Michael Green

Writer and producer

Anita’s dad

In Blog on

A couple of weeks ago, I got a message from a woman called Anita, offering some timber to the Urban Bush-Carpenters. She lived in Brooklyn, in the western suburbs, out of bike riding range. I called her, planning to say thanks, but no thanks.

But when we spoke, she told me about her dad, Ricardo, a lifelong builder and tinkerer. “He re-used everything,” she said, “to the point where he made a wooden base for a broken wineglass.”

So on the weekend, I drove west to pick up the timber. Four years ago, when her parents became unwell, Anita had moved in next door to her childhood home. I knocked on the door, and she welcomed me into her house. Most of her belongings were packed away in boxes and the garden was bare – the place was well cared for, but with the air of a waiting room.

The yard next door was teeming with life. Above the fence line, I could see several fruit trees: stonefruit, citrus and olives. It was an abundant garden, with veggie patches near and far.

“When I was younger, an ex-boyfriend once told me he always knew I was a wog, because we grew vegetables in the front yard,” Anita told me. Both her parents had passed away, and the two houses had been sold. “Living here is just too emotional,” she said. She was about to move suburbs.

Ricardo, a carpenter by trade, had emigrated from Italy after World War II. He was lean and poised, and he liked to present himself well. In the photos clustered on Anita’s table, he wore a suit and hat.

Anita's dad, Ricardo

Anita put on her gloves and helped me move the timber. She told me about how she’d grown up learning how to do things with her hands. In her street “there were Italians, Greeks, Aussies, Polish, Germans and even a French family”, and many of them shared the DIY ethic.

Recently, she and her siblings had cleaned out Ricardo’s collection of useful materials. “We grew up reusing and recycling,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much it pained me when the skip came and we threw away so much of the timber.”

Over decades, he’d built two houses and two extensions. He built the “taverna” as well, the small brick building where he cooked family meals and smoked meats. Anita showed me a photo of its interior, pointing out the sinks and stove and bench top. “Everything was salvaged, second-hand, re-used,” she said. Then she pointed out a pattern of white tiles on the floor, which formed his initials. “The man had an ego, too,” she laughed.

“He was always doing something. He carried had a notebook in his top pocket, with a list on it. But the list never ended, it just went on from one page to the next. Even as he was dying he didn’t want to stop. He said to me, ‘I can’t die yet, I’ve got too much to do.’”

Taverna

Maintaining the backyard

In Architecture and building, The Age on

A renovation that re-discovers outer space

ARCHITECT Andrew Maynard is standing in the grassy garden of a newly renovated house in Ilma Grove, Northcote, explaining why his design blurs inside and outside space.

“If you invest in a big block, then you’re investing in outdoor land. Don’t feel like you need to fill it all up with building,” he says. “But you have to make your house connect with the backyard, otherwise you won’t use it.”

As if to prove the point, his littlest client, three-year-old Harvey, barrels through the very wide backdoor and demands a game of cricket.

“Australians talk about growing up in the suburbs with all the space,” Maynard continues, while bowling to Harvey. “But we’re building these big homes and renovations, which are empty most of the time. Going small is really important environmentally – and also, in terms of design, it’s so much fun.”

When the young cricketer’s parents, Anna MacWilliams and Cameron MacDonald, decided to renovate their heritage California bungalow, they had three main objectives: to create an open plan living area, to use passive-solar design principles and to retain their garden.

“We didn’t want to build a mansion. We love having a backyard,” MacWilliams says, as she steps out from the kitchen to visit the compost bin.

The rear of the house faces north, but the couple rarely used the old dining room, because it was dark and pokey. The sun was blocked out by a lean-to laundry and toilet.

“It was all brick wall, with a tiny little window,” she says. “We used it as a storage room and had visitors in the front room. The backyard was segregated. You had to make an effort to get outside.”

Today, MacWilliams is cooking a vegetarian shepherd’s pie in the open, blue and red kitchen. “We get beautiful light coming in here now. In winter, the low sun definitely penetrates into the living space,” she says.

