Architect and lecturer Tone Wheeler together with with A+D deputy editor Sarah Buckley dispel the myths over the range of complex yet logical reasons for our bushfire crisis and delve deep into what could and should be done to ensure that we never see a repeat of this Black Summer.
With a mixture of many years of acquired knowledge working and designing in the built environment and an acute sense of political cynicism, Wheeler pulls no punches when it comes to apportioning both blame and assigning a range of short and long-term cures to the climate-induced reality Australia now find itself having to deal with.
For more information, go to: https://www.awsaustralia.com.au/specifyaws/
Architect and lecturer Tone Wheeler together with with A+D deputy editor Sarah Buckley dispel the myths over the range of complex yet logical reasons for our bushfire crisis and delve deep into what could and should be done to ensure that we never see a repeat of this Black Summer.
With a mixture of many years of acquired knowledge working and designing in the built environment and an acute sense of political cynicism, Wheeler pulls no punches when it comes to apportioning both blame and assigning a range of short and long-term cures to the climate-induced reality Australia now find itself having to deal with.
For more information, go to: https://www.awsaustralia.com.au/specifyaws/
spk_0: 0:15
architectural window systems of proud supporters of the eye and a podcast in the architectural profession for at Australia. Visit aws dot com, Don't you? Or contact one of their turn for support with your next project? Welcome to talking architectural design monuments. Branca Melodic. And today we have Al Well, I guess they're returning. Guests are most most popular returning guest, The man who's been here more time than anyone by May Tire and Wheeler. Welcome tone. Thanks, Branco, and we also have for the first time, unlike Town. For the first time, we have the brain. New deputy editor of the magazine of architecture designed Sarah Buckley. Welcome Sarah so well, we were going to talk about the obvious. And while that I mean about the climate and what is happening with the Fire and Sydney, I guess it's with a with a profound sense of both sadness and frustration that we need to continue to talk about the ongoing bushfires and and associated issues. I say frustration because as we sit here, Sydney looks and smells like one of those smoking lounge. Is that you that you that you find international airports like, um, an editor, is a this sadness. I mean, what Some 3000 buildings destroyed. Um, millions of hectares off lane burnt, one billion animals kill. And as of this morning, 31 lives taken. So, Tony, I'll start with you. What do we need to do to prevent this from happening again? And I'm just gonna be a strange question, but it's an important one. And I'm asking this and when the framework of both design and also in a in a broader sense policy,
spk_1: 1:59
it's gonna happen again. It's going kind, you can't stop it. And that's that I think is the fundamental problem. You have to realize that we're already one degree of warming, right, and we're on the path to two degrees and it will end up with three degrees. And there will be no effective policy on a worldwide stage in my or the next generation's lifetime. We are ruled by Trump's, you know, the whole thing's being trumped. So, given that Jonah is wanting to expand and won't deal with India wants to expand it. One deal with it that America has walked away in the UK is less so, But we in Australia, who had meant to lead the world in it have had 10 years of inaction, and will Liszt likely have another 5 to 10? So my approach to the seas we now the only thing that I can think off that I've ever agreed with the prime monster about is adaptation because you cannot stop these fires from happening there. There are higher level than I have been in the past. And even if we were to achieve immediate cessation of all fossil fuels, we've already gone up, and we're already at the point where there are cyclical, self fulfilling increases. You know, once more of the ice melts you get, Maur may faint. Put into the air, you get more greenhouse gases. So the Bush fathers have actually added more than one year's worth of greenhouse gas to the air. But it doesn't count because it's supposedly a natural source, not married source. But it's already increased it dramatically, cut down their carbon sequestration and increase the amount of carbon in the air. So, on that apocalyptic view, I'm saying that we need to design to address it, said design podcast. And so that's what I want to talk about. Today is ways to design it so that you can cope with it. I'll be out there on the front line demonstrating to getsem climate change action. But I'm incredibly pessimistic and very realistic. We're not gonna have it.
spk_0: 4:31
Okay. Um well, let's tell me what you really think I'm I'm a
spk_1: 4:37
man not known for its opinion.
spk_0: 4:39
No. Okay, Sarah. So on the other end of the age spectrum, and I say that very carefully turned very carefully. Yeah. Um, what do you What do you think of what turned you said when you're referring to the one degree rise in temperatures? I did. Are you referring to that? Great. Did you see that graphic since the industrial Revolution? You referring to that?
