The Future History of Adelaide: Housing & Architecture
This ‘future history’ of Adelaide was based on ‘Los Angeles: A History of the Future’ (1982) by Paul Glover, and is written from the year 2136. It examines how Adelaide became an ‘ecopolis’ — an ecological city — over 150 years, reversing the damage done to the region since European colonisation began in 1836. At the time, there was a proposal for a ‘piece of ecocity’ in Halifax Street, whose features and design principles are referenced as the first fractal of this change. This larger scale proposal did not eventuate, but a smaller scale exemplar, Christie Walk, can be found in the CBD at 105 Sturt Street, Adelaide.
This was written in 1995 at university, as a directed study for history, and reflects my thinking, understanding, available technologies and references at the time. The Ecological Crisis of the 1990s is referred to as ‘EC’ and phrases like ‘200 years EC’ mean 200 years after this Crisis.
Christie Walk image by Paul Downton
The Kaurna, because they were constantly on the move, had no use for permanent dwellings. During the summer, they gathered on the coastal areas and built light shelters, and during the winter they retreated to the foothills, building sturdier, semi-permanent dwellings.
The Early Days
Initially, the poorer settlers built pisé houses of mud and straw, which was mixed, placed between wooden frames and rammed to form walls. Roofs consisted of timber shingles or thatched reeds sourced from the River Torrens (Nance et al, 1989 p30). But beyond this immediate ‘survival’ architecture, the early Europeans, unfamiliar with South Australia’s environment, built according to their cultural ‘baggage’, struggling to understand this peculiar new place.
Corrugated iron from Britain was used in construction after 1850, but this proved to make conditions unbearably hot in summer and chilly in winter. Roofs made of this material were insulated with layers of wheat husks or seaweed (Nance et al, 1989 p35). Clay bricks from Thebarton, Brompton, Beverley and the Mount Lofty Ranges (Nance et al, 1989 p113) and local stone became the main building materials during this time. Bluestone (quarried from Glen Osmond, Tapley Hill, Dry Creek and Mitcham) and white, brown and purple sandstone (quarried from the Adelaide Hills) were popular until the 1890s (Nance et al, 1989 p46; p110–111). Slate was quarried at Willunga and Mount Barker, and marble (used to construct Parliament House and the North Terrace War Memorial) was quarried at Macclesfield, Angaston and Kapunda (Nance et al, 1989 pp111–112). Favoured timbers included stringybark (sourced from the Mount Lofty Ranges and used for roof shingles), red gums and native pine (Nance et al, 1989 pp107–109).
The early settlers responded to the environs in that local materials were utilised, but the design of buildings did not reflect the reality of the place: ‘People usually considered the geography of a region when deciding where to build a house…But the environment was not always considered when deciding how to build.’ (Nance et al, 1989 p35). The settlers persisted with such European features as the very steep roofs, designed to avoid snow build up, for some time before they realised it was not going to snow in this part of the world. This was pointed out by Downton (in Dendy, 1988 p183) during EC:
Our older buildings were not really adapted to the climate…Their basic design and technology was imported from Northern Europe, and eventually someone thought to borrow the idea of the verandah from the Indian subcontinent to make life under a very hot sun more bearable.
In addition, dwellings were usually built facing the surveyed roads rather than being oriented to use solar factors to their advantage (Nance et al, 1989 p35). On the positive side colonial homes were often designed to harness Adelaide’s gully winds and sea breezes (Nance et al, 1989 p114).
Styles in Space
It is curious that as time went on, buildings in Adelaide responded less and less to their place instead of more — it might have been expected that Adelaideans would have learned about and adapted to the Tandanya Bioregion. Much of this is explained by the ‘homogenisation’ of building after World War II, when
…the state no longer (had) distinctive house styles as it did in earlier periods…new houses in South Australia (looked) much the same as new houses being built in any other state…houses (could) be built quickly and at low cost by using mass produced prefabricated materials.
