A significant output of our IRP4 (Water sensitive outcomes for infill developments) research team is the Infill typologies catalogue for informing better infill design.

The catalogue features a range of housing typologies, at densities and configurations relevant to Australian cities and applicable to different contemporary infill development scenarios, and evaluated for their water sensitive performance.

We are now releasing the catalogue for public comment.

The public release follows a constructive period of CRCWSC participant feedback and revision of this important resource. The goal is to make it easier for councils, planning agencies and developers to understand and access good dwelling design, which we know can mitigate adverse water impacts, such as increased stormwater runoff and stretched water supplies. We also know good dwelling design can use water to create water-related amenity and liveability.

If you’d like to view the housing typologies and have your say, please access a copy here.

CRCWSC researchers at Monash University and The University of Western Australia created and selected the housing designs, in tandem with researchers at The University of Queensland who completed the performance evaluation.

The infill typologies catalogue is a companion resource for the draft infill evaluation framework which provides consistent and objective methods for evaluating the water sensitive performance of alternative infill design options.

You can see some examples of alternative infill typologies here:

Initial performance evaluations of example typologies have predicted that increased dwelling densities can be achieved without further increases to stormwater runoff. The designs achieve this in a variety of ways, including:

  • reducing building footprints to maximise impervious surfaces
  • arranging the built form more efficiently on a site
  • using permeable paving
  • encouraging greater consideration of shared private and shared communal spaces.

Following this round of public comment on the Infill typologies catalogue, our IRP4 team will finalise the resource and release a final version later this year. If you have questions about the catalogue or the work of our IRP4 team, please contact Tammie Harold (tamara.harold@uwa.edu.au).

Last updated: 7th Apr 2020