In Australia, some of the most popular construction materials for walls are:
- Brick
- Concrete
- Mud bricks
- Stone
- Timber
What are the different Australian House styles?
A common housing style for large, very modern homes in Australia is a sleek, minimalist look with lots of flat surfaces and large windows. They’re usually painted in light grey or taupe and have flat roofs and glass barriers on the balconies. This is my personal favourite of all the Australian house styles, as it epitomises a beach house for me!
What makes an Australian House unique?
What they took from the British model were the bay windows, tall chimneys, high-pitched roofs, overhanging eaves, roof shingles and fretwork. What they added to make them uniquely Australian were motifs on the front gable that could not be added anywhere else, like kangaroos, emus, lyrebirds, waratahs and the rising sun of Federation.
Why are Australian homes so different from European homes?
For many years, Australian homes were built with little understanding of the Australian climate and were widely dependent on European styles that were unsympathetic to Australian landscapes.
What is a wattle house made out of?
Long rods of wattle (really Acacia, the floral emblem of Australia) were then interwoven and made more-or-less weatherproof with a mortar made of clay or loam with grass or horsehair. The roof was generally constructed of grass, reeds or bark, with a chimney of stones and turf and an earthen floor.
What was the Australian home like in the 1960s?
What did it mean to own your own home in Australia?
Why was Australia unique?
What is the Australian dream?
What was the Queenslander colony?
What are Australian house walls made of?
In fact plaster is the most common material used for residential interior walls and ceilings in Australia today, far surpassing brick or concrete.
Are houses in Australia built from wood?
Lightweight timber framing is the popular choice for Australian homes. Decades of experience have ensured that the system is safe, reliable, cost-effective and well understood by designers, professional builders and even experienced DIY'ers.
Are houses in Australia made of concrete?
Reinforced concrete slab-on-ground is the most popular form of residential construction in Australia today because it provides a strong, durable and affordable foundation for your home.
What kind of wood is used to build houses in Australia?
The most commonly used framing material is Australian structural plantation pine. Choosing pine timber framing will contribute to the appeal, practicality and environmental performance of your home, whilst keeping costs down.
How long do Australian homes last?
This is largely debated within the construction industry as it is really dependant on the materials that are used, the quality of the workmanship and the maintenance that is required and followed through on. On average, the generally expected and acceptable lifespan of a home should last at least 60 years.
Are houses made of brick in Australia?
Brick Walls for Australian Homes Bricks are one of the most frequent building materials used in construction. It's strong, long-lasting, and has a timeless appeal that people everywhere adore. Double-brick structures are particularly well insulated, saving you money on heating and cooling expenses.
Why don t Australian houses have basements?
Pindan Homes Construction Manager Adrian Schneeberger said the main reason Australians had never built basements was they put a big hole in the budget. “Building a basement incurs greater costs as opposed to building on a flat concrete pad or on stilts,” he said.
Why are houses in USA not made of concrete?
When European colonizers first came to the United States, they opted to construct many houses and commercial buildings from wood because it was readily available. Additionally, many settlers chose wood as a building material because structures can be built more quickly than when using brick or cement.
Why are houses raised off the ground in Australia?
Generally raised off the ground, built on stilts or stumps, the Queenslander architecture is designed to counteract extreme conditions like flooding, high temperatures and pest infestations. Solid timber frames combined with lightweight materials such as weatherboard cladding are common construction materials.
How long do timber frame houses last Australia?
Humans have been using timber frames in their homes for thousands of years. Here in Australia, we're seeing timber frame lifespans exceed 100 years.
What is Australian hardwood?
Eucalyptus pilularis. Blackbutt is a large Australian hardwood that is commonly used for structural and exterior applications. It is also used to produce plywood.
What timber is used in Australia?
Eucalyptus. The most common species in Australia is eucalyptus. Within the species there are a huge variety of sub-species that have vary different properties, including colour and grain patterns. Common ones include Tasmanian Oak (cream), blackbutt (pale brown), spotted gum (mid brown) and Jarrah (red).
Where does Australian building timber come from?
by country and region. In 2015, the top partner countries and regions from which Australia Imports Wood include China, New Zealand, United States, Indonesia and United Kingdom.
