proximity, but are individually fenced off and connected only through a barren driveway and shared walls.

The studio looks to examine the potentials of this housing type through observations of the immediate suburban context and applying renovation as a method.  Projects will look to veer away from traditional real estate descriptors of what housing should be, and towards what domestic space and suburban living could be.

Studio Leaders: Eric Yuen

Image: Caulfield South,15/2/2024  (Nearmaps. accessed 1/7/2024)