Sunshine West Estate concrete houses, 17-27 Maxweld Street, Ardeer
History
Architect: -- Date: 1929
Sunshine West Estate
The Sunshine West Estate was advertised for sale in two main periods: in the late 1920s, before sales were halted by the Depression, and beginning again after WWII in the late 1940s. This area, between the Kororoit Creek and Forrest Street, now comprises the southern half of the suburb of Ardeer.
The land was subdivided by 1926 by the executors of major landholder LA Fairbairn: Ballarat Trustees, Executors & Agency Company, Roy Alexander Fairbairn, Grazier, and Angus McPhail, Grazier (LV:V3123/495). The subdivision was first publicised with the name Sunshine West Estate in advertisement of 1926. The Estate was promoted for its prime location in ‘progressive Sunshine’ with McKay’s machinery works and many other important firms in the growing industrial suburb, offering vast employment opportunities. Other features of the area included the recent State Savings Bank housing developments, close proximity to the city, and a ‘certain’ rise in values. The real estate sale map showed a number of industries within proximity to the estate, which included the Maxweld Fabric Company to the east and the Australian [Explosives &] Chemical Company (which later became ICI) directly to the west (SLV Map Collection). Another real estate brochure called Sunshine the ‘Birmingham of Australia’, with shopping, residential and industrial areas separated by ‘beautiful gardens, recreation grounds and wide roads’. Advertised were the proposed railway scheme and direct transmission lines from the Morwell power station. There was also a ‘remarkable building offer’ advertised in the Sunshine West Estate brochure, promising:
A limited number of homes will be built for approved owners, on payment of a small deposit. Any style of house may be selected, and the work will be carried out under strict supervision. One house only will be erected for each purchaser. (SLV Map Collection)
Figure 1. Albion in c1926, looking west from Anderson Road. The undeveloped area that would become the Sunshine West Estate is just beyond the site marked ‘Factory for Maxweld Reinforcement Fabric (Australia) Ltd. to be erected here’. (Detail of photo from ‘Sunshine West Estate’ real estate brochure, SLV Map Collection)
Figure 2. Map of Sunshine, showing the location of the Sunshine West Estate (in black). The ‘Maxweld Fabric Co.’ is shown just to the right/east of the estate, while the Australian [Explosives &] Chemical Company is on its left/west side. (Detail from ‘Progressive Sunshine’ real estate flier, SLV Map Collection)
The grand plans were not to be realised during the interwar era, as the Depression intervened soon after the first land sales. In 1931, a total of 16 individual house blocks had been sold to individual, a group of 32 to the Department of Education (now the site of Ardeer Primary School), and two retail blocks on Forrest Street had been sold. (Apart from this, many groups of blocks had been sold to McCormack and Johnston.) By 1945, only eight houses had been built within the estate, six of which were on (what is now) Maxweld Street, one on Blanche Street, and one on McLauglin Street. All appear to date from the 1920s.
After the war, a 1945 article in the Argus advertised the sale of ‘Sunshine West Estate to be sold as a whole or 3 separate lots – several houses already built on this estate – 293 Fine Building Sites, Price £7325 – 67 lots; also 45 ½ acres unsubdivided, £6250 – Factory Sites, unsubdivided, containing 12 acres. Price £3000, cash or terms’ (Argus 27 Oct 1945:2).
In November 1947, the estate was put up for auction. The advertisement in the Argus (1 Nov 1947:12) noted that the estate was ‘to be offered as a whole’ and included 526 allotments, and just over 49 acres of unsubdivided land (over 45 acres at the north-east boundary and 4 acres with frontage to Ballarat Road). An advertisement for the 1947 auction asserted that the land was ‘eminently suitable for an industrial company desirous of erecting its factory and to build homes for its employees’. The auction was to be held on 19 November 1947, for solicitors McLaughlin, Eaves & Johnston. The plan included notes the lots previously sold (SLV map collection). It was not until later the following year that electricity lines were extended to houses on Maxweld Street, following ‘agitation for some time by residents’ (Argus 29 Oct 1948:3).