spk_1: 5:04
But it's accelerated. Yep. And, um, there are various ways of expressing it. Just in terms of the last 10 years, we've added as much greenhouse guesses that we had in the previous 100 years. So it's accelerated dramatically partly through world population, increasing partly through the industrialization, partly through what's happened in the developing world becoming much more of a developed world. So that process has two antagonistic parts to it. One is that there's an environmental failure with it. But there's a social, the social value in it, that 1000 millions ofpeople have been pulled out of poverty in China and are coming out of poverty in in in India and critically, for us Indonesia. You are now close to being by 2030. Indonesia is gonna be the fifth biggest economy in the world. So going to understand that that economy actually makes people's lives better, it gives them food. It gives them shelter. It gives them business. It gives them movement. It gives them everything that we take for granted education, education and so on. So yes, so what you're getting is a social benefit from all this, which is what the fire right wing concentrate on. Nothing, no loss of life style, well born with that is that ally style might go down just a little bit. But in comparison, the lifestyle off second and Third World countries is dramatically rising. But but it's done at the expense of burning fuels. And
spk_0: 6:42
so I think, I think, what about the whole? The whole gist of it is that this thing changed environment and it in Chinese patents to change rainfall patterns, weather patterns on, combined with the things we end up with the beautiful Sydney comet, we have have to die,
spk_1: 6:58
which which is why it's climate change. By the way, you're not global warming. The global warming was the way in which it was pitched back in the days of 15 years ago with Al Gore. So the thing that I think is really important here is we are on a path. We're already going down that part. There is an incentive for those who know about it to reduce it. But there's also an incentive for a huge part of the world not to address it because it's simply overwhelmed by their social improvements. Their social and financial is outweighing the environmental, so that's why I'm being very pessimistic about it. I think that we're on this path. We, the Western world, got its benefits out of it for the last 100 years, and now there's another hole. 2/3 of the world that want to catch up well
spk_0: 7:50
said that that's that's actually an interesting point. Yes, we got their benefits, but we're now telling the risk the world. Oh, no, I'm sorry. You know, we have to get those benefits look to
spk_1: 8:02
be on a brighter night for it. I think there's just two things that you can do, both of them related to design. One is that it is undoubtedly the solution to reducing greenhouse gases is a design solution that comes from what I call green comma that is green things that naturally better that you don't have to incentivize them will pay for them. They just simply are better. And on the other hand, if you're that will overrun the brown dogma, because what we're faced with in there in the world at the moment with the trumps is the it's the world is trumped by brown dogma that, for all sorts of different reasons, makes all these ridiculous justifications for keeping the burning in the Western world. The the answer to these an example, rather of this is electric cars. Now. Anyone who's driven an electric car knows that it's such a better car. Um, it is such a better car for transport. It's quieter, it's much more reliable. It means far less servicing. It is for redheads. It goes faster. He wanted to, but you can tune it down. Maybe I got Tesla's that do less than three seconds from north to 100. That's actually dangerous. That sounds like fun. As Robert as Robert Llewellyn, who is the greatest spokesperson for electric cars on the name Robert Llewellyn. Sounds familiar. It's because he was Crichton in Red Dwarf. Ah, yeah, that's that he is the greatest spokesperson for electric cars. He test the more it was a kind of minor passion to him. It's now a full time job, as every single car manufacturer asks him to come and test their electric cars, write a report and promote it. So every single car manufacturer is going to electric cars. Why not? Because it's Tesla. Not because Elon Musk, his entry to it, was at the very top end. Yeah, it still economy is really when you when you look at it, um, it was absolutely, but they only could sell it on the basis that the extra costs and song could only be absorbed if it was a luxury car. So it's fighting against the top in Miss Edie's paint lease. On DSO on, I think about his electric car zone. So much better to drive. You get everything you had, but more and it's you never have to go to a petrol station again. So you don't need that buying a whole lot of crap product on the way out as well. Oh, she's a bonus for May, um, and the car can be powered by the sun infected as a battery system. And if yes, House starts to run low, you can actually drain it out of the battery of the car back into the house. There's so much value that could come in that. And, of course, now in America, they actually have electric utes. Sorry, McCain, Akash, but you're just so
