An exemplar project for Queensland’s Social Housing Design Guideline, this small-scale development presents a civic response that balances community and individual identity.
Like most places in Australia, Townsville’s primary mode of residential development involves the continued expansion of suburbs on the periphery of the city. While the problems associated with expanding cities – car dependence, disconnection from services and environmental impacts – are clear in metropolitan centres, these issues are less apparent in the regions. On the surface, it seems reasonable to keep building new outer suburbs when the average journey across town is less than 20 minutes, so there is no perceived need to restrict the city boundaries. Consequently, attempts to shift the status quo of housing choices are often met with resistance, with one of the key concerns being how other models might impact amenity and existing neighbourhood character.
The Office of the Queensland Government Architect (OQGA) has developed strategies to facilitate the development of quality housing that challenges the norm. In 2017, recognising the importance of providing exemplars, the Queensland government created the Density and Diversity Done Well competition, inviting proposals that explored the “missing middle” between highrise housing and individual freestanding homes. Drawing from the ideas in this competition, the OQGA, with the Department of Housing and Public Works’ Social Housing Delivery Office, committed to undertake a number of social housing demonstration projects across the state.
Townsville-based practice Counterpoint Architecture was selected to create one of these – a seemingly modest project of transforming three allotments in Mundingburra, one of Townsville’s most established suburbs, into a small-scale residential development. Development came amid ongoing scrutiny of housing in the city, so the stakes were high for this project to demonstrate the advantages of new approaches. For Mundingburra Housing, Counterpoint Architecture created a series of strategies that mediated the scale of the new building and extended the character of the neighbourhood while introducing a new residential typology.
