A PATTERN BOOK FOR A NEW URBANISM

You can analyse the past, but you need to design the future.

Edward de Bono.

The Minns Labor Government is today launching the NSW Housing Pattern Book of low-rise designs, alongside a world-first new Complying Development pathway, that will speed up the delivery of new homes significantly.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jul/16/architectural-home-designs-for-1-nsw-releases-housing-pattern-book-aimed-at-boosting-construction

Pattern books are not a new idea.

The report presented the details of the New South Wales Government Pattern Book that provides housing plans that have already been approved for use. The selected documentation for a particular house plan is now available for one dollar, but only for the first six months of this programme, in order to encourage uptake; subsequently, the cost will be $1000. Gosh, it’s less than a cup of coffee. Why not give the plans away? The concept has been hailed as a great success with folk in other countries purchasing these plans that were designed specifically for New South Wales. Might it be the price rather than the product that attracts? Why not spend a dollar just to see what one gets?+ That a house designed for this part of Australia might be relevant to another country, everywhere/anywhere, is odd when one considers the rigours of specific design intent; but noting others' interest in the programme does highlight the great Aussie cringe - that need for the approval, in this case, of the idea presented in this Pattern Book concept, in order for it to be ‘real.’# One purchase came from the UK: the 'home' country. WOW! It must be a good idea: yes, and it comes with that other aspect of the cringe: it is a ‘world first.’ Unfortunately, the wincing uncertainty is alive and well.

The idea of the Pattern Book seems to be to provide affordable, sustainable housing in greater densities and number in order to minimise the desire for towers, high-rise developments, and to do this with a minimum of red tape in order to manage costs. The Pattern Book intends to present affordable, quality, pre-approved designs in order to facilitate change while improving the availability of housing for all.

There is some scepticism expressed in this report that needs more reflection. One complaint comments on the potential for aesthetics to take over. After all, the designs are by architects, and are the result of an architectural competition. Both these factors hold negative implications in Australia. Architects are seen as indulgent aesthetes, and architectural competitions only give us ‘opera houses’ that come in miles, or should one say ‘kilometres’ over budget, and years over time, all because of quirky ‘architectural’ - read as ‘unnecessary aesthetic’ - demands, whims, and preferences: such is the colloquial perception of things that makes it difficult for one to be enthused by this Pattern Book. Noting this bespoke elitism, see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-architects-lament.html, and putting it aside for a while so as not to be influenced by it, one can look at the actual schemes disinterestedly in order to gauge the possible outcomes of this strategy.

At first glimpse, one senses that the Pattern Book will do very little to help its stated cause.  The history of architects trying to solve social/planning/design problems has been recorded as generally being ineffectual, as failures, in spite of the good intentions. Their reputation clouds the easy acceptance of their services, even if cheap. One problem seems to be that architects appear unable or unwilling to break the mould of how they see and present themselves. One might surmise that the James Hardie Australian Home Design Guide - see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-making-of-vernacular.html - will have more chance of having an impact than this ‘Good Samaritan’ gesture that indulges in its cringing, noted not only by the fact that others, in other countries, have purchased the designs, but that Canada has also done something similar. Surely it has to be perfect: but alas, it is not. This infill approach will squeeze more accommodation in, but is not the solution for community; something else needs to change first. This approach will only aggravate the issues that already cause tensions and confusion, a disquiet, in our suburbs, towns, and cities.

Lingering as the root of all designs is the concept of the subdivision of land where each block defines a separateness – MY land. Where one house used to be placed, now we see schemes for greater densities, all of which still get plonked on the separate, stand-alone block - block after block of residences, or groups of residences, whatever: but they are still the same pieces of land that currently define our present problem that is highlighted in new developments like Stockland Arua on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. Robin Boyd set up the RVIA Small Homes Service in 1941, but became disillusioned with the outcome that merely reinforced the block/box mentality.^

Writing in 1971, only months before his untimely death aged fifty-two, he asked, “Is it just that the Australian public clings to its depressing little boxes because it knows no better, has seen no better design?”