Precinct history
In August 1900, Francis Little, Gentleman of Richmond, leased over 2,860 acres in the Parish of Derrimut (County of Bourke) to Lachlan Alexander Fairbairn. The land was bound by Kororoit Creek to the east, Boundary Road to the south, and extended westwards towards Mount Derrimut Road. In July 1910, the land was sold to Fairbairn, Grazier of ‘Ardoch’ on Brewster Street, Essendon. Lachlan Fairbairn had made his fortune breeding sheep in the Riverina, and later became a stock agent (Butler, 1985: 46)
Following Fairbairn’s death in 1918, probate in 1922 was granted to the Ballarat Trustees, Executors & Agency Company, Roy Alexander Fairbairn, Grazier of ‘Spraydon’ on Ardoch Street, Essendon, and Angus McPhail, Grazier of South Kerang (LV:V3123/495).
From at least 1923, the rate books listed the estate of LA Fairbairn, which included part of Crown Portion 4, Section 10 in the Parish of Derrimut, County of Bourke (the site of the current 17-27 Maxweld Street). The rated owners of Fairbairn’s estate were recorded as Roy Alexander Fairbairn, Grazier, Gordon Lachlan Fairbairn, agent, and Jean Fairbairn (Lachlan’s widow), home duties, with the address of the Ballarat Trustees noted.
The executors sold portions of the land from 1920. They later subdivided the land, creating small residential lots (50ft x 130ft) between Koroit Creek and what is now Forrest Street, east of the current Western Ring Road. There were narrower blocks at the east end of Forrest Street, in anticipation of retail uses. Maxweld Street was originally called Kororoit Street, and Forrest Street was originally Maxweld Parade. It can be assumed that the names were later changed to prevent confusion with Kororoit Street, Sunshine, to the east. This land was advertised for sale in 1926 as the ‘Sunshine West Estate’. The first sale within the estate took place that same year (LV:V3123/495).
It is not until 1927-28, that the rate books noted that Section 10 in the Parish of Derrimut had been partly subdivided (including the current 17-27 Maxweld Street), under the ownership of the executors. The following year in 1928-29, the lots sold and new owners were listed in the rate books for the first time, as part of ‘Sunshine West Estate’ (subdivision LP11507). A majority of the lots remained vacant at this date, with no houses built (RB). In 1928-9, Charles John McCormack and Arthur Harry Johnston purchased a small amount of lots within the Estate (excluding 17-27 Maxweld Street), from Fairbairn’s executors. McCormack was a partner in the firm of Woodcock and McCormack, engineers and surveyors, and also engineer to the Shire of Whittlesea (Advertiser, 6 Jan 1933:6). Johnston was a solicitor with McLaughlin, Eaves and Johnston (Argus, 26 Jan 1927:14). The executors made five more sales, before the balance of land (a majority of Sunshine West Estate) was sold to McCormack and Johnston in October 1932 (LV:V3123/495).
The six lots on (what was then) Koroit Street were sold directly by the executors to Robert Herman Stockfeld, a contractor of Balwyn and later Canterbury, on 10 June 1929 (LV:V3123/F495). Shortly afterward, on 24 August 1929, a building permit was granted for:
Six concrete houses, Koroit street, West Sunshine: Arnol (Patents) Slabona Reinforced Cement Home Builders Pty Ltd., 327 Collins Street, Melbourne, builders and owners. (BCCCR, 2 Sep 1929: 33)
The six houses appeared for the first time in the 1929-30 rate books, with the names of occupants pencilled in. The houses were first occupied by labourers, engineer, a wood worker, motor mechanic and a motor driver (RB). The rate book incorrectly notes the owner as McCormack & Johnston. It was not until the following year, in the 1930-31 rate book, that Stockfeld was pencilled in as the owner of the six houses. Occupations of those that occupied the houses between 1933 and 1936 included labourers, a quarryman, driver, cordite worker, clerk and foreman (RB). The cordite worker was likely employed with the Nobel company in nearby Deer Park.
As the Arnol (Patents) Slabona, Reinforced Cement Home Builders company is recorded as the builders and owners of the six concrete houses, it appears that Stockfeld was one of the partners in the business. The company was founded by a Mr William Arnol, formerly of Swansea, Tasmania. Arnol was something of an inventor, having created a “hydro-glider” and a ‘patent motor-car axle weight-receiving apparatus’ (Mercury, 21 Jul 1928:10; 21 Oct 1915:8). A councillor in Swansea for twelve years, Arnol was feted at a farewell dinner in July 1928 before ‘leaving to extend his cement-slab business in Victoria. He has great faith in his invention, which he hopes will do much to reduce the cost of building’ (Mercury, 21 Jul 1928:10). He was followed several months later by Messrs. M and H Arnol, presumably his sons, ‘who are leaving Swansea to join Mr. W. Arnol at his cement works in Melbourne’ (Mercury, 12 Sep 1928:12). Only a year after building the six concrete houses in Sunshine West, the company went into voluntary liquidation, doubtless a victim of the Depression (Argus, 29 Sep 1930:6).
