House design trends across Regional Victoria

Over the past year we have seen a number of development and design trends emerge, with many of our clients making the permanent move from Melbourne to regional Victoria. Prior to this time, a property in regional Victoria for many of our clients may have been a holiday home, investment, or semi-retirement dream. As we take some time to reflect we have seen the pandemic change the way we live, work and relax, we wanted to share our observations on our insights page and we’d love to hear yours too.

Generational Living Zones

With the shift to coastal and regional areas, land holdings and lot sizes increase in size for many families, especially those from inner Melbourne suburbs. We are also seeing that many clients are having a conversation about how the entire family wants or needs to live in the home. From school aged children transitioning to young adults over the years, to grandparents moving in to help support and be supported by the wider family, over moving into a traditional care or retirement home option.

With this many of our new architectural and custom homes we are seeking planning permit approval for are designed space around shared communal living, but with specific zones, where each zone is serviced by a separate bathroom, and even external access, be it off a deck or sliding external access door, over a traditional window design many of us are accustomed to.

These generational living zones are now shaping the future of a family home, that are designed around the human needs of a family, which is designed for today, but accommodates the future needs and shifts to accommodate modern design.

This trend is across both permanent and holiday homes – people want space for the kids and grandkids to come down and visit on the weekends but the master bedroom designed as a retreat area so they can all enjoy the holidays together without being on top of each other like in the traditional beach houses.

Unfortunately, in Victoria it is generally not possible to have a granny flat with bathroom and kitchen for independent living on the same land for grandparents or older children to live independently on your land, despite a huge demand for this style of living. In a promising move, between 2020 and 2021, the Victorian State Government ran a pilot program trialling the Secondary Dwelling Code. The new code is designed to facilitate small-scale ‘granny-flat or garden studio’ style accommodation on the same lot as an existing dwelling in a residential area. The findings of this program will inform the consideration of introducing the code into all Victorian planning schemes for use and are currently being considered.

So as families see the benefits in returning to generational living we will continue to monitor the progress of this emerging policy move which would change the way intergenerational homes are designed in 2023 and beyond.