The northern wall of the Ilma Grove house’s new living area is comprised of large double-glazed doors. Among other eco-friendly attributes, the extension is clad in recycled bricks and all the timber was salvaged or harvested sustainably. All paints and finishes are either low- or no-VOC, and a rainwater tank is plumbed into the toilets. Up the space-saving spiral staircase is a spare bedroom and a roof-terrace boasting a solar array and views to both the Dandenongs and the CBD.

“I love opening up the doors,” MacWilliams says. “We’re always going in and out, to the vegie garden or the herb garden. Harvey can be in the backyard and I can still do what I have to do.”

Maynard used a number of design elements to make sure the yard was not only preserved, but also, used regularly. The first step was to demolish the rear laundry and toilet. The new laundry lives in a cupboard.

“Over time, people tend to add wet areas to the back of homes, and they dislocate living spaces from the outdoors. We knock them down and build them in the middle of the house, close to the bedrooms,” he says.

The broad double-glazed doors mean that the garden is always in view. “Visual connection is fundamental,” he explains. “And then you try to pull away the edges.”

He blurred the border between inside and out by retaining sections of exposed brickwork inside, and extending the light blue shade of the indoor cupboards to the external service area. A small patch of garden protrudes into the home, planted with basil and lettuce.

Beyond the broad doors, a narrow deck doubles as bench seating. “It means the edge becomes a social space, not just the line between inside and outside,” Maynard says.

“You’re always going to have some people who want to be inside and some who want to be outside, especially in a climate like Melbourne’s. Don’t force people to choose: instead of ‘either-or’, give them ‘both-and’.”

In de-fence of the backyard

WHEN Anna MacWilliams and Cameron MacDonald bought their Northcote home, they were already considering a renovation. Their real estate agent gave them clear advice: keep your backyard and you’ll do well.

The agent, Grant Leonard, a partner at Nelson Alexander in Northcote, says oversized renovated houses are a turn-off for many buyers.

“You can devalue the property if you don’t leave any backyard. They’re harder to sell,” he says. “Sometimes I see really large houses where they’ve taken up most of the land. Big houses suit families with kids, but generally, those families will want a backyard for the kids to play in.

“When people are renovating, the main thing is to get the balance right between the size of the backyard and the size of the house.”

In his recent book, The Life and Death of the Australian Backyard, Professor Tony Hall argues that the balance has been lost. He found that the proportion of an average suburban block covered by a new residence has increased significantly since the 1990s. “The cause is bigger houses, not smaller blocks,” he says.

Professor Hall, an urban researcher from Griffith University, believes planning regulations should require less block coverage and houses should be designed with more windows looking out onto gardens. He says vanishing backyards not only stop children from playing outdoors, but also reduce the biodiversity, natural drainage and cooling effects previously provided by trees and vegetation.

To Kirsten Larsen, from Melbourne University’s Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab, existing backyards present an invaluable resource for food production. Larsen says the city’s food security is threatened by a number of constraints, including water, oil, energy and agricultural land. Backyard vegie gardening must be part of the answer, and for that we should limit house sizes.

“It makes sense to produce some of our food in cities. We have a lot of the resources here that we need – water, nutrients, space and sunlight,” she says. “We need to increase urban density if we’re to stop encroaching on agricultural land, but we need to do it in a way that allows people to continue to grow their own fruit and vegetables.”

Indoor amenity need not suffer for the change. Whenever clients ask Andrew Maynard to design a modest building on a large block, the architect’s mind starts to race. For the addition to be small, the concept must be inventive.

“Doing something small on a big block is really exciting. When you have to put a number of functions in a confined space you’re forced to think differently,” he says.

“One of the reasons houses become big and horizontal is because people just line up functions next to each other. The moment you’re forced to overlap them is the moment something strange and beautiful will happen.”

Read this article at The Age online

Cool roofs

In Greener Homes on

Beat urban heat with light surfaces and green spaces

AFTER a hot, still day, parts of the city can be up to seven degrees hotter than the surrounding countryside. Dr Andrew Coutts, from Monash University’s Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, says a phenomenon known as the “urban heat island” effect means that built-up zones are often warmer than rural areas, particularly after dark.