Where does Australia's wood come from?
The main source of Australia's native production forest wood is multiple-use public forest in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. Currently, much of the native forest on leasehold and private land contributes minimally to wood supply.
Where does Australian construction timber come from?
Imports from Russia and Belarus account for around 40 to 50 per cent of Australia's supply of some of the key laminated veneered lumber (LVL) and engineered wood products (EWPs) used in building and construction.
Why are houses in the UK not made of wood?
The short answer is that the UK logged off its forests centuries ago, and after that people had to use brick or stone to build houses because they had no wood left.
Colonial Homes (1800-1849)
This early style of housing is usually made from stone or brick and features corrugated iron roofs, small multi-pane windows and a symmetrical design.
The Queenslander House (1840 Onwards)
Possibly the most iconic style of housing in Australia is the Queenslander house, which came about during the mid-nineteenth century and continues to be built today. These light, timber-framed houses, raised from the ground on stumps, are built to suit the hot, wet Queensland climate.
Victorian Homes (1850-1901)
Victorian-era homes are very common in some of the older-established areas of Sydney. The designs can be quite ornate, as you can see from the pictures further down.
Federation Homes (1890s to 1920s)
After the Victorian period came the Federation (Edwardian) era. Homes from this time are also very common in parts of Australia and have quite a different look than the Victorian houses.
Californian Bungalow (1915-1930)
The simple, single-storey Californian bungalow home design became extremely popular in Australia during the 1920s. The roof is A-framed with a lower gradient than the roof on a Federation home, and there’s often a long veranda and open-plan living spaces.
Art Deco (1930s)
Art Deco-style housing became popular in Australia in the 1930s, slightly later than in the rest of the world. These designs are a little harder to find than Victorian and Federation homes, but if you keep your eyes peeled, you’ll spot a few Art Deco houses in Sydney.
Post-War Homes (1940-1949)
Due to a shortage of supplies, home design became much simpler and cheaper post World War Two. Cheap-to-make prefab homes became popular, as well as fibro cottages.
What was the modern period in Australia?
Modern Period (1950 – Present) Housing in Australia hit a boom period after the war. There was a growing availability of mass produced building components and materials. A new lifestyle was adopted and reflected in the interior and exterior design of many modern homes.
What was the Australian colonial period?
The Australian Colonial period reflected growing prosperity in our nation. The typical Colonial home is very simple with few decorative features. It was originally influenced by the British Georgian and Regency periods throughout the 19 th century.
What is a Californian bungalow?
The Californian Bungalow was a style originally imported from Los Angeles. Also known as the “Cal-bung”, it is a solid and respectable house. With a heavy and firm appearance, it is easily recognisable by a number of distinctive characteristics.
What was the Victorian period?
Victorian Period (1850 – 1901) Victorian home architecture incorporates various styles ranging from classic facades and Georgian styles, to extremely ornate and decorative embellishments. “More of everything” was a trademark of the era.
What is the most common feature of Australian homes?
A common feature of the Australian home is the use of fencing in front gardens, also common in both the UK and the US. Climate has also influenced housing styles, with balconies and veranda spaces being more prevalent in subtropical Queensland due to the mild, generally warm winters experienced in the state.
What is the most decorative feature of Victorian homes?
Late Victorian Style homes had perhaps the most decorative features in all of the known architectural styles to date, which is often referred to as Boom Style. Towards the end of the Victorian era, timber fretwork was being used more and more, which led into the Edwardian/Federation Styles.
Why are highrises so popular in Australia?
Highrise residential buildings became popular in Australia in the late 20th century, due to the trend towards increasing density in cities. New construction technology allowed modernist styles to be adapted to taller buildings with larger footprints, with Harry Seidler a key proponent of the style in Australia. Around the turn of the 21st century, highrise residential architecture became largely indistinguishable from commercial skyscraper styles.
Who is the architect of the geometric play of angles?
A number of styles have emerged from the influence of architects Phillip Drew and Glenn Murcutt. The geometric play of angles is often a signature, likewise the (sometimes exposed) steel framing and corrugated iron cladding which is available in a variety of colours.