We need to change this basis for beginnings if we are going to truly change our cities, towns, and suburbs. Crowding more onto one block seems to be as counterproductive as building a tower on a few. The city, the town, the suburb become a coagulation of bits and pieces all struggling for separateness, self-expression, while becoming more and more congested with the declaration of ME, which might become OURS, but equally divisive with a greater density being sought after, with projects overlayed on the same ill-considered, piecemeal fragmentation of the land with the same set of planning/building guidelines.

While the illustrations of the various options in the Pattern Book are all ‘flash and slick’ as is architecturally expected, the planning of the housing seems to be fairly basic, and somewhat ordinary, which is puzzling. Crowding living into minuscule zones to create economies, while maintaining the highjinks of a ‘preferred’ image, and squeezing the luxury of some juggled, contorted massings and double height voids into these ‘economical’ schemes, seems to be at odds with the general idea that suggests some prudent moderation. Good design does not have to include unnecessary exaggerations or clever distortions when simpler strategies can achieve the same, or better outcomes. The approach does appear to illustrate a certain lingering preference for architectural pretence. After all, these are winning ‘architectural’ designs that, it seems, must be different to the ordinary, basic project house, when it appears that we need the ‘project house’ approach to denser housing, its economy and familiarity, a new vernacular, in order to create real savings in schemes which currently give everyman everyday outcomes that are mocked by the architectural profession as being something like cliché kitsch, rather than the preferred, considered, architecturally-referenced, different expressions. There is a lot to be learned from the project house, but this is something not yet accepted by the architectural profession that seems rooted in the search for the bespoke.

While the existing ‘block’ arrangement will be difficult to transform, the rules for working with these defined areas need to be changed if we are to seek and eke out new solutions to habitation. The adage "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results," comes to mind. It suggests that repeating the same actions without change will not lead to a new outcome, and is a warning against unthinking repetition. Edward de Bono’s comment that we can analyse the past, but we need to design the future, highlights the required broader concept of design that reviews and responds intelligently, deliberately, with determination, rather than thoughtlessly, blindly repeating the past.

Currently we have rules that define setbacks from boundaries, and height limits, with a few guides that allow some relaxation in these figures, but the planning intention concentrates on the development of the project, be it one house, a denser development, or a tower, as a stand-alone, single scheme on its own block of land, with each developer/builder arguing for the best outcome just for this job, rather than giving thought to any other building, anywhere, be it a neighbour, nearby in the street, in the suburb, town, or city which, with this strategy, eventually become an ad hoc collection of individual, isolated units, close to a shambles, managed with as little planning guidance as these messy conglomerates can get away with. We end up with an aggregation of separately negotiated outcomes plonked together with no vision for wholeness, for community.

True greater density needs a fundamental change in planning strategies if we are to get better suburbs, towns, and cities. Given the current grids that we have to work with, we need better rules that enforce or encourage different development patterns, like, for instance, for housing, having to build up to two nominated boundaries, so that light, ventilation, and privacy are all maintained within a new compactness. Whatever the diagram might be, it requires a set of clearly articulated rules that define actual achievable outcomes; rules that are enforceable and enforced rather than being left as loose motherhood statements to be manipulated in private discussions. We need a set of transformative rules rather than merely crowding more and more into the existing grid patterns while maintaining all the normal setbacks, etc., which is the strategy we see in the Pattern Book. 

Infill development is hardly transformative.

We seem fixated on the concept of separate blocks. Even more experimental alternate, affordable options still remain considered as isolated units: see - https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360832913/loose-fit-structures-offer-path-more-affordable-homes

Memories of the notorious 'six pack.'

