We acknowledge First Nations peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, and skies of the continent now called Australia. We express our gratitude to their Elders and Knowledge Holders whose wisdom, actions and knowledge have kept culture alive. We recognise First Nations peoples as the first architects and builders. We appreciate their continuing work on Country from pre-invasion times to contemporary First Nations architects, and respect their rights to continue to care for Country.
Postcard from the in-between
Chris Macheras
Magdalena Sliwinska
How is context-responsive design facilitated through the planning process?
Andy Fergus
Lachlan Macdowall
piece of city Roslyn Rymer
and the meaning of place-based words Alisha
belonging
The identities of Melbourne or Narrm and that of our Victorian regional centres are ever-changing, defined and understood through our engagement and collective shared experience.
Continually evolving over thousands of years of First Nations times, colonial days with the establishment of cities impacted by the wealth of the Gold Rush, nourished by continual immigration, expanded by a twentieth century characterised by industrialised construction, the automobile and spreading dormitory suburbs, to a twenty-first century charged with sustainable and resilient design, Indigenous acknowledgement and engagement, universal enabling of accessibility, to a future we might only imagine. Each of our own stories define our perception of the place we inhabit. The personalised narratives that follow in this edition provide a glimpse of that diversity.
In our third decade of this century, we are finding the vehicle of change to be ever more rapid than previously witnessed. A pandemic upended our understanding of habitation of our built environment and enforced an understanding of local not seen for a century. Melbourne’s population reached 5.2 million in June 2023, making it the largest urban population in Australia (by Significant Urban Area), sprawled over almost 10,000 square kilometres. Victoria’s dramatically increasing population has placed great pressure on our housing stock which has been the subject of much government policy and media focus. The Government’s proposed activity centres across Melbourne will create a series of 20-storey spikes in our urban morphology while simultaneously enlivening the reality of the much espoused 20-minute neighbourhood, though much work remains to ensure they are desirable places in which to live.
The Institute has been actively involved in advocating to government at political, departmental, and regulatory levels on future development and the importance of qualitative considerations that would augur for a desirable and sustainable future. The Institute produced the housing paper, Density Done Well, which has been distributed across the political stratum, government departments, and other interested parties. This was closely followed by a joint submission with our planning, landscape, and urban design colleagues responding to the Government’s proposed planning policy Plan for Victoria.
Victorian Chapter President
David Wagner FRAIA
The recently announced winning entry, HOME, for the Australia Pavilion at next year’s 19th International Venice Biennale will “present an immersive, culturally rich experience grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems and architectural innovation”. This provides another perspective on place and our perception of it. Creative directors, Dr Michael Mossman, Emily McDaniel and Jack Gillmer-Lilley intend to create a space for meaningful dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples on an international scale.
Our identity is best found within places of meaning, joy, diversity and fulfilment, where we can stop and appreciate the wonders of our community and our built environment, how it is changing and how we might imagine its future. Victoria will see significant development over the next couple of decades, which is a once in a lifetime opportunity for our profession to strategically influence and design our cities of tomorrow with renewed possibilities and a multiplicity of identities.
Pictured: 2024 Australian Architecture Conference | Hamer Hall, Melbourne | Photographer: Michael Pham
Contributors
Annie Luo is an independent multidisciplinary designer, with a predominant focus on visual identity, digital design and print media.
James Staughton FRAIA is the editorial committee Chair, an architect, and director and co-founder of Workshop Architecture.
Editorial director
Emma Adams
Editorial committee
James Staughton FRAIA (Chair)
Nikita Bhopti RAIA
Elizabeth Campbell RAIA
Hugh Goad RAIA
Yvonne Meng RAIA
John Mercuri RAIA
Justin Noxon RAIA
Guest editors
Lavanya Arulanandam RAIA
Peter Raisbeck RAIA
Publisher Australian Institute of Architects
Victorian Chapter, 41 Exhibition Street Melbourne, Victoria 3000
Victorian Chapter Executive Director
Daniel Moore RAIA
Creative direction
Annie Luo
On the cover
Truganina Community Centre by Canvas Projects. Bunurong and Wadawurrung Country. Photo: Peter Bennetts
Printing Printgraphics
This publication is copyright No part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, mechanical, microcopying, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the Australian Institiute of Architects Victorian Chapter.
Disclaimer
Readers are advised that opinions expressed in articles and in editorial content are those of their authors, not of the Australian Institute of Architects represented by its Victorian Chapter. Similarly, the Australian Institute of Architects makes no representation about the accuracy of statements or about the suitability or quality of goods and services advertised.
Warranty
Persons and/or organisations and their servants and agents or assigns upon lodging with the publisher for publication or authorising or approving the publication of any advertising material indemnify the publisher, the editor, its servants and agents against all liability for, and costs of, any claims or proceedings whatsoever arising from such publication. Persons and/or organisations and their servants and agents and assigns warrant that the advertising material lodged, authorised or approved for publication complies with all relevant laws and regulations and that its publication will not give rise to any rights or liabilities against the publisher, the editor, or its servants and agents under common and/ or statute law and without limiting the generality of the foregoing further warrant that nothing in the material is misleading or deceptive or otherwise in breach of the Trade Practices Act 1974.
Yvonne Meng RAIA is the founder and director of the architecture and design practice Circle Studio Architects.
Hugh Goad RAIA is an architect who recently opened his own practice.