(Nance et al, 1989 p89)
Materials were used for the sake of appearance rather to deal with the realities of the South Australian climate (Nance et al, 1989 p114). Houses became subjects of the whims of fashion. Writing during EC, critic Peter Goers (in University of South Australia, 1995) described West Lakes as essentially unreal, a Disneyland suburb:
‘(Part) of Delfin Island resembles the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride…without the pirates…West Lakes is characterless and fake; a suburb in search of a soul. It is a kitsch-o-rama of architectural styles; mock Tudor, mock Spanish mission, mock colonnades — mock around the clock.
The goal of building was profit at the expense of the natural environs and local identity in the built form, and this type of conventional EC architecture treated buildings as sculptural objects rather than a part of the living landscape (Downton, 1995).
‘Smart houses’, another fad of EC times, proposed living in automatic houses — seemingly inspired by the Jetsons — as a viable option for the future. This was little more than an extension of 20th century high-rise tower block advocate Le Corbusier’s claim that ‘houses are machines for living in’.
Many people have had visions of the house of the future. Modern ones are often of a complex technological world. Built of the latest plastic and synthetic materials, the house is controlled by computers that monitor all its systems and are programmed to cater to our every whim. Robots do all the work and shop by remote control. More akin to a space capsule designed to cope with a hostile environment than an earthly home, this house ignores people’s emotional needs as well as the harsher realities of the coming world. (Pearson, 1989 p40)
The Intelligent Home, built during EC, was Adelaide’s very own example of the ‘smart house’. Unfortunately, it was so clever that, despite its flirtation with renewable energy, it was not a piece of architecture that could address the ecological concerns generated in the city which, by the peak of EC, had been recognised as the source of almost all impacts on the global environment. As a major player in the building of cities, architecture had to lift its game and become reconnected to reality.
Ecological Architecture
The practice of ecological architecture requires a level of commitment which would be difficult to match in any other form of architecture. During EC, it was initially perceived as being just one of many other schools of architecture. Once people began to understand the impact of our cities, especially the way they were built, it dawned on the architectural profession that ecological architecture was the only school of architecture which could produce ecological cities — which was the central quest of EC.
At the core of ecological architecture is understanding the impact of the built form on the wider environment and on human societies. Much conventional architecture of EC times was concerned with individual ‘visions’, egos on paper, and designing objects in space. There was little recognition of a building’s effect on the preexisting built environs or on the health of the occupants, and even less concern with the building’s impact on the natural and non-human world. As Downton (in Dendy, 1988 p184) stated: ‘We have to concentrate on the bodily health of the built environment rather than the cosmetics of aesthetic style’.
Ecological architecture is about maintaining ecological systems, working with natural and human ecology (including the built environs). Green technologies, widely perceived to be the sum of ecological architecture during EC, were only ever the means to an end. Ecological architecture is about changing the product by changing the process, and is concerned with the ‘invisible’ systems, such as the economics and power structures which underly the manifestation of the built environs.
Ecological Design
There is no set formula for creating a piece of ecological architecture. The principles of ecological architecture apply globally, but they must be applied in response to local cultures, climates and conditions. An ecological house in tropical South East Asia would be very different from an ecological house in the arid environs of central Australia. Even within Adelaide, ecological houses would differ from plains to coast — a house near the Hills would seek to utilise the gully winds for cooling in summer. This is the baseline for climate responsive architecture, which includes passive solar design.
Unlike conventional architecture of EC times, ecological architecture puts people at the core of creating buildings. Today, it really is difficult for us to fathom how people expected architecture, which had not engaged people in its creation (Downton, 1994a p3), to work.
