The Block and the Backyard

Madeline Lo-Booth

There was a time when the backyard was synonymous with the laidback lifestyle of Down Under, a place carefree and vast. I’m talking about the hazy memory of a patch of yellowing summer lawn and a Hills Hoist spinning in the breeze. The backyard was a spot of empty space and a reminder of some long gone (but never-really-existent) rural idyll. Is the backyard of yesteryear no longer there? Where has it gone and how should we mourn its loss?

The most recent season of the mainstream renovation show, The Block, does away with the backyard as we remember it. Airing every second night on Channel 9 for the past fifteen years (ironically replacing the home DIY show, Burke’s Backyard in its original Friday evening slot), The Block blurs the boundaries between reality TV, DIY home renovating and the competition show genres. It invites contenders – almost always in a heterosexual coupling, save for the every-now-and-then exception of two mates, two siblings, or more recently the daddy/daughter duo of Tash and Harry – to interpret an architectural plan prescribed by the producers.

The most recent houses developed on the show sold for $3.8-4.25 million,¹ establishing their status as “luxury” homes. As such, their visual semblance to the outer suburban home authorises the small backyard as a matter of lifestyle and taste, available at a smaller budget.

The block

For $600,000 one can purchase a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home with a double garage.² On a plot of 187m², 11 Tin Alley Avenue, Clyde [Fig. 1] occupies 143m². For new houses like these, the built form dominates over 75% of the block. This is in stark contrast to the lot cover of yesteryear. Up to the 1980s, houses generally covered 20-30% of a block and only 35-40% as a maximum.³ Nowadays, 35-40% lot cover is the bare minimum, with the majority of the yard representing the narrow perimeter of the dwelling.⁴ With houses such as this one in Clyde being built to order but with no room for adjustments or size reduction, big backyards are seemingly sacrificed for what lies inside. Now prioritised are the purported luxuries of a home theatre, double garage and expansive open plan kitchen-dining-living spaces. On the other side of the city, a house like 7 Prime Street, Mickleham [Fig. 2] is on offer for $700,000 with these luxury amenities. Outdoor space is hybridised through the incorporation of corner courtyards for outdoor dining and entertainment.

What do these features really signify and what is being omitted? A home theatre surely refers to a glorified second space for a television, merely a rumpus room clothed in the language of excess and luxury. Are these spatial configurations and labelling choices operating as distractions from the ultimate luxury of owning a large piece of land?

The Block

Similar trends can be observed on The Block. Season 16 of the show opens with the landscapes of Brighton, an affluent bayside suburb 11km south-east of the Melbourne CBD with a birds-eye view of these little strips of land [Fig. 3]. The subdivisions are reflected in the addresses: 360A, 360B, 362A, 362B and 364 New Street, Brighton. Each block occupies approximately 480m²,⁵ while the internal areas vary from 298m² to 357m².⁶ This equates to a lot cover of 62-74%, which approximates the Clyde example discussed above. In contrast to these “affordable” outer suburban houses, the houses from The Block sold for $3.8-4.25 million, establishing their status as luxury homes.⁷

While these houses have been advertised as luxury five-bedroom family homes,⁸ categorically they feel somewhere between a townhouse and a detached home. They exist as separate dwellings but the distance between each house is so minute that they may as well touch. The struggle of limited yard space becomes evident throughout the season. For example, once rear access is blocked from contestants in week 12, when pools begin to be installed and fences between properties start to be propped up, moving materials to the backyard via the skinny side yard becomes an obvious obstacle. Materials now need to be lifted above and over the fence as the width between the house and its border is so narrow, further emphasising the oversized nature of the house in context of its plot.

With their $30k budget, most contestants incorporate a side courtyard with an entertaining area as part of their design. A thin slice of pool and an entertainer’s deck bracketed between built structures obscure any understanding of the backyard as a mere patch of lawn. There are firepits, barbecues, pizza ovens, dining suites, daybeds and in-built lounge areas. Similarly, in these new outer suburban house and land packages, the emphasis for outdoor space is on the “alfresco” dining area.

Some contestants incorporate ‘traditional’ elements of an Australian backyard. For example, Daniel and Jade lay down some lawn and build a deck and Harry and Tash consider themselves lucky to have an established oak tree on their block. Shelley, one of the hosts, reminds them in Episode 46, “you’re not just having the oak tree though obviously!”

The backyard

The old vision of a backyard simply composed of grass and trees has literally been paved over. Yard used to refer to a “a multi-functional enclosure, generally attached to a house, basically rural in origin”, often with self-sufficiency in mind.⁹ From this definition, George Seddon, an Australian environmental scholar, distinguishes the backyard from the back garden. A back garden at the rear of a house operates as a class distinction, particularly evident in British society and predominantly satisfies aesthetic purposes.¹⁰ Seddon observes that the back garden replaced the backyard as the popular form of outdoor space to accompany one’s home from the 1990s onwards.¹¹ The back garden represents a place “for recreation, adult-dominated family use, and for showing off to one’s peers.”¹² Conversely, the yard serves a utilitarian role, entwined with an Australian working class identity¹³ — it is a space with an “atmosphere [that] is casual, male, untidy, relaxed, spontaneous, and in its way, creative. It is emphatically for use, not for display,”¹⁴ as Seddon writes. In this way, we might understand the outdoor space on The Block to more so resemble a back garden: a marker to align oneself with upper class taste through its emphasis on aesthetics and areas for entertaining and hosting parties. This sentiment is captured by Jasmine, a contestant on The Block Season 16, who discusses the plan for her “backyard” as follows:

“[There will be] [l]ots of different zones. I think that’s what people really want these days, you know, not just a beautiful garden to look at, but a garden that serves a purpose.”¹⁵

This quote captures the indistinction between what is functional (thus, characteristic of a backyard) and what serves aesthetic purposes (thus, characteristic of a back garden). Jasmine points out the desire for functionality and aesthetic fulfilment, as she emphasises the need for different spaces to satisfy different purposes. In floor plans for outer suburban homes [Fig. 1 and 2], the insistence of “alfresco” spaces, as opposed to open, uncovered space as a yard, reflect this attitude.

Seddon’s distinction between the backyard and the back garden is not necessarily about function and form, but puts emphasis on the availability of the backyard as an empty space. This version of the backyard is dead. The backyard proper operates as a blank screen to be projected onto. This is in stark contradiction to the back garden’s pre-established design of how spaces should be used. This is what makes the backyard capable of facilitating children’s creative outdoor play and by extension, makes the perfect place for men’s predilection for toying with machines, like cars and boats.¹⁶ It is an open space that fulfils the infantile, masculine desire to conquer. In this way, it makes sense that this particular vision of the backyard — bare and grassy but shaded in parts — is something we are so fondly attached to within the Australian imaginary, a place marked by a history of violent conquest and ongoing colonisation. The attachment to a large open space of our own is something that should be met with discomfort. Does the backyard really need to be mourned?

Forgoing traditional iconography of the formerly quintessential Australian backyard, the contestants of The Block build to the perimeter with a garage/studio menacing the alleyway at each property’s rear. Likewise, in the geographical dislocation of the outer suburban ring, the garage is made into a necessity by sacrificing space that could otherwise be configured into a traditional backyard. The incorporation of the garage is non-negotiable – the floor plans are set by developers.

The insistent presence of the garage could be interpreted as a reflection of the culture of car-reliance in the outer ring. It is interesting that the role of the car is centralised, since cars were integral to the initial development of suburbia.¹⁷ A car or two is necessary to transport oneself anywhere this far from the city, as the infrastructure is still a step behind. To put this in perspective, some new suburbs such as Donnybrook are serviced by the V-line, the railway that serves rural Victorian towns. It is a stark reminder of why urban sprawl is widely considered environmentally, socially and economically unsustainable.¹⁸ It promotes car dependency while putting pressure on increased demand for infrastructure away from the urban centre to service occupants of these new outer suburbs. This makes transport by a car a necessity, not a choice as it may be in middle and inner suburban regions.

The significance of the garage can be better understood at street level. From here, the garage operates as a central space of action, much more than a sheltered shrine in devotion to the car. The garage in these outer areas complicates a binary understanding of indoor/outdoor and private/public space, which challenges traditional understandings of the front and backyard distinction.

Touring the winding streets of Merrifield at dusk, one sees men tinkering in a car with its bonnet up, half-parked in the garage with the door wide open. Children play basketball in their driveways, supervised by parents overlooking from the higher vantage point of the garage. Grandparents, parents, and children sit in chairs in front of the garage, relaxing and enjoying the quiet outdoor air. In these estates, the front garden and garage area, which might have been traditionally considered public space¹⁹ are utilised for private enjoyment and play. The only sign of the front garden and garage as public space is in the visibility of people. Perhaps we can understand the estate itself as an extended private space, where one is nestled safely in cul-de-sacs of people alike.²⁰

To supplement the lack of privately owned open-space, epic playgrounds and basketball, netball and tennis courts have become a central feature. These communal play areas do not offer empty space like the backyard of yonder. They are elaborately designed, with metal twisted into shapes that dictate the body’s movements.

For those privileged to grow up with the Australian backyard in its “empty” glory, these outer areas might seem like a distorted image of the Australian dream — too many townhouses too close together. Ironically, this is the same image presented on The Block.

As the show dictates current Australian values (be it to reinforce Anglo, heterosexual norms or lifestyle aspirations), the representation of the small backyard as a slice of luxury has ideological stakes. The shift to minimal outdoor space on this television show is a very clear call to a new common taste; the production of desire for a compromised “backyard”, which cynically operates in tandem with broader housing trends, set by housing developers.

While one might feel outraged, it is important to remember that historical notions of what the backyard signifies in Australia is troubling. The desire for open space with a “rural” flavour props up a mythological conception of early processes of settler colonialism, one that obscures violence and promotes the fantasy of “emptiness”.

Though this vision of the frontier persists. The land surrounding the Donnybrook estates are open pastures and farmland plastered with signs asserting “private property” in aggressive distinction. In Wollert, there are dry golden plains punctuated with joeys and kangaroos who tentatively negotiate the space amidst its suburbanisation. In these suburbs, the rural landscape acts as a perimeter for the entire network of estates. The backyard as a form of rural reminiscence seems justifiably unnecessary in a space where there are open plains abound.