Justin Noxon RAIA is founder and director of NOXON Architecture and an editorial committee member.
Elizabeth Campbell RAIA is a senior architect at the City of Melbourne. She is a contributing editor of Architect Victoria.
Emma Adams is an editor and editorial and publishing lead at the Australian Institute of Architects.
John Mercuri RAIA is a senior architect at Workshop Architecture and editorial committee member.
Nikita Bhopti RAIA is a project architect at Sibling Architecture, writer and curator.
Georgia Chisholm is an adviser for landscape architecture and urban design, Office of the Victorian Government.
Ben Hosking is a freelance photographer based in Melbourne,
Lavanya Arulanandam RAIA is principal urban designer and strategic planner at the City of Melbourne.
Peter Raisbeck RAIA is is associate professor of architectural practice at the University of Melbourne.
and design practice, Canvas Projects.
Architect Victoria
Andrew Martel is a lecturer in construction management and architecture at Melbourne School of Design.
Imogen Howe is an architect specialising in socially-just, disability-inclusive design and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne.
Raelene West is a research fellow at the Melbourne Disability Institute –University of Melbourne.
Monique Woodward RAIA is co-founder and creative director of the awardwinning practice WOWOWA
Michelle Harris RAIA is a director of the Melbournebased architecture
Martina Tempestini is an architect in Victoria and Italy, with a focus on designing community and educational spaces.
Bebe Oliver is a Bardi Jawi award-winning author, poet and illustrator.
Alisha Baker is a senior landscape architect at the City of Melbourne, a gardener, and a maker.
Lauren Pikó is a researcher and writer, whose work explores the politics of authenticity, value and authority.
Puneeta Thakur is an architect and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne.
Ian McDougall LFRAIA is a co-founder of ARM Architecture and joint recipient of the 2016 Gold Medal.
Ben Schmideg RAIA is an associate at Davidov Architects.
Tess O’Meara RAIA is a principal and design architect at Lyons.
Roslyn Rymer is an urban designer at the City of Melbourne.
Magadalena Sliwinska is a sessional tutor, graduate of architecture and a therapeutic arts practitioner.
Sharon Kerr is a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourn.
Tonya Hinde is principal and design lead at BLP (Billard Leece Partnership).
Kirsten Day lectures in architecture at the University of Melbourne.
Mary Ann Jackson is the director of Visionary Design Development and a PhD candidate at Swinburne University of Technology.
Chris Macheras is an industrial relations lawyer, author and curator of Old Vintage Melbourne on Instagram.
Amelia Borg is a founding member and co-director of Sibling Architecture.
Leonie Csanki is one of the new professionals. A person before any job title, leading a career in design since 2004
Francesca Davenport LFRAIA ACAA is an architect and access consultant, specialising in hospital and rehabilitation architecture.
Andy Fergus RAIA is an urban designer at the interface between architecture, urban planning and development.
Alex Marfleet operates as Studio Marfleet and is currently collaborating with Hames Sharley Melbourne.
Ryan Smith is a qualified access consultant, inclusive tourism expert and the founder of the Access Agency.
Lachlan MacDowall is the director of MIECAT Institute.
Rebecca Lewis is a freelance architect with experience in practice, urban design, research and teaching.
Allen Kong LFRAIA is co-chair of the UIA's Architecture for All work program.
Kirsty Bennett FRAIA is the co-author of the World Alzheimer’s Report: 2020 Design Dignity Dementia, and the Dignity Manifesto.
My own everyday experience as a disabled person is constrained as I clunk and crash my way through the spatial world.
There is nothing smooth; everywhere, there are disjointed thresholds, edges, steps, and inconsistent surfaces. Every door pushes back against me. I live in a constantly broken world, an unfolding tracking shot of calamity and chaos. Every disabled bathroom is a surreal theatre, as I struggle with various ablutions amid equipment that supposedly meets codes and standards but defies logic. These rooms are too often designed through cursory compliance, resulting in aesthetics needing more joy. Each day, I exist in incarcerated spaces, passing through atmospheres of indifference, drifting through crisscrossing gazes that render me invisible.
I cannot imagine what this dérive of ambient violence must be like for people with other functional diversities, including those who are neurodivergent. The spatial imaginaries of many architects exclude me and many people. We are never seen in the discursive narratives where architects hope for better futures. We have no presence in the images that describe our future cities, public buildings, housing and homes.
Without embitterment, this issue is a modest effort to map out another set of imaginaries, an image politics that is devoid of signifiers of power, status and the heroic bodies of so-called good design.
Identity is a beautiful part of the human experience and crucial to city building.
Creative expression is an extension of our identities; driven from the need to belong, be heard, and connect with each other. While it is essential that architects make decisions that serve broader societal needs, our personal values and identities are also integral to creating interesting urban spaces. Acknowledging that we ourselves are playful, yearning, idiosyncratic individuals ultimately allows us to be more authentic and successful in our practice of design. When we tap into our humanity to fuel our design choices, we are more relatable and trustworthy to the communities we design for.
At the same time, an urban design and planning lens keeps us accountable to the practical and aesthetic rights of the city as a whole, even if it moderates the vision of a proponent. But if urban design and planning keeps an eye on our city’s vital signs, architecture is more than just a nose job. The value of art in architecture can be misrepresented, undervalued and misunderstood. Architecture can be a vessel for joy, connection and deeper meaning. The challenge for every city is knowing the crux of its success as a place for people, and then figuring out how to make space for the unexpected. The tapestry of our individual ideas, and making room for as many voices as possible, is what makes a cohesive, inclusive, authentically creative city.