spk_0: 11:05
wrong. The cold pickup trucks. You spoke about designing the design part of this problem. Okay, this morning I read that I'm the dean of the university, said Wells. Built environment professor Helen Locket said that design of all new homes needs to include that they'd be well located and design, of course, and in line with SA 3959 construction of buildings and Bush Y primaries and using the best practice, breakfast and planning principles. In the majority of cases, she said, we can design much better, more fire resistant, more sustainable and climate responsive homes and what we're doing today. Purses, Professor, Look, look it. Okay, So as a species that's landed on the moon and it's apparently planet land on Miles Um, do you think that weaken? We can do better? And if not, if we can, Why aren't we doing better now? I'll come around
spk_1: 12:20
to Helen. Look, kids observations about a s 3959 of 1999. Um, I think they do it on three levels. You can design three different things in order to survive literally buildings and people to survive future bushfires. They are to design the Bush design, the buildings and the design protection. And what I mean by that is just go through each one of those. But designing the Bush, I mean that you actually designed it so that the bush around you is better controlled in terms of when a bushfire comes. So there's a lot of stuff to talk about this, and it's a very complex issue here is gonna take a huge amount of time in whatever inquires we have. But his Dick Clark said in the previous podcasts, or being 57 investigations into this, we don't need any more. What we need is for people to analyze it and put it into Precrime. So we do know that hazard reduction can help, but has a reduction helps that closer it is to the building, not miles and miles and miles away. So it's gonna it's got a law of diminishing returns in terms of have Ryan. Why it is because you can't stop a raging books fire going through through an enormous part of the bush. But you can slow its advance, and you can control it when it gets closer and closer to the building's order. The village so hazard reduction is, is the thing that everybody's talking about it, and they're also talking about thinning out the bush. But it turns out that if you've seen out the bush and log it, it becomes more prone to fire, has a reduction in some cases, makes it easier for the fire to start itself, is a farm and adds to greenhouse gases. So all these traditional notions of how you control the bush are suddenly being thrown into a lot because the indigenous management of the bush is now being highlighted right and it and it sticks it in the previous podcast built damages book, The Greatest Estate on Earth and then, more recently, Bruce Passcodes Book Docking. You have both shined a light on it, but they said, you know, this is a good thing to do. What is really interesting is that there's now in the very near future they've been brought forward in terms of their release. We're about to see a couple of books about indigenous management of fire, and the one I want to talk to him is called Fire Country By Victor Stephenson. It's but with two f's if you're looking it up. Victor's really interesting because he's been working on this for many years and he's actually being in Canada at times working with indigenous people in Canada. Infer forests. So it's not so when people say all will get only replies to one area. Victor's gone well beyond that and gone. If you look at the country, look at the water. Look at the soil's look at the material. You can devise design in my terms, a way of handling that bush for fire
spk_0: 15:13
pine and you are remarkably similar in the way that burn apparent
spk_1: 15:18
well at the temperature that they burned, but they've been quite differently in terms of eucalyptus, have oil in them and crowns out. Veronica and I can't wait for his book to come out if it's the 18th of February, so if you're listening to it before they in order it now
spk_0: 15:31
architectural window systems of proud supporters of the eye and a podcast in the architectural profession for at Australia, visit aws dot com Daughter you or contact one of our team for support with your next project.
