Knox Residential Design Guidelines

In 2013, Hansen Partnership was commissioned by Knox City Council to establish a set of preferred housing typologies and built form controls across the municipality.

The project followed work already completed by Council as part of a pilot project. Our role was to take this work, expand upon it and apply it on a municipality-wide scale. We collaborated across our multidisciplinary team to develop a cohesive strategy covering design guidelines for residential development, including within activity centres, sustainable design outcomes and landscaping integration.

The project identified four different residential ‘change areas’ throughout the municipality. For each area, a set of principles was developed based on factors such as housing intensification, walking distances to activity centres, and proximity to the principal public transport network. 3D models and birds-eye views were prepared for each area to demonstrate what it would look like if the level of change envisaged occurred. Residential guidelines were also prepared to illustrate the type and form of housing proposed for each change area. The guidelines included details about lot size, dwelling densities, dwelling siting and orientation, landscaping, roof forms and access.

The project also used GIS analysis to estimate the hypothetical capacity of the municipality to accommodate additional dwellings, based on the style and density of housing indicated by the guidelines for each of the four change areas.