Guest editor
Peter Raisbeck RAIA
Guest editor
Lavanya Arulanandam RAIA
Radical inclusion
Words by Peter Raisbeck
The imaginaries and glimpses of real life, the voices of lived experience in this issue, pose the question: what if architecture abandoned itself to the dis-ordinary, to disabled becomings, to fluid escapades, to liberatory spatialities; what if architecture embraced bodily and neurological difference, rather than the illusory sameness of the many?
Rather than the tyranny of the conceptual, architects might look to the realism of everyday events, voices, tones, ambience, perceptible intensities, and multiple effects. This issue brings together some glimmers of hope for those of us seeking a celebration of the dis-ordinary. Dr Anthony Clark of Bloxas in a 2018 project looking at sound and dementia and the possibilities inherent in creative spatial practices that architects might take up. Anthony’s PhD at Monash University points to the value of architects engaging with the social sciences.
The three projects published here by Billard Leece Partnerships, Orygen: the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, Sibling’s Wangaratta District Specialist School addition and the Bargoonga Nganjin North Fitzroy Library indicate that co-designing with disability groups and communities are not a necessity to exercise in architectural ennui – rather the opposite. In other contributions to this issue, Sharon Kerr speaks to the impact of a dysfunctional built environment on family life. Magdalena Slawinksi’s interpretation of physical space extends our understanding of how we might view space as affect, experienced through the body rather than rationalised through the mind. Francesca Davenport, an architect who has been wheelchair-bound due to poliomyelitis diagnosed in 1948, narrates her involvement in the Bargoonga Nganjin North Fitzroy Library. She argues that design for accessibility should be a mandatory subject throughout undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Kirsty Bennet urges us never to forget that aged-care environments have a crucial role to play in enabling people to use their abilities as they become frailer and are not able to live independently due to physical and/or cognitive impairment.
Dr Lauren Pikó argues that energetic disabilities pose a challenge, which highlights the limitations and mantras of much conventional universal design practice. Dr Raelene West, an eminent scholar of critical disability studies, discusses her spatial experience and the paradoxes of physical steps in the built environment. Puneeta Thakur, inspired by her son’s experience in an electric-powered wheelchair, is developing new frameworks
for urban designers to develop urban policies and toolkits in regard to those of us who are wheelchair-bound.
Dr Kirsten Day discusses the need to develop an alternative studio culture that seeks to build on neurodiverse thinking’s strengths by valuing creativity, innovation, and problem-solving skills, placing a far greater value on understanding the sensory environment in real-life situations, and most importantly, value the process as much as the product. Confirming this approach, Leonie Csanki questions the norms of architectural design education, norms too often shaped by unconscious bias, profiling and pedigrees, and the search for an academicism of design purity.
Ryan Smith discusses how his own consulting practice has opened up spaces for people with functional disabilities to have the right to access tourism facilities. He argues for the need for these facilities to be designed through ideas of integrated modularity and customisation that offer personalised, universally
adaptive accessibility. Imogen Howe narrates the problems of doing lunch. Imogen longs for ‘unthinking’ design, where designing spaces for everyone is so automatic that it requires no thought and is a delight to use. Mary Ann Jackson provides a series of small vignettes based on her PhD fieldwork in assessing built environment accessibility at a neighbourhood scale. These vignettes, like so many of the above contributions, stress the criticality of our profession working together with people with disability. Finally, Allen Kong, who has tirelessly worked for many years in the sector, establishes the importance of architects engaging with global organisations such as the International Union of Architects (UIA); after all, accessibility is a global issue.
Allen Kong’s contribution reminds us that in Ubuntu African philosophy each individual is an integral part of society, and not invisible, and disability is seen as a phenomenon that exists outside of the body. The Ubuntu do not see the disability as the real person saying, “the soul is not disabled.”
Peter Raisbeck RAIA is associate professor of architectural practice in Melbourne on Naarm Country, at the Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne. Since 2006, he has been teaching architectural practice, design activism and contemporary architectural archives.
Peter is an architect with lived experience of disability and can no longer walk. In September of 2018 he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. For some, this disease will eventually trap you inside of your own body. Taking away the ability to move, eat, breathe and speak, all while your cognitive function remains untouched. Since this diagnosis, Peter has become increasingly passionate about diversity and inclusion in the architectural profession.
The future of accessibility is personal
Words by Ryan Smith
Every traveller has different demands and desires for their accommodation. Today, if you’re travelling with a family member with access needs – there’s a chance they won’t have somewhere entirely suitable to sleep tonight.
In the future, that won’t be the case. Accessible and inclusive accommodation will have evolved, exceeding building standards, surpassing Universal Design to provide a radical, empathic, and personalised approach for all visitors.
The accessible hotel room will be a relic of the past – replaced by an integrated modularity and customisation that offers personalised, universally adaptive accessibility.
In the same way the automotive industry allows drivers to pre-set their profile and customise their experience behind the wheel, visitors will arrive to find tailored accommodation, one that is bespoke to their visual style, their emotional landscape and their access needs.