Ideally, we need new models for housing freed from the block pattern. Crowding more into the existing stand-alone pattern of development of whatever height, might provide the desirable figures in the calculations, but at what social/urban cost? In ‘green fields,’ we could start again, but we don’t; we merely keep repeating what we should know as the prime problem. We should stop this ever-greater expansion of habitation, and concentrate on attending to what we have, not just mathematically and measurably, with things denser, smaller, cheaper, faster, and more sustainable, but physically, with arrangements and forms that can accommodate life and all of its essentials: fresh air, light, privacy, quiet, indoor/outdoor engagement, comfort, necessity, . . . all designed with density in mind. Just cramming in more, in more places is no better a solution than 'green' development that fills tiny, separate blocks with large houses spread to the site’s limits, with blocks all accessed by narrow roads, resulting in cars being parked in the front yards of the houses and on footpaths, blocking roads and creating an eyesore, while garage spaces are adapted for living areas to maximise the use of the limited interior spaces and options these houses offer.

We need good design without the parameters that currently define the building on the blocks of land that we have. We need clever thinking here, de Bono’s lateral thinking, to establish rules that can truly manage social coherence rather than perpetuate the individualism that benefits consumerism, where everyone is encouraged to have that same thing differently branded to express their identities, their ‘inner selves,’ with a competitive determination that is lauded by the media, all to the individual's apparent satisfaction. It is a circumstance that cares nothing for society, thriving on selfishness, envy and greed.

A concept to share the backyard space.

We need to do more to encourage the cohesion of our habitation so that our suburbs, towns, and cities can flourish rather than struggle; can support life in all of its common, co-operative aims on all scales, and enrich it. Might we begin to think about the abandonment of the separate block by at least encouraging amalgamation, not for larger mansions with pools and tennis courts, but for better ways of providing better dwelling, all with more incentives, without having to squash in or stack up our existing circumstances just to improve percentages?

Kingo Housing.

We need to be ‘smart’ about this, not as a managerial cliché or a digital platitude, but with an assured, committed determination to attend to the problem and create places that stimulate and accommodate the desire for being. We need to encourage more of the same, not more and more of things starkly different and intriguing, projects that express the designer's ‘self,’ ready for proud publication. We need to stop the hunt for things ever bespoke, forget our egos, and seek out our ‘Bath’ housing models, our ‘Kingos,’ our . . . *, so that we have a new urbanism rather than a clutter of new, greater densities defined by more of the same awkward complications that the current pattern of block-by-block isolation delivers. We need a pattern book for a new urbanism, not one for a 'patch-up' approach.

Bath Crescent.

A street full of 'preferred' designs makes little difference to things, no matter how quick the approval might be.

+

The pack includes the following documentation:

• Technical drawings in PDF

• Technical drawings [2D] in DWG format 

• BASIX information sheet

• NSW Housing Pattern Book Design Verification Statement template

• NSW Housing Pattern Book Landscape Guide

#

See: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-new-queensland-house.html where the classic cringe is noted as the circumstance in which Australians seek the approval of others in other countries, just so that local matters can be considered real and relevant. Along with this situation, it is pointed out how things vernacular and regional are changed, ignored, by the international dissemination of, in this case, housing designs, as if everything design might be viable everywhere/anywhere. The irony is that the Pattern Book was the subject of an international competition.

*

One is aware of the problems in referencing an overseas project, as noted above. The idea is that we should seek out and adapt the intentions in these housing models to suit our environment rather than merely reproduce housing that is identical to these mentioned examples. The suggestion is that the humanity and manners be replicated, as well as the functional densities, in a way that is not constrained by the existing block subdivision. This can be seen as an ideal and become an unachievable fantasy given existing constraints, so we have to devise ways of working with our blocks. The proposition is that we should do this with new planning strategies, new rules, instead of cramming in places using the existing concepts of development.

