A Home Among the Gumtrees - Reimagining suburban Sydney for a hotter future

Abstract: This thesis started with a desire to delve into the impact that natural disasters have on small communities in an Australian context, how climate change exacerbates their effect, and the role that design can play in mitigating the impact on people and the natural environment. Initial research into bushfires, drought, floods, and heat landed this project in Western Sydney, in an area not far from where I grew up. Throughout the process, the project evolved into a dissection of the way that Sydney’s sprawling development worsens the effect of extreme heat in the suburban landscape, creating unliveable and unhealthy neighbourhoods unfit for the future. The suburban sprawl on the fringe of Australian cities is seen elsewhere across the globe. Heralded at the “Great Australian Dream” in the 20th century, homeownership and a quarter acre block of land were synonymous with success, social status and the ultimate way of living. Today, this model of development is unsustainable for the growing population and scarce availability of land in cities such as Sydney. Promoting car-centric mobility, worsening the urban heat island effect, and creating social isolation, this dream has quickly become a nightmare. So my question became, what does suburban living look like in the hotter future climate of Western Sydney? How can design work to retain the positive attributes of the Australian way of living, but with a sensitivity to the land, to our communities, and an appreciation of our limited resources? My design solution rests somewhere between nostalgia for the dream of a home among the gumtrees and criticism of this short-sighted way of housing growing communities.