Dr Chris Orchard is building a sustainable home in Marrar

The decades long trend towards larger dwellings on smaller blocks hasn't been dampened by prohibitively high housing prices.

This is clearly visible in the developments in Wagga's northern suburbs.

Local builders and developers have said the large family homes being built are a response to market demands, despite the 2021 census showing sole occupants were most likely to struggle to find appropriate housing.

Wagga Art Gallery's thinker in residence Chris Orchard believes people should give consideration to the environment, and future generations when they decide how to build.

"They aren't just our homes - we need to think about how we make meaningful corridors for everything we share the world with to move through," he said.

"We can't run away from the world we live in. We need to think about ways we can make it more liveable and more sustainable for our children and grandchildren.

"And if not for them, someone else's, the willie wagtail, and all the other things we share the world with."

Dr Orchard's Marrar home is a labour of love and creativity. A self-described "connectivist", he looks to draw links between ideas to find creative solutions for wicked problems.

In the case of housing, Dr Orchard has tried for a triple dividend - low cost, low environmental profile, and aesthetically beautiful.

He said the first challenge he had to overcome was convincing the bank he actually wanted to build a "forever home" in Marrar. The second was choosing an environmentally-friendly material to build with.

"We used all recycled bricks from old warehouse demolition ... Some are from the Espy Hotel in Melbourne, some are from the builds of the Olympic housing from 1950. it's kind of nice there's just all the bits of history," he said.

"It needed a bit of cleaning up, and we had to find a bricklayer who was interesting in doing that kind of work with uneven bricks, but it worked out they were the cheapest bricks we could find on the market.

"You end up with a beautiful effect, a total mix of colours. In other areas, you have dark lines from where copper piping has burned into the wall, and there's a number 18 somewhere."

Other small decisions have also contributed to the building's energy efficiency. The house is at a 5 degree angle to the block, so it faces north and is able to take full advantage of the sun.

Dr Orchard's interest in the environment and decolonising practice have led him to begin cultivating endemic plants from Marrar and it's surrounds.

The native garden helps create a green corridor for wildlife through the area. He said it's been gratifying to watch the birds in his garden multiply and diversify as his garden grows.

"There's hard borders - fences - which are for people or dogs, but you can see the cockatoos don't care about the fences," he said.

"There's this nice kind of slow movement now for all the different birds because we've got this growth for them - that's all part of it.

"This garden is an opportunity to share some of the local species from here - not native, but actually indigenous to this area. To be able to collect the seed and pass that onto other people, who can build things up as well."

With property ownership out of reach for many Australians, Dr Orchard acknowledges there are challenges in creating an environmentally friendly home.

He said fear of hypocrisy, or not doing things perfectly shouldn't stop people from taking what steps they can to build more sustainably - even if they fall short of perfection.

"You can't simplify what needs to happen down to whether you made all the correct decisions as an individual. On a day to day basis, it's really hard to make good environmental decisions continuously," he said.

"People talk about a lightbulb moment where everything makes sense, but the reality is if we only focus on lightbulb moments ... it puts all of our focus on the things we did right, and not the lessons we learned from the things we did wrong.

"We're iteratively working towards better ... living is accepting you're going to make mistakes, being respectful when you do, and owning them."

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