Design Moment
Project homes.
What do leading architects, project-home builders and the Australian Women’s Weekly ( AWW) have in common? The unlikely trio produced affordable, architect-designed homes from the late 1950s to the mid1970s. “The result was a rare marriage of high design and popular taste, producing some of Australia’s most distinctive and sought-after homes,” write Judith O’Callaghan and Charles Pickett in their 2012 book Designer Suburbs. So rare, the authors maintain it was unique in the world.
Demand primarily came from young professionals keen for their quarter-acre who appreciated modern, sustainable and affordable design. Wanting to do their bit to increase Australia’s postwar housing stock, more than a quarter of the country’s architects came to the party, according to one, Michael Dysart, who rubbed shoulders with fellow trailblazers Harry Seidler, Ken Woolley, Neville Gruzman and Robin Boyd.
The foundations were laid in 1947, when Boyd established the Victorian Small Homes Service in tandem with The Age. Each week, the newspaper published an architect’s plan; readers could buy the working drawings and building specs for a mere £5. More than 1000 designs were sold each year in the 1950s, when the service claimed to have provided plans for one in 10 residential new-builds in Melbourne.
Taking advantage of its consumer reach and department-store contacts, AWW launched its Home Planning Service in 1957, with offices in Sydney’s Anthony Hordern & Sons emporium and Myer in Melbourne.
Extending the template, project-home builders such as Pettit+Sevitt, Lend Lease, and Merchant Builders began using off-the-peg architect designs as building blocks for homes customised to the needs and wants of homeowners. On the try-before-you-buy principle, they filled greenfield sites with display homes to enable would-be buyers to explore the many configurations first hand.
Pettit+Sevitt, founded by Brian Pettit and Ron Sevitt, produced some 3500 architectdesigned houses between 1961 and 1977, mainly on Sydney’s North Shore and in Canberra. Dysart and Woolley drew up the Lowline (pictured) for Pettit+Sevitt, a design that became synonymous with the company. Lowline and its variants featured a gently pitched roof, wide eaves, floor-toceiling windows, verandahs, courtyards and slatted screens inside and out. “The overriding feature was their relationship to the landscape and the strong indooroutdoor connection,” says Dysart.
The public couldn’t get enough. The 1962 Carlingford Homes Fair in NSW, organised by AWW and Lend Lease, featured 24 display homes; a staggering 200,000 people (10 per cent of Sydney’s population at the time) passed through its doors. In each then-weekly issue, AWW featured plans and descriptions of project homes.
What led to the demise of democratic architect-driven home design? “As Sydney continued its march towards the Blue Mountains, the market lost interest,” says Dysart. That indifference was further fuelled by a renovation craze, resulting in the gentrification of inner-city suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne. Frou-frou Postmodernism, a reaction to the austerity of Modernism, began to take hold and leading architects ended their relationships with project-home companies, which now favour McMansions.
WHAT IT MEANS TO US
Surviving examples, especially original ones, are keenly sought after by lovers of Modernist design; their key features remain relevant today. Thirty years after it closed, Pettit+Sevitt was relaunched by Ron Sevitt’s widow, Val, with the Lowline and the Split Level updated for the new millennium by the late Ken Woolley. But will these designs inspired by the past again stir the passions of the masses? Time will tell.