'IKEA on steroids': Flat-pack homes to bust Australia's housing shortage

Extract from ABC News

Lateline

By Matt Wordsworth

Updated about 6 hours ago

Video: Tiny homes for tiny prices. (Lateline)

With just a few tools and a bit of patience, would-be home-owners can now build their own abode from a flat-pack, on the cheap and off the grid.

A Sydney architect has designed the flat-pack home, describing it as IKEA on steroids, in order to combat sustainability and housing shortage issues.
The one bedroom, 13.75-square-metre home comes on the back of a trailer.
A drill, a hammer and a wrench are all that are needed to put together the 37 panels that make up the house.
Architect Alex Symes, founder of Big World Homes, says anyone can put it together.

"It's like IKEA on structural steroids," he said.

"It has all its water tanks; we have two potable water tanks, we've got one grey water tank, so all the waste water effectively comes to the grey water tank, you add an additive to it and then effectively that's safe to go on your garden.
"We've got the gas cylinders for cooking and also for hot water heating, [and] we've got batteries at the back — they're linked to the solar PV and that's effectively what runs all your lights."

Photo: Pet friendly: A pooch watches on as the house takes shape. (ABC: Matt Wordsworth)

Australians live in the biggest homes in the world, averaging 89 square metres and increasingly owning a home is becoming unaffordable for many Australians.
Currently the flat-pack home design costs $65,000 and it includes everything to get the house running, such as the trailer the home sits on, the off-the-grid technologies and all the white goods.
Architect Tim Horton says they just need land to build the homes on.
"We actually need to be able to curate land, big blocks of land, say brownfield sites or other pieces of open land in which we can host these big world communities," he said.
"These pop-up communities where people who want to, say, spend a couple of years saving for a deposit or have a more flexible approach to their housing lifestyle can live on site on these curated communities."

Photo: All it takes is patience and some tools to put together a flat-pack home. (ABC: Matt Wordsworth)

He says tiny homes are part of a worldwide movement. China is already printing 3D homes and WikiHouse allows people to download DIY plans.
"This is happening around the world. WikiHouse chapters occur in every state of Australia. Big in the US. Big in the UK," he said.
"Big World Homes in some ways is Australia's answer to this — a home-grown version."