spk_1: 15:42
What's really interesting about this, I think, is that is the conundrum for the national party because they are the great advocates for burning down everything before it burns. You know, as as first dog on the Moon had in a recent post, you know, why don't we just drop everything down? So there's nothing left to burn. Issue, I think, is an interesting one that the extreme right wing climate deniers advocating that we log the bush and that we hasn't written to use and so on. What's the best way to do it? Oh, you'll actually have to go back to the indigenous, the very people whom they have threatened their entire existence. Let's up. Let's not cut corners here. The National Party, other people who advocate land clearing that even our apologists for illegal lane clearing When when the farmer in the northwest of New South while shot dead a suspect. That was a couple years ago. I wasn't the natural Party tried to explain it away by saying how much pressure they were under to clear the land. I mean, I have no remit whatsoever for the national party at all in this country. I think they've Bean the most retrograde party in terms of climate policy, pushing the nationals who seemed to be so easily pushed around. And, you know, and as we speak, we're right in the middle of a crisis of, um,
spk_0: 17:15
there are no
spk_1: 17:16
nations get their own making. But I think there's a fine irony here is here they are the people who mostly, if you get out into the into the bush, it's the old right wing whiteys who are most extremely racist about Aaron Jesus, population not to put too fine a word on it. This is coming from somebody who's been in the country, grew up the country and family in the country and all I ever heard when I was very young with the most racist terms from country people. It's changing, but it's boy. It's going to change in the next 12 months when they suddenly discover that the answer to the question about how do we hasn't would use and how do we design at Bush? Better. Oh, actually, we'll have to turn to the Aboriginal elders. Huge irony in that, and I'm pleased to see it the second part of the distance of design buildings. And this is way There's been a lot of discussion and gonna go back to Dick Clark's brilliant podcast Number 37. If you're looking in your in your chart. Yes, 39 59 is an Australian standard, which codifies the bush so that it talks about bowel ratings. Just push our attack level and 19 means 19. What's per square meter. 29 29 watts per square, meter off. Hate going onto the building. 40. It's 40 watts per square meter. It can go his hires as 100 wants 100 per square meter Killer walks around the square meter. That, to give you some idea, is the hottest sun shining on your roof is about one. Okay, thank you. Right. So 100 times that. And it comes into wise, radiant hate and conducted hate by embers. It's it's a fundamental documented it came out, is us in 1999. It's been modified a couple of times. It's adopted in most jurisdictions like an Australian standard is, but it is applied haphazardly because you got a judge, you know, what about writing things? Ah, and if you look at the asset protection zone because we're talking about assets of houses or about the buildings right and you're protecting them by having it cleared around it. So if you increase the asset protection sign, which is hasn't reduction, you can lower the bow what you're dealing with. And I think Dick has very, very elegantly discussed the cost, the cost value implications in that which I won't go back over. But I it would seem to me that the key question here is let's say that everybody adopted fire the flame zone as they fire protection level Now from now on and every single building built in the bush, whether wherever it is in Kabbah, go Oh, my controller Lykken, Jola. Oh, Candelo. Wherever was was Bush far righted at fart Flames on. It'll be 35 years before 50% of the buildings had been upgraded, okay, at the rate at which we replaced the buildings. So personally, I think that's pointless. It's great that all buildings should be designed that way. But what do you do with all the existing buildings? And just recently on the Andy website, we we posted a symmetry from the Triple I destroyed an architect association about Veranda House, which is this pole frame has designed by Grand Gun built for David Jenkins. If you haven't seen look it up, coppers, locks, we'll pre coppers. It was done by. It was done by a group called Penders. At that blank it was. It was an innovative thing that led by Marc Ground but side by side, Roy Grounds and Kim Mask and Mara. Interesting to industrialists at that stage, trying to find new ways to deal with things in the bush. Um, it eventually became coppers, logs, and they couldn't do it. In the the Karim Bia Macula forest, the spotted gun forest, a nd is pine. It's another long story here is this beautiful building. There's no way of protecting when you see it and you see it where it is in the bush. If the bush from my guys through there, it's gone. So which leads me to the third part off design, which is to designed to protect the building. So much is, I think we need to talk about designing the bush so that it's got better protection and there are things we can do, and every building that we build down has to be toe. I s 39 59 the most important thing to come out of any inquiry from my point of view, and I have no hope that it will be. But I think this is the most important is two things. Sprinklers and shelters, sprinklers, uh, a way of wetting the building so that the building cannot catch fire from members. And together with some things that you do in the bowel writings, you prevent the radiant heat going through the windows. So what you're then getting is, um, a away off protecting it, no matter what it's made out off and and a bit like what Dick Clark was saying, you could make it out of all sorts of different materials, But so there is actually standards for that now for the sprinklers. This this this is