Existing urban housing policy in Australia largely falls into three distinct categories:
Each of these models, along with transit corridor apartment development, aims for density increases to be achieved without negatively affecting the more established and character-laden parts of a city. However these older ‘no-go’ suburbs nonetheless continue to face character and amenity pressures externally, due to their adjacency to medium and high density ‘go-go’ development zones, and from within, due to a constant erosion of character via small scale KDR infill.
Bluefield Housing distinguishes itself from these models in three ways:
Why ‘Blue’field? Associated with calmness, stability and tradition, blue represents the perceived immutability of established suburbs, while ‘blue chip’ acknowledges the values – both financial and emotional – in play.
The Bluefield Housing approach, underpinned by conceptually rigorous and multi-layered design research investigations, sees single allotments in older suburbs sensitively densified by using the tropes of suburban alterations and additions – the mainstay of practice for so many architects and a vital contributor to the global construction industry. Rather than reading a site as divisible into pre-determined minimum allotments, a Bluefield approach treats the existing housing, new additions and private open space holistically, offering opportunities for ageing-in-place, working from home, build-to-rent, multi-generational and cooperative living in established suburbs where housing diversity is elusive, yet so desperately needed.
Design research projects that utilise the Bluefield Housing model include: