An old factory, and the contents of building site skip bins, have been recycled into sustainable community dwellings, writes Jacinta Cleary.
“ I spent $1200 on hinges, there’s that many doors and windows in this place,” says David Murphy. I’m surprised at the expense, as it’s the first time I’ve heard David mention buying materials when building his house; almost everything else has been salvaged from demolition sites (with a slab of beer for the work crew), bartered, or came from the factory that used to be on site. It does confirm there’s a lot of ventilation in this house, though.
If ever there was a project that television’s Grand Designs team should have followed, it would be this three house development in Newport in Melbourne’s inner west. As David’s partner Penny Baron puts it: “Dave just kept so much in his head,” such as ideas, designs and plans for “just what to do with that piece found in a skip bin.” This unique project took eight years to complete, is largely constructed with recycled materials and leads the way when it comes to low impact living.
The original factory
It all started around ten years ago, at the time Melbourne’s property prices rose 30 per cent in one year. Like many, David and Penny tried to buy a house, withdrew after a failure or two, and then returned to the market with new ideas. David stumbled across a 1980s brown brick factory and was lucky to buy it at a mid-week auction. The site runs east-west with a long, sunny northern frontage.
David and Penny found two other parties (already friends of theirs) to buy into the housing development and the property was split into three titles of 25 per cent, 20 per cent and 55 per cent of the total land size. While there is no commonly-owned area, the three groups agreed that the development should encourage the sharing of resources and space. All three of the properties share a very edible front yard for instance. Underground are two 10,000 litre concrete rainwater tanks, saving precious garden space, with the water directed to all three properties for toilet flushing, laundry and watering produce.
A Memorandum of Understanding was talked about between the three parties, although they are “so like-minded” that there has been little need to pursue it or other visioning exercises. Common goals include minimal use of resources, the sharing of resources and spaces, helping each other through life cycles such as child rearing, illness and ageing, and actively engaging with the local community. They’re not oblivious to changes in circumstances; down the track they recognise that one party might want to sell their home, agreeing that the two other parties can take six months to find a suitable purchaser before opening it to the market.
The house designs had to make best use of the factory site, so it was agreed to build all three dwellings against the southern back wall of the factory, providing a wide northern frontage for full solar access and healthy and abundant front yard food gardens.
From here, it was time for the housing design and planning stage, with two of the households engaging the same architect Paul Haar, along with Rohan French from Carm Constructions for the build. The third property was designed and largely built by owner David Murphy, bar some assistance with plastering, brickwork and the electrics.
Read the full article in ReNew 114
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 at 10:54 am