Stefan speaks with Jeremy McLeod, architect and co-founder of Nightingale Housing, who shares insights into how language shapes our views on housing.
From homes as 'human rights' to properties as mere market commodities, Jeremy discusses the tensions architects face when balancing sustainable living with real estate market demands. Could clearer communication bridge the gap between profit-driven developers and social responsibility?
This episode explores whether the traditional Australian narrative of housing as a marker of success still serves society - or if it's time to rewrite this story entirely.
Credits
Host: Rune Pedersen joined by Stefan Delatovic
Producers: Rune Pedersen at Onomato People, Stefan Delatovic
Writers: Rune Pedersen and Stefan Delatovic
Artwork: Wendy Tang
Post production and sound design: Dom Evans and James Coster at EARSAY
SBS Audio team: Joel Supple, Max Gosford, Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn
Guests: Jeremy McLeod, Co-Founder & Director, Breathe Architecture + Co-Founder at Nightingale Housing
Transcript:
Stefan: How humans talk is an SBS podcast recorded on Wurundjeri country. We pay our respects to the custodians of this land, which has been shaped by stories and language and love for generations.
Montage: You're listening to SBS news. Research suggests a chance at home ownership is looking more and more like a thing of dreams.
Montage: Now what we've got in Australia is this tipping point so we've kind of flipped over from being a home owning nation to a renting nation. They may never afford to break into the housing market 30 to 40 years before I can save up to get enough. Got to build, build, build. Reality, creating a wicked problem for the nation. In order to increase supply in a profitable way, housing prices need to keep rising 68% fear that asking for a repair would lead to a rent increase. It would lead to eviction, many of them facing issues with pest control, such as cockroaches and ants. There's so much trauma that comes with living and housing. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that 5100 people every day are being helped by specialist homelessness services across the state, more than a third of MPs own more than three properties.
Rune Pedersen: Stefan, what is the Great Australian Dream?
Stefan: Well, look, I'm not gonna lie to you, man, I think this is gonna be a touchy subject for a podcast about the importance of language. Okay, why? Well, the Great Australian Dream is this big chunk of our national mythology. It's this idea that the Great Australian Dream is that everyone should own a house,
and usually, like a picture of, like a three bedroom house with a yard and a barbecue and a dog, right? That's, that's the Great Australian Dream and rune, I'm here to tell you,
it's not true. It's a lie. It's a big lie.
Stefan: We talk about this idea that everyone deserves a home, but we're not actually doing anything to help people actually afford a home. Okay, so what does it mean for a country's internal mythology to get out of step with reality like this. Nothing good, my friend, nothing good at all.
Rune Pedersen: You, you seem a little bit mad.
Stefan: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Having strong feelings about housing is an important part of being an Australian. Well, I do feel like people talk about it all the time, like all the time. People love talking about homes and houses and prices. Yeah, people who have homes love talking about that stuff. All they talk about is their house values have gone up and then up and then up and then up and then up.
Rune Pedersen: Yeah. But I mean, isn't that good?
Stefan: Oh, I don't know. Is it good? Is it good to only be able to truly get ahead financially by simply existing next to a property portfolio like then thinking we're all wizards, just because we've fallen backwards into a rigged system?
Rune Pedersen: I Is it, is it good? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, man, but it's interesting, like, so, you know, growing up in Denmark, it's, I grew up in something called El min boli, and it's kind of like social housing, but it's a bit different than here. It was actually pretty good. Like, we had a home that felt like a home. It was rent controlled, and it was pretty good quality. And I think, like, they built them close to, like schools and, you know, public transport. So we never really thought about, like owning a home. And come to think about it, I don't think it was ever really a dream, like, I know, my parents owned a house at some point, and then they rented, and then my dad owned one again later, and then rented and and now they're back to renting. And it was never really, it was
Rune Pedersen: never really a thing. So you can, you can rent your whole life, and you can retire feeling safe. Well, that must be nice. Yeah, it's interesting, because living here, I do feel this pressure. I feel like I've adopted a weight. If I don't buy a home, I will have failed in in life, basically,
Stefan: yeah, I think, and I think that's why I say that is, it is a vexing issue for a podcast about communications, because that's that's language for you. Like we've built this story about this dream, and in doing so, we tell Australians that they should be chasing home ownership, and it's a big part of their identity. But then, through either inaction or ill intent, we keep moving that dream further away. And so I think everybody ends up feeling like a fraud or a failure.