quite detailed, and it's been around since about 2011. There's bean code that tells you it's a S 54 14 from 2000 which tells you how to put the sprinklers in and where they go, and so on. Now, the best example I can give you that is not to describe the code, which is can be fearsomely difficult. And you can read the card has a cost. 100 50 backs, 140 bucks to download it from Australian standards. We should all be free. But that's another discussion is narrow Gonda, which is a town on the South Coast. Um, and it had 20 of 25 houses burnt down and a loss of life simply one year old man lost his life there. It's really tragic, and most of the town's gone. But the 12 people who remind in that town, as I understand it from the reports sheltered in the in the local Bush Fire brigade, shade a marrow shade, but it was protected by water, Okay, And and so But by having the sprinkler systems on it And, um, the head of the of the local brigade, a guy by the name of Throw Phil has said that they only survived because it had sprinklers on the ship when the fire storm was so they were pushing against the door. They were gonna actually collapse the sprinklers, by the way, Different from internal sprinklers in a building, they tend to look like old fashioned garden sprinklers. There are his height, and they spin water everywhere. So Katherine will Yeah, like exactly to get Catherine wheels on the outside of it. Now, Um, I'm I'm actually shocked and devastated for the towns that have gone, and that's one of them. But the the shining light out of it is how did those 12 people survive inside a metal shade that would normally just be a crump of corrugated steel on the ground? Um, because I had water all the way around it, and one arm was saying is that every we need some government program that allows people to put 50,000 or 60,000 liter tank, which is dedicated to fire service, is so It's always there. What is clean? There's a pump. Diesel pumps can't catch, less chance of igniting from petrol. And there's our system whereby you can turn it on and you can with the building, because it really actually has to happen when the fire is pretty close. You know, it's no point waiting in two days out from when it's gonna come visit. Just gonna dry every single town when they rebuild Kabbah, Go put it back the way it waas commandos, his town on the main street. Which is it personal to me? Because we used to go there every year on the way to family holidays. You know, it was just one of those towns. You just love the streetscape of it. Stop. You get a part you get You know, it was just the most beautiful little town. And now, because the streets gone, you need to put it back exactly the way it was, because that's what combined go, isn't it, being that 100 years just put Sprinkles on it all? So next time this happens, even if it doesn't happen, we put the sprinklers there. Maybe it would happen, but you just it's been brutal, but you need a tank. You need a pump in union the sprinklers, and you need government support to do it.
spk_0: 26:25
Okay, that's interesting. You said that's a Sarah. You recently did a story in architecture and design about the 2009 black Saturn. A fire bush boys. Yeah, in Victoria and I are for those little bit believe 173 people died for this. Amazing lost our usual was, I should say, um, there were some design recommendations that were made, and you explain exactly what was mine and what happened. Yeah. Um, I was speaking Thio in where, um, from the BBC A. And, um, it was it's talking about the misconceptions, probably the hugest sort of downfall of the initiative that we will rebuild initiative after the 2009 fires. Um, he was working closely with, um, you know, families that have lost their homes and things like and he was saying that essentially they didn't want to live in a bunker. Um, and that was just the general perception of what Bush fire resistant home waas. Um, so he was kind of grappling with that and then, um but you know, it's some of the things that I thought were quite interesting was him. He mentioned that, you know, obviously eradicating verandas and porches and things like and kind of trying to, um, use land landscaping Thio, you know, put a cement verandas out the front, and, um, he he It's interesting about the immunity, um, that you were saying to clear the Bush lander on the houses. But in what we were saying that the whole idea of purchasing a part of land out in the bush was sort of the the, um, romance of Obviously that's
spk_1: 28:20
why I take away the very thing that you've gone therefore, for exactly the point in having a tree change with no trees.
spk_0: 28:26
Yeah. So he was mean for that. He was just kind. And then you know what? Actually, recently I spoke to another object, um, John King, and he was saying that all of Thea the house is in a very dense bush land should will be sort of disposable. Almost. He was saying that Glenn markets designs were with, you know, the water tanks on the roofs and stuff want didn't Same effective. What are your thoughts on that?
spk_1: 28:58
Look I think the the issue is that the houses should be the best possible house for the climate and the region. And the reason you're there for 99.9% of the time. When the fire comes, you do something else. So I would design the house. Yes, I think you could take care of the bell. But what we've done in some of the houses is we've put metal goals and write the way around the verandas with with water systems in it. It happens to me, this is This is when you bit further inland. You just pour water down the Gores and you've got yourself a giant cool guard. He's safe. You're turning the whole house into a cool Gardy safe on the very hot summer days. Not when the fire's coming at something different. I agree with him. You people didn't want to leave in a concrete bunker. But my answer to that is I think every house should have a concrete bunker. Not not the house itself be a punk bunker, but they should have what's called private Bush Far shelters.
