Alternative Infill: a design study of housing intensification, adaptation and choice in the established suburbs of Adelaide

Undertaken by major design project, this PhD research is a design study of infill housing potential in the established suburbs of Adelaide in South Australia. It argues that subjective opposition to the consideration of heritage precincts as potential infill locations is based on understandable concerns of a perceived loss of character and amenity, but fails to acknowledge the lineage of these inner precincts and their capacity for change. In doing so, the work recognises established suburbs as having been initially established to provide a variety of housing types and demonstrates ways in which they might return to doing so.
   
   Design experiments put forward the notion that a deep understanding of the Adelaide villa and cottage and their sites has the potential to recognize these early houses as a typology that can continue to meet the evolving needs of the city.
   
   Where the work of this thesis is concerned with identifying the capacity of Adelaide’s established suburbs to accommodate housing diversity and supply, others may find its observations useful to deploy in suburban contexts that are similar–enough in their make–up so as to be broadly comparable with Adelaide. Further, the methods of analysis and exploration used in the work may prove effective for projects with subject matter and contexts that are not directly related to the conditions described in this work, but for which the methodology is transferable.