Meet the young people determined to revolutionise Sydney’s approach to housing

Architecture student Amanda Eessa wants to rid Sydney’s western suburbs of “all the grey boxes”, the lookalike lifeless homes with curtains closed and front doors shut.

Eessa’s plan to create vibrant communities with a design for an adaptable terrace that multicultural residents can customise was one of six student proposals from student teams shortlisted in the NSW government’s Pattern Book Design Competition alongside 15 professional architecture teams.

Western Sydney University architecture student Amanda Eessa and her mother Thaira Hanna at their family home. Eessa has been shortlisted for her project. Credit: Kate Geraghty

Eessa, 22, said her family, like many from the Middle East, treats the front yard of their home in western Sydney like “another living room”.

It is a place to eat, greet the world, and exercise – her mum cycles on a stationary bike while chatting with friends and neighbours.

“My design is specifically about culturally integrating diverse living into housing. Right now, it’s one size fits all,” said Eessa, 22, a master’s student from Western Sydney University.

“It’s all the grey boxes you see. Instead, I’m really pushing to create vibrant communities, and especially culturally expressive designs that allow for users to customise, to really feel a sense of belonging.”

She will work on a proposal to build terraces that allow residents to express their cultural identity, customise the home, and allow the exterior to be easily adapted (and repairable, she says) by the next residents.

Her goal was to work as an architect and continue to live in western Sydney. “There are lots of spaces that really need some love and good design,” Eessa said.

Planning and Public Spaces Minister Paul Scully said it was exciting to see how many student teams were participating. “Who better to design our future homes than the people who will actually live in them?” he said.

The design competition was one of many reforms to make homes more affordable, better located and more sustainably built: “Living near your job, your family and your friends should not be the privilege of a select generation,” he said.

Scully said terrace houses and mid-rise apartments were critical to increasing the supply of housing to fill the gap between detached homes and high-rise apartment buildings. The new designs should also respond to the changing shape of households with more than half now home to only one or two people.

There were 212 entries, and six winners will be announced in November. Developers who use the winning designs will get approval faster.

A shortlisted proposal by Sydney University architecture students Georgia Reader, Angela Xu and William Badaoui was prompted by their own experiences renting.

“We’ve all faced rental increases,” Badaoui said. “We were pulling our hair out, saying, ‘this is crazy’. This is not OK. I guess we are really connected to this issue. We are not just imagining it.”

Reader said they were interested in developing a model of terrace that was more adaptable and flexible and that could house multiple generations, too. They want to bring people together with communal areas. “Currently everyone is quite separated, and there is not much connection with neighbours,” she said.

A team of students at Sydney University, shortlisted in the Pattern Book Design Competition, have proposed a series of terraces clustered around communal areas.  The team is William Badaoui, Angela Xu, and Georgia Reader with additional work by Sophie Hutchinson.Credit: Georgia Reader and Angela Xu

While the students were limited to designing terraces, the professional teams may choose between designing a version of a manor house or terrace, low rise to two storeys, and apartment buildings up to six floors.

The government wants the designs to be “modest, adaptable, sustainable, affordable and beautiful” – and to suit the community’s needs through all stages of life, from raising children to working from home through to ageing in place. They should also be compatible with the climate in NSW and allow natural light and ventilation.

Compared to most architectural design shortlists, which are often dominated by older, male-led studios, the pattern book selection includes more female architects and younger architectural practices.

Scale Architecture principal Matt Chan said his practice’s first project was a terrace, and it had continued to build them. With Georgie Forbes-Smith, associate director, and Sri Yeleswarapu, architectural graduate, Scale would develop a design for a modern two-storey terrace with attics, and living and dining at the rear with access to a garden.

“We love the scale of [terraces], we love the adaptability, they traverse such a cross-section of our culture and society in how they can be inhabited … And they still work really well,” he said.

Scale Architecture is one of 15 professional architecture practices that have been shortlisted.Credit: Brett Boardman

Once the “backs of the Victorian terraces had been chopped off and reconfigured” they became super adaptable to modern life, he said.

Many of the original terraces could be updated to provide better insulation, though. “They’re old, they’re cold and they’re damp … but this [type of] low-rise high density is amazing and adds a beautiful character to Australian society,” Chan said.

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