Making It real
My story in attempting to bring a new housing type that improves affordability, livability & community resilience
I have restarted this blog (Dec 2020) quite a long time after completing the previous series of "challenge" blogs. Those earlier blogs were where I attempted to compress 10 years of thinking, learnings, and frustrations in my search for a house design that could solve the growing societal challenges we were forced to face. I focused hard on getting those articles out at that time as I was not only tired of talking about this solution, but I was eager to share with the aged care commission that was going on at that time. Those articles simply brought to the surface many societal issues at play and demonstrate just how entangled they were with one another. The beautiful thing about entanglement is any rational solution, no matter how small, should have some degree of impact on all the problems at play. The key was to find the one that would reverberate the most with as little public funding dependency as possible. When there is less need for public funding, there will be less chance for the irrationality of politics of getting in the way. That all aside, I was finally ready to get back on the keyboard to share where I am at with this decade extended mission and true to form with this project another curveball was thrown, enter COVID 19. It brought with it all kind of challenges as many will know, particularly those in Melbourne. Still, most importantly, it reminded us of what really was important, family and the support it offers... If this pandemic has not amplified the importance of home care for your ageing parents or the need to allow your home to adapt to the situation you may find yourself in (home-schooling), then I really do not know what would. Before getting into some the building details, I think it is only right to cover some of the events before the building began. I will first recap on the previous article discussion points up to the point of gaining authority approval to commence construction because if I had received a favourable outcome, this website would never have had to exist.
If you had read the content on this website, you would have become familiar with the problem that putting in 2 kitchens in the one house creates. Yes, you probably know some homes with 2 kitchens, but you might be surprised how many do not comply. They might get away with it but if a fire were ever to occur in such a house, be wary of the insurance claim. You will see in articles labelled challenges 8 & 9 just how nonsensical these rules can be made to look but what probably isn't clear is how I became aware of all of these rules and challenges that surround the kitchen sink. I'll try my best to do an abbreviated outline of the process of ideation through to starting construction, but it has been 10 years so it might not be so brief. I am somewhat apprehensive in looking back, but I need to share the bumps and blockers I have come across so there is a record of how bureaucracy can do the opposite to what it set out to become.
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4/12/2024 07:10:00 pm
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Over 25 years experience in both the private and public sectors o f property
A lover of technology and design that is practical, beautiful and improves the way we live not as a individuals but as a thriving community. Archives
January 2021
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