HISTORIC RESEARCH - Ideal Home 1

Bay Villa Ideal (1900’s)
The bay villa represents an ideal home for the 1900’s where the home is a visual representation of one’s social status. Simplicity was associated with poverty whilst complexity showed wealth, hence the more intricately adorned the villa the higher the social status. The villa is designed to represent the English lifestyle, bringing along many of the English ideals, where the ideal home is one with a picturesque image when viewed from the street. The veranda is an important part of the ideal home as it was used to show wealth and leisure at the ability to sit and observe the neighbourhood and workers. The picket fence helped to represent the threshold of the home, it was not used to create privacy, instead it encouraged communication within the neighbourhood. 

BRANZ: Typical small villa plan, http://www.renovate.org.nz/ (accessed 14.03.2013)
Victorian Age 1850-1900, “Home Building 1814-1954 the New Zealand tradition” p13.

Emma Farmer: 1900’s Ideal Home Collage, March 2013, Adobe Photoshop.