I walk past a fibro cottage on Stringer Road most summers. Faded and modest, it will soon be replaced by a larger, more refined house. Yet this small, unremarkable building once enabled simple, generous coastal living, affordable, forgiving, and quietly attuned to how people actually live. What it understood about life near the sea may be lost in the new houses that follow.

What if a smaller, simpler home isn’t a compromise — but a correction? In a housing system built on excess, “enoughness” offers a quiet, powerful alternative. This piece explores how policy, culture, and design have inflated our expectations — and why building less might be the most radical thing we can do.