Image Credit : Scott Burrows Photography
Project Overview
Juers is a social housing project with a difference, both, socially and environmentally.
Juers consists of sixteen adaptable and accessible units. The architecture of the dwelling’s places value in legible lightweight, compact, repeatable, human-scale forms that draw cues from the local vernacular whilst also addressing the immediate street context. Juers are a series of simple buildings, assembled with beautiful, natural, materials, made up of a series of small, but delightful architectural moments. Each of these were created with a social, sustainable and economic mandate in mind. Juers encourages real behavioural change in its occupants and aims to inspire others to do the same.
Linking the clusters of units is a central biophilic heart-space with shared amenity for the residents to come together. Strategic pedestrian and universally accessible orientated planning create a clear separation of vehicular and foot traffic by placing cars at the sites periphery and accentuating clear layering and separation of public, semi-public and private pedestrian access to each unit. Juers looks and feels different – it was inexpensive to build and manages high standards of accessibility, amenity and sustainability but most importantly it is a place to live happily and with a pride of place.
Project Commissioner
Qld Government Housing Partnerships Office
Project Creator
Team
Architecture & Interiors:
Erhard Rathmayr
Llewellyn Griggs
Monika Obrist
Corinne Trang
Engineering: NGS Engineers
Fire Engineers: Holmes
Acoustics: PKA Acoustic Consulting
Cross Laminated Timber: XLAM
Landscaping: Laudink
Project Brief
There is a need in Queensland for creative housing solutions that better respond to household diversity, address persistent problems of affordability and help to accelerate the pace of sustainable development toward a net-zero future.
As a social housing demonstration project, Juers provided an opportunity to underscore the clients' desire to exhibit the Q Design principles, which are part of the Queensland Government’s attempt to achieve better urban design outcomes. At a fundamental level, the design approach prioritized detached, lightweight one- and two-storey buildings that respond to the local climate and can be built with simple, affordable construction systems.
The internal planning of the dwellings is efficient, aligning to the Housing Partnerships Office’s approach to delivering “smaller and smarter” housing. Each dwelling meets accreditation in the Liveable Housing Design Guidelines, meaning that they are inclusively designed to meet the needs of people with varied abilities and phases of life. There is also inherent flexibility in the planning to accommodate shifting demographics in social housing and changing patterns of living and working within the home, allowing the residents a home for years to come and to age in place appropriately.
Project Innovation/Need
There is a need in Queensland for creative housing solutions that better respond to household diversity, address persistent problems of affordability and help to accelerate the pace of sustainable development toward a net-zero future.
Refresh were engaged to undertake a demonstration project through their work as Missing Middle ‘influencers’ having undertaken a broad range of projects that fall under this typology albeit for the private sector. This expertise was invaluable in delivering a housing model with an overarching priority towards social, economic and environmental sustainability. These are welcome steps in reforming the sector, and the popularity of such projects among the users and the Housing Partnerships Office clearly suggests an appetite for alternative development models that prioritise community and people.
The strategies steering the design are based on providing opportunities for residents to choose between connecting or retreating from their neighbours. Cars are kept to the side and a court is established at the centre of the site, the biophilic heart space with the social hub in it's centre as well as deep soil planting and large, shady trees. Each unit overlooks the garden, affording amenity and security through surveillance.
If social housing in this country were pushing design boundaries, respectively innovating in planning typology, group relationships, home models, tenure type, physical relationship structures and aesthetic realities, there would be more distinguished architects beating down doors to get involved, but for now, Juers stands as an admirable contribution to Queensland’s Built Environment.
Design Challenge
Juers exhibits best practice in creating affordable, climatically responsive residential architecture. The role of the architect in this scheme illustrates the capacity to make housing more affordable through the adoption of smart and efficient planning – build better with less approach and through embracing new construction methods, technologies and pre-fabrication also can contribute to affordability. Juers represents a high-quality example of “missing middle” housing and the potential to encourage market investment in this housing type however, arguably, this project’s most significant impact is its capacity to promote ontological security for residents, as all good social housing projects do.
The success of this project would not be possible without the input of a team of specialist consultants. From the outset there was the need to create a team that could deliver on best practice design within their respective disciplines.
Holmes Fire understood the complexities of using mass timber construction Class 2 building constructions. PKA Acoustic Consulting provided construction methodology performance solutions for resolving acoustic noise transition between the sole occupancy units both of which are currently not standard construction practices within the NCC. NGS Structural Engineers & XLAM worked collaboratively to design and manufacture the prefabricated CLT structure. The integration of allied disciplines and the role of architecture has the capacity to make housing more affordable through the adoption of smart and efficient planning – build better with less. Embracing new construction methods, technologies and pre-fabrication contribute to affordability.
Sustainability
These projects are an exercise in the delivery of rational, robust and economical apartments that also deliver the warmth and delight of good housing and avoid the dispiriting and stigmatizing visual cues of institutional architecture. Within these constraints and obvious socially responsible design outcomes, it was also important to Refresh Design to achieve exemplary environmentally sustainable homes.
Initiatives include:
Average 9 Star NatHERS rating across the 16 units with some units achieving 9.9 Star Rating
Dual aspect to all terrace houses + units for optimum passive cooling and solar access - all are orientated North
Water collection & storage for on-site use reducing on-site detention and transfer to storm water
Use of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) for structural components. Reducing reinforced concrete slabs
Electric Stovetops
Lighting, fixtures and materials specification to maximize thermal, water and energy efficiency
Water efficient tapware, appliances and sanitary fixtures
Building envelope and material selection for effective thermal mass
No mechanical heating or cooling
Secure & accessible bike parking at building entry.
People orientated development placing cars at the site’s periphery creating shared communal gardens
Solar HWU collection and storage
Architecture - Community & Civic
This award celebrates the design process and product of planning, designing and constructing form, space and ambience that reflect functional, technical, social, and aesthetic considerations. Consideration given for material selection, technology, light and shadow.
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