Also see:

https://architectureau.com/articles/nsw-government-launches-housing-pattern-book-and-fast-track-planning-pathway/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-16/nsw-housing-pattern-book-low-rise-designs-for-just-one-dollar/105534802

https://shop-pattern-book.planning.nsw.gov.au/

https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/homes-nsw/news/new-housing-pattern-book-designs-can-be-approved-ten-days-are-launched

^

WHAT WOULD ROBIN BOYD DO?

https://architectureau.com/articles/what-would-boyd-do/

What Would Boyd Do? A Small Homes Service for Today

Despite significant changes in Australia’s physical and social fabric in the seventy years since the RVIA Small Homes Service’s conception, Robin Boyd’s resolve to do “better with less” remains as relevant today. Rory Hyde evaluates the service’s legacy and its potential application to today’s increasingly diffused cities.

The RVIA Small Homes Service (SHS), established in 1947 with Robin Boyd as its first director, sought to popularize the modern home and make it available to a broad public. Catering to the rapidly expanding suburbs of the postwar boom, a time when building materials were scarce and the size of homes was prescribed, the SHS showed how good design could creatively overcome these constraints.

Boyd set up the SHS within the building of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria at 238 Flinders Street, Melbourne, where he managed a small team of architects and draftspeople. Each week, they would produce a design for a modern home, which would be published in The Age newspaper alongside a column by Boyd advocating for modern design and the new ways of living it enabled. The designs were characterized by an economic use of space, good solar orientation and maximized living space, and made use of the whole suburban block as a total environment. Small details, such as having separate rooms for the shower and toilet, allowed the bathroom to become more flexible. In essence, it was about “doing a lot better with less.”1 Plans and specifications of these houses could be bought direct from the service for the modest fee of five pounds, ready to be built by a local builder on a plot in the new subdivisions. It had an immense positive impact, with some 5,000 homes built directly from SHS plans, an estimated 15 percent of homes in Victoria at the time,2 and placed the idea of good design in the public consciousness.

But toward the end of his life Boyd could already see the deleterious effect suburban sprawl was having on the physical and social fabric of the city. He turned away from the freestanding private villa and instead advocated for new medium-density typologies. Writing in 1971, only months before his untimely death aged fifty-two, he asked, “Is it just that the Australian public clings to its depressing little boxes because it knows no better, has seen no better design?”3 Boyd’s warnings went unheeded and the suburbs continue to extend further towards the horizon today. Meanwhile, the practice of architecture has all but abandoned the suburbs, instead hitching its wagon to the boutique luxury apartment market of the inner ring. Could these issues be addressed with a new Small Homes Service for today? What would such a program look like? And if he were here now, what would Boyd do?

I believe he would start by first defining the problem. Because while the challenge to provide adequate and suitable housing for all remains the same, the particular pressures of today have led this challenge to take a unique form. There are more of us than ever and yet fewer people are living together. Young people can’t get on the property ladder, while empty-nesters aren’t downsizing. The city continues to expand, yet most of the new jobs are in the centre. More women are in the workforce, but men aren’t leaving it, or making up the difference at home. Traffic is getting worse, yet we build more roads, not rails. The ageing population needs to be cared for, while public services are under pressure. Essentially, the temporal, social and economic structure of work and family life is being stretched to breaking point, an issue compounded by the increasingly diffuse spatial structure of the city. Or put another way, we want the suburbs, but the suburbs aren’t looking after us. They are a twentieth-century typology that no longer fits twenty-first-century life.

And yet the suburbs are what we’ve got. Australia is overwhelmingly a suburban nation, with an estimated 86 percent of people living in suburban areas.4 These areas are dependent on cars, poorly served by public infrastructure and services and plagued by traffic. But rather than decrying the suburbs as unsustainable burdens that will drag us all under,5 the challenge for the coming decades will be to retrofit these suburbs to become socially, environmentally and economically supportive places in their own right.

A new Small Homes Service would not be designing new homes to address this challenge. It would be geared toward adapting the existing housing stock to suit the needs of today and creating new opportunities to share space and resources – a Small Homes Adaptability Service. The suburbs are ripe for this kind of transformation. They are composed of many freehold titles, enabling owners to proceed independently rather than waiting for any top-down coordination. They have plenty of underused space: front yards, backyards, broad streets, verges, crossovers, garages and spare rooms. And perhaps most importantly, they have always been about freedom to experiment, to be transformed from the bottom up in incremental ways.

