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Stand on your average suburban street corner in Australia and chances are you'll spot some packing boxes or an abandoned couch.
We have become an increasingly flighty population, moving far more frequently and casually than previous generations.
The trend was highlighted by a survey on Australia's rental market released earlier this year by consumer advocacy group Choice, National Shelter and the National Association of Tenant Organisations.
One third of Australians rent, and more than half of all lease agreements do not extend beyond a year.
And according to a 2008 ABS study, 90 per cent of people aged 25 to 29 have moved in the last five years, and 40 per cent of them have moved three or more times.
A new generation of digital nomads?
Jeremy McLeod, of Melbourne architecture firm Breathe Architecture, believes that the housing market is largely to blame for this short-termism.
"[Millennials] can't afford to get into the housing market. They're being told that they're 'digital nomads' so they are becoming more transient. Is that by choice? I think not," he says.
Historically, the home has been weighted with symbolic ties to family, heritage and security — a place worth defending and a legacy.
But is the conceptual understanding of the home an inherent human need, or are we simply refusing to give up on an out-dated mythology?
"The brain rewires constantly. Every experience that you give it, gives it an opportunity to rewire," Jan Golembiewski, a researcher into architectural psychology and director of architectural firm Psychological Design, says.
According to Dr Golembiewski, the brain can deal with moving from house to house. But our ability to connect to where we live is dependant on how psychologically healthy we are.
"The moment we become vulnerable and we lose our edge psychologically, so to speak, we lose our ability to adjust, we lose our ability to rewire," he says.
"That's a real danger."
Dr Golembiewski believes that the increasing commercialisation of the home — the idea of the investment property — undermines its fundamental purpose as a place of refuge, and can ultimately cause stress and discomfort.
"If you [want] a home to look valuable, you might end up with highly polished surfaces everywhere, where every noise echoes and every hair is visible — and you can't relax in such a place," he says.
Housing design fostering community
Even more important than our sense of connection to place is our connection to community, according to Mr McLeod.
He believes our cities and buildings can thwart our relationship with other humans.
"You enter a lift lobby, you walk down a long corridor — which could be an office building or it could be a hotel — and you don't necessarily know the people around you," Mr McLeod says.
"On the other extreme, we've got the people who are clinging to this idea of the Australian dream. You're only opportunity to get into the housing market is at the city's edges, a long way out from the city's edges."
To Mr McLeod, cities offer incredible connectivity, but much of the architecture in these urban pockets breaks down any sense of community.
His firm is experimenting with the Nightingale Project — a "triple bottom housing model", which offers apartments that are simultaneously sustainable, liveable and affordable. The project's designs emphasise shared spaces to foster community.
In 2014, Mr McLeod and his wife moved into the project's first incarnation, The Commons, to gather data.
After 18 months, Mr McLeod suggested that they move on to his next project and his wife refused.
"I said 'Why? Is the building great? Do you love my architecture?' She said 'no, it's my neighbours'," Mr McLeod says.
The many different types of home
The primary function of the home, Dr Golembiewski says, is to provide a sense of respite and control.
And this psychological connection to the home is not exclusive to the family-owned, white picket fence variety. It can also be achieved in dwellings of any shape or size, or even duration.
"If we can find respite in a group house, then that's really great. And if we can find respite in temporary accommodation, that's really great," Dr Golembiewski says.
"We just need a place where we can go home and think 'thank God I'm home!' after a really hard day."
Dr Golembiewski himself lives in a co-living house of eight families.
They live and eat together, but each has an "enormous bedroom" to offer a sense of privacy. Dr Golembiewski and his wife enjoy a bedroom of 36 square meters.
He believes co-living is an efficient housing arrangement that is centred on community and is set to grow in popularity.
But as Mr McLeod found out on a recent visit to co-living spaces in Scandinavia, this style of home is not suitable for everyone.
"How does the introvert there find their opportunity of recharge?" he says.
"It would be very difficult for them, I would imagine, unless they locked themselves in their very small room. It works for some people."
With rental prices set to remain high and leases short, this transience in living looks to remain stagnant into the foreseeable future.
The task then is to recreate an experience of home that is derived from our relationship to the space, and to the community, rather than the mere bricks a mortar façade.
Topics: psychology, design, architecture, housing, housing-industry, australia