The patent in which Arnol had such great faith (No. 11.051/27) was lodged with the Commonwealth Department of Patents on 26 June, 1928, shortly before he departed for Melbourne. As discussed in the Description, below, the construction details set out in his patent specification correspond to the Maxweld Street houses. He continued to lodge patent applications for new concrete construction ‘improvements’, including a system of timber-framing clad internally and externally with ½-inch concrete slabs (Patent No. 25,242/30), and a method of forming hollow reinforced elements (e.g., lintels, poles and chimney stacks; Patent No. 2059/31).
Interestingly, the Maxweld Reinforcement Fabric (Australia) Ltd. company, which planned to build a factory next to Tower Street and lent its name to one of the streets, was also in the concrete construction business. The company was registered in Victorian in 1925 and were manufacturers of and dealers in concrete, working as an agent for English manufacturer Richard Hill & Co. Ltd, able to deal commonwealth-wide, except for Western Australia (where it appears another agent was located) (News, 18 April 1925:3). One of Richard Hill’s products was ‘Maxweld Electrically Welded Fabric’ (or ‘Maxweld fabric’) ready for laying; ‘it is simply rolled into place and then the concrete is poured’. The ‘fabric’ was available in either rolled mild steel or in high-tension cold drawn steel (Architectural Review, Vol 54, 1923). The Victorian company did not last long, with a liquidation sale of assets in September 1928 (Argus, 17 Sep 1928:2), and formal deregistration on 16 November 1931.
A 1945 aerial showing the Sunshine West Estate subdivision shows the six houses at 17-27 Maxweld Street and faint tracks for some of the proposed streets off Forrest Street (Melb Uni map collection). Two other houses are visible to the north-west and west, which appear to be 60 Blanche Street and 110 McLauglin Street. These two timber houses have roof forms suggestive of a 1920s date, though the windows, doors and verandahs have been extensively altered.
Figure 3. Aerial photo of Ardeer in 1945, with Ardeer Station to the left and Koroit Creek to the right. The lone row of houses on Maxweld Street are visible, north of the railway line. (Melb Uni map collection, detail of No. 848 B1C)
Stockfeld (and his family, after his death in 1942) later sold the lots individually at various dates. No. 23 Maxweld Street was passed to Clara Stockfeld, spinster in 1940 (LV:5545/986) and No. 27 to Violet Trickey and Colin Larcombe in 1944 (LV:V5545/F984).
Sources:
Advertiser [Hurstbridge, VIC].
Building & Construction and Cazaly’s Contract Reporter (BCCCR).
Butler, Graeme, 1985, ‘Essendon Conservation Study’.
Land Victoria (LV), Certificates of Title.
Lewis, Miles, undated, Chapters 7.09 Cement & Concrete: Forms & Systems and 7.05 Reinforced Concrete in ‘Australian Building: A Cultural Investigation’, accessed 18/02/2014 on http://www.mileslewis.net/australian-building/pdf/07-cement-concrete/7.08-forms.pdf.
Mercury [Hobart, Tas.].
News [Adelaide, SA].
Rate Books (RB) for the Shire of Braybrook, West Riding, viewed at Public Records Office of Victoria: VPRS 1696/P0/Unit 29 (1920-1), Unit 30 (1922-3), Unit 31 (1923-4), Unit 33 (1924-5), Unit 37 (1925-6), Unit 40 (1927-8), Unit 43 (1928-9), Unit 46 (1930-1), Unit 49 (1930-1), Unit 52 (1931-2), Unit 55 (1932-3), Unit 58 (1933-4), Unit 61 (1934-5), Unit 64 (1935-6), Unit 67 (1936-7).
Roser, Paul, 2000, ‘Concrete Houses in Victoria 1900-1940’, assignment at University of Melbourne Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning for Professor Miles Lewis.
Sands & McDougall Street Directories.
State Library of Victoria (SLV), ‘Sunshine’ map bag & collection, accessed in the Heritage Reading Room. Includes access to auction plans for Sunshine West Estate.