Accessibility in the visitor economy has come into sharp focus recently with Tourism Australia’s Future of Demand research highlighting the unmet economic opportunities In the UK, Visit England has ambitions to be the most accessible country in Europe and in the US, with all eyes on this US$52B market.
The race to deliver better accessible tourism products is on, and there’s a lot of room for improvement. In a recent poll, 96% of all respondents reported having faced a problem with accessible accommodation while travelling.1 Travellers with access needs have long been the subject of assumptions, speculation and outright neglect.
While the standards that fall under Australia’s Disability Discrimination Act (1992) inform the way access must be applied to hotels, there are still limits to real-life outcomes for disabled visitors.
According to the Disability (Access to Premises -Buildings) Standards 2010 – a 25-room hotel must have at least two accessible rooms, and a 100-room hotel at least five. That is between 5 and 8% of rooms needing to be accessible
– while the rates of disability in the Australian population hover around 18% (ABS 2019). This number ignores people with temporary disabilities, and those who don’t identify as disabled.
In addition, the Australian Standards on Access AS 1428.1 are based on an outdated idea of the human experience. They are based on a 90th percentile model which excludes people with short stature, who are heavily pregnant, obese, frail, or anyone sitting outside a ‘normal’ body type. Research conducted ten years ago shows that the space allocated to a wheelchair within our standards is insufficient 75% of the time2. And wheelchair designs over the past ten years have developed and diversified radically.
Progress is being made though, using building standards and universal design principles as a foundation. As a wheelchair user and access consultant working in the visitor economy, I see incremental improvements every day. Progress is generally been seen in the availability, configuration, and styling of accessible accommodation.
Still, creative solutions and innovations are scarce. Most progress is being made in the aesthetics of accessible accommodation – and while brass fittings and potted monsteras are welcome additions, our rooms remain static and hardwired. In the same way Cadillac’s 1966 Fleetwood set the stage for heated car seats in the automotive industry – early movers in tourism will lean into customisable access. The tourism industry will be pulled towards a more adaptable, bespoke and sustainable version of universal access.
Experiments in adaptable, accessible accommodation aren’t new. UK architects Longstaff Day proposed a flexible hotel concept with a configurable, adjustable footprint. Moreover, in 2016 international firm Ryder developed a template for an adaptable hotel room they called AllGo. The concept won them the Royal Institute of British Architects Accessible Design Award 2016.
When fully formed, customisation of hotel rooms may well happen in two main ways. Firstly, through the choice of
personalised interchangeable, modular elements – like the ability to choose the size and colour of the face of a light switch, the style of tap head or even the position of a wall. Secondly, through the settings of configurable, fixed elements – like the colour and intensity of lighting, the direction and volume of ambient sound, or the height of a bathroom basin.
We’ll be witnesses to a watershed moment –the blending of hyper-personalised accommodation and truly tailored universal access. Room designs will no longer cater for as many people as possible – they’ll cater for one person, the individual guest.
With modular elements, the material choice of a component and their colour may play a part in haptic simulation as much as stylistic preference. Swapping out tap heads, pre-setting wall colours and adjusting ambient sound will be part of making up the room for a guest’s arrival.
Access preference settings can be part of the booking process and guest's can communicate these previsit. Default settings can be applied to a room based on broad access needs, they’d cover mobility, sight, hearing,
and sensory needs. There’s no reason 3D printers and a library of hardware can't provide tailored switches, controls, handles, switches and tap heads before arrival.
Ideally, once the type of access needs are understood, the human aspect of a visit can be augmented too. Reception and front of house staff will display an attentiveness only possible by the understanding of the new visitors.
Like many innovations this approach to accessible accommodation will start at the luxury end of the market and filter down. When it’s shown to be a success, hotel chains and smaller operators will watch and adopt the elements that work for them.
Accommodation operators are already looking to diversify their market, and visitors with access needs are fed up trawling web pages to find a place to sleep. This style of advanced customisation will empower visitors with choice and provide flexible formats for businesses. Already, operators are acting on the opportunities that accessibility offers them. The question is: who will act on the chance to redefine accessibility in the economy of contemporary, personalised experiences?
Notes
1 Portrait of Travelers with Disabilities: Mobility & Accessibility https://mmgy.myshopify.com/products/portrait-of-travelers-with-disabilitiesmobility-accessibility
Customise your stay with us.
Bathroom Please choose your preferred tap style.
Bathroom Please choose your preferred basin leg clearance. 1 2
2 Research On Spatial Dimensions for Occupied Manual and Powered Wheelchairs Project 2014, Caple, Morris, Oakman, Atherton, Herbstreit.
Ryan Smith is a qualified access consultant, inclusive tourism expert and the founder of The Access Agency.
Right
Drawings: The Access Agency, 2024
Can architecture play a role in aiding recovery?
Words by Tonya Hinde
In 2022, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed a startling statistic: nearly 40% of young Australians aged 16-24, over a million individuals, experience mental health disorders – a significant increase from 26% in 2007 1
For young people, seeking help for mental health requires immense courage, at a time when they are feeling most vulnerable. This emphasises the need not only to provide additional services, but also to ensure that the design of these facilities is empathetic and encourages young people to actively engage in their recovery.