Rune Pedersen: So why don't we just collectively decide that housing is for living and we can make money somewhere else, like I. Stop cannibalizing, essentially, future generations.
Stefan: Oh, I've ruined so many dinner parties talking about this.
Rune Pedersen: Well, now that I think of it, I I really think you should talk to someone about this,
Stefan: like, yeah, like a therapist, maybe.
Rune Pedersen: But I was thinking someone who knows about housing,
Stefan: yes, so I did just that, and I sat down with Jeremy McLeod, an architect and a developer of sustainable housing.
Jeremy: So as an architect, we build housing, and being frustrated about the quality of housing, or the type of housing or the way that housing was delivered, I helped start a not for profit organization to try and deliver better housing to more people.
Stefan: How do you talk about housing? Well, importantly,
Jeremy: I talk about housing as something that you live in, which is I thought, you know, I always thought that was the dictionary definition of what, you know, what housing is. But increasingly, increasingly, as I've been involved in the development of housing that a lot of other developers refer to it as, as product or market mix, or doors or boxes or keys, you know. So a lot of other people who you know, let's face it, in in our society, you know, we don't build a lot of the state doesn't build a lot of housing for its people. You know, since I think that the 80s or the 90s, the state has given over the responsibility of housing its people to the private market. And of course, the private market is generally driven by profit, and so they see housing as a product, you know, or as units to be moved. So it's been interesting for me to kind of be sitting in those rooms, not, you know, just finding it incredibly frustrating that people are talking about housing, which I consider to be a basic human right, as as product or units to be moved by the end of the financial year. It has made it hard for me historically, because I've, you know, you know, stupidly taken offense to it and corrected real estate agents. You know that we're not talking about product, we're talking about housing and people's lives, and, you know, all of those things. But in the last few years, I've actually decided that if I'm going to have agency and deliver more housing, that I need to actually, particularly in my role as an architect, understanding that I don't have that much power in the relationship as an architect. So I have to play along with the game. And so I now will will talk in the same language that they do. I talk about product market share, you know who they're going to sell to, and all those things to try and make sure that they understand that I understand that they have a financial imperative to me, and they don't need to worry about what I need to deliver on. So for me, I need to deliver on sustainability and humanity, and I'll do that, and as long as they get their their profit margin or that the feasibility makes financial sense for them, and they can call it whatever they want, that's okay, but I did have to learn to talk the same language that they were talking. Otherwise I seemed like a fringe hippie rather than a elegant part of the housing delivery system in the 80s, you know, when you know, if you bought a beta max, you know, to watch your your your videos on it was a superior technology, you know, and that all we had to do was teach all the people with VHS is that the Betamax was a superior technology. It had better sound better, film quality. We should all just get the Betamax. But because more people had VHSs, they were cheaper, they were smaller, you know, and for a number of reasons, you know, the market adopted VHS. And eventually, you know, my family just got a VHS, you know, we just, you know, I think that it's the, it's the dominant paradigm which wins, right? So it's the same in housing. I have to accept that, if I'm an architect, working in the private market, delivering housing here, I need to talk for dominant language, you know. So it's not, it's no point talking Latin anymore. I guess Stefan, we have to speak,
Stefan: Yeah, us like you see a lot of public conversation about housing affordability, and we talk about being the lucky country, and that the Australian dream is everyone to have a house. But then, as you say, the dominant language does seem to be sort of maximizing profits.
