A new exhibition focussing on housing affordability has opened at the University of Sydney.
Titled ‘Designing Affordability: Quicker, Smarter, More Efficient Housing Now’, the exhibition will see housing projects from around the world presented as case studies to provide solutions for reducing the cost of housing.
Showing at Tin Sheds Gallery in the University’s Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, and curated by New York-based urban planner Marc Norman, a strong advocate for affordable housing for more than 20 years, the exhibition will showcase over 20 case studies of houses and apartments internationally, alongside exemplary housing projects in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Norman says a key objective of the exhibition is to look at innovative designs for affordable housing, as well as the broader issue of housing affordability for housing types and populations. He explains that the best solutions are those projects where design, finance and housing policy are working in unison and creating replicable models for tackling the housing crisis.
The case studies will show how architects, engineers, planners, policy makers, tenants and homeowners are using different approaches to reduce project costs by rethinking how to build and maintain houses as well as how people live.
According to Associate Professor Mathew Aitchison, Director of Innovation in Applied Design Lab at the University of Sydney, the most striking aspect of the projects in the exhibition is the breaking of conventional boundaries of architecture, planning, property development, finance and construction.
The case studies feature varied solutions for a range of housing types from large, publicly-owned housing projects typical during the 1920s through to the 1970s, to privately-owned multifamily buildings, micro units and row homes.
A one-day symposium on affordable housing will be held at the University’s Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning on Saturday, 8 October. Guest speakers include Marc Norman, along with architects, local policy makers and architecture and planning experts from the University of Sydney and other universities in Sydney.
The Designing Affordability exhibition will be held from 6 October until 18 November 2016 at the Tin Sheds Gallery, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, 148 City Road, University of Sydney.