Sunshine Advocate.
The Architectural Review, 1923 (Vol 54), as viewed on http://booksnow2.scholarsportal.info/ebooks/oca4/2/architecturalrev54 londuoft/architecturalrev54londuoft_djvu.txt, accessed Feb 2014.
The Argus.
The West Australian [Perth, WA].
University of Melbourne map collection, electronic data, 1945 photo-maps, http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/, accessed 7 Feb 2014.
Description
The row of concrete houses stands on the south side of Maxweld Street, running west from the corner of Yallourn Street. Each of the six houses is set behind a front yard, with setbacks ranging from about 6.5 to 8.5 metres. One of the houses – No. 27 – retains its original concrete front fence, which is of a similar construction to the houses. It is 0.8 metres high, and has a concrete coping along the top.
Like the various front setbacks, the houses were designed for picturesque variety, with some basic features in common. These are the concrete panel construction of the external and internal walls, finished externally with roughcast render, glazed double front doors with an Art Deco diamond pattern, timber box-frame windows with six-over-one double-hung sashes in them (singles and pairs), concrete roof tiles (originally painted red to resemble terracotta), and exposed rafters beneath the roof eaves. Roofs are gabled (Nos. 21 and 25) and hipped (Nos. 17, 19, 23, 27), both types with a projecting gabled bay or front porch. All but one house has slender, square chimneys finished in roughcast render, the other being tapered in form.
The houses are constructed with reinforced concrete slabs, used in a variety of ways. Single slabs are used for porch balustrades and front fences (with a coping on top). External house walls are of cavity wall construction, comprising two leaves about 20 mm thick each with an air gap in between. Internal walls are of single-panel construction. Chimneys are also constructed of smaller panels, wired together. The panels used to construct these houses are unusually thin, which might be made possible by extensive metal-mesh reinforcement. Judging from the visible joins between panels, they were prefabricated off-site, unlike other concrete cavity wall systems popular at the time in which walls were poured in situ. (For example, the Rose System, which had leaves each 50 mm thick.) Lewis (nd, 7.08.3) notes that ‘there was a flurry of experimental activity in concrete house building in the 1920s and 1930s, especially in Melbourne’ including a number of cavity wall systems, but all of those discussed are poured in situ in reusable formwork.
William Arnol, then of Swansea, applied for two Australian patents related to the manufacture of concrete sheets or slabs in 1927 and 1928. The first (Patent No. 7446/27) was for ‘Improvements in and connected with the manufacture of cement concrete sheets’. It described a method of creating very thin mass-concrete sheets (1/4 inch to 3 inches), by stacking timber frames and pouring consecutive layers, with paper or fabric between them. The layers would dry slowly as a mass, keeping the sheets flat, before being separated. His next application (Patent No. 11,051/27) was a development of this method, described as ‘Improvements in and connected with the manufacture of cement concrete slabs for building purposes’. The same sort of timber frames were used, but modified to allow for a reinforcing mesh that extended from the edges of the slab. These wires were then welded together when joining slabs together. Each mould was filled with a mix of concrete (1 cement: 2 sand: 3 gravel), and the face finished with a 1:1.5 cement:sand screed. The slabs could be from ½ and inch to 2 inches (NB: the external wall panels at Maxweld Street are ¾ inch). The slabs were then ‘set upright on a suitable foundation to form the walls of a house’, either as a single thick slab or two thinner slabs to create a cavity wall. Apart from welding the reinforcement wires together to join two slabs in the same leaf of the wall, the inner and outer leaves were joined at each junction by a tie rod. Once the walls were in place, the joints were packed with a concrete mix.
Figure 4. Patent drawings for W Arnol’s ‘Slabona’ system. Fig. 1 shows a stack of frame moulds, with four slabs per frame. Fig. 2 shows how the reinforcing wire extended beyond the edges of the frame (and thus the slab). Fig. 3 shows a corner junction in a cavity wall, with slabs secured by the reinforcing wires, and a tie rod (No. 9) securing the two leaves together. Fig. 4 shows the same for a straight joint.
The earliest concrete houses of precast panels that Roser (2000:23) identifies are those constructed with the Fowler system. Engineer Thomas Fowler built houses and silos in the Werribee area in the early 1920s with reinforced slabs created on-site on a special flat tray. Once cured, the 75-mm-thick slab was tilted into place. These walls were solid, however, without a cavity. This method only became common when the Victorian Housing Commission adopted it in 1939. The concrete houses in the Commonwealth Munitions Workers Estate (HO19) of 1942 are an early example of this type.