Orygen is a not-for-profit organisation, led by Professor Patrick McGorry which believes that all young people deserve to grow into adulthood with optimal mental health. Everything they do is focused on that outcome. 2
When Billard Leece Partnership (BLP) was approached to aid Orygen in designing their new headquarters in Parkville, Victoria – a hub for research, training, and clinical treatment
– a comprehensive co-design journey was embarked upon, challenging conventional practices. Orygen, an advocate for co-design processes, initially surveyed over 160 young people and engaged a youth advisory group with lived experience. This inclusive approach ensured that young people had equal decision-making power alongside Orygen clinicians in all design stages, resulting in a space that fosters a “more democratic and non-hierarchical use of spaces”3 – a departure from conventional mental health care settings.
Orygen’s location in Parkville is uniquely situated between an inner-city urban area and a natural bush setting. The new headquarters consists of a series of pavilions arranged around a central courtyard which retains and features a large eucalyptus tree – a symbol of resilience and strength, which provides a grounded heart to the facility.
Expansive outdoor decks serve as transitional spaces tiered down a sloped site, facilitating outdoor consultation or group sessions, effectively dismantling any institutional atmosphere, and feeling more like relaxed university campus grounds. Consulting rooms seamlessly open to the outdoors, offering flexibility and choice for both young people and clinicians to move freely between indoor and outdoor environments, blurring departmental boundaries and fostering a sense of choice and freedom.
In contrast to the old buildings, where young people had expressed anxious feelings in enclosed spaces like the entry, waiting room, administrative reception and office-style consulting rooms, the new design opts for a discrete entry, fostering anonymity and a casual relaxed atmosphere. Featuring ample greenery, natural light, warm timber finishes and a variety of seating options, the space avoids traditional waiting room beam-seating cliches, promoting comfort and relaxation. A wide staircase from the entry ground-floor leads directly to the active lower ground cafe, providing a neutral space for young people to connect and/or meet their case managers or step outside to the deck prior to appointments.
Below
Orygen by Billard Leece Partnership. Photo: Ian Seldham
Orygen by Billard Leece Partnership.
Photo: Ian Seldham
The timber-feature arbour of the lower ground floor visually connects to the outdoor treescape, while offering passive screened observation to the upper lounge seating areas and reception. The insights gleaned from co-design material selection workshops with young people, found an appreciation for texture over colour and a distinct preference for natural fibres and materials. Interestingly, participants expressed a clear aversion to smooth, shiny, or synthetic surfaces, an inclination that speaks volumes about their desire for authenticity, comfort, and connection to the natural world.
To address the concerns of young people, the dedicated consulting rooms are strategically located away from the entry, facilitating icebreaking walk-and-talk experiences. The design ensures a neutral atmosphere in consulting rooms, accommodating young people’s desire for varied settings to interact with their case managers, whether in the cafe, a cosy room, or outside for a walk. Glazed doors provide direct access to the outdoors, allowing young people to exit discreetly without passing by others, and an optional egress point for clinicians –a positive outcome for everyone involved.
Aligned with Universal Design Principles, the facilities cater to diverse needs without excluding any population group. Specifically, when talking with young people, standard toilet facilities with traditional male, female and wheelchair pictograms were found to be excluding and discriminating against the transgender community. In response, all toilets throughout the entire facility, including staff only areas, were made gender neutral, and private accessible facilities are playfully signed
to be designated for anyone and everyone.
Young people expressed the significance of private moments in the bathrooms, whether for solitary reflection or regrouping after a challenging session. However, the presence of regulatory anti-ligature fixtures reminiscent of detention settings could potentially undermine the therapeutic environment we sought to create.
Rather than allowing these regulatory necessities to dictate the aesthetic and emotional tone of the bathroom spaces, the design diverts attention to the background with bold patterned tiles, each uniquely applied in every bathroom, counteracting any institutional associations, and fostering an environment that feels more welcoming and comforting.
Understandably, mental health and wellbeing is also a priority for staff at Orygen. On the upper floors, the design is considerate of clinicians and researcher’s workspace and privacy, by creating a sense of calm retreat. Perimeter glazing and lofty ceilings, maximise views of surrounding parklands, while breakout tea benches along the perimeter offer spaces for relaxation and time-out.
While a post occupancy evaluation is underway, anecdotal evidence suggests a significant reduction in violent behaviour incidents (code greys) at Orygen’s new premises. This reduction is attributed to various factors, including the co-design process with young people, resulting in a salutogenic environment that positively impacts the experiences of young people with mental health disorders, their families and the clinicians supporting them in their recovery.
Notes 1 Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022, National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, 2020-2022 | Australian Bureau of Statistics (abs.gov.au) National Study of Health and Wellbeing, Released 5/10/2023
2 About Us - Orygen, Revolution in Mind
Tonya Hinde is principal and interior design lead at Billard Leece Partnership.
3 Judith Hemsworth, Principal Design Advisor for the VHBA, 31 July, 2019 The new Orygen redevelopment: a place of transformation | VHBA
Right Orygen by Billard Leece Partnership. Photo: Ian Seldham
Enabling disabled access to urban public spaces
Words by Puneeta Thakur
In contemporary urban discourse, creating inclusive and accessible public spaces, particularly on an equitable basis for individuals with disabilities, is paramount. In this context, I share insights from my ongoing PhD research titled, “Pursuit of Happiness for Wheeled Power Mobility Device (WPMD) Users in Urban Public Spaces”. The project is in its advanced stage of data collation and analysis from field studies.
