Upside-down living: The trend turning traditional interior design on its head

A trend towards “upside-down houses” is turning traditional interior design on its head.

It’s common in architectural design for bedrooms to be placed upstairs and living areas to be allocated to the downstairs floor. In upside-down homes, bedrooms are installed on the ground floor, while the heart of the home – the kitchen and living areas – are elevated to the top storey.

Also called “reverse living” or “inverted living”, the trend is becoming increasingly popular in new homes and townhouses across Australia.

At the $500 million masterplanned Burwood Brickworks precinct, currently under construction in Melbourne, townhouses with living areas on top are being designed to take advantage of local park views.

Kitchens, lounge and dining rooms are where residents spend most of their time, so it only makes sense to give these spaces the best outlook, says DKO architect and principal Koos de Keijzer.

“One of the reasons we used it at Burwood is that if you’ve got a view and if you put the living room on the first floor, you’re really going to maximise your aspect of that view,” he says.

“Often up against parks it’s really good to put upside-down townhouses or reverse living because the living room looks straight at the park.

“If I had a choice of living on the first floor with a really good sun aspect and really good views and bedrooms on the ground floor, I’d go for it any day.”

Reverse living is popular across Europe and Scandinavia and while it’s been popular on Australia’s coasts, the trend has only started to gather momentum in metro areas.

At Sydney’s Paragon of Pyrmont, 31 apartments and townhouses have living areas on the top floors to maximise light and outlook.

“Vertical living has evolved massively and, with the ability to now add private internal lifts, it makes sense for inner-city living to get as close to the roof as possible,” says Luke Berry, the director of sales and marketing for developer THIRDiGroup.

“Paragon townhouses, for example, have the kitchen and living area on the top floor and each residence has a private roof top garden to further encourage residents to [use] the upper levels of each property.”

At Melbourne’s YarraBend, the new development taking shape on the site of the former Amcor papermill at Alphington, townhouses are being designed with living rooms on the first floor that are exposed to better views and more sunlight than would be possible on the ground floor.

And at the 100-hectare, $1 billion River Valley development in Sunshine North, homeowners are going topsy-turvy to ensure their living areas take in treetop views and even glimpses of the Maribyrnong River.

But the inverted design has become popular across new housing projects for another important reason. Developers can build more multi-storey dwellings with a flipped layout on land parcels than traditional townhouses, says de Keijzer.

“The problem with a traditional townhouses is there’s a bit of inequality because you’ve got the garage downstairs so you find the living and dining rooms are a little bit too small and the bedrooms upstairs are a little bit too big,” he says.

“Even from a logic point of view, if you flip it around it actually becomes a more compelling proposition.”

Upside-down homes are not just for new developments with volume builders such as Henley and Metricon offering homes with inverted living floor plans. They can also be found in new architect-designed homes, especially those on small lot sizes.

Gaining access to a prize view is commonly the reason for the switch, but home owners also want to take advantage of better airflow, light and privacy in the upper levels where they dine, relax and entertain.