“Urban areas store heat during the day and slowly release it during the night,” he says. “Meanwhile, rural areas can cool rapidly because soil and vegetation don’t store as much warmth.”

The urban heat island effect is present all year round, but it becomes a problem during the hotter months. “Without low temperatures during the night, we don’t get to recover from daily heat stress, especially when we have daytime temperatures in the high 30s and 40s,” Dr Coutts says.

Victoria’s chief health officer found that the heatwave preceding the Black Saturday fires might have contributed to 374 people’s deaths, more than double the number who perished in the fires. “Heat stress is a big concern for vulnerable people, such as the elderly, the really young, and those with pre-existing medical conditions,” he says.

Dr Coutts says the heat island effect has three main causes. Firstly, dense, impervious surfaces, such as asphalt and concrete, trap and store heat from the sun. “In urban areas we have these complex geometries, like street canyons, where heat gets absorbed by the walls, roads and roofs,” he says.

Secondly, human activities, such as driving cars and using air conditioners, generate waste heat. And finally, because cities have fewer trees and less vegetation, they receive natural less cooling from shade and evapotranspiration through foliage.

The effect creates a vicious cycle, in which prolonged heat makes people switch on their air conditioners, which leads to more waste heat. Likewise, higher temperatures predicted under climate change will mean extra air con – thereby increasing both the urban heat island and greenhouse gas emissions.

So how can we sink the heat island?

To keep your property cooler, plant trees in your garden and harvest stormwater for irrigation with tanks and rain gardens. Minimise hard surfaces such as solid concrete; opt for gravel paths or porous paving instead.

Also, lighter colours increase the “albedo”, or reflecting power of a surface, so when you restore or replace your roofing, follow the example of whitewashed Mediterranean cities. “If you paint your roof white, it increases the solar energy reflected away from the surface,” Dr Coutts says.

It’s also possible to buy dark-coloured paints that cut the heat absorbed by your roof. Ceramic-based, heat-reflective coatings are available from a number of businesses, including Astec Paints and Colorbond Steel. “They reflect solar radiation in the near-infrared spectrum,” he explains. “This means you can keep your traditional roof colours, and reduce your energy needs and the urban heat island as well.”

Dr Coutts and his colleagues are studying the cooling effect of street trees, as well as the relative benefits of green roofs and high albedo surfaces. He says the tactics we need for the city-at-large mirror the task at home: we must make our buildings and roads more reflective, plant more vegetation and harvest our stormwater. We also need better public transport to reduce waste heat from cars.

“It’s mainly about smart urban design,” Dr Coutts says. “We can have quite high density living without the impact of urban heat islands.”

Read this article at The Age online

Walking

In Greener Homes on

Local walking groups are reclaiming the streets

HOW “walkable” is your neighbourhood? If it’s raining outside, you can find out by checking Walk Score, a website that measures “how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle” in your area. You might be surprised by what you find nearby.

The site was founded in the USA, but works in Australian cities too. Type in your address and it’ll rank your location from zero to one hundred, in a category from “car-dependent” through to “walker’s paradise”.

Dr Ben Rossiter, from Victoria Walks, says Walk Score is being used more often in real estate, especially in medium density suburbs.

“It gives people a really good idea of what is close by. The most highly walkable communities have a variety of services and facilities relevant to everyday life, all within walking distance – things like schools, shops, parks, cafes and movie theatres,” he says.

“Walking is becoming increasingly important to people when they’re deciding where they want to live. The choice might be more about having high walkability than it is about having a bigger backyard.”

Victoria Walks is a charity, funded by VicHealth, which promotes everyday walking. Among other initiatives, it will shortly launch an online mapping project in which residents upload their favourite routes, from strolls through hidden alleys to hikes in national parks.

“Walking goes beyond the act of getting physically active,” Rossiter says. “It creates safe, vibrant and connected communities. One of the key indicators of a healthy and sustainable neighbourhood is the number of kids walking to school.”

And, of course, more walking means less driving, and fewer carbon dioxide emissions. As the Walk Score website states, “Your feet are zero-pollution transportation machines”.

