Australia's first flat-packed, off-grid home could help solve housing affordability problem

Australians could soon be able to build their own home in just a few days thanks to a flat-packed, off-grid house that could be the solution to housing sustainability and affordability.

The tiny home, which measures 13.75 square metres, arrives on the back of a trailer and can be put together by inexperienced builders using just a hammer and a drill.

Founder and architect Alexander Symes said the portable property, which he has described as “Ikea on steroids”, could act as a transitional housing product that bridges the gap between renting and home ownership.

“We’re looking at a transitionary housing product to essentially take people who would always be left renting and give them an affordable property to stay in while saving for their first deposit,” he said.

The modular home, which is priced at $65,000, comes completely fitted out with a living room, bed, running water and bathroom and is completely self-sufficient, with solar panels providing electricity and running water sourced from inbuilt rainwater tanks.

Symes said the biggest challenge in creating a DIY flat-pack home was making sure the panels were light enough for a person to lift, but still structurally sound and weatherproof.

The Big World Homes, which are made of plywood and polycarbonate plastic, are designed to be placed on unused development sites or vacant land, where home owners or tenants can come together to create communities.

“We want to engage with councils and property developers to make better use of unused land that might not be going to be developed for years,” Symes said.

“The idea is that we could potentially engage with those land owners to create a temporary caravan park of sorts so that there is governance and procedures and effectively someone might rent a plot within that pop-up community for their tiny home.”

Strategic director Joanne Jakovich said the home could serve as stepping stone into the market for first home buyers, enabling them to buy an affordable tiny home, which they could then sell when they were ready to enter the market.

“When we look at the number, they can essentially be ahead of someone who is just renting and saving, even though (the tiny home) it may depreciate over time, they can resell it, and they still manage to get themselves ahead of the typical rental market.”

She noted buyers could also have the homes on their property without getting council approval, as they are registered as vehicles, meaning they could be used as a granny flat.

Big World Homes ambassador Ella Colley, who will spend four months living in the first flat-pack home next year, was blown away by the prototype, which was launched at the Sydney Architecture Festival this week.

“I’m so excited I can’t even begin to explain, I’ve been living in New York so I’m pretty used to small, tiny apartments … in my mind it was actually smaller than it is in reality, it’s actually surprisingly spacious and it looks awesome,” she said.

“What I’m really excited about is the challenge to try and think about simplifying, about not having anything that only fulfils one purpose, but having everything kind of be multi-use and what I’m going to try and do while living in the Big World Home is live like I would in any other apartment, have friends come over dinner, have friends stay over and just kind of see what it’s like.”

While Symes also plans to spend time living in the modular home, he admits the thought of relying on rain water for short showers isn’t so appealing to his wife.

“The biggest fallback is that because of the roof area, the amount of rain water you can actually collect is limited,” he said. “We tried to create a product that is as low cost and as efficient as possible, you could make things larger but then you’ve got more costs, so we’ve tried to measure the amenity with affordability.”

Symes said Big World Homes was in the process of finding partners for the project and was in discussions with developers to find possible sites for the first pop-up community.

The completed Big World Home will be on public display at Central Park as part of the Sydney Architecture Festival until October 3.