Jeremy: I've learned that developers aren't evil over time, like I've definitely, you know, initially I thought that they were just profit hungry, you know, moguls trying to, you know, extract as much value and deliver poor quality housing. What I have learned is that, particularly past five years, that delivering housing is hard and complex. Success, and that, yes, developers do it to make a profit, but they also undertake significant risk to do that. And so, so I do have more respect for developers. I have a lot of respect for what they do actually, and understand why they want to make a profit. It's a positive number, and that the higher that number is, the better it is right. You can measure the success or not of a housing development based on whether that number is a negative number or a positive number. And so everyone focuses on that, because that means success. So everyone talks about that in the property development sector and the building sector, because everyone's got to make money, because if they don't make money, and they won't build more housing. So it is interesting watching politicians talk about housing as a basic human right, and then being the other room where people are delivering housing. You know, that's not discussed. Yeah.
Stefan: Do you work much with real estate agents in your practice, because I sort of think of them as the, yeah, they're sort of the front end of that housing as a retail space, because they're just out in the community selling it, and it feels like they are perceived a bit of a mixed bag from the community.
Jeremy: Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting, right? That, you know, the the property development, real estate agent is definitely part of the team, you know, and it's interesting for me as an architect, whereas historically, I would have thought that the architect is a really key, you know, fundamental, you know, part of the team which helps shape the vision of place, and helps shape the vision of what these apartments are going to be and what they're trying to achieve. And in recent years, in the past decade, more and more, we've seen real estate agents brought into the kind of development team early, and generally, they sit above the architect in terms of, you know, who's listened to by the developer, the people that put in the cash and the people that are providing the capital will listen to the real estate agent before they listen to the architect, because the real estate agent is the person that is the direct interface with the market, the person they're selling their housing to, whether they be investors or, you know, people are going to live there, you know, as their own home. And so they listen to the real estate agent, and the real estate agents job is to get the maximum value for that apartment for the developer. So it's it's very it's very interesting. So I might be interested in sustainability and livability and natural light and ventilation, and that's what I want to do as a professional. But the real estate agent is interested, and may well be interested in those things, but is also interested in, how do I extract the most amount of revenue for my client, the developer? Yeah. So it is interesting sitting in those rooms and listening to real estate agents talking about what the market wants. You know, what they say the market wants, and how do they deliver the best revenue? Yeah,
Stefan: because theoretically, it could be a positive symbiotic relationship, right? Like if you have an architect building a wonderful house and then a real estate agent who's effectively marketing that house and connecting it to the people that want it, and a developer that makes it well, yep,
Jeremy: correct. I have worked with a couple of real estate agents that, you know, have actually listened to the vision that we put forward, you know. So we all talk about, you know, sustainability, designing a building that's 100% electric, so designing out all the gas cooktops, making sure that we write into the owners Corporation rules that the building's gonna be powered by 100% renewables, that it's gonna be carbon neutral in operation. And sometimes real estate agents will listen to all those things and say, Oh, I can sell that. It's actually sounds pretty good. It's a good thing. And so for me, I'm delivering on my mission to deliver a sustainable building. And the real estate goes, Oh, I can find a way to sell that. That's a good thing. What's what, what I where I find it to be a struggle is that I say, here are the things that we should be doing in, you know, 2025 because it's important for the planet and sustainability in our city. And the real estate agent says, Yeah, but look in this postcode, everyone, everyone loves gas cooktops, so we should still plumb gas into a building in 2025 despite there being no pathway to net zero. And I'm like, why on earth would we do that? And they're like, well, because that's what people are buying. And I'm like, I get that, but that's not what we should be building. And so there's a bit of tension under those you know, under those circumstances where the real estate agent says, this is, this is how I maximize revenue. And I'm like, okay, yeah, anyway, you get it right. There is tension between what the market wants and what we should be providing, as you know, as housing specialists in in 2025