To conclude, the Maxweld Street houses, constructed the cavity walls of prefabricated panels, are the only buildings of this construction type identified in Victoria. Certainly, the surveys of early concrete house construction by Lewis and Roser do not describe anything similar to this construction system. Admittedly the company was very short-lived, and it is possible that the Maxweld Street houses are the only ones ever constructed in the ‘Slabona’ system.
The distinguishing features, as well as intactness, of each house is as follows.
17 Maxweld Street:
The main elevation of this house faces Yallourn Street. It has a hipped roof, with a projecting hipped bay to the south side of the façade. The small porch sits below the roof of this bay, and is supported on a simple square column with a planterbox atop the balustrade. There are two pairs of windows on either side of the entrance.
External alterations include the replacement of the front doors, the laying of crazy paving to the porch floor, and the construction of a timber extension to south side of the house.
19 Maxweld Street
This house has a simple, symmetrical façade, typical of 1930s bungalows. Between the two pairs of windows is a hip-roof porch supported on two pairs of dwarf columns. The front door is inset behind it.
The house is very intact, part from the removal of a chimney shaft on the west elevation. The house (apart from the porch supports) retains its original unpainted roughcast render, which is a warm brown-grey colour.
21 Maxweld Street
This house is designed in a cottage style, with a main transverse gable roof and projecting gabled bay to the side of the façade. The front verandah is sheltered beneath the main roof line, and entered via an arch in the front gable. The apex of the gable is decorated with a simplified half-timbering, and a hip-roof hood resting on large brackets over the front window.
A carport that mimics the half-timber detail has been constructed on the east side of the house. The house has also been extended with a recessive rear extension.
23 Maxweld Street
This house has a complex hip roof as well as a central gabled porch with triangular brackets below the eaves. The entry to the porch is arched, with distinctive stepped buttressing to the sides. To either side of the porch is a pair of windows.
The front chimney of this house (west side) has been removed above the roofline. The front door has recently been replaced, and a neo-Federation verandah has been installed on the west side of the façade. The concrete roof tiles have also been recoated in terracotta-red paint.
25 Maxweld Street
An Arts & Crafts cottage with a symmetrical facade. The roof is a transverse gable. The central front porch sits under an extension of this roofline. The porch is supported on square rendered piers with an integral planter box atop the balustrade. There are picturesque struts framing the porch opening. The central front door is recessed. To either side of the porch is a pair of windows. Unlike the remaining houses, No. 25 has a tapered chimney, indicative of the Arts & Crafts influence.
No external alterations were noted (apart from painting of the roughcast render).
27 Maxweld Street
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This house has a high hip roof and projecting front gable to the east side of the façade. The apex of the front gable is filled with timber shingles. The rest of the façade sits below a simple verandah. It is supported on short timber posts with angled ‘knife-blade’ brackets, which in turn rest of low rendered piers with a solid balustrade between. There is one pair of windows in the front gable and another beneath the verandah. This house retains its concrete-panel front fence (overpainted), as well as the side fence between it and No. 25, which retains its original unpainted finish.
The house has been recoated in a smooth render. The roof tiles have been repainted in a terracotta red.
Comparative analysis
In his survey of concrete house construction in Victoria during the first four decades of the 20th century, Roser (2000:6) found that ‘the mid to late 1920s represented the peak period of concrete house construction’. Even so, overall numbers were neve comparatively high, with 73 concrete houses out of a total 6,000 in 1928. This trend is generally reflected in the former City of Sunshine, where the State Savings Bank Houses on Leith Avenue (HO20) were praised in the local press as ‘proving both handsome and serviceable structures, and are proving popular. They are considered better value than wooden houses’ (Sunshine Advocate 12 Sept 1925: 1). The following year, in a report on the ‘steady progress’ of home building in Sunshine, it was noted that the ‘concrete houses built in the township are regarded as a great success’ (Sunshine Advocate 16 Jan 1926:5). The builder of the Leith Avenue houses used them to advertise his services to build just the walls or entire concrete houses (Sunshine Advocate 30 Jul 1930:4). A single ‘New Concrete House’ with ‘every convenience’ on Donald Street, Sunshine, was advertised for inspection in 1930 (Sunshine Advocate 11 Apr 1930:6). This appears to be 7 Donald Street, which has a pyramidal tiled hip roof, and an arcaded front porch in a simple interpretation of the Mediterranean Revival style. The original timber windows have been replaced with sliding aluminium units.
