How can parasitic architectural design contribute to the missing middle initiative
to establish a greater sense of community in the northern suburbs of Sydney?

 

The NSW Government, Planning and Environment team established the “missing middle’ initiative for Medium Density Housing development, in NSW, in December 2016. My project associates with the initiative, applying the factual research and design proposals to the northern suburbs of Sydney.

 

The Northern suburbs of Sydney is in high demand of people and families moving to live and with the growing population of NSW of 100,000 people every year, in the next 20 years 725,000 homes will need to be built in NSW to cater for living availability. At present there are two main types of housing available in the northern suburbs including traditional free standing homes or high density apartments. What the northern suburbs of Sydney are missing are low rise, medium sized homes. With the growing variation in home owners, NSW needs affordable housing solutions and an increase in a variety of types of homes.  The increase in diversity of residents calls for the diversification in housing options, changing the notion of what is consider ‘family-sized’ homes. The notion of diversity and the demand for variation of housing developments has impacted the physical design structure regarding the differing needs and priorities of different demographics and households. My project therefore questions, how we can change the conventions of a traditional family home to integrate housing variation and increase living availability.

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My project addresses the benefits of social engagement and the importance of social interactions on one’s health and wellbeing. My design solutions confront the issue that “more than 60 per cent of Australians say they never speak with their neighbours and 40 per cent do not know their neighbours at all.” (CoDesign Studio, 2015), addressing the concern that “social isolation is the public health risk of our time” (Susan Pinker, 2017).

 

Teddy Cruz has become a major influencer of my project, as his conceptual theories and studies outlines my aim for developing low rise buildings into homes of higher densities.  Cruz’s architectural theory and designs for the San Diego-Tijuana border provide a similar conceptual model to my project. Cruz has studied the border, where developed urban communities are surrounded by poverty. San Diego’s suburban wealthy real estate is only twenty minutes away from Tijuana, one of the poorest suburbs in Mexico. Although both towns contain the same population of people, San Diego has grown six times larger. Cruz studies the habits of living in Tijuana, demonstrating how they layer housing and structures to accommodate for shops and businesses underneath. Cruz’s concept grows from the “social practices of adaptation” and “creative intelligence” from the transitioning of people from poorer to wealthier neighbourhoods across the border. As immigrants move north from Tijuana, across the border to suburban houses, they build and layer on the existing suburban structures, transforming the houses into multiple dwellings to fit more family and friends.

 

 

My design iterations demonstrate my exploration of parasitic forms, referenced through architectural structures. By looking at plant based parasites such as the staghorn fern, mushrooms and the strangler fig, the aspect of the host and the parasite physically represents the use of the existing structure as the host, and attachment of the new parasitic form. It also connects with the concept of social connection, as the two plants work together and provide each other support in a symbiotic relationship. This therefore conceptually references my aim of establishing neighbourhood community and social cohesion, working and supporting residential bonds and social interactions.

My project therefore focuses on the notion of parasitic architecture, transforming one existing free-standing house into two or more units. These units will be designed through attachments and insertions, intertwining and overlapping to develop a sense of social cohesion between the two households. My project challenges the notion of the common wall by the uneven divide of the units. Although the houses maintain private residences, common spaces and household amenities (e.g. bins, pools, gardens) are integrated, encouraging social interaction between the two households.