Potential Meets Caution as NSW Pattern Book Housing Put to Test

It’s fair to say the NSW Government’s policy reforms to stimulate the housing sector have been largely hit rather than miss. However, its pattern book scheme has not had the warmest of receptions. The NSW pattern book designs were launched in July 2025 after a design competition for lowrise detached homes and townhouses. It was last year extended to midrise apartment buildings up to six storeys. More than 21,000 designs have been purchased, according to the NSW Government. But until government development agency Landcom was announced last month as the first to start work on a development using the designs, the industry had little visibility over how they would be implemented. Eight pattern book homes have so far been approved to start construction—at Gymea, Cronulla, Corrimal, Engadine, Chipping Norton, Carlton and Baulkham Hills. And Sydney Olympic Park Authority and Homes NSW are also investigating options to deliver pattern book projects, according to NSW Minister for Planning and Public Space Paul Scully. While the slow start has created uncertainty, architects and designers say the pattern books hold potential. Flexibility key to design success Founder of Carter Williamson—one of the eight architectural firms that worked on housing designs for the lowrise pattern book—Shaun Carter says that flexibility is key to the designs. “What we sought to do is design a framework that was robust enough so people could do the bespoke things they wanted to do with what we consider an Antipodean terrace,” Carter says. “We took the old Victorian terrace model and we made it site specific and climate responsive to how we live here in Sydney.” Garage configurations that can include a studio above and work-from-home office spaces that can be converted into bedrooms are among features of the designs, he says. ▲ Principal of Carter Williamson Architects Shaun Carter. “Often, good design is the preserve of [developers] with a lot of money,” Carter says. “Pattern book designs not only make quality design available to everybody but it then starts to lift the base. “Anyone out there doing mediocre development, they look at what the government architect makes available and they realise they need to lift their game.” This is particularly the case for midrise, he says. “I see lots of really average midrise design, so the pattern books actually provide a higher standard for everyone to look at and realise they need to lift their game and that’s a fantastic outcome.” The intention is that homes could be delivered more cheaply through faster assessments and pre-designed architecture. ▲ One of the lowrise designs included in the NSW Pattern Book. But whether those savings are passed on to buyers is another question, architectural designer and director at The Digital Bunch Arthur Stefenbergs says. “When you look at these designs, they read like boutique homes or apartments from high-value suburbs,” Stefenbergs says. “From a design perspective, they come across as premium housing and in Sydney where affordability is such a major issue, it’s fair to ask how cost was actually assessed.” While acknowledging that the approach reduces risk and speeds up approvals, he questions who the main beneficiaries of the system will be. “There is no mechanism that guarantees those savings flow to buyers or renters rather than staying within the delivery process.” Not only a design issue Stefenbergs says the deeper issue is not the quality of the designs themselves but how the problem has been framed. “This was set up as an architectural design competition but suburbia is not just an architectural problem,” he says. “It’s also a planning issue, a transport issue, a climate issue and a social issue. “If only architects are asked to respond, the outcome will naturally be individual buildings rather than a new model for neighbourhoods.” He says the brief focused on what happens within individual lots, rather than what happens at street or block scale. ▲ FK Architects Helen Kuo principal: Future-proofing is a concern. “The patterns improve single buildings but they don’t really address how streets, trees, light, noise and movement work together across a suburb,” Stefenbergs says. “That makes the approach feel isolated.” There are also unanswered questions about delivery and construction. “Who will build them? Will they actually be cost effective? What materials, facades and labour will cost?” Stefenbergs says. “There is still a lot of testing to be done around construction and real-world performance. “It also raises the question of whether builders and other disciplines should have been part of the process from the beginning.” ▲ A rendering of Small Lot Apartments 01 by Collins and Turner, a four-storey building with balconies for each apartment. Future-proofing is another concern, according to FK Australia principal Helen Kuo. “We want to be designing for change. By the time a project is built, the brief and its intended resident profile would have evolved since its journey from the drawing table to project completion,” Kuo says. This is where diverse tenure and broader apartment typologies such as dual key and co-living apartments come in. Carter acknowledges scrutiny from industry is inevitable. “And that’s healthy. But the government architect didn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” he says. “They have been very responsive and flexible and there will be other versions in due course.” Ambition is escalating The introduction of midrise pattern books marks an escalation in ambition but also complexity and therefore risk, Stefenbergs says. “There isn’t a single diagram showing what happens when these buildings are repeated across a whole street or block. “What is the separation between them? What happens to trees, light and street character? “No one has really shown what these patterns become when they are multiplied.” He says that the Pattern Book keeps the existing suburban transport model unchanged. ▲ Architectural designer at The Digital Bunch Arthur Stefenbergs. “Density is being added but the street structure stays the same. There are the same road widths, the same parking logic and the same car dependence,” Stefenbergs says. “That creates pressure without changing the system that carries it.” So questions remain—and the NSW Government did not confirm whether or not it wouldgo further with pattern book designs for larger scale buildings. “It was ambitious that the government did the midrise,” Carter says. “We’re doing quite a few taller buildings and they’re so bespoke and so particular that I think it would be difficult to pattern them and there’s so many good architects in Sydney that could design those buildings on complex sites from scratch.” Fast-tracking and feasibility Feasibility remains front of mind as construction costs stay elevated. “Sites don’t come cheaper because of the pattern book. But we’re hearing costs in the order of $5000 to $7000 per square metre to build these homes. That really starts to open up the necessary margins you need for the risks involved,” Carter says. Access to the fast-track Complying Development pathway may be the deciding factor for uptake, with approvals potentially issued in as little as 10 days. ▲ A rendering of Large Lot Apartments 03, which can be up to six storeys, designed by Andrew Burges Architects. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel for each project,” Kuo says. “If we have patterns that we know are compliant and approvable, where authority review can be streamlined to its integration to context and site, the stakeholders including the residents will have much more certainty in the process. “The projects will also gain more accurate costing for their economic efficiency through the reiterative application of the pattern book designs.” But pattern books are not a cure-all. “The pattern books are just one of the tools in your tool bag to help address the housing problems,” Carter says.

Potential Meets Caution as NSW Pattern Book Housing Put to Test

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