Suburbs in the former City of Sunshine are home to a wide range of concrete houses, demonstrating a range of construction methods used in the first five decades of the 20th century:
• 5, 11 & 17 Ridley Street, Albion (contributory to HO24 McKay Housing Estate). These three houses of 1909 are among the earliest to be built on the Sunshine Estate and appear to be some of the concrete houses mentioned in the Footscray Independent, 23 February 1909, in a report on the new and rapidly- developing Sunshine Estate: 'An enterprising innovation is a line of concrete houses now in course of erection on the same side [west of the Bendigo line] probably intended for the workmen'. All three houses were owned by H.V. McKay, according to the 1911 ratebook, and leased to tenants including an engineer, and engine driver, and gardener.
It is likely that these houses were constructed by the method set out in a contemporary article entitled “How a concrete house is built” (Building, Dec. 1907, as cited in Roser, 2000: 8). Walls were constructed in situ with concrete poured into timber formwork. Reinforcement was y ¼ inch (7mm) steel rods placed 18 inches (450mm) apart. The walls were solid (i.e., monolithic), without a cavity. It is likely that the roof structure was of timber.
• Concrete Housing Estate, Leith Avenue, Sunshine (HO20). The houses in this precinct were constructed in 1925 for the State Savings Bank. The method used was the Monolyte system, a system of reinforced monolithic concrete construction developed in South Australia by Mr SB Marchant in 1913. Six standard designs were prepared, and concrete moulds were prepared to suit. On site, the iron-lined mould for a given house model was assembled, with steel reinforcement as well as timber door and window frames set into the mould. The concrete was mixed and poured by patented machinery, ensuring its quality and consistency. A house – including the octagonal chimneys – could be poured in just four to six hours, and then left to cure for a week. After that, the mould was stripped off and reconfigured to produce the next house model. Roof framing was of timber. The concrete walls of the houses were embellished with fashionable timber elements, such as box windows with six-over-one sashes, ‘half-timbering’ to gables, timber posts to verandahs, large triangular brackets supporting window hoods, and small entrance porches with simple arched friezes and timber shingles. This detailing adds a picturesque variety to the small estate with eleven surviving concrete houses (of an original 25).
A number of the houses are highly intact, while others have had their timber box windows replaced with aluminium units.
• Sunshine West Estate Concrete Houses, Ardeer. The houses were constructed c1928, apparently as display homes demonstrating the range of styles purchaser of land in the new Sunshine West Estate could order. As such, each house is different in appearance though details such as windows, chimneys, and porch supports are drawn from a common range. They are generally of a high range of intactness.
• Commonwealth Munitions Workers Estate, Sunshine (HO19). Houses in this precinct were constructed in 1941-42, beginning with brick duplexes then shifting to detached concrete houses as materials shortages took effect. Rows of concrete houses survive on Baker Street, Devonshire Road, Lowe Crescent, Nixon Street, and Yewers Street. They were all constructed by the Housing Commission of Victoria (HCV) on behalf of the Commonwealth Government. As such, the HCV used the patented pre-fabrication method developed by surveyor T.W. Fowler which it had adopted in 1939 at the Fisherman’s Bend Housing Estate in Port Melbourne. The Fowler method was patented in 1928, and involved the casting of solid reinforced concrete walls on a flat metal tray on site. Openings were left for door and window openings. Once a single wall had cured, it was tipped into place. Due to the war-time privations, as well as changing tastes in architectural design, these houses are quite simple in their detail, and of a single type. Each has a timber-framed hip roof with projecting hipped bay, clad in terracotta tiles. The timber windows, with sliding timber sashes, display a nod to the Streamlined Moderne with horizontal glazing bars.
Most of the houses are intact, though many have lost their original timber windows.