Stefan: How do you lead people when you are in a place where. All the widgets and dials and stuff are set up to service a market like those two things are somewhat incompatible. If you have to get up one day and say, we're not doing gas anymore, and everyone goes but we quite like it like, who, who squares that circle
Jeremy: correct? And I've got to say that, you know, it's been made so much easier in Victoria and ICT, since the state governments have outlawed gas in new buildings. So we don't have that conversation anymore, but now we're having that fight in every other state,
Stefan: which I think of through the lens of, you know, communication in the stories we tell like that's an example of the stories work in terms of, yeah, the government said we're not doing gas anymore, and that means this, it's like tangible. There's a tangible frame in which we live and people accept that, you know, you sort of explain we can't do gas anymore because the planet's going to explode. And then that means that houses are going to look like this, induction cook. Trucks are actually really sick. And then you sort of, as you say, like at a tactical level, when you're building housing, it becomes makes your life easier, because you don't have to explain base concepts to people from the start. Yes, and your time
Jeremy: absolutely Stefan, and it is very interesting, because you assume that everyone's having the same conversations as you, and you go into a new room and you realize that, yeah, that the whole, the whole you know, issue about electrification we've been pushing in the built environment for the last 10 years actually hasn't, still is not, is not everyday business for a whole bunch of people delivering a whole lot of housing,
Stefan: yeah, and particularly in Australia, which is so wonderfully multicultural, like everyone is coming from, you can have the same conversation with a room full of people, and they're all bringing their own lived experience and context to
Jeremy: it. It's so true. It's so true. We do end up prosecuting the same conversation once well. And here's the thing, right? That there are different segments of society, and I think that often real estate agents, you know? I think one of my frustrations is that agents and and valuers and banks, you know, that write the mortgages, they look to what's been done historically as the benchmark for what should be done in the future. So they know how to add a value apartment that has a car, space, air conditioning, two bathrooms, a laundry and a gas cooktop. They know how to know how to then how to value all of those things. And so if you offer something that's seven and a half stars, 100% electric, only one bathroom, you know, a beautiful, shared rooftop and without a car space. Yeah, I think that the real estate agents and valuers really struggle to put a value on that, because there's no, there's no historic benchmark to put a number against that. So they're like, that's uncomfortable for us. Let's just go and do done before, because we know what the market is prepared to pay for that.
Stefan: And finally, the other, the other member of the team, architects, how do they talk about housing?
Jeremy: Well, it's interesting for me as an architect, because, you know, I studied at university for five years. You know, I went and worked in a practice for a couple of years. I set a written exam and then set an oral exam to become an architect. And, you know, it does feel pretty privileged to be an architect. We're taught at university a lot about the theory of architecture. We're taught a lot about, you know, kind of big systems thinking and and there's a lot of language that goes with that. I want to say language. I mean very specific, you know, words like juxtaposition, you know, tectonics, you know, very specific words that are used by architects daily, talking to each other. And so, you know, I work with incredibly talented people, but I've noticed that often architects in their conversations with developers, or, more importantly, you know, with the general public on open houses Melbourne day or something, will talk using words like juxtaposition and tectonics, which I don't think means a lot to the general public. And so I think that we either need to as a profession, need to work out how to kind of talk in more plain English, or we tend to do what Spain does, and kind of, you know, engage in our primary schools education about design and architecture. So that's just taught. But I think at the moment, there is a bit of a gap between the way that architects generally converse with the public and the way that public. Perceive architects or understand what it is that they're
Stefan: saying. That's interesting. If you've got, like when we were talking about that, you know, everyone's in the room, and where does the power go if you've got architects talking on behalf of to simplify the quality of the apartment, and they're talking a language that everyone's like, I don't know what you're talking about, egghead. And then the people who have a more profit driven model are really steeped in the power of, you know, marketing, basically, and sort of retail conversations. You can see how that the story immediately skews over there in terms of who's not they go, at least. I know what this guy's talking about, classic fixer upper, you know. But
