IMBY: Creating a model for density that maintains suburban values

With Greenfield approaches becoming less popular among city councils, forms of densification are being sought out, the most common yet unprecedented form being infill housing. On grounds of this, other methods including apartments are being considered the best solution. For suburban cities, this runs the risk of ignoring fundamental suburban qualities that have been highly desired in New Zealand since settlement, such as open space, autonomous land ownership, and control over one’s own property. Considering ‘the state house’ as a foundational suburban housing model for New Zealand, the Hutt Valley becomes the focus of study for this thesis. This thesis proposes using infill as a viable solution and means of exploring suburban living to produce a model of densification that offers both continuity with and transformation of cultural and architectural traits of suburban living. It argues for more compact and affordable models that are easily applicable to current New Zealand suburbia and are more responsive to current households. By exploring suburbia at different scales and exploring the current housing layout, new forms of suburban density are formed, where flexibility and neighbourliness are prioritized. The resulting dwelling is arranged based on the varying social needs of humans, allowing inhabitants to define private, shared and public areas both internally and externally.