spk_0: 29:53
Well, that's directly. That's actually very interesting. You sign that because from what I found. I don't know. I'm not. I'm not a fair without the country, but particularly in the city. Most councils are very much against that Onda. Also, I feel like that. There comes another conversation surrounding that like, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of even building at house to be pushed by our assistant? If you're just going to build a bunker that's also a bushfire is
spk_1: 30:22
there are two things Sprinkles and shelters doesn't matter what you build. And if you build, as Dick Clark was saying, If you build a flame zone, that's not necessarily as high enough standard to withstand that kind of bushfires. Now the crowning out the understory. So if you and if you designed the building so it's so unpleasant to live in in case there's a bush fire at some point in the time in the future, then what's the point of living in the bush? So what I'm saying is that you have a house that's designed well designed, yet not made from flammable materials, and not with exposed, even when you take all the right precautions. But you design it in such a way that it's lovely. House to live in a lovely building to begging for that time. But when the Bush fire comes, you waited. What and when the Bush right comes you who are not able to take refuge in the town in a building, which is Sprinkle it in this town than you need tohave, a bushfire shelter. There's only 1000 of them built in Australia to this point, and they estimate that probably need about a 1,000,000 off them. So, um, there's a business opportunity for
spk_0: 31:28
someone. Well, there's Costas. Well, yeah, that were obviously, but ignoring? Absolutely. I
spk_1: 31:34
mean, we're not country that's obsessed about having big homes. If you go and move to the bush and you want to live simply in a simple life in your bush, maybe you need to acknowledge that living in the bush is more expensive than living in suburbia. It's not the other way around. People retreat to the bush because it's so cheap, and then then the living so cheap they have. What I'm saying is, you need three insurance policies. You need a really fully paid up proper insurance policy so that if they're building goes, you can afford to rebuild it so I don't agree with John King that you should make them disposable. I think you should design it in such a way that it resists up to a certain point in the fires. But if if if you get an apocalyptic fire, it's going to go. But you're well insured, so that's the first thing. The second thing is, you need sprinklers on the building, and the third thing is you need a shelter that you go to shoulders not very big, you know. They only got accommodate the family or the local people in it. It's building concrete. It's mostly Earth covered it. It doesn't obscure the view. It has some compressed air in it so that you can keep the smoke out on that. You can survive. That's what I'm advocating. You know, if I could ever get in front of Ah A and inquiry, I'd be saying to them that I think that the point is to protect the buildings we've already got. You can only do that by putting Sprinkle ism by adding a shelter to it. So you remember that the houses were talking about our across a huge range off things from things in control a park which were right. It's effectively, said Servier, all the way through to fringe suburbia. You know, we've done a house which is about Flame zone in Epping incident. Really, it's at the end of the street. And then there's the bush. Okay, so, you know, in Sydney the bush comes right up and it comes right up gullies because Sydney is that fingers of sandstone with deep gullies. Emmons. It's really frightening from that point of view in terms of of exposure. Then you get outside suburbia. You get two towns in other towns very between 110 people. Ah, 1000 down to detain. And then there are isolated houses and I think they're all they only different solutions. What you do in suburbia is that you really rely on the flame zone, and you really rely on managing the bush around it. But I zahra must expires. I think you put sprinklers in, but I don't think you put a push bar shelter in something that's in the middle of a community. Um, so if you've got a town with the town centre village, a village center or suburbia even run you have a community one, right. Okay. So that the people who are threatened by that connection retreat to it. What? Um what throw? Phil has said this is the Bush fire captain in narrow Gonda. Is that what he learned from that? Was that every single bushfire shade? So every one of the F s. The rural fire service in New South Wales, the country for a service in Victoria, every single, um, building must be protected by sprinklers. Now, he's a guy who saved his community by being in a bush. Fun, right, um, shade with sprinklers. Gonna listen to that. I mean, that's that's what should be on in any of these in any of these enquiries.
