Architecture practice Schored Projects has designed a series of modular homes for women and children escaping domestic violence.
The Homes for Help project is designed to fit together in multiple configurations. Each three-bedroom home has large rooms, outdoor play spaces, and bathrooms suitable for families with young children. Designing to enable dignity, independence and comfort for the end users, the architects have considered accessibility and silver Liveable Housing standards, incorporating wider doorways and corridor widths into the design.
“Good design should be available to all and not just the few that can afford our skill set,” said Schored director Sophie Dyring, who has worked in the social housing space for 10 years. “With social housing, the big design objective is to design homes that aren’t obviously social housing, to avoid any kind of stigma.
“Our designs consider passive design principles: we orientate living rooms and external spaces to the north and we look at how the form can provide passive shading and cross ventilation, because those things don’t cost any more to help a home run efficiently – they’re just good design outcomes and help reduce running cost for tenants,” said Dyring.
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Schored Projects
Homes to Help is a collaboration between Platinum Institute Australia (PIA), a registered training organisation providing disadvantaged students with applicable training in the construction industry, and non-profit community housing provider Women’s Property Initiatives (WPI).
Homes for Help project partner Steve Michelson of Michelson Alexander said 10 prototypes will be rolled out in 2023 in Ballarat to provide much need affordable housing stock in the area, which has a higher than average rate of family violence.
According to a recent report by Homelessness Australia, family violence is now the biggest cause of demand for specialist homelessness services, with overall demand for services increasing at twice the rate of population growth.
“We know that 45,000 women across Australia will not have a safe and secure home to call their own this Christmas,” said Michelson. “Safe and secure, modern and modular homes that women and their families can be proud of and feel comfortable in; that’s precisely the type of social housing we want to be providing to vulnerable Victorians.”
Michelson said the organisation wants to work with the Victorian government to adjust the terms of the Big Housing Build to create a funding stream that would allow this type of initiative to expand across Victoria, benefiting disenfranchised young people as well as families who have experienced family violence.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
