The house is large, with rounded concrete walls, a half moon pool and stunning views of the surrounding valley. James Bond enters the sprawling living room through a glass door looking for Mr Whyte. “Well, hi there,” says a woman from a red armchair before cartwheeling out of it, “I’m Bambi.” James Bond can only take a few steps towards her before her colleague, sprawled out on a rock in a tiny yellow bikini says: “And I’m Thumper.” What follows is one of the most memorable fight scenes in James Bond history.
It’s also the scene evoked by architect and ex-Grand Designs presenter Peter Maddison at the recent Metricon conference Master of Design in Hobart to make an important point. “Architecture is about more than just habitation,” says Maddison. “It can be both memorable and iconic.” This scene from the 1971 movie Diamonds are Forever was filmed in the Elron House designed in 1969 by US architect John Lautner for interior designer Arthur Elrod. Even the armchair is iconic – this is Serie UP 2000 by Gaetano Pesce for B&B Italia.
Peter Maddison is here for one very good reason – to shake up the Metricon design team. Something he was invited to do as part of their inaugural Master of Design conference (see more on the conference). His presentation, which includes work by his own practice Maddison Architects based in Melbourne and the work of many of Australia’s leading architects, is not just about architecture, but about how our design sensibilities and ways of living have changed over the decades. “Design is about influencing mankind,” says Maddison. “It’s a lot more than a shopping list of rooms.”
Maddison himself grew up in a Californian bungalow (or cal bung as he calls it) – and there he is, a picture of him as a little boy in front of a house that’s not so dissimilar to the kinds of houses we see being built in Australian suburbia today. “We were a very depressed society in the 1950s,” he says. And yet the similarities between this house and the houses of today – the houses that Metricon are building right now – are remarkable. “Why is it the same?” asks Maddison of the audience. “Is it a good thing or a bad thing?”
For Maddison, the future of housing is about challenging norms. The Rose Seidler house, designed by a young Harry Seidler for his parents in 1950, shows just how transparent and yet private a house can be. “Perhaps we should be looking at rooms with interchangeable use,” suggests Maddison, as one of the many thought-provoking ideas he conjures in fast succession. Houses might include car garages that are more holistic: “not separate to the architecture but part of it,” he suggests, and plenty more.
Prefab, modular, kit form, crane-in architecture is part of the future of housing in this country, argues Maddison. We will be using materials like laminated veneer lumber (LVL) and cross-laminated timber (CLT). Sustainability is also vital to the equation, with tools like One Planet Living measuring everything from what you buy to the fact you ride your bike. Another challenge to tackle.
Despite having just completed a four-day hike through the Three Capes in Tasmania, Maddison is full of energy and seems more than ready to tackle his post-Grand Designs era. And the wealth of houses he has seen and architects he has interviewed over his TV career ensures that he is the most up-to-date authority on our housing future. The final word from Peter Maddison? It’s that the best architecture has “identity without grandeur, without cost”. And ideal we can all strive for.
The future of housing was the topic of discussion at the Master of Design conference Mo.D/24 held recently in Hobart by Australian building company Metricon. Penny Craswell travelled to Hobart to attend the conference in March 2024.
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