spk_0: 35:19
But why a shed? Why don't why don't we build into the ground? Oh, that that
spk_1: 35:24
that's the best shelter. But what What Ron throw Phil is saying is that there are thousands of these Bush R f s and see if it's bushfire headquarters Nok and they fitted with water and they've got the trucks and they've got the knowledge. If you protect them with water, they become in the local community refuge. Want what happened at near a gondola is that metal shade, Which is the bush fun? I mean, how on earth you have a bushfire shade in a town of any 25 houses tells you a lot about what? The lecture of that. The local landscape ese One of the houses I've done my my old early client, who's now suffering dementia. Every time the fire come through rings, we happens. His tone. Didn't you make this building out of things that burn? I said no. I made them out of concrete shed and I made it out of metal. But yes, if it finally got really bad, it's burning. But by the way, you've got a damn. You've got a diesel pump reaction made. We made a baby house for the diesel pump. That's an image of the rial house. So the house is up on the up on the slope in this and just wet it and you condone wet the ground around it with the building itself. Um, it's it's interesting because it's raw concrete on war concrete panel on the part of it, and when the water gets turned on, it comes. It comes from the damn. It has a certain brown on quality, too. Yeah, stained the build. Exactly. Got a stain on her from having the water spraying. C p A. So we've done everything from things in the country. Just two things in religious. Two things in suburbia that I mentioned earlier. Ron, which again was fibrosis Ament sheet. Good old fiber. Better, much sicker. Sturdy a version of it with hidden shot of sliding shutters and dropping shatters and so on. It reduced down the amount of the size of windows because the cost of the windows goes happened. The cost of protected in windows goes up, but this was actually the house in here. Being I was talking about was for a young couple with a child who said, First House Right, and they were first homeowners. And it was fortunate that it was a family block of land, but don't ever built on it because their problems. But they wanted a very low cost house. That's why they ended up in an outdoor because we're sustainable, but also cheap,
spk_0: 37:57
apparently which, which actually, which actually brings me Thio, a question that's been that's been bugging me for a while. So everyone everyone's been mentioning, you know, that the fire reason. The people who are obviously experts and fire, and it's been a few mentions of them. He Are there other vocations, professional skill sets that we need to bring in that we haven't done so yet. I mean by the indigenous knowledge. Which fair enough, But I'm talking in terms of, you know, professionals or job description. Would everyone accord? Are they are there others that we need to bring into this conversation that we perhaps we're missing?
spk_1: 38:38
Yeah, I think there's several in the Bush fire design. Sorry, the Bush designed designing the bush that I talked about is the first stage. We have some phenomenal schools of landscape architecture in Australia, and we have some phenomenal traditions of landscape architecture. Bruce Mackenzie, Harry Howard Many of the who were people who oriented us back from an English tradition. You know, the walling view of gardens to an Australian around spaces and so on that is now developed in landscape schools into an understanding off ecology, off of the topography and the the soil and so on so that it's it's manager balancing. You know, the usual triple bottom line. Bryant, Right, so that how much money you're spending on it. What's the environmental conditions? But Morris think aesthetically base. You know, there's not much point of living as well as we sign in Iran. It's so much more than living in the bush. If there's no decent Bush,
spk_0: 39:43
I mean, that's that's called moving to Detroit. It's probably
spk_1: 39:49
moving to the outer suburbs of camera more. You know that there's not a single tree in sight, but the bloody place could burn down because of the point for us in your boat. Look, I think the landscape architects have a huge amount to play in that, um, because it's it's It's a matter of understanding vegetation of horticulture and soil types and so on in terms of the design of the buildings in the cities. I think there are specialists that look at the way in which the form of the house could be made to not trap embers. Bryant and the Building Committee designed to withstand radiant hate, and I think that's his building scientists so and there are a number of universities that maintain building science divisions that ah, they have struggled for the last 50 years because it's they've been at the behest of the status ists, you know, And I was I was for a while, toward the university and in light of the impact, a teacher at the university is probably the prime example of that. So I think there should be a huge division of bushfire, a surgeon bushfire design relocated to the San Siro in the capital at Black Mountain. The aptly named every unfortunately, where we you know, Branco, you and I know we love naming things. So that's the next thing is I think this building scientists talking about it, not just the SS assists. Talking about architectural design and the last thing I think there's, um, civil engineers who do the Bush fire shelters and hydraulic engineers who can do all the water pumping and so on. It's ironic, and I don't really understand why the changes might, but only recently. About six months ago, they stopped the requirement for you to have your own water tank on an isolated property with what's called a starts valve, which is that large, open valve that the foot, the viruses, can you think to you hamster and I think that's gonna be reek reassessed. I think so yeah, because way had just put one in in a landscape outside of Baptist, which is