Reimagining Small Footprint Housing: The Innovative Teilhaus Apartments at Nightingale Skye House
In this feature for Tiny House Zine, we explore the innovative Teilhaus apartments at Nightingale Skye House, designed by Breathe, Australia’s renowned sustainable architecture firm. Photographer Pablo Veiga captures the essence of these dwellings. We’ll discuss the challenges, successes, and future visions that make Teilhaus a model for small footprint living, aiming to address the climate crisis and housing affordability in urban settings.
Photographer: Pablo Veiga | @_pabloveiga
As Australia’s most awarded sustainable architecture and design firm, can you describe the overarching approach ‘Breathe’ takes to reimagining housing, particularly in urban settings?
Breathe exists because the planet and humanity matter. We ask ourselves big questions about housing affordability and the climate crisis, and we consider how we can make a meaningful impact in our work. When it comes to our medium-density housing, we consider size, location, community and biodiversity as key elements in our homes. Particularly in a loneliness epidemic, housing that brings people together is so important.
What were the key challenges in designing and coordinating the dual floor plate options for Teilhaus apartments to ensure flexibility in case of low demand, and how did you overcome them?
When it came to designing our first Teilhaus apartments, we wanted to futureproof the design in case the market didn’t embrace them. We designed our Teilhauss to interlock with 2 bedroom apartments, so that if we needed to change the design after balloting, we knew they could be combined into 3 bedroom homes without causing huge coordination issues with other specialist disciplines, or cause delays to the overall project. The flexibility of the design was key in empowering us to take a risk with the market, but the risk paid off and Teilhaus’s are now Nightingale’s most sought after apartment typology due to their affordability and liveability.
The Teilhaus apartments prioritize shared spaces like dining rooms, rooftop gardens, and bathhouses. How did you balance individual privacy with community living in these designs?
Yes, Teilhaus is german for “part of house” and refers to the idea that the private dwelling is reduced to only what is required – a bed nook, a kitchen, a bathroom, a small living area and a balcony. By supplementing these small 25sqm dwellings with additional communal and shared spaces, residents can flex up and down depending on their needs. For example, if you live in a Teilhaus and want to have a dinner party with ten people, you can book the shared dining room on the roof to host your friends. The bath house is another shared amenity which is bookable, or you can just drop in if it’s open. Storage cages and centralised bike parking are a huge benefit to these small homes as it liberates your private space from being cluttered with occasional-use things like camping gear, surfboards or tools which can all be stored separately and be brought up when needed.
Sustainability is at the core of the Teilhaus model. Can you share specific strategies you implemented to reduce both embodied and operational carbon in Skye House?
At Breathe, we always say ‘Build less, give more.’ We think deeply about embodied carbon by asking ourselves what materials we can strip out, what we can get local, and what we can get recycled or recycled at the end of the building’s life. At Skye House, the apartments have no plasterboard ceilings, exposing curated galvanised services, giving the space more volume. The floors are recycled hardwood with a hardened oil finish. Second bathrooms are omitted and the space saved is devoted to a larger living area. Individual laundries are also omitted and instead we offer a shared rooftop laundry with state of the art appliances and killer skyline views.
With a footprint of just 24m², how did you ensure these apartments remain functional, delightful, and desirable for urban residents?
Functionality in small spaces hinges on flexibility and access to amenity like good day light and fresh air. Small spaces feel larger when connected to greenery and sky. Hardworking joinery which creates room partitions and nooks makes a small space feel larger by utilising every inch.
Given the overwhelming popularity of Teilhaus apartments during the ballot process, how has this success influenced Nightingale Housing’s future projects and your approach as architects?
The success of the Teilhauses in Skye House has given Nightingale the confidence to include them as an offering in all projects moving forward. It has also been a helpful launching point for other small home offerings we are working on bringing to market at the moment. In the face of a housing affordability crisis and a climate crisis, size and embodied energy truly matter.
What role do you see small footprint housing like the Teilhaus playing in addressing the broader challenges of the housing and climate crises?
We hope these joyful, liveable homes will demonstrate to our industry colleagues, developers and the market how successful and popular well designed small homes can be. Because of their price point, they offer a foothold to those previously excluded from access to home ownership which is something we are really proud of.
Looking ahead, what innovations or evolutions in the Teilhaus typology would you like to explore in future projects to enhance its impact on sustainable and affordable housing?
With the recent changes to legislation in Small Secondary Dwellings, we are excited about bringing our learnings from this project to small freestanding housing typologies suitable for backyards and rural properties. We are also developing efficient right-sized housing in townhouse formats that leverage prefabricated timber construction for speed and affordability, and are grounded in nature.
