Jason Kilgour bought his in Blackburn in 2014. He’s opened it up a bit and made a few changes,but the bones are of the Small Homes Service’s T2 124,designed by Boyd’s offsider,Neil Clerehan.
“People say it’s got a good vibe to it,a good feeling to it,” Kilgour says. “It felt inviting and comfortable. People say it’s a great house.”
A lot of this is to do with the light — something acutely missing from many modern apartments.
“In the morning,it gets the morning light from the backyard. The front of the house faces west,there are floor-to-ceiling windows in the living area,then lovely light through the house,” Kilgour says.
By modern standards,it’s a bit of a strange shape,but “we love the long hallway — the kids run down it,the dogs run down it”.
Estelle Pratt lives in the same house that she and her husband built from the Small Homes Service in Doncaster in 1959 — the T377,also designed by Clerehan. She’s been there for 64 years and counting.
‘The cost of housing must be attacked by other means than shrinking the house to a dog kennel.’
Robin Boyd
“I looked at the plan and said to my fiance at the time,‘that’s the house we’re going to have’,and he said,‘Oh,really?’,” Pratt says. Its crucial attributes were a separate toilet,bathroom and shower. “My husband didn’t understand but you could use the bathroom and the shower at the same time.”
Pratt,who did not want to be photographed for this article,loves her “little cottage in the woods” in which she raised four children. Now her daughter and granddaughter have moved back in with her.
“We’re very lucky,it’s been very sound ... And the garden has grown like a mad thing,” Pratt says. “I’m not going anywhere. I hope to go out feet first.”
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Historian Tony Lee,who has written a forthcoming book on Boyd and the Small Homes Service,says the houses were a reflection of people’s aspirations and lifestyles. After the war,people were identifying themselves as being different,he said,wanting a less cluttered life and more access to the outdoors.
Another revolution is under way:the need in Melbourne to live affordably,but with more urban density in apartments,units and townhouses.
Boyd would have had a view about how we should,and should not,be building them.
“The approach to cheap housing should not be made by asking people to live in minimum-size rooms in a minimum-size house on a minimum block of land,” he wrote. “The results of such a policy can only mean minimum-size families,narrow outlooks and future slums.”
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