Base Architecture

By Clint

If you are looking at building a new home or renovating your existing one, you are in a great position to reduce your impact on the environment.

These recent natural disasters are having us all wondering whether this is an unfortunate series of events or are we witnessing the affects of climate change? We may never know for certain. After listening to a few debates on the topic there seems to be a lot of sceptical people out there.
People are constantly questioning whether burning fossil fuels is really to blame and whether carbon is really the reason the earth is heating up. If we turn the AC off will that even make a difference? These are all valid questions being asked throughout the community. It is easy to be sceptical of climate change when the affects seem so farfetched or even impossible to stop.

There is another motivational reason for us to reduce our energy consumption that rarely seems to be put forward to the community. We are consuming our fossil fuels faster than they can be reproduced. It has only taken us 30 years to use half of the world’s supply of coal and oil which took millions of years to create. At the rate we are consuming our fossil fuels we would need four Earths for our supply to be sustainable.

In all probability, we won’t actually run out because the prices of petrol and electricity will continue to rise so high that we will be forced to reduce our consumption.

Whether climate change is a myth or not, we need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. If you are in the process of building or renovating your home, you are in a great position to significantly reduce your family’s reliance on fossil fuels. By installing solar power, including energy efficient appliances and/or integrating recycled and reusable materials into your new home, you will be making a huge step towards reducing your own reliance on fossil fuels.

For more information visit http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/ for a great documentary on the oil crisis.

By Johnny

What to do when and if a developer knocks on your door?

Unfortunately at this point in time I’m still searching for the right answer to this question. 2 Years ago my fiancé and myself brought a little workers cottage in the Windsor-Lutwyche precinct.  3 months after we bought it a town planner friend of mine alerted me to the fact I had bought my house in an area where a draft had been submitted to the state government to change the urban plan of the local area. When we bought the house it was in a DCP area (demolition control precinct), the draft that was issued, slated it for a change to a mixed use/multi-residential zone.
12 months after we bought it the draft was approved and I found my house smack bang in the middle of the new high density Lutwyche Road Corridor Neighbourhood Plan (click here to download PDF).

Once this happened I called by town planner friend and asked him what does this mean? He replied, basically I should stop any work I was doing on my house as my land is now the only thing worth anything. He also said talk to your neighbours and see what they are thinking. So I spoke with both of my neighbours.  The first neighbour an Old Italian man who had lived there for nearly 50 years immediately expressed concern and was not willing to enter into further discussion about creating an alliance. The second neighbour was more forthcoming and we both agreed to discuss and potential approaches from developers, and as you need a minimum to 2 blocks to develop we said we would form a coalition.

Our first approach came very early on from a real estate agent, who I suspect was working with a developer and potentially looking to catch out residence that were unaware of the development potential of the area. Since them the path has gone cold a bit and with the recent flooding it now seems like we are struck in a state of limbo as what to do, until I came across the first DA submission to council for the block 2 houses down from mine last week. Now it may only be a DA, but with the airport link and busway tunnels finishing at the end of this year early next year this may spark some more interest.

I have now gone ahead and commenced completion of the bathroom as I fear my fiancé may not marry me if she has to shower downstairs for much longer, but my strategy is to keep my ear to the ground and maintain a good relationship with my neighbours; and if a developer does come knocking I will try and keep my options opens and my wits about me.

By Chris

Several years ago I read an article about homeless people living in an airport, which initially seemed like an unusual choice of place to decide to stay.  But reading further into it you could see that it had a few significant benefits.  Firstly, the airport in the article had plenty of toilets and showers, but it also afforded the homeless people a certain level of equality that they might not otherwise achieve.

In the city, if you see someone emptying a suitcase of all their clothes and other important possessions, they are generally recognised as being homeless.  However, put that same person in an airport doing exactly the same thing and they will probably just blend in with the travellers who are checking to see if they’ve packed their toothbrush.  The same with sleeping on the floor or bench with a bag as a pillow, in an airport you may expect them to be getting some sleep in between flights, but it’s a different story in the Roma Street Parklands.

This got me thinking about the homeless people in Brisbane and wanting to discover if there was a way to improve their standard of living, and possibly helping to reduce their ‘visibility’ as homeless people.  This was a train of thought that I followed in my Master’s thesis (download PDF here), which lead me down a path of finding other examples that allow homeless people to live in the city rather than trying to accommodate them in shelters.  The interesting thing I encountered while doing this research was how the success of trying to achieve something like this would actually benefit everyone who visits and uses the city each week.

For example, one thing that would allow homeless people to experience a better quality of life is an ability to cook for themselves as they are generally highly independent people.  To achieve this, facilities such as public bbq’s, with running water and sinks to wash your plate afterwards would go a long way to improving their situation.  If better facilities like these were provided across the city, (and not just in high value places such as Southbank) it would create places that everyone in the city could enjoy.

For me, it was definite food for thought.  I discovered that possibly the simplest solutions would provide the most positive of outcomes, I would be very interested to hear what other peoples thoughts might be!

By Jessica Groves (Office Manager)

As our followers on Facebook would have noticed, the Base Architecture team recently set up a flood relief task force to help clean up some affected suburbs around Brisbane and South-East Queensland. We received generous donations from Window Image, Mangano I.T., Contrast Constructions, and McIvor Constructions.

We visited Goodna, Chelmer and Graceville and did everything from clean windows, shovel mud, empty mud and dead fish out of a swimming pool/outdoor entertainment area, empty and clean items from houses, demolish walls, and most importantly supply a sausage sizzle to residents and helpers.

As well as this immediate help, we are also helping out the family of our Office Manager, Jessica Groves, who were severely affected by the flood. Sadly, her family’s home was flooded up to the second level, meaning that all the plasterboard, joinery and floors needed to be removed. We are all too aware of the fact that despite a week of hard work on our behalf lots of people in South-East Queensland will be recovering from the floods for a long time to come.

Now that the demolition has been completed at Jess’ place, we are continuing to be involved by helping to redesign the home to better suit the family’s needs. Hopefully out of a time of terrible hardship, some positive outcomes will be seen down the track – we’ll keep you up to date!

By Julie

Renovations are an exciting time, but they are also a time for questions and decisions, and they’re not always easy! No one knows this better than an architect trying to renovate their own home.
The cliche “a plumber always has leaky taps” comes to mind…

The historical Queensland Worker’s cottage has a solid foundation on which to build on, and many small families in Brisbane have done just that. More often than not they need some general renovation work to bring them up to modern standards, most likely new roofs, new kitchens and new bathrooms.
They often don’t have quite enough space in them, and inevitably, extensions need to be added.
Unfortunately, when they are on less than 150sqm of land, there aren’t many places you can go to find extra space!

I bought my small worker’s cottage 2 1/2 years ago and it’s taken me the majority of this time to get to Stage 3 of a planned 6 stage renovation – it is a slow process!  While the time frame sounds decent enough, things definitely take much longer than expected: stage 1 is definitely finished, stage 2 needs some final touches, and stage 3 has started but is slow to move forward.

Really, these are just the realities of doing this everyday for other people, and never being able to make up your mind for your own house!
The design ideas are simple – respecting the original house, opening up the living spaces to the outside, and contrasting the new interventions with the old. I’ll upload new photos as they happen.

But I’m warning you, it might be a while…

Stage 1
Stage 2