Have you noticed how the old weekender has become the beach house?

The culture of the weekender was castoffs from the house in town. The beach shack was affordable, simple and primitive. It was about getting away, holidays, space, sun, sand, family and barbecues. It signified a relaxed lifestyle leisure time the promise of democratic egalitarianism and the Australian way of life.

The culture of the beach house is architecturally designed, manicured lawns and has its own art and furnishings:

It stands for wealth, exclusivity and class. It is expensive. Many stand empty most of the year.

The context is the urban shift to our coastal regions that threatens to continue the worst aspects of urban
sprawl and development in the coastal towns, beach resorts, and fishing villages based on an ad hoc carve up of land and speculative project building. The local councils planning controls of the last twenty years has sought to
control this development but they have failed.The typical outcome of the development cycle goes along the lines of:

More subdivision=more housing=big footprints= less landscape = less habitat =less diversity=more sprawl= more congestion = more roads=more cars=more commercial big box type development = more community anger and frustration.