Here, I focus on three key areas within the realm of disability: Inclusion, universal design, and psycho-emotional analysis. The first two, that form the theoretical foundation of my above mentioned work, also align with the aspirations of this special issue on radical inclusion in architecture. The latter (constituting my original core contributions to disability studies) holds significant potential for the knowledge build-up on creating inclusive environments for all.
Embracing diversity and being mindful of the ingredients of appropriately designed spaces are key to creating environments suitable for growing and diversifying majorities. The methodologies developed and employed in my in-progress thesis, such as integrating digital tools (Empatica e4 watches, head-mounted GoPro cameras, voice recorders) and empathybased approaches to observe WPMD users’ individualised responses, emotions and experiences, are groundbreaking tools for delivering coveted and appropriate environments for the former aspirations. The overarching goal is to establish guiding principles for effective policymaking that specifically addresses WPMD users’ spatio-emotional and environmental needs and desires.
Disabled access to urban public spaces
The stated research centres on urban public spaces, investigating WPMD users specifically in the urban streets of Melbourne CBD. These spaces are vital hubs of everyday mobility and socio-cultural activities, facilitating interactions and community engagement. How well these spaces embrace the diversity of their population is crucial for fostering social
cohesion, inclusion, and overall quality of life.
Despite surging efforts to promote accessibility and inclusivity in urban design, shortcomings persist in accommodating the needs and aspirations of WPMD and other users with disabilities in public spaces. Moreover, many feel excluded and marginalised in these settings. The findings of Public Hearing 28, conducted by the Disability Royal Commission Australia in December 2022, and the subsequent report released in September 2023, illuminated the widespread challenges, such as rudeness, harassment, and discrimination faced by disabled individuals, including WPMD users, in public spaces. Furthermore, these revelations underscore a significant gap between policy intentions and on-the-ground realities, suggesting potential deficiencies in current policies and practices of disability inclusion. We need to examine what could be going wrong and how to address it.
Inclusion in wider urban contexts
There is mounting stress on inclusion in our urban policy and practice agendas, particularly in light of the widespread adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), notably SDG 11, which aims to deliver inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities and human settlements. At its core, the word ‘inclusion’ embodies a collective aspiration to establish just, equitable, and livable public spaces and communities where citizens’ wellbeing and quality of life, including people with disabilities, are prioritised.
Disability access and inclusion within the built environment, including WPMD use, are primarily guided by Universal Design (UD) principles and minimum design/regulatory standards. While UD is popular, and theoretically pragmatic, with the potential to cater to a diverse population and empower individuals, its effectiveness is questionable simply because it is guided by a one-size-fits-all principle, however, in varying measures.
Inclusion in disability contexts:
A casualty of Universal Design and mobility reductionism
The referred investigation into WPMD use has revealed that UD remains an aspirational concept – a perspective echoed by disability scholars like Imrie (2012) and Hamraie (2013).
The predominant emphasis on UD or universal access in policy formulation tends to overshadow the unique values, experiences, and customised solutions of those directly impacted. Amid the prevailing enthusiasm for universal solutions, there is a notable oversight of psycho-emotional wellbeing of disabled individuals. This expectedly results in their marginalisation and silencing.1 Currently, UD largely leans towards an approach overly fixated with mobility reductionism, and much-needed empathy is largely subdued from its welfare agenda.
The way forward
Achieving satisfactory inclusion for disabled individuals necessitates more than incremental improvements and technological fixes. It requires moving away from reductionist approaches and exploring new ways to upgrade the current methodologies, policies, and practices. Some key points to consider are:
Move beyond UD to embrace bespoke solutions:
Standardised approaches are often unfriendly to atypical WPMD users. Even though such individuals may constitute a minority, their needs are essential, and must not be dismissed. By prioritising customised solutions, we can potentially achieve far greater inclusivity.
A shift towards happiness and psychoemotional analysis:
Through recognising that navigating public spaces involves more than mere mobility, we can understand that it encompasses a holistic sensory and bodily experience. WPMD users or disabled individuals are not merely physical entities traversing spaces; they are human beings with emotions, capable of expressing contentment or discontentment. Their feelings of joy and happiness, as well as their dignity, individuality/ identity and safety are all significant. It is crucial to examine the interconnected effects of cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses to the environment – a concept I termed ‘psycho-emotional analysis’.
Embrace a multidisciplinary tool-kit for collecting necessary evidence:
Utilising rigorous research tools from diverse disciplines can provide robust evidence upon which actions can be confidently based. For example, in the field studies conducted for my PhD project, physiological data collected from Empatica watches meticulously revealed the emotional states of every WPMD user within the space.
Adopt empathy-based planning:
Empathy extends beyond simply listening to the narratives of affected users; it involves a deep understanding of their unique feelings and emotions. Prioritising the needs, experiences, and aspirations of end-users throughout the design and implementation processes is essential. Moreover, measuring the physical and emotional responses of WPMD users to environments, varying physically and temporally, that they negotiate in their everyday lives, per se involves an empathy-inclusive approach to building public spaces conducive to the well-being of affected users.
Foster collaboration and co-creation: Encouraging collaboration between the end-users of the space and the designers/technocrats responsible for delivering these spaces is crucial in alleviating any misgivings and creating truly inclusive environments.
Puneeta Thakur is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne and an experienced architect committed to enhancing the lives of the disabled.