Jeremy: I've been also, like, as much as I'd had to admit it at the real estate agents, you know how you sell apartments, like, like, you know, we're not building anything unless they get sold, because the banks won't fund it. So the idea of build it and they will come doesn't hold in the housing delivery model, because the way that it works in this country is that we have to sell it first before we build it. Yeah,
Stefan: we've got to find a shared story that connects with people, that brings all brings all of these. Do you think we can do that? Is there a story we can tell that connects all these different ideas and pressures around housing and,
Jeremy: well, I mean, obviously, I think there is an opportunity, you know, to deliver meaningful housing. Housing is a basic human right, and to deliver it totally differently. And you know, our Nordic cousins show us how to do that, like in Finland. You know, the state delivers housing under a housing first policy, which is the idea that no one, no one, should not have a home. So and that they've worked out all their economic modeling shows that if they house people, they'll spend less on policing, jails, hospitals, mental health institutions, ambulances, emergency support services, food banks, you know, so the cheapest way to handle your society is to house your people civilly, right? So Finland has worked out how to do that. You know. It's done well in Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, you know, so yeah, our Nordic cousins show us how to house people well. And it's, you know, generally, through a kind of more socialist democracy, rather than capitalist democracy. But we don't live in a socialist democracy. Stefan, we live in a capitalist democracy. And you might look overseas and say, Where are some examples of that? And you would say Canada, and you would say the United States. And if you were to go to Vancouver and see the amount of people sleeping outside in some very, very cold winters, you would say, that looks shocking. And then if you were to travel further down, you know the West Coast, you know of North America, and arrive in Seattle, in in the US, you go, Well, there's a lot of people sleeping outside here. And then if you were to get down to San Francisco and LA, you would be horrified. So 70,000 people or more sleeping outside on the streets of LA, you know, it's horrific. And so if, if we're 10 years behind Canada, and Canada is 15 years behind the United States, you can see where a capitalist democracy will go. So my worry is that if we leave housing delivery to the private market, that we will end up there that that we have to treat housing as a basic human right, like the Finland government. Otherwise, I don't think we're ever going to bridge that gap. And if you're a property developer, you know it's not your responsibility to house the 100,000 or 115,000 people experiencing homelessness in Australia. That's not your job. Your job is to do a property development, make money and go and do the next one. So I think that property developers get pretty hard time in Australia, and admittedly, I was one of the people that was incredibly critical of them, historically. But it is not their job to house everyone. It's to do, you know, one building at a time. And of course, they want to make a profit. That's just the nature of the system that we've set up where, you know, we've we've given housing delivery, the responsibility of housing our people, to the private market.
Stefan: If you could just keep working on that one. No problem. Uh, all right. Well, then last question, if you were any kind of house, what would you be
Jeremy: if I was any kind of house? I would love to be hutong in China historically. So the idea that you know historically, you know people that lived in China lived in an. Average of 15 square meters. That was the average size per capita for someone to live in a house. And they shared these homes, you know, generally, with multiple generations. So their mother and father might live there, and they might have kids, so there'll be three generations living there, and the mother and father would help them while they went to work. And then the hutong kind of worked as a village, if you will. So there were shared spaces to come together. It was generally very safe, pretty compact. The kids could play there safely. The motor vehicles weren't in there, so the kids could run around and play. And then people would share resources like, you know, bathrooms and kitchens. I'm not saying that we want to share bathrooms and kitchens, but I'm saying that we saying that if we cared more about the planet than ourselves, it's a pretty interesting idea, that it's incredibly resource efficient. So, you know, yeah, the idea of living in a very connected, supportive community that's that's incredibly safe and, you know that supports, you know, the planet and uses at the least amount of resources as possible? Yeah, I'd be a who Tom.
Stefan: Well, I admire you for tackling that frankly ridiculous question in such a authentic way. I
SKIT: Okay, we real estate agents are getting a bad rap. I think we gotta start telling it straight out there. No more idioms, no more euphemisms, no more tall tales. That's a big collar boss. I know, I know, just grab the handbook. Hit me with some of these phrases we've been using to flog houses out there, and I'm gonna chuck you back the straight truth, a timeless renovators dream.