• ICI Housing Estate Precinct, Deer Park (HO21). Housing for employees was constructed around the intersection of Ballarat and Station Roads, starting around 1928, when the Leathercloth Factory began operations. The first houses, of 1928 to 1942, were both of brick and of timber. After WWII, a group of nine unusual concrete-walled houses were constructed c. 1945-49 at the south end of the estate, at 52-56 Station Road and 14-24 Hyde Street. They can be described as ‘cottage style’, with an L-shaped gabled roof originally clad in metal tiles. The gables were filled with sheet metal imitating shingles. Windows were simple timber double-hung sashes. Apart from the picturesque roof form, the main architectural feature was the massive external tapered chimney at the centre of the façade.
The details of construction of these houses are unknown, but due to the lack of vertical joins, it appears that they were poured in situ. Like the other concrete houses in Brimbank, the walls are finished in roughcast render to hide formwork marks.
Most of the concrete cottages are basically intact, though many have lost their original windows.
Statement of significance
What is significant?
The Sunshine West Estate Concrete Houses, at 17-27 Maxweld Street, Ardeer, constructed in late 1929 by Arnol (Patents) Slabona Reinforced Cement Home Builders Pty Ltd. Mr W Arnol had developed a cement-slab method of house construction which he hoped would reduce building costs (Australian Patent No. 11,051/27). Each house displays an individual style, though using a range of common details, and they were likely intended to advertise the company’s capabilities.
Due to the intervening Depression, only eight houses were built on the Sunshine West Estate in the 1920s (and Arnol’s company went into voluntary liquidation in September 1930). The Estate experienced resurgence after WWII, when housing blocks were offered again for sale at auction in 1947. The current character of what is now Ardeer is almost exclusively post-war in origin.
The Maxweld Street houses have concrete cavity walls finished in roughcast render, timber-framed roofs clad in concrete Marseille-pattern tiles (originally painted terracotta red), paired and single timber box windows with six-over-one sashes, and double glazed entry doors with a diamond pattern. Many have an integral planter box to the front porch. The various roof forms are pitched and hipped, both simple and with projecting front bays.
The six houses are all contributory to the precinct, as is the concrete fence between Nos. 25 and 27, and in front of No. 27.
Post-1920s alterations and additions are not of significance.
How is it significant?
The Sunshine West Estate Concrete Houses are of local historical, architectural, aesthetic and scientific significance.
Why is it significant?
Historically, the houses are a tangible illustration of the early origins of the Sunshine West Estate, now part of Ardeer. The estate was subdivided and advertised for sale from 1926. While 32 house blocks (and two retail blocks on Forrest Street) were sold to individual buyers by 1931, only eight houses were built during the 1920s. The Depression intervened, halting the building boom in the City of Sunshine until after World War II. The remaining blocks of land were put up to auction in 1947, and this was followed by an intensive building campaign by individual buyers. The concrete houses are the only remaining intact buildings from the Estate’s interwar origins. (Criterion A)
Architecturally and historically, the houses are part of a larger group of concrete-walled houses constructed in the former City of Sunshine during the first five decades of the 20th century. These houses range from single houses built for HV McKay in 1909, to the entire streetscapes in the Commonwealth Munitions Housing Estate of 1941-42. The Sunshine West Estate houses illustrate the flurry of concrete house building seen in the Melbourne metropolitan area in the second half of the 1920s, using a range of construction techniques and wall types. Following the success of the State Savings Bank concrete houses at Leith Avenue, Sunshine, concrete houses were praised and advertised in the local press for individual homeowners. The Sunshine West Estate houses illustrate this period of popularity. (Criteria D & A)
Scientifically, the concrete houses were constructed in accordance with William Arnol’s patent for cavity walls of prefabricated concrete panels, a type not yet documented in Victoria. While there were a number of concrete cavity wall systems used in interwar Australia, the Rose system being the best known, all involved the pouring of the walls in situ. The leaves of the external walls are also unusual in being so slender compared to other walling systems. (Criteria C & F)
Aesthetically, the row of houses is an attractive illustration of domestic fashions in the late 1920s, with an emphasis on variety created by roof and porch forms. Stylistic influences range from California and Arts & Crafts bungalows, to the simpler bungalow forms with a classical influence which became popular in the 1930s. The houses exhibit a high level of intactness, including a surviving concrete front and side fence at Nos. 25 and 27. (Criterion E)
Recommendations
The concrete houses at 17-27 Maxweld Street are recommended for inclusion in the Heritage Overlay of the City of Brimbank Planning Scheme as a precinct. All properties within the precinct are contributory.
It is recommended that the following controls be included in the HO Schedule:
• Paint controls
• Fence controls
