Homelessness and social housing

Arron Wood, former Deputy Lord Mayor of the City of Melbourne, on how architecture and good urban design can have a positive impact on the supply of social and affordable housing.

Richmond House: Therefore

Director Alex Lake shares how Therefore has spring boarded into residential architecture from a prior base of commercial work – “an atypical direction given most small practices begin with residential work”. 

NGV Triennial Outdoor Pavilions: BoardGrove Architects

For the National Gallery of Victoria’s 2020 Triennial outdoor program, BoardGrove Architects designed a collection of transient pavilions situated in the gallery’s Grollo Equiset Garden. Drawing on their diverse experience, BoardGrove designed a novel response that skillfully responded to the project brief’s size and budget.

Revisited: Some aspects of housing overseas

With more funding available than we’ve seen in a generation, there is the will to reimagine social housing sites. Architects, urban designers and public servants have duly taken up the subject. But how to frame the problem?

Generation Exchange

In the rapid exchange of information that is now a daily reality of contemporary practice there seems to be little time for wisdom. Speed rules. Communication is dynamic. Considered correspondence remains an obligation of our profession yet the hourly deluge of emails that we all deal with in practice is anathema to this fundamentally important component of our practising modality.

Brunswick Lean-to: Blair Smith Architecture

Brunswick Lean-to is a discrete addition to a heritage-listed weatherboard cottage. The project draws upon the ubiquitous lean-to it replaced; a colloquial structure often overlooked or demolished in the event of an extension. Blair Smith Architecture demonstrates sensitivity and depth of thought, addressing opportunities and constraints through site-responsive spatial planning and the packaging of multifunctional elements in a robust, utilitarian structure.

Process over product

Breathe’s project for Aboriginal Housing Victoria has been approached with rigour to deliver a high-quality project embedded with sustainable design principles and cultural engagement.

This is not my Country

This is not my Country, and because it’s not my Country, I cannot speak on its behalf. This statement is true for me, and almost every built environment professional in Australia, so how can we work on and with the Countries that we are responsible for fundamentally modifying?

Social housing architecture

A visual essay of contemporary social housing projects in Melbourne and regional Victoria from some of the architects and providers working in this important space.

Architect at Home: Nick Harding

Architecturally, we wanted to test whether a 150-metre-square house with a small courtyard could become our spacious family home. On a relatively modest footprint, the key gesture was to borrow space from both the courtyard itself and the nearby Yarra River and Abbotsford Convent precinct.