Climatic discomforts: [sub]tropical climates, racial character and the nineteenth-century Queensland house

In November 1860, William Coote (1822-98) – a newly arrived architect to the colony of Queensland – presented a lecture to the South Brisbane Mechanics Institute titled ‘New Homes for a New Country’.1 In this lecture, Coote argued that the desired comfort and salubrity of the Queensland dwelling could only be achieved if the architect or builder adapted his design to the climatic conditions – be they tropical or subtropical – of the new colony.2 Yet the consideration of ‘climate in the erection of [Queensland’s] dwelling places’ held an additional interest for Coote. Moving beyond the problems of comfort and salubrity, appropriate climatic design would also, the architect argued, ‘promot[e] the progress of [the] people’ and ‘educat[e] the young’ by removing them from ‘coarse and demoralising indulgences’.3