THE IDEAL HOUSE

In 2016 Mirvac and Australian House & Garden magazine launched a competition to design the ideal family home, one that responded to the challenges of modern life delivering sustainability, flexibility and liveability at an affordable price point to promote a better way of living. MAKO designed a multi-generational house intended to adapt to our ever changing lifestyles as we age by including a variety of flexible spaces that allow inhabitants to reconfigure the house to suit their needs as familial circumstances change. This house is a place to grow up and grow old, a place for play and respite, a place to gather and to escape. This house seeks to gently shift suburban lifestyles away from needless consumption and return to the fundamental joys of life such as shared family time, natural daylight, a cooling breeze, a rewarding garden and spaces 
for play. It does this by wrapping the social spaces around one of the most undervalued ‘rooms’ of the house: the garden. This house is about creating connections. The kitchen acts as a focal point for the house with visibility into all the social spaces. Strategically placed sliding doors allows ground floor spaces to have multiple connections to the three gardens. A double fronted garage turns an underutilised space for ‘things’ to an active and flexible space for ‘life’ and all of its messy possibilities.