‘What is wrong with the current approach to the supply of housing in Sydney and what can be done to make housing not just ‘more affordable’, but affordable?’

(Image of St Mary's public housing courtesy of McGregor Westlake Architects)

This article is for those with a romantic notion that switching on zoning for 3 storey walk-ups like those we had in the 60s to 70s (pictured above) is going to address the Missing Middle.

If you’ve been watching Sydney for long enough, you will have realised that current strategies for density are determined not by sound planning principles or equity, but political expedience.

This article explores this inequity through just 4 maps of Sydney. These maps not only communicate the value of Sydney’s middle ring suburbs but also the consequences and inequity of propelling our urban sprawl.

Anecdotally it seems delivery of housing in Sydney has been polarised; detached houses in suburbs at the periphery of metropolitan Sydney (sprawl) entrenched with inequitable access to public transport and opportunities for work, and at the polar opposite; high rise apartments within dense metropolitan centres with immediate proximity to railway stations, in urban contexts without the necessary preconditions for high density living.

But is this a fair assessment of what’s going on?

The story is told through ABS dwelling approvals data spanning 3 decades, while seeking to explain ‘Why?’

Sydney housing choices are currently polarised between the detached suburban house on a remote greenfields lot and the high rise apartment within a metropolitan centre. The row housing of late 1800s / early 1900s and the latter art deco and 60s / 70s ‘walk-ups’ that fulfilled medium density low rise options with opportunities for gardens at grade are substantially missing from current housing choice and appropriately described as the ‘Missing Middle’ but why is it so important?

Much was anticipated from the NSW Housing Diversity Code.

However, the implementation of the Code was fraught from the start with controversy that undermined its effectiveness and ironically compromised housing diversity. To understand why, requires an understanding of the Code, the possibilities for its application, politics and as always economics.

You may be aware that the DBP Act (Design and Building Practitioner’s Act 2020) is now active and currently applies to BCA Class 2 work (apartments).

With the Act now active it is important that we are constructively critical of its intent and to measure this against likely results and consequences and to advocate accordingly towards a better building industry.

If you follow professional cycling, you would be aware of the problem of doping in the sport. The cases of Lance Armstrong and Sir Bradley Wiggins present two interesting counterpoints.

Are there symptoms of ‘doping’ within the Architectural profession?

The Blue Zones’, is a phrase coined by Dan Buettner and his team in a book by the same name, to identify 5 geographic ‘hotspots’ associated with the “world’s healthiest, long-lived people”.

You might be wondering why an architect might be interested in lifestyle habits?

The Medium Density Housing Code (now called the Low Rise Housing Diversity Code) has been in the NSW Planning pipeline for a few years. A draft was released in late 2016 with an open design competition run at the end of 2016 to test the draft controls.

We’ve done quite a bit of homework to get to understand the Code and how it might be useful for our existing and prospective clients.

We strive with every project to achieve good amenity.

In assessing our achievements against our intentions, we produced a table of our multi-unit housing projects (apartment buildings, townhouses, terraces etc.). We’ve used this table to assess our projects; to measure their amenity and efficiency (to the extent that these can be measured).

I was privileged to be selected as a juror for the 2015 NSW Architecture Awards, judging the multiple housing category.

It is also a great opportunity to consolidate your own thinking about your own work, the principles you apply, and what it takes to make a truly great project. So, here are our 7 principles of good housing.

‘Shake & substitute’ is a phrase coined by Michael Lewarne (Redshift Director) to define an approach to addressing the tough nature of speculative housing development projects.

This post is review by Laura Harding of a talk by Redshift AA and CHROFI at the Australian institute of Architects. Originally published as ‘Housing & Constraints – Making the Most of Less’.

With increased urbanisation (sites being converted from houses to apartment buildings) is it possible to retain existing landscape areas? What are the pressures in retaining, or providing new landscape areas? And, what are the benefits?

Inspired by these utopian visions of ‘The Garden City’ during the period of Sydney’s original expansion, cemented the [Federation] house and garden as the prevailing housing type and a cultural expectation.

Today, there are different forces at play, pushing the reality of a ‘house and garden’ well and truly into dream territory for an increasing number of Australians.

This article explores those forces and potential solutions to redressing the problem.

Conventional Architectural history poses two prevailing ideas in relation to housing since the Modern Movement. These are: the rational housing block and tower forms propagated by architects such as Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius; and, the ‘Garden City’ best represented by the work of Ebenezer Howard.

But there was another way; ‘The Urban Project’.

When architects talk about the quality of the amenity of residential projects, did you ever wonder what exactly they meant?