Home Truth | Breathe Architecture

Taking the form of a labyrinthine house-within-a-house, Home Truth, (winning design of the NGV Architecture Commission for 2024) invites audiences to envision an alternative way of building homes in Australia. Highlighting how small-scale architecture can create homes that are more sustainable, higher-quality and community-orientated, Home Truth presents a powerful yet elegant commentary on our nation’s ranking as the country with the largest average house size on earth.

An external house frame represents the oversized silhouette of the average Australian home. Nestled inside the silhouette, is a quiet, reflective timber volume that represents the footprint of a smaller-scale home.

The project questions the ethical and ecological impact of very large homes commonly being built around Australia. Ranking among the largest in the world, the average Australian home is 236m2 in size, ahead of the United States, the UK, France and Canada, as reported in 2020 by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.