Innovative Housing Adoption: Modular Housing for the Australian Growing Family

Housing must be flexible to the circumstances growing families face as their needs change during the family lifecycle. The purpose of this paper is to gather a preliminary understanding of growing families' needs and evaluate how modular off-site manufactured construction could effectively answer those needs. Despite the large amount of research that has gone into off-site manufactured buildings, there is little research that has explored its suitability as a flexible housing typology for growing families. The pilot presented in this paper investigates the specific context of Brisbane, Australia; qualitative data have been gathered from growing families in this city and combined with established theory on flexible building to develop a preliminary understanding of how modular off-site manufactured construction could perform in meeting flexibility requirements in comparison to a traditional lightweight timber framed construction. Findings highlight how the ability to modify a dwelling is a fundamental feature for growing families; a number of other advantages in flexibility were found in modular off-site manufacture and recommendations made to improve this construction typology.