tag: housing
How to dismember a park and get away with it
posted 03.22 in news.
There are lots of new social housing developments firing up at the moment, as part of the Victorian Government’s $5.3B “Big Housing Build”. The “Build” was announced soon after the public housing tower lockdowns focused eyes on the long-neglected sector. There is a lot going on, so I’ve narrowed it down to just one development not too far from me, and I’ll be looking at the site more than the buildings.
Pruitt Igoe - the film
posted 02.14 in news.
You know the photos and the footage. In case you don’t here it is, complete with prevailing attitude courtesy of Robert Hughes. According to Hughes, “every sort of Corbusian amenity” did not “improve” the tenants,...
Emergency Shelter Exhibition
posted 05.13 in events.
It’s the day after … Your family is frightened, cold, and alone … What protection can you give them? This exhibition is to propose shelters that could not only protect people from rain and other elements in emergency...
Sprawling from Grace: The Consequences of Suburbanisation
posted 01.13 in resources.
This U.S. documentary from 2008, freely available on Youtube, sells the virtues of the New Urban town centre to the general video-watching population. Unfortunately it uses scare tactics to do so. The first two-thirds warns of impending doom in the...
Talking Homes - Karen Burns
posted 12.11 in resources.
Dr Karen Burns discusses the home, the house, and housing. Touching on TV’s The Block, Ikea, homelessness, and the work of Simon Anderson in Perth, the video of this brief Melbourne Architecture Annual session in 2011 is worth watching. 11...
The Melbourne Urbanist
posted 12.11 in resources.
Dr Alan Davies: “The Melbourne Urbanist is a site for discussion about key issues in planning and development, particularly in my city, Melbourne, Australia.”
Urban Troppo in Weddell
posted 12.11 in news.
On Tuesday night an ABC article popped up announcing that Troppo and another unnamed firm have completed their new town design in the Northern Territory. To house 50,000, Weddell is to be built about 40 kilometres from Darwin. The population of...
State housing in New Zealand
posted 10.11 in resources.
The story of New Zealand state housing through the decades. The site includes a media gallery.
Fletcher Challenge Archives
posted 10.11 in resources.
A searchable photo library including many historic New Zealand construction images and plans.
Why does land cost the earth?
posted 07.11 in news.
That’s the subtitle of a new documentary to be previewed at Melbourne’s ACMI on August 10th, Real Estate for Ran$om. Looking into the economics of property speculation, the film’s researchers uncovered a little secret. While the...
green maths
posted 06.11 in news.
Extracts from an HIA Press Release 2011 dutifully relayed by many news services in late May. Constructing the average new home and land package involves the emission of about 240 tonnes of carbon dioxide. These emissions are largely unavoidable...
Habitat in town
posted 05.11 in news.
Two years after the Victorian bushfires, the christian charity Habitat for Humanity are to build 25 homes in Yea for bushfire-affected families. People will contribute a small deposit, and receive a ten year loan. The houses will be professionally...
Dharavi
posted 11.10 in news.
Kevin McCloud’s “Slumming it” is currently running on the ABC (available at iview for short whiles). I had been turned off by its name but in the end decided to switch on. The word ‘slum’ has always had a derogatory...
Melbourne MSS say
posted 08.10 in news.
Melbourne City Council and the State overnment have a new Municipal Strategic Statement in the works. Its vision is for a Melbourne that is: a city for people a creative city a prosperous city a city of knowledge an eco-city a...
How green is your six pack?
posted 06.10 in news.
Adding active and passive sustainability features to a house, an architect with supportive clients can be lulled into thinking that everything is rolling the right way. But there is a great gap in the market not being catered to – those...
Toolern - what is medium density anyway?
posted 05.10 in news.
Maybe it’s worthy a closer look at the density types in Toolern, as the presence of medium and high densities are something that differentiates it from other ‘burbs in the ‘hood. PSP : Housing density targets will range from...
Toolern update
posted 05.10 in news.
The Growth Areas Authority has revised its planning documents for the 2,400 hectares of new suburbs at Toolern, Melbourne. There is no summary document to explain the reasoning behind the changes, and it seems that what little is good about the plan...
New town, old ideas?
posted 04.10 in news.
Toolern A new $15B city is to be built on the road to Ballarat. It’s called Toolern, and will plug lots of the rural gap between Caroline Springs and Melton. The new town’s footprint, if overlaid onto a map of Melbourne, would stretch...
Arsenal 1, Yale 0, Melb -1
posted 10.09 in news.
Arsenal’s old ground in London has been renovated into a housing complex. Allies and Morrison incorporated the old grandstands and planted the pitch. Clever. Yale’s Seeley Mudd Library, built in 1982 and designed by Roth and Moore...
related tags
20th century, alan davies, apartments, bicycles, carparks, cars, density, disaster, disaster relief, ecological urbanism, energy scarcity, fire, fires, freeways, gordon smith, grandstands, green wedges, homelessness, james howard kunstler, jan gehl, kevin mccloud, minoru yamasaki, modernism, new urbanism, public housing, public space, public transport, reuse, rob adams, sanitation, schools, slums, sprawl, suburbs, temporary, traffic, transport, transportation, urban growth