Notes
1 Watermeyer et al, 2008; Reeve, 2004
Access regulation – radical antitheses
Words by Raelene West
If you have visited your local shops recently, you would probably notice that about a third of the shops still have steps at the front entrance and are therefore inaccessible to those using a wheelchair. These include retail outlets, restaurants and cafes, takeaway food outlets, and health and wellbeing shops. Steps at the front entrance of these shops also create difficulty for mums with prams and the elderly people who utilise walkers. Of all the restaurants and cafes that do have an accessible entrance with level entry, many do not have accessible amenities that someone in a wheelchair could utilise if they were having a meal there; this is something most able-bodied people take for granted as part of their eating and dining experiences. So why is it that in Australia in 2024 we still don’t have fully accessible built environments to shops and public premises?
Partly, it is a combination of historical factors, where people with a disability were excluded from society – institutionalised and discriminated against based on their impairment. The built environment wasn’t built for people with a disability because it wasn’t presumed that they were a part of society or inclusive in society. This exclusion was built on the concept of ableism, often preconditioned but sometimes based on unconscious bias, whereby the abled hold attitudes and judgement that devalue and differentiate disability and where able-bodied is more highly valued and “equated to normalcy”.1 Since the 1980s in Australia, a lot of this discrimination, ableism and stigmatisation leading to exclusion has been unpacked and addressed and most people with a disability in Australia are now working towards normal lives filled with employment, education, relationships, leisure and entertainment, and general inclusion into society.
However, legislation relating to achieving universal accessibility in Australia is weak, to the extent that accessibility in the public environment is only becoming accessible at a glacial pace. The Commonwealth’s Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) was passed in Australia in 1992 in recognition of these barriers of discrimination, stigma and ableism encountered
by individuals with an impairment. The inception of the DDA established the principal legal mechanism whereby various forms of discrimination would begin to be addressed that would ensure the reduction and elimination of all forms of discrimination in Australia based on impairment.
In terms of building accessibility, the DDA obliged an individual or entity to lodge a discrimination complaint. In most cases, this took the path of conciliation with either the Equal Opportunity Commission (state level) or Human Rights Equal Opportunity Commission (federal level) before being taken to the High Court. It sought, on a case-by-case basis, to counter instances of discrimination and provide an outcome to reduce the discrimination. Although not implicitly stated in the DDA, the concept of ‘reasonable adjustment’ is implied, whereby it is deemed necessary to demonstrate that where discrimination existed, a reasonable attempt is being made to eliminate and/or reduce these levels of discrimination.
A number of years after the inception of the DDA, it became apparent that the individual complaint process placed considerable burden on individuals with a disability that were required to make a complaint about each and every inaccessible premises, and then follow the complaint through to the high court for resolution. In an attempt to create more systemic change and lower the burden on the individual, the formulation of a set of DDA standards, which would be codified with the then Building Code of Australia, were implemented. These DDA standards would seek to identify the technical detail and regulatory mechanisms that could be used to effectively implement broad-based systemic change to reduce the discrimination of lack of accessibility. The implementation of these DDA standards would also seek to provide assurance for government and industry as to their obligations to legally meet the requirements of the DDA.
So in 2010, after 18 years after the development of the DDA, the DDA Access to Premises was passed. This was an extremely positive step and achievement for the
disability community and finally, it was thought it would enable wide-scale and rapid change to inaccessibility of the built environment. However, the DDA Access to Premises standards in the main, only address the construction of new premises. Only very weak guidelines are in place to address existing buildings that currently do not provide accessibility to their premises. A building must undergo a renovation of 50% or over before the premise owners are then required to renovate the building to accessible standards. If no renovations are conducted by a premise owner, then there is no legal requirement for them to make their premises accessible now or in the future. In real terms, this means that every shop or restaurant in Australia that currently has any step at the front entrance has no incentive or legal requirement to alter their premises to provide access features for people with impairment if no building works are undertaken.
Worsening the situation is the loophole where installation of access elements are avoided by businesses leasing premise, who can claim that they are just doing a fitout, not renovations, to avoid enacting the access requirements of standards. Fitouts do not require council permits and/or a building approval and thus, do not trigger implementation of access standards as fitouts. Further, even if a premises does trigger the access standards, they can claim unjustifiable hardship if they view the access provisions as being too costly
or of too much hardship to install. In addition, rarely do restaurant, cafe and deli premises have accessible amenities for people with impairment – amenities that the mainstream able-bodied population take for granted as a part of their dining out experience.
Owners of these inaccessible premises have had years to alter and modify their premises to be socially inclusive towards all members of society and have not done so. Retailers continue to be able to trade despite this discriminatory attribute to their businesses. There is also no requirement for the owners to demonstrate that they will be improving access to their premises in the near future and no incentives offered by any level of government to help owners address this discriminatory practice.
As such, 32 years after the implementation of the DDA, a significant proportion of the existing built environment in Australia in 2024 still does not have physical access to their premises. So next time you are visiting your local shops, have a look around and notice how many times you step up into a shop or restaurant or cafe. Have a look around and think to yourself, if I was out here with one of my friends in a wheelchair or with my partner pushing a pram or your aging parents using a walker, how difficult would it be to access many of these shops if at all? Australia, I think we can do access better and faster.
Notes 1 F Campbell (2008) “Refusing Able(Ness): A Preliminary Conversation about Ableism.” Journal of Media and Culture 11 (3). https://journal.mediaculture.org.au/index.php/ mcjournal/article/view/46.