‘Barefoot architecture’ was pioneered in the Halifax EcoCity Project, based on the acknowledgement of Paul Downton (in Fisher, 1994 p12) that:
I know that I have skills that others don’t have. Equally I know that there are things I don’t know and my skills as an architect are useless unless they are used very directly in response to real needs. If it isn’t fulfilling a community need, a need that is out there with real people…trying to do real things and lead real lives with real kids and real jobs and all the rest of it, then frankly I can’t see any point: it is just like disembodied quasi-artistic activity…
Through the Barefoot Architecture Progam of the Halifax EcoCity Project, the architects easily determined what people’s housing needs were — by simply asking them! The client and architects liaised directly via a series of meetings so that in effect, clients created their own dwelling using the hands of an architectural team. This gave people a real sense of ownership and an understanding of the process that led to the creation of their living space. Non-toxic, allergy neutral products, such as the Bio Paints developed by the Adelaide Hills company Bio Products during EC, should be used throughout to create ‘healthy buildings’ for all in addition to providing relief to sufferers of allergies, asthma and other illnesses.
Ecological architecture and development begins not on a blank piece of paper, but with the site, what is on the site and site history. Both ‘high’ technologies (eg. microchips) and ‘low’ technologies (eg. rammed earth) are utilised where appropriate. These technologies are not used for the sake of it, but to provide the synergy of multiple benefits (Downton, 1994a p18). An example of synergy is that of a tree — each leaf only ‘works’ at 1–2% efficiency, but overall, the tree works at an optimum level of photosynthesis (Downton, 1995). This is known as the sum of simple systems; each element may not be intrinsically efficient, but together they work at their best (like a football team — a champion team is better than a team of champions!).
Ecological Building Materials
To create buildings, we must use resources. These materials have to be mined, felled, extracted, processed, packed and despatched. During EC, materials were often transported over vast distances to the proposed site. Obviously the choice of materials used had a number of far — reaching, ‘unseen’ consequences. The choice of resources affected many people and places far removed from the building, as well as the health of the building’s residents. Ecological architecture’s choice of building materials seeks to: Minimise energy consumption — reuse, recycle, local products, low energy processing; create healthy buildings — non-toxic, allergy neutral products; reduce the ‘ecological footprint’ — recognise the origin of materials & measure their worth by the amount of impact their extraction/transportation/manufacture/disposal has on the natural and human ecology of the planet — the less the better!
An initial source for building materials should be the site itself — any materials that can be reused or recycled (in that order!) should be utilised. Questions that should be asked of building materials for an ecological house include: Is choosing this material causing depletion of precious, diminishing resources (eg. rainforest timber)? What has this material been manufactured from? Is the manufacturing process safe for the environment and workers? How much energy is used to produce this material? Is this material safe to use from an occupant’s health perspective? Is this material available locally to reduce the energy required to transport it here? All these questions are critical to determine the impact that the extraction, processing and transportation of materials has on the human and natural ecology of the planet.
In Adelaide today, our dwellings are made from the most suitable, readily available, healthy materials as possible. Trade offs between these factors were necessary, but at least we now have buildings that can work as a part of the local environment by responding to it, instead of treating them as fashion accessories and pretending that they operate independently from our environs. The research and development required to practice ecological architecture will never end, as new situations and technologies confront us. The questions above still need to be asked, even in these ecologically enlightened times. Ecological architects vigorously conduct ongoing research and follow this ethic, with the choice of materials determined by whether the product fits the ecological criteria set out by the co-initiator of the Halifax EcoCity Project, Ecopolis Pty Ltd, during EC.
References
Dendy, Tim (Ed) (1988) Greenhouse ’88: Planning for Climate Change — Adelaide Conference Proceedings. Department of Environment & Planning, Adelaide.
Downton, Paul (1994a) The Halifax EcoCity Project. Centre for Urban Ecology, Adelaide.
Downton, Paul (1995) ‘A Car Crash Led Economic Recovery’. Fact Sheet. Centre for Urban Ecology, Adelaide.
Nance, C; Speight, DL; Hutchings, A & Fitzpatrick, P (1989) Shaping the Heritage of South Australia. Longman Cheshire, Melbourne.
University of South Australia (1993) Entropy (July №9). University of South Australia, Adelaide.
