Domestic architecture and environmental design in Australian picturebooks

Representations of domestic architecture are remarkably elusive in Australian picture books, where exteriors appear mainly as settings or as background fragments. Domestic interiors are seldom elaborated except by means of metonymic images, especially a kitchen table, a couch, or a window frame. Significance stems more from elements of design: a collection of artefacts, especially items of furniture, which evoke a particular period, simply indicate the house is pre-contemporary, or suggest the family is more concerned with affective warmth than tidiness or fashionable style. A discussion of architecture in Australian picture books thus needs to include more than the fabric of buildings but also embrace design and contents, and then extend outside to take in suburban landscape architecture, which further shapes and is shaped by suburban houses. Underpinning these elements are notions of well-being in Australian communities.