Rossiter says the first way to make your streets more walkable is to walk. “Step outside and say g’day to people while you do it. You could start an informal walking school bus with neighbours. We always like to see householders in their front yards too – grow vegetables there, so you can say hello when people go past.”

You can also form a Walkability Action Group, or join one in your area. (There are 16 existing groups listed on the Victoria Walks website.) Last year, a group in East Ivanhoe successfully lobbied local and state governments to install a pedestrian crossing next to the notorious Burke Road North roundabout.  

Another Walkability Action Group, Locomote, based on the Northern Bellarine Peninsula, has been working with local authorities to make their foreshore track usable for all-comers.

Locomote’s Patricia Crotty says “equity of access” is crucial, especially with an aging population in the region. “We’d love to see more people walking, but the footpath infrastructure isn’t great in these little towns. It’s a big issue for young parents with pushers too.”

Changes are afoot. In the centre of Portarlington, the council has widened the sidewalks and created a new town square.

“They’ve put in trees and places to sit, and restored the historic rotunda. It’s opened up the whole main street,” Crotty says. “People can wander around there in a way that wasn’t possible before, because traffic has been blocked off in the connecting street.

“Sustainable communities are places with gathering spots. They have to be safe and accessible, with the opportunity for people to come and sit in the main street and watch the world go by.”

Read this article at The Age online

Sharing websites

In Greener Homes on

On Neighbour Day this year, find new ways to say hi.

THIS summer, when four neighbours got fed up with their long lawns in Thornbury, in Melbourne’s north, they formed a mower collective.

One of the communal grass-cutters, Amy Brand, says it was just common sense. “There was a distinct lack of shareable lawnmowers in our area so we all threw in money to buy a mower that can become a community resource.”

She and her neighbours have signed onto The Sharehood, a website that encourages householders to meet and share with people nearby.

When you log in, you get to see the one hundred members who live nearest to you, and the things they’re happy to lend and borrow. You can also see a local noticeboard, where people within walking distance can post events and questions for each other.

The Sharehood began in Northcote in 2008, but there are now members throughout Australia and as far away as Cambridge, in the UK. The site is coordinated by a group of volunteers (including your Greener Homes columnist). To coincide with Neighbour Day, 27 March, The Sharehood is challenging householders to meet one new neighbour. The connection might prove to be good for both your tool shed and your well-being.

Ms Brand moved to Melbourne last year from Darwin. Getting to know people in her street has made her feel more at home. After mowing their lawns, she and her neighbours held a backyard movie night to celebrate.

“I’ve been a little sad at the lack of local community since I moved here,” she says. “I was spoilt for sharing and socialising in Darwin – it just seemed to grow and evolve so naturally. The Sharehood has been a reminder that community exists everywhere, but sometimes you just have to work a little harder to find it.”

The Sharehood is just one of many innovations boosting communities and green living. Lauren Anderson, from the consultancy CC Lab, says clothing exchanges, car-sharing and peer-to-peer renting are all examples of an emerging trend in “collaborative consumption”.

In the US, there are several neighbourliness and sharing websites, including NeighborGoods, Hey, Neighbor! and Share Some Sugar.

“These systems have created a revolution for sharing that allows us to minimise what we’re purchasing outright,” Ms Anderson says. “We have so much stuff in our possession that is sitting there idly.”

By making better use of the goods we have, we can buy fewer new products and reduce waste, energy and resource use.

Ms Anderson says that while some websites are based on free exchange, others make money for householders. Drive My Car Rentals and Rentoid are examples of “peer-to-peer” rental systems, where people trade with each other. Either way, she argues, collaborative consumption has a direct environmental benefit. “The technology is more of an enabler than an endpoint. It instantly matches haves and wants. People use it to participate in something in real life,” Ms Anderson says.

Landshare Australia is the perfect example – a local version of the popular UK website was launched in February. The website connects gardens with gardeners: enthusiastic vegie growers can find nearby landowners with space to spare.

“From a holistic perspective, sustainability is about people getting in touch with their neighbours, sharing common interests and realising the resources they can pool together,” she says. “Not everybody in the street needs a drill.”

Read this article at The Age online