Good Fences Make Good Neighbours (So They Say)

Private housing can be thought of as somehow insulatedfrom broader social, political, environmental, and economicdiscussions. Each house is contained within an individual plot ofland, standing a silo of secluded domesticity. But architects designingprivate detached dwellings can, and do, contribute to communitiesand neighbourhoods by making houses that are inclusive,affordable, sustainable, and accessible. To create a house that extendedthe concept of domesticity beyond privately held boundarieswas precisely the approach that my partner David Toussaint andI had in mind when we designed our family home in Brisbane, Australia.However, in testing the established narratives of uncompromisedprivacy through the physical and visual separation betweenprivate dwellings, we found ourselves testing the patience of ourneighbours