In 2008 Sydney-based Casey Brown Architects was short-listed by the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona for their Permanent Camping structure, an innovative approach to pared-back residential living built on a sheep station in western New South Wales.

Rob Brown recalls the project was initiated in an attempt to “return to basics”. An urge he believes a lot of Australians maintain in nostalgia for an era when family camping trips were the norm. At the core of the project, however, was a desire to build a structure that responded to the bush environment. 

As Brown elaborates, “the adjustable sides reflect the elements of the bush, they keep the sun out when not in use protecting the inside … [what’s more] the roof collects rainwater and the copper patinas to the colours of the local litchen covered rocks.”  Brown also suggests the structure is “sustainable in a real, not lip service, way.  It consumes no power to heat or cool and it collects its own water.” 

Sustainable residential design has become a much discussed topic of late, and is no longer a rarity in Australian architecture. 

The award winning, Melbourne-based architect Sean Godsell has dedicated much of his practice to developing projects that respond to the environment, but also address issues of building responsibly and sustainably for a diverse human population often affected by social and political flux. 

In 1999 his ‘Future Shack’ structure received international acclaim following its nomination as a finalist in the Architecture for Humanity Exhibition. The core of the building is a recycled 20-foot shipping container, a universal module that is mass-produced and inexpensive, robust and durable, thus suitable for Godsell’s intention of developing a relocatable house for emergency and relief housing.  Augmenting the recycled containers is an umbrella roof that packs inside when the container is relocated and shades the structure when stationary. The skeletal housing unit is intended to cater for displaced people post natural disaster, such as fire or flood (both regular threats throughout Australia), or as a Third World housing option. 

Godsell’s approach is not without detractors. His conception that design should incorporate amenities for a transient population and be reflective of a compassionate infrastructure only slightly precludes popular culture’s love affair with fashionable “sustainable” projects, leading some to pigeon-hole Godsell as an architect pandering to the cultural elite. (Despite the fact Wallpaper magazine named Godsell as one of 10 people destined “to change the way we live”).

Heavy tomes documenting shipping container projects (such as Container Architecture, 2008, published by Links Books) are readily available and many such publications dot the coffee tables of hip urbanites.  What’s more, auxiliary industries have embraced the concept to pursue marketing agendas. 

Gorman Industries, a fashion house based in Melbourne, worked with Nest architects to develop the “ship –shop”, a converted shipping container designed as a portable show space. Installed at Federation Square in Melbourne this March as part of the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival the shipping container was utilised as an outlet for Gorman’s organic range and its recycled design initiative, which was launched to make designers aware of being environmentally sustainable in their work process.

Trying to discern what is legitimately an example of environmentally sustainable projects over what is merely pandering to fashion is complex. It is perhaps a younger generation of architects, those who’ve trained during an era in which environmentally friendly practices are discussed as a matter of course rather than as a point of difference, who will be successful in elevating such practices beyond fashion.

Lorraine Yip, a young architect working for NH Architecture in Melbourne, reasons the basic tenants of sustainable design practice need to be understood by the wider community in order to avoid the industry using such terms as a point of sale.  Yip suggests there are many considerations affecting a sustainable project, for example the physical location of the site should inform how materials and labour are sourced.

This reasoning follows a similar chain of thought circulating around food production and consumption debates.  Yip poses the question: "To consider ourselves sustainable consumers in Australia, should it suffice to eat only Australian produce", or do we need to go one step further and look at what is a natural, indigenous resource? Which is to say should our principal red meat food source be farmed beef and lamb or Kangaroo?

The same logic applies for architecture. Is a sustainable project only that which reflects the indigenous environment, climate and utilises local materials and labour or is it that which incorporates internationally recognised sustainable technology,  such as solar paneling and mechanisms to reduce carbon emissions?

The former consideration echoes Rob Brown’s thoughts on developing a living space embracing the very basic tenants of life in Australia. While governments and councils may see fit to legislate for a greener society by implementing initiatives such as the solar panel rebate and the introduction of a Green Loans program, Yip is also wary that introducing design restrictions in the name of green policy might, “risk an outcome of architecture simply entering into a formula, bearing similarities in the results and potentially suppressing creative solutions to a problems”.  Yip sees alternatives such as a “green star point system” as more appealing as it encourages continued development of creative and innovative solutions in response to local conditions and problems. 

Such an approach may eventually be feasible, but with the amount of political currency tied to green policies, it seems a way off before common sense overrides a “point of sale”, let alone the dictates of fashion.