When “McMansion” became a familiar term a few decades ago, it usually invited a faintly derogatory undertone. McMansions represented over-sized, over-the-top, standardised homes in the US squeezed on to relatively small suburban blocks and quickly translated into the suburban outskirts of Australia’s major cities.

These days, there’s no suggestion of a new Australian house anywhere being too big or having too many bedrooms, no matter the disappearance of the traditional quarter-acre block or the declining size of families.