Oh, yeah, a place so old and unloved it's fallen apart, a real blank canvas, nothing inside. What about an up and coming neighborhood in a very scary place close to shopping and schools either miles away from anything or surrounded by beeping cars all the time. Good bones needs gutting. Start over ooze his character. You'll have to paint over a big dragon mural or something. Price to Sell literally means nothing, just there's nothing else to say. I mean, selling is the point of pricing things.
Rune Pedersen: So Stefan, I'm really curious to hear how you're feeling now.
Stefan: Well, I think I'm actually feeling better about it, because, unsurprisingly, more context provides information like talking to Jeremy really underlined that this is more complicated than just money is bad, shelter is good. There is a role in a economy like ours for sort of profit and agents and developers and things in the delivery of housing. And I do think I walked away with a smidgen of hope that we can, you know, we could find a way to tell this story in a way that felt more achievable for Australians.
Rune Pedersen: You mean the Great Australian Dream,
Stefan: yeah, like, as we talked about the Great Australian Dream, currently, everyone deserves a house, and that feels pretty disingenuous at the minute the way that Housing Works. But I feel like if we could provide this more contextual picture to people in a way that the people making money understood the social value of housing, and the people that understand social value of housing understood the necessary need for people to make a profit, to build more housing. I feel like there's a way to tie everyone together into a singular mission and hopefully get out of this thing we're into where it feels like we're very polarized by people who want number go up and people who want people to have somewhere to rest.
Rune Pedersen: Yeah, it softens it a bit for me as well, because you gotta understand the full picture, but in a way, is also just doesn't remove any of the ridiculousness around rounded right, because it I just feel like you could spend your time on doing something else than trying to service a loan, as the as as the as the great achievement in life. But we're forcing each other into this rat race. It just feels like we're wasting potential of people because they they feel like they're not succeeding in life unless they quickly tie themselves to a loan that they need to service in order to succeed in life, but they're squandering their skills.
Stefan: Yeah, I strongly agree. And I think to yeah it it's why. That idea of the the mythology of the Great Australian Dream rubs me such the wrong way, and why I think it is something that you don't really hear about as much now, because I think everybody feels that awkward tension in the soul of the story of the country, because we're not servicing that dream. That dream is a story of like this is a land of opportunity, and people deserve things, but the system that has come up around housing to your point, is no longer one in which we try to connect people with the things that they deserve. It's now about forcing people to chase things, I think, like housing is not something that all things being equal, you should be able to have. It's now something to be aspired to and something to reach for and chase for at the expense of other things, because there's an equal mythology now about like kids just need to stop eating brunch and need to sweat and sacrifice to be able to save up to buy a home, and that's something to be proud of. But is that something to be should that be something to be striving for how many, how many young people could have started a business and invented a new technology or done something truly, or just started a fucking band and made a good album or something, but we funnel all of their human potential and energy into servicing a mortgage, and that just seems fundamentally a huge bummer. It
Rune Pedersen: seems super depressing. Our whole identity gets tied up in our home and our house, but it's just where you sleep, right? It's also where you raise your family like I don't want to downplay the importance of a home, because the mythology makes a bunch of sense, but now that it ever that is running away from us, is this the is that the right way to spend our time? I just don't know if the big dream of chasing or either owning your home is the right story to chase? Now, it's not me to define what the Australian dream is, obviously, because I'm an outsider living here now, but to me, the Great Australian Dream is having a go, and if I'm caught up chasing a whole home, which I think is a human right in itself, then there's not much left in the in the gas tank to have a go. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, Stefan, I am furious. You.
Rune Pedersen: How humans talk is produced and written by Stefan Delatovic and by me Rune Pedersen from Onomato People. Post Production and Sound Design for the series was done by Dom Evans and James Custer at Earsay. The SBS team is Joel Supple and Max Gosford, and our artwork is by Wendy Tang. Follow and review us wherever you found this podcast.
