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The re-working of the Australian War Memorial (aka Museum) continues apace. As director, former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson gathered up half a billion dollars from his right-wing mates to demolish the DCM hall, desecrate the front, and extend the sacred into the profane.
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Residents of the affluent east and north of Greater Sydney have strongly resisted housing development in their suburbs. This NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) resistance has led to urban sprawl in areas of Western Sydney with a well-documented lack of services, infrastructure and jobs.
Australia’s power grid was built to transport power from coal-fired power stations or the Snowy Hydro scheme to large cities and industrial precincts. The large transmission lines were designed with generation supply and demand, the shortest routes, and cost in mind.
Huge sporting events come with substantial public investment in housing. After Melbourne hosted the 1956 Olympics, about 600 houses in the athlete village became public housing in West Heidelberg.
You’re ready for your first long road trip with your new electric vehicle. But there are nagging questions in your mind. “What if I can’t find an available charging station when I need it?” “What if the charger doesn’t work?”
Bang & Olufsen’s Beosound Theatre had been designed to become the central hub for a cutting-edge entertainment experience.
“If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you,” were eleven words expertly aimed at the neck of the world by a 16-year-old Greta Thunberg in 2019. Galvanised and tenacious, a swarm of estimated 4 million people worldwide hit the pavement on what would become the largest climate strike in history – 1.4 million were school-aged children.
I’ve been thinking about the Radburn design ideas recently. In Radburn suburbia the ‘fronts’ of all houses face onto public gardens, with paths that lead to village centres; cars are on the other side, or ‘rear’, in cul-de-sacs. It is intended to separate the cars, and their ‘dangers’ from the communal outdoor living and play spaces. The urban design takes its name from the suburb in New Jersey USA where this radical rethinking of suburbia first took place.
Developers are commonly required to “offset” their impacts on biodiversity. They can do this in two ways.
Some of the largest landowners across New South Wales are Local Aboriginal Land Councils. Given the acute needs for housing and infrastructure, it’s time the state government enabled these land councils to play a greater role in development.
Households across Australia are struggling with soaring energy and housing costs and a lack of housing options.
Heritage conservation has been blamed for making the housing crisis worse by standing in the way of new, higher-density housing. But protecting heritage and increasing housing should be complementary objectives. Heritage suffers when not enjoyed by our growing communities. Housing suffers when not shaped by our communal heritage.
