About … Workable Homes for Living

Imagine.

A versatile home that accommodates all your immediate and future housing needs.

A modern and flexible space that readily adapts to your evolving life – your needs, your style, and that of your family.

A home to suit everyone; customised just for you.

The Concept

We’ll talk about your daily life – your hopes and aspirations, your challenges. How you want to live. What you need to have around you. What you need nearby.

Some people know their (life)style well, others like to have time and ideas to explore their options. We’ll help you create a home that allows you to live your best life. And we’ll work with you to create a space that will evolve and change with you. We’ll build a workable home for living, and a home for life.

We build the modules in the factory (no weather delays in the build) and then we deliver them to site. The “site” could be vacant land, in-fill, or an extension to an existing residence. We are currently looking into the possibility of using vacated office buildings as a site for our homes.

Building this way gives enormous flexibility for the life of the dwelling. The structurally self-contained housing modules can be added or removed from the site as family or community needs change. They can

• Stand alone (be individually titled on small lots) or be co-located and arranged according to the site characteristics, individual needs and group support provisions.
• Connect in ways that allow the modules to have some shared facilities while maintaining privacy for individual residents
• Allow a home to be enlarged or reduced according to family needs and stages of life
• Allow modules/homes to be moved if geographic relocation is required (e.g. change in family circumstances or need to access services/support in a different location)

Features

A home for life, to ease the load …

… on individuals and families

… on carers and friends

… on finance and funds

… on the environment

Individuals and Families features:

• All the units are wheel-friendly, designed with circulation spaces that exceed AS1428.2 (enhanced design for access and mobility). The building system also allows us to design for the very small percentage of people who need extra large spaces for manoeuvring large wheelchairs and specialised equipment.
• Fixtures and fittings are selected in line with Universal Design principals. This makes everyday living easier for everyone. There are no small steps at doorways or on paths, so you can easily manoeuvre your bike, laundry trolley, shopping trolley, pram or pusher. Doors and cupboards open easily with one hand (and sometimes with your elbow or knee) which makes it easier to help children or carry things. Spaces are designed for uninterrupted flow of movement with plenty of space and light for your household tasks. There are no awkward corners or doors obstructing corridors.
• The modules are structurally designed so that assistive devices can easily be installed without major structural changes. There are anchor points for easy installation of ceiling hoists, and the sliding doors can still open and close where a ceiling track goes through a doorway. There is ready access to fit automatic doors, and we can provide door handles that allow sliding doors to fully recess into the wall cavity for the full width of the door opening to be used. Bathroom and kitchen fittings can suit either wheelchair or standing access.
• The modular design allows dwellings to be configured in relation to the needs of the street, services and the community.
• Speed of construction combined with flexibility of design and size (as above) enables a quick turnaround to meet your changing needs.

Carers and Friends features:

• The designs encourage intergenerational and shared support housing, with each module capable of being delivered on its own freehold title.
• Designs can be adopted, adapted, and arranged to suit individual care needs, group dynamics and community engagement.
• Designs are flexible and changeable throughout the life span of the people and the buildings.

Finances and Funds features:

• The core construction features of the modules are easily adapted to your individual needs, thus giving you the cost savings of multiple/mass production while also being styled to suit your needs and preferences
• General low maintenance materials leads to fewer ongoing costs over the life of the building.
• The flexibility of the design – the ability to change as life circumstances change – leads to less cost over the lifetime of the building and to the people living in it.
• Any costs associated with specialised equipment or assistive devices you may need in the future will be vastly reduced by the integrated design features of Workable Homes for Living.
• We are investigating alternative funding options for people on low incomes … contact us for an update

Environmental features:

• Minimise heating and cooling costs by reducing heat transference into and out of the house; flow through ventilation for warm weather and trapping hot air inside colder days
• All timber products are from plantation or recycled material
• Modules are designed to use standard sized materials, thus reducing waste. Factory construction further minimises materials and resources used
• We use the latest in resource-saving fittings, such as toilet suites and lighting
• 19mm particle board is used for all wall linings – this is a robust material that withstands difficult treatment and supports weight-bearing fixtures at any point of the wall
• Modules can be joined with light-weight roofing systems to create large spaces with minimal materials and cost
• There is minimal disturbance to the land, particularly on sloping sites, thus reducing costs and the environmental impact
• Homes can be fitted with solar panels, water tanks, and can be prepared for off-grid use.

Easing into place; making it easy to move in.