Ah, Spring – I just love the shoulder seasons, even though September has already brought some early Summer days!

What I’ve also noticed is a number of construction projects in our 'hood. Redman Avenue in Thirroul alone has 4 dual occs, 3 alts n adds and one freshly demolished lot to add to the development count. That’s at least four new households to add to the street and likely eight or so more cars. It just shows the attraction to our area and that despite a cost-of-living crisis, developers are still hinging on its selling success.

This article is the first of a two-part series in the lead-up to the inaugural Illawarra Festival of Architecture that I’m helping to co-curate to be held on Saturday, November 25. Put it in your diary! There’ll be open house tours, Archi-bike tours, kids’ games and great discussions focussed around architecture in the Illawarra. There’ll be three streams of discussions – Community, Interiors and the Illawarra Architectural Renaissance. This month’s article is a taste-test for the Community channel and a chance for me to formulate questions for our guest panellists. Yes, I’m double-tasking to save time. It’s a lot of work to put together a festival!

I moved to the Illawarra back in 2016. What attracted my young family to the area was the beautiful landscapes, proximity to Sydney and back then (believe it or not) affordability. What I had no idea of then – and a big factor that has kept me here – was the strength of the community in this area. From the electrify2515 movement to the volunteers saving Coledale RSL and Yael Stone’s Hi Neighbour incentive, I’ve never witnessed such a great community vibe. In these modern times of social isolation, it’s a refreshing change.

So, what does this mean for architecture? Some of you may recall an article I wrote titled “The Tallest Building” (go to the Flame website to access the archive of digital versions). In that article I quote Joseph Campbell – “you can tell what’s informing the society by the size of what the tallest building is in the place” – and whilst I still think that rings true, I also think you could consider popularity and number of development types to that same ethos. If we use Redman Avenue as an example, we could conclude that the current favour towards dual occupancies is indicative of what’s informing society. That is, a tight property market, inflationary costs of construction, an ageing population, state planning laws devised to increase density and bypass Council as well as most Aussies persistent dislike for apartment living.

I know that many members of our community are likely not too pleased with the direction towards dual occs. In certain respects I agree with them and in others I disagree. We need more homes, especially affordable housing, during this housing crisis. I’m seeing an increase in multi-generational dual occs where kids and parents buy a block together and share the costs of developing so they can live side by side – it’s great for childcare, too! Unfortunately, many dual occs present a new architectural language that does not marry well with the existing street.

What’s the answer? I don’t know myself! One could offer that you can’t stop progress a lá Bill Heslop from Muriel’s Wedding. The flip side to that would be Ashleigh Bryant’s “You can’t stop progress, but you can help decide what is progress and what isn’t.” If you want to help decide what that progress might look like, please come to the festival and join the conversation.

After all, “A real conversation always contains an invitation” – David Whyte.