Bluefield Housing as Alternative Infill for the Suburbs proposes a fourth category of urban land—after greenfield, brownfield and greyfield—and a design-led model for densifying it without demolishing what is already there.
About This Book
Australian suburbs have been quietly altering themselves for decades: the rear extension, the converted sleepout, the bungalow carved into two. Damian Madigan takes that ad-hoc habit seriously and builds a housing model from it. Rather than subdividing land or knocking down and rebuilding, bluefield housing retains and adapts the original house into smaller accommodation, then adds low-rise dwellings behind and beside it, with the garden and tree canopy held in common.
The argument sits deliberately between suburban preservation and wholesale regeneration, and it is made in drawings as much as in prose. Madigan works through single, double and multiple allotments, then turns to the harder question of what would actually make such housing happen—the financing, the incentives and the zoning reform. Written from Adelaide but framed around concerns any suburbanised city will recognise.
Key Features
- 165 colour illustrations, with the design studies drawn by the author
- Sets out the seven principles underpinning the bluefield housing model
- Extends the green-, brown- and greyfield definitions with a fourth category of infill land
- Worked design studies across single, double and multiple allotments
- Design exercises for architecture and planning educators
- Australian case material, framed for international application
What You'll Discover
- How the established pattern of alterations and additions can be harnessed to produce new housing rather than simply bigger houses
- Why the model treats added dwellings as equals rather than as 'accessory' housing
- Lot-level design tactics for sharing landscape, light and access on small sites
- The statutory and market triggers—zoning, incentives, finance—that stand between the idea and its delivery
- Where the 'missing middle' and subdivision densification models fall short
About the Author
Damian Madigan is a registered architect and senior lecturer in architecture at the University of South Australia. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects and sits on the South Australian government's Design Review Panel. His research works through design, in collaboration with academics, industry and government, to develop suburban infill housing types suited to changing households. His housing propositions have been awarded, shortlisted and commended by the City of Los Angeles, the New South Wales government, the City of Sydney, Architecture Australia and the Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Dimensions: 177 x 254 cm
- Pages: 334
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781032276915
- Publisher: Routledge
Perfect For: Architects and planners working on suburban infill; policy makers and councils weighing density against neighbourhood character; students and researchers in housing, urban design and design research; anyone with a stake in what happens next in the older suburbs.