a very hot, dry yet landscape. And we put one in with, and it just God gave me a sense of comfort. It's the middle. She dropped the condom. It sits between the middle shade in the house. It gave the whole deal of comfort. And then when? When the locals Bush fire brigade came by and they said, Well, you don't need that anymore And my client said, Well, I'm keeping it. I'm definitely gonna have it Yeah, you know, even though you said I don't have to, um and I think it'll be it'll come back. I mean, we gotta reassess what they So I guess in my, you know, if I could offer you a summary of it in a way, if we're at that end of the discussion, it's three things. Let's listen to the indigenous about how to manage the Bush had it in my tent design the Bush and I think it's a It's not an instant conversation, and it's not an easy conversation, but we're gonna have to, um, have the white fellow sit down and listen to the needs that they have because they've completely re made the country. But maybe this things you can learn from the indigenous and and I am so looking forward to reading Victor Stephenson's book, I own It. The second thing, I think, is that you strengthen the buildings. We redesign the buildings. But I think climate design has always been the basis on which a lot of Australian architecture is being designed. You know, Queensland there is designed for that tropical Hey,
spk_0: 43:31
my favorite design of house Part of me, well, it's
spk_1: 43:33
because it's so obvious. But my favorite designed the way, is that the Georgian villa and stone in Tasmania? Because it's just a CZ much designed for the climate, local and the local materials that are there because you've got brilliant stone infect, no Mona the underground stone art galleries, in a way, a perfect Tasmanian building. So get back to this critical regionalism that Kenneth Frampton used to talk about is what What what what is the local house? So I don't think we should lose that. I don't think we should lose. The verandas will keep them, but maybe enclose them in wire and water. You don't want to lose the roof forms and so on that shed water and gather water. So there's a whole lot of things about the houses that we need to design, as well as making them more fireproof and, in fact, retrospectively going back and looking at existing buildings. But further, you need sprinklers and shelters that protection thing that you in certain locations not everywhere surround, agree with that observation that was made, that they can be intrusive and so on. And it's not doesn't make sense in suburban locations. If you've got a community, build a community shelter, run. If you got a community, get the community. Get some money for a grant to put sprinklers in other community sprinkler system or an individual sprinkler system you know, may maybe to roll for the government with its, you know its role should not be in doling out money for sports facilities, which is really a state, right? It's a role for the federal government to intervene and say This is a critical priority Now. My one last closing thing on this is that before other people mentioned it, I'll raise it when people raise the fact that Australian housing is really poorly designed. One of the things is that 1/3 of all Australian houses don't have roof insulation. Yeah, and roof insulation is one of the key factors in bushfire design is going to stop the heat coming through the roof and so on. Not just the daily. When, 10 years ago, a bit more. Peter Garrett has the environment minister heard this, he said. Um, let's let's amount of program of putting insulation in the roofs, which became notoriously the pink bats, which really pleased Bradford, but not a C, because it's a C I. Is that a pink and bread fits of green? But I mean, that's how perverse and studio waas the Pink Bats fiasco is one of implementation, not idea. The idea I still maintain is fantastic as an idea, but the implementation gave it a really bad rap. So, you know, it's one of those things where our government intervention we don't do that anymore. It's market based, its market lead. Okay, that's the way you feel about it. Let's find a way in which you can fund but carefully organized a way to put sprinklers on buildings where people contribute to that. You know it's not a free gift, but it's subsidized because what we're trying to do is change. Protect the building, which was designed 100 years ago or 50 years ago or even 20 years ago. The climate's changed. We changed it. The government inaction changed it. So instead of trying to get them to retrospectively get rid of fossil fuels and everything else, which is never gonna happen. What we need is to do adaptation. But you have to put your hand in your pocket. Mr Prime Minister, you have toe say we caused the damage to come to those villages and towns. We allowed this toe happen by willful denial and by also willful refusal to talk about the need for better protection. You know, more water bombers and Maur money for the fire ease and Maur professional firefighters and so on. We caused the problem. We have to be part of the solution. You have to you have to put your money in your pocket for for sprinklers and shelters.
spk_0: 47:49
Well, so many ideas for the new normal, but anything but turn Wheeler. Thank you very much for coming to see it for the fourth time, and I'm sure there'll be 1/5. Um,
spk_1: 48:01
wait. We have to talk about the calmer and the dog that how the dream comma will run over the brown dogma. In some point we
spk_0: 48:07
will. Sarah Buckley. Um, you've survived your first talking our connection design podcast. I'm I'm assuming and I'm pretty sure that you'll be back. I'm sure I will. You've been listening to talking architecture and design. My name is Frank Analytic and until next time, goodbye architectural window systems of proud supporters of the eye and a podcast in the architectural profession for at Australia, visit aws dot com daughter you, or contact one of our team for support with your next project.