The kinds of transformation this Small Homes Adaptability Service would initiate would focus on energy, production, caring, creativity, sharing and conviviality. It would endeavour to create places that are self-supporting and productive, rather than merely places to sleep between commutes. It would adapt and join adjacent triple garages into co-working spaces and workshops, shared by the entire block, to support decentralized working. It would install solar panels and link up existing ones to create local energy smart grids, for charging cars and reducing bills. It would adapt front rooms for childcare and social clubs for the elderly, providing space and structure for the informal systems of care that already operate. It would redesign existing dwellings to accommodate different family types and uses, such as adding a separate entrance and kitchenette to a larger home to allow a student to cohabit with an elderly owner in relative peace, or adding a level to accommodate a growing family. Lightweight digital services could be introduced to facilitate sharing of tools, cars, books and time among neighbours. The simplest intervention might be to knock down a fence between dwellings, creating a new semipublic realm of shared facilities, from swimming pools to basketball hoops.

How might the logic of the original SHS be applied to achieve this? Boyd would have used his considerable profile to initiate a broad public conversation on the state of our homes and our lives. (Although, with The Age no longer the platform it once was, he would more likely be hosting The Block.) With this positive cultural program underway, he would have made the tools for this transformation easily available and affordable. Today that would mean embracing the open-source movement to put power into the hands of individuals, changing the city through their accumulated efforts. Finally, he would have set an example himself by moving to the suburbs and building a demonstration project for his own family. Today this role could be taken up by local government in partnership with the universities, offering a 1:1 vision that’s easily communicable, exciting and beautiful.

This all sounds straightforward enough, but it amounts to a complete recasting of the role of the architect today. If a typical residential architect does ten projects a year, what would a practice look like that could do ten projects a day? To use medicine as an analogy, the Small Homes Adaptability Service would recast the architect as a family GP, providing minimal service over a long period of time, writing prescriptions and providing advice, connected to a neighbourhood and the people in it. In this way architects could reclaim public trust by demonstrating our responsibility to the city rather than to our portfolios.

What kind of city does this set of prescriptions add up to? I imagine it to be more like Tokyo than Templestowe. High-density, low-rise, multifunctional, green, vibrant and well connected. With Melbourne’s population expected to double by 2031 and the population of Victoria to hit ten million by the 2050s,6 we could do worse than aim for this most charming of megacities. The Small Homes Adaptability Service would work to accommodate this growth within the existing urban boundary, densifying places to live and decentralizing places to work, improving the quality of life for all Melburnians. I’m sure Boyd would approve.

P.S.

On reflection, it is not only the block/box that is a problem, but also the car, the ambition to provide vehicular access to each separate dwelling, getting as close to a drive-in situation as possible, be this a private home, a flat, or an apartment in whatever density.

It is not only private vehicles that are a problem. Large service vehicles, rubbish trucks, delivery vans, removalist vehicles, and buses all demand access to each property, and roads planned for their every manoeuvring.

So it is that we see the Aura development pattern fall into place. If we are the develop a new urbanism with care and attention given to quality living in greater densities, then we need to also look closely at transport.

No one seems to care about, or to be concerned with the ever increasing number of vehicles that are being put on our roads ever year, as if there might be no limit. A million new cars a year come into Australia. Ordinary thinking about matters highlights the problem, that is the same one as population numbers.

The worry is that if we are so careless and dismissive of all of the impacts of population increase, what chance is there of doing anything reasonable  with our cities, towns, and suburbs?

24 NOV 25

NOTE

Even when there is the opportunity to do things differently on open sites with no restrictions or impediments other than ourselves, we still set out developments for individual boxes on blocks in grids: see – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-20/retirement-housing-boom-bundaberg-coastline/106019174.