What is the difference between Victorian and Colonial Georgian?
An extension and continuation of the Old Colonial Georgian style into the Victorian era. Georgian style houses built before c.1840 are characterised as Old Colonial Georgian, while buildings buildings between c.1840 and c.1890 are characterised as Victorian Georgian. Both styles are essentially the same, being characterised by symmetrical facades, simple rectangular and prismatic shapes, and orderliness. Six and eight paned windows were common.
What was the Australian home like in the 1960s?
The new Australian home was all about indoor-outdoor connections and open plan, L- shaped lounge rooms and clean lines. And people were lapping it up. At the start of the 1960s, home ownership had risen to almost 70%, the highest percentage ever, and one of the highest in the world.
What did it mean to own your own home in Australia?
For the first white inhabitants of the colony, owning your own home meant symbolically owning a piece of your new country. It was a way to belong and to gain respectability and a sense of citizenship.
Why was Australia unique?
Because the priority was to develop the country, people had often not been required to pay for the land. As long as they cleared it, it was theirs. That made Australia unique in the world. Nowhere else could poor people, let alone (ex)criminals, own sometimes large tracts of land. That meant that land was often granted to people who did not have a lot of money to spend on building a house on it. So they used what was there and constructed their homes from the timber they felled. It was cheap, it was quick, and as long as you kept to Macquarie’s rules, it was legal. But that also meant that a lot of houses started to look the same and that there was a difference between richer and poorer people. The rich built with brick, the poor with timber. The standard for everybody but the most affluent, was the weatherboard cottage. It was half the price of brick and most people could make it themselves. It had a simple design, with two rooms at the front, a door in the middle, a central hallway and two rooms at the back. Most weatherboard houses had a respectable, neat front garden and a working garden at the back, with a vegetable patch, a kitchen and a dunny (toilet). Over time, weatherboards would be extended and made more luxurious, but from halfway into the 19th century most of them had moulded skirtings and architraves inside, were clad with timber lining boards and had a veranda at the front and/or the back, to protect the walls from rain and sunshine.
What is the Australian dream?
Although inner city terraces are highly prized, the Great Australian Dream remains the same: a quarter acre block of land with a house, a car in the driveway (or better still: the garage), a hill’s hoist and a Victa mower. Until recently, that ideal was within reach for a lot of people, because mortgages were only three or four times the annual salary of the average wage earner. But things have changed. In Sydney, the average property price is now around twelve times the average household income, which makes it one of the least affordable cities in the world. The average price-to-income ratio in Australia is 9, while the percentage of people who own their home outright has dropped from 42% in 1995 to 31% in 2012. Australians have also started building bigger houses than almost anywhere else. These McMansions, as they are called, are also usually project homes, which makes them similar in style and appearance all over the country.
What was the Queenslander colony?
The colony of Queensland was a problem from the start. Although the land was fertile and great for cattle, sheep and especially sugar cane, the prevailing idea was that white people could simply not survive in the tropics. If they wanted to (because there was big money to be made), they had to build houses that were able to take the sting out of the heat and humidity of an average Queensland day. The solution was the Queenslander, a house that looked like the homestead, but was adapted to the climate and landscape. Where the homestead had been built level with the ground, Queenslanders were on stumps, sometimes as high as six meters. In times of floods, the water could flow under the house instead of destroying it. The space between soil and floor was also great to stop white ants and termites (and snakes) and to let airflow cool the house from below. The focus in the Queenslander was not the rooms, but the wide verandas surrounding them. About 40% of the footprint was veranda and most of the living and the sleeping took place there. They surrounded the whole house, encircling a number of rooms that could be cooled down by cross ventilation. The pitch of the roofs was also higher, to make sure hot air did not get trapped, while the verandas were covered with low roofs to keep them as cool as possible. Queenslanders were usually built out of timber and that was advantageous for people who moved from one mining- or rail camp to another: the buildings could be sawn in half, put on the back of a bullock dray or (later) a truck and reassembled somewhere else. In the 20th century, the design of the Queenslander became influenced by buildings in nearby Asia. Louvres and shutters were added, wider eves, slatted floors and partition walls that stopped short of the ceiling.
