Designer Suburbs ― Architects and Affordable Homes in Australia

With photographs by Max Dupain, David Moore, Wolfgang Sievers, and Eric Sierins alongside original plans, this book explores the relationship between architects, builders, and affordable housing in Australia since 1900 and the lessons learned from 20th-century designer suburbs. In the 1950s through 1970s, architects such as Harry Seidler, Robin Boyd, Ken Woolley, Michael Dysart, and Graeme Gunn applied their talents to project homes, bringing high-end design to the suburbs. Backed by Pettit & Sevitt, Merchant Builders, and other project builders, architects created small, deceptively simple houses that transformed the look of suburbia and created distinctive, sought-after affordable housing. Today, though, there exists a divide between the respectable architectural profession and modern suburban housing, with Australia’s super-sized, energy-guzzling project homes being some of the biggest in the world. The book reveals what went so wrong in the last few decades and provides hope for the future of Australia's residential housing.

Judith O’Callaghan is a senior lecturer in the Interior Architecture Program in the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of New South Wales and a former senior curator of contemporary design at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and curator of decorative arts at the National Gallery of Victoria. Her major exhibition and publication projects include The Australian Dream: Design of the Fifties and Absolutely Mardi Gras: Costume and Design of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. Charles Pickett is a curator of design and the built environment at the Powerhouse Museum. His books include The Fibro Frontier: A Different History of Australian Architecture, Refreshing! Art Off the Pub Wall, and Homes in the Sky: Apartment Living in Australia, winner of the 2008 AIA Bates Smart Award for architecture in the media. They both live in Sydney.