A-Framed Buildings

I'm a child of the 70s.
In fact, I was born in 1970, which tells you exactly how old I am. I've always found this to be a very convenient year to be born, because it's always easy to work out my age. I am bad at maths, and if it wasn't for the fact that I was born at the beginning of a decade, I'd have no way of working out how old I was from one year to the next. I don't know how other people do it.
Noe, the 70s was the golden age of A-Frame architecture. These alpine-inspired houses (and wasn't everything Swiss groovy in the 70s? Think fondue...) popped up everywhere, and I always longed to live in one. It was my special dream to have a tiny little room right at the top of the roof, possibly with a little balcony - probably inspired by the BBC production of Heidi, which was also very big when I was young.
I don't know why such houses were constructed in tropical North Queensland, where I grew up - there was never any snow to slide off their steeply sloping roofs. But people had them, and I was consumed with envy.
Of course, there aren't really many around any more - in fact, the only A-Frame buildings left tend to be church buildings. For some reason the A-Frame was big in Australian ecclesiastical circles - maybe because the structure carried a hint of sacred geometry, and because it was a cheap way of building a church that stood out in an age where spires and stone and vaulted arches were no longer possible.
There's a classic example just down the road from me at the Cabramatta Uniting Church. I always smile to see it, and I seriously think it should be heritage listed. The inside, too, is almost completely untouched - and let's face it, it doesn't see much wear and tear, with its minuscule and elderly congregation.
So let's save the A-Frames, and preserve some of the glory of the 1970s.

Ingham, North Queensland

I grew up in the little sugar town of Ingham, North Queensland. And before you ask, no, that's not where the chickens came from.
It's a funny little place - quite pretty, in its own way, and relatively unchanged. When I was back there recently, the only difference I noticed was that everything was smaller and older. I guess that happens.
Here is Ingham's spectacular main street, on which not very much happens - apart from the yearly Italian Festival and the Maraka Festival, which I always remember looking forward to as a child.
Ingham is filled with quite picturesque old pubs, which are always well frequented.
And its hot - very hot, all the year round.
And you can't get sushi.

Wooden Louvres

Another distinctive aspect of North Queensland architecture that is now confined to the realms of museums and kitschy heritage reproductions is the use of wooden louvres in place of windows with glass. This seems to have been especially favoured when verandahs were closed in to make additional rooms for growing families. Here are some of theose louvres at a restored house at the Townsville Palmetum.



My great-grandfather built his own house (or at least, he constantly expanded an old fishing shack he'd won in a game of poker) in Lucinda, North Queensland, and raised a family of four there. The front rooms were indeed enclosed verandahs, and I remember being fascinated by the beautiful hand-made wooden louvres that he had installed there. They were made with thick-ish pieces of timber painted a distinctly 1950s blue, and were opened and closed with a wooden rail set into the louvres themselves. They were remarkably effective at capturing any available breeze, each window being able to be positioned just-so. Not so effective, however, at keeping away mosquitoes. There were always gaps, and in the evening you could almost be carried away by mosquitoes, Lucinda being little more than a reclaimed mangrove swamp.
The house is still standing, though was sold many years ago. Last time I checked the louvres were still doing their job. Here's a pic from when my Aunty Audrey was still alive and living in it. This charming little ancestral shack would be worth a fortune now, being only a short walk from the beach.