Q: Housing? A: Infill.

The exam is beyond ridiculous. Jobbing architects know that the process is as important than the product. Sometimes more so. And nowhere is this more evident than in the missing middle: inserting infill housing into existing suburbs runs the full gauntlet: difficult sites, unrealistic clients, negative Councils, activist NIMBYs, and reluctant banks. It’s a hard slog, mostly well rewarded, occasionally not..

Recent reports by the NSW Productivity Commission and Investment Victoria have shown that the optimum place for new housing is in old suburbs, and recent columns have shown that older typologies, are the new concepts. It’s back to the future, twice over. Firstly, there are always underutilised sites within existing suburbs that provide ideal opportunities for increased density, of better quality, without a loss of local amenity. These may be brownfield or greyfield, private or public, large or small. But all have the possibility for better housing..

The missing middle is term we are hearing a lot in this housing crisis. Originally coined to describe a lack of housing development in middle ring suburbs, it proves helpful in ways other than planning. It can describe middle density housing, missing in the ‘low-rise vs high-rise’ debate. It could also describe a middle way compromise on housing policy, between federal Labor and the Greens that is so far MIA..

There’s lots of talk right now about what to build for the 600,000+ houses that Australia needs right now, and much of that focusses on sustainability. So, last week I weighed in with the proposition that the most sustainable precedent we have is right under our noses: it’s 3 to 4 storey walk-up flats. Some scoffed. Some laughed. But I ask you to look beyond the stark outline, the textured red and orange brickwork and the wiggly wrought iron to see the inherent possibilities in a past modest form for a future sustainable typology..

What is the brief for the most sustainable residential development? What is the most fully rounded solution to best address the triple bottom line of environmental, social, and financial considerations? The surprising answer can be found in nine criteria that are all running in one direction..

The ternary suggests there is always a third alternative in our binary world. One issue is housing where the binary is homes or high rises, but neither is sustainable. Detached homes are low in density, far from services, requiring energy hungry cars on underutilised streets that are ground killers. By contrast, high rise units increase the density, and hence proximity of residents to services, but have massive energy demands for lifts, AC and exhausts. A third way is low + close..

Last week’s column on the major shift in Australian politics and life, from binary to ternary, raised a few questions, such as where did the name ‘ternary’ come from and how did I come to that notion. First answer - easy, computer theory. Second answer - bit harder, but it gets to the heart of this column’s main interest: design and politics. Like many, I am constantly disappointed in the quality of political journalism in this country, its limited horizons, its right bias and, more than anything, its complete lack of understanding of the importance of design..

For so long, Australia has been a binary nation: Indigenous + Invaders. Labor + LNP. Men + Women. Cities + The Bush. Owners and Renters. But seismic shifts are happening. We are moving to ‘ternary’, or base of 3. Now everything is ‘three-way’. Noel Pearson, in his searing analysis for ‘The Voice’, identifies indigenous, white settlement and multiculturalism. The demise of the LNP in the last two years has seen the rise of Greens, Teals, and Independents as a third force..