DEATH OF THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN DREAM

FOREWORD

Writing the following article 11 years ago, I expressed the hope that Australian architects and planners would learn from the deadly bushfires of the previous month and rethink their commitment to the single-family dwelling and the Great Australian Dream it embodied. In many architects’ minds, as the countless publications of well-designed dwellings comfortably nestled among tall eucalyptus trees around city fringes are meant to show, that dream also embodies aspirations of being closer to nature.

Those aspirations, however, as the terrible fires of summer 2019/20 proved all too clearly, are founded upon a dangerous deception. Far from getting closer to and respecting nature, in spreading ever outwards into the bush Australian architects have only been creating an image of closeness to nature – a delusion that has now been cruelly shattered by the reality of vast areas of scorched land across the country and many homes and lives lost yet