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Week 24/23: Housing crisis in 500 words / Vale Ian Stapleton / Tesla plates / Bookends: on Aussie housing / Signs off with the Truth
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This is a recent renovation of a pocket park in Camperdown, originally on the site of a factory. Fifty years ago the area was all factories, warehouses, a children’s hospital and low-rise public housing (Albo grew up 200 metres from here). Now it’s wall to wall apartments in those old factories, the hospital and newer high-rise public housing.
All the reasons you’ll ever need to enter the 2023 Sustainability Awards.
Palm Springs is in the Zeitgeist in Australia. A couple of months ago we discussed Lost in Palm Springs by Greer Honeywill in a Bookends review in Things. Now habitusliving (no relation) has published a piece on Modernism week by Australian Jack Lovel. Whilst all enthusiasm for this sunny bright modernist city is welcome, there is a dark side that is rarely mentioned.
ABC TV launched a new series ‘The Homes that Built Australia’ on Tuesday night. A 4-part series that they must have invested a bit of time on, but no time to advertise it. Neither I, nor the 75 architects I polled at a CPD event on Wednesday night, had seen even a whisper. Which is probably good as it contains some howlers.
Research suggests housing affordability is a major issue for teachers and may exacerbate the shortage crisis further.
In the 2023 budget the Federal Government says it is going to spend $1.3 billion to set up the Household Energy Upgrades Fund, which will provide $1 billion to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to finance home energy upgrades for around 110,000 households.
The real estate market in Australia is estimated to be worth $30bn, in 2022 the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated the value of the private dwelling sector at around $10bn, and last year, the top thirty sales in the private market cost a pretty $1.05bn.
Every ‘thing’ this week is in honour of Peter Myers, architect, scholar, teacher, above all intellectual. 1941 - 2023. You can read a beautiful eulogy / obituary by Tim Williams in this A&D. I can only add my gratitude to him for saving my student career.
Elon Musk has an ‘innovation equation’: time + people + materials = the ability to innovate. Love or hate him, the prolific sharing of this calculation speaks to the enormous value the ability to innovate holds today. Ideas, and the process of implementing them, propel society forward.
The built environment sector is beginning to reconcile its impact on the planet. With the Australian government pledging to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, climate change playing havoc with business-as-usual and sustainability getting top billing in boardroom conversations, actions to mitigate carbon emissions, restore biodiversity and make society more equitable are no longer just a value add.
According to the Property Council of Australia, at 1.1 percent national rental vacancy, where three percent is a ‘healthy market’, there are not enough homes to rent in Australia.
