And so it goes on
Renowned designer Mary Featherston believes that a well-designed house is one that can morph and change according to need – a quality she feels is often missing from today’s new suburban houses.
“It’s been an incredible place to live,” Mary Featherston says of her home in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe, where she now occupies the renovated studio. Photograph: Andrew Northover
Featherston has many claims to design royalty in Australia: through her creative partnership with furniture designer Grant Featherston; as a designer in her own right, particularly of learning environments; and as the commissioner of one of Australia’s most radical modern homes, the Featherston House, designed by Robin Boyd in 1967. Here, she reflects on more than 50 years living in this amazing space, and laments the poor design of the suburbs today, issuing a call to arms to do better.
We asked Robin for a building that was to be a home and a professional workplace. We wanted a space to be able to carry out domestic life as well as an industrial design practice. At that time, we needed a studio, a workshop, a store for all the prototypes and a dark room. I had a sense that it would be a good idea if the house would accommodate different kinds of experiences in a very adaptable way, so that you could be just as comfortable working in the space with one or two people [as having] a big party that spilled everywhere. And, in fact, that is what the house has done.
It’s been an incredible place to live. We’ve been able to build all sorts of prototype furniture products and museum exhibit interactives within the space, it’s been used for large-scale photography, all sorts of experimentation, as well as intimate parties, and even very large weddings. But it’s also been – when I think about it – the place where people have died. It’s where Grant spent the last days of his life; it’s where my mother spent the last days of her life. It’s also been a fabulous space for children. It’s been extraordinary and continues to be.
There are two self-contained dwellings in the same building, one smaller than the other. Over five decades they have been home to four generations. My son and daughter-in-law – who also works from home, as Grant and I did – and their children are using the same environment. And so it goes on. I think that’s another central tenet for me: that thoughtful architecture, thoughtful design, is enduring. It’s not throwaway. It can go on, it can morph and change according to need.
When I look at the suburbs today, particularly the new homes on the suburban fringe, it would be hard to say they share any of these qualities.
And there’s no reason why they shouldn’t. This is the thing that kills me, and it’s what drove Robin up the wall. He kept on saying, “Why do we do it like this when we know how to do it so much better?”
And that’s still the question.
We need a new design awareness that realizes that design is essential, it’s not a luxury. The reason that people have come to believe it’s a luxury is because, if you think in terms of housing, the only area that gets good design attention is the upper end. So, you could say that the suburbs are design-free zones.
And it’s getting more and more difficult because we’re being buffeted by these changing needs. The home is now having to perform new functions: it’s a workplace, a place for learning, as well as a home. And people are now realizing that “Wow, this home just doesn’t support this new way of living.” But where do people go? Who is responsible for making these environments? And how much say has a typical homeowner or renter got in determining this?
I think there’s a great opportunity now to rethink all of these things. To rethink what the home is for, and how we can live well within it. Let’s strike while the iron’s hot, before we forget what we’ve lived through.