Raelene West is a research fellow at the Melbourne Disability Institute – University of Melbourne. Her research field is critical disability studies.
An ordinary day
Words by Mary Ann Jackson
People with disability still struggle to complete ordinary journeys in the ‘hood. The discriminatory, day-to-day disabling reality of existing built environments is difficult to comprehend from afar. On the other hand, ‘being along’ is a powerful educator.
The short vignettes that follow on assessing builtenvironment accessibility at a neighbourhood-scale, in North and West Melbourne, illuminate the criticality of our profession working together with people with disability.
Remelo and Tranciss
“Today, I’m meeting with a man and his dog” is not a commonly used phrase when studying architecture. Tranciss, the man, is blind and thus Tuze, the guide dog, was also along for the session. Tranciss told Remelo that he sometimes augments Tuze’s assistance with Blindsquare, a navigational app. However, on this occasion Tranciss found Blindsquare both inaccurate and uninformative. Also, it chewed up the mobile phone battery, a potential barrier to calling an Uber later. Tranciss then insisted that Remelo obscure Tuze as much as possible from the Uber’s approach. Like many other blind people, Tranciss has had multiple experiences of being driven past, once the dog is spotted. Happily, there was no problem in this instance.
Tate and Bea
During Tate and Bea’s onsite session, Bea apologetically told Tate that “I need time and calm to get out of the driver’s seat, get outside the car, get my stick sorted, and get onto the footpath”. In inner Melbourne, however, moving from roadway to footpath invariably involves cobbled bluestone kerbing and guttering. Later, while picking her way cautiously along yet another (cobbled) laneway, Bea remarked “whoever said ‘I love walking on uneven cobblestones’, like, no-one, ever”. Tate later commented that she “felt embarrassed” that Bea was apologising for the built environment’s disabling effects. Moving around the neighbourhood together with Bea brought home to Tate that “context is as important as the element itself” when “using the built environment”.
Branko and Teran
Teran arrived a little late because she needs a park “with space both behind the car and on the driver’s side for the hoist to move my wheelchair around”. Teran often “parks in quiet, residential streets’’ particularly where “bike lanes provide an additional buffer”. Teran also told Branko that “obstructions, bluestone kerbing without kerb cuts, and being too close to cars coming ‘round the corner often make a disabled car space not fit for purpose”. In Branko and Teran’s session, many dwellings with steps at the front door had level-access garages. Branko asked Teran whether that might be an acceptable solution? Teran responded, “what if I just want a few things from the shops, do I have to get my car out to do that?” Later, after walking a few metres up the middle of a cobblestoned laneway because the footpath was too narrow to bother with, Branko realised he was alone; the slope and surface had defeated Teran.
Elsewhere, Teran could easily cross the level commercial-building entry she was assessing at the time, but the three different surface treatments would likely cause the “perception of a trip hazard at the doorway” for others. Branko and Teran also discussed hotel bathrooms during the session. While a level-entry shower is obviously a necessity, Teran “prefers a shower chair rather than a fixed shower seat”. Further, as she is “not very tall”, she doesn’t like raised toilets (of the height commonly specified in disability standards) where she can’t put her feet on the floor. Therefore, she told Branko, “a variety of toilet heights would be useful”.
Elisa and Evan
Elisa and Evan, both being fit, were up for walking the neighbourhood. But, crossing roads is challenging when you can’t see where one is going or what might be coming. As Evan told Elisa, “although blind people often have well-developed hearing skills, there is an increasing cohort of older, deaf-blind people, and, very worryingly, an increasing number of silent cars”. Even when there were tactile ground surface indicators (TGIs), road camber (the inward slope from the centre to the
sides) sometimes made Evan veer off course at intersections, causing Elisa to hurriedly intervene. On the other hand, as Evan repeatedly demonstrated to Elisa throughout the session, cobbled laneways lower than the footpath level can be very helpful for traffic management.
Hasmina and Gwennie
At the time of the fieldwork, Hasmina was also in the throes of parent-with-baby/toddler accessibility. Gwennie is a disability advocate. Her blind, middle-aged son with intellectual disability lives in an outer suburb. While having no footpaths in innercity laneways is definitely a thing – “so is having insufficient footpaths in suburbia”, and as Gwennie went on to tell Hasmina, “the footpaths that do exist are littered with bins on bin day”. Gwennie was very practised at explaining multiple accessibility shortcomings from diverse impairment perspectives, which is, in itself an indictment of the general state of built environment (in)accessibility! Hasmina, who has some professional built environment accessibility experience, exclaimed after the session “I would try to think of what Gwennie was going to say but every time she mentioned aspects I hadn’t considered!”
Branko and Brian
Branko watched Brian’s pre-session arrival in dismay. After alighting the maxi-taxi, Brian had needed to maneuver his manual wheelchair some distance down the road to use the only available kerb cut to get onto the footpath. Many of the accessible elements in Brian’s session involved steps/stairs. At one point, Brian exasperatedly told Branko “one of my pet peeves is the double mini-step, you know, a small threshold upstand of say up to 25mm, followed by a level length less than, say, 800mm, followed by another small threshold upstand”.
Viika and Ohsinn
Ohsinn arrived without any visible mobility aids and didn’t elaborate on his personal situation. As Gwennie had with Hasmina, Ohsinn educated Viika on multiple accessibility shortcomings, often along with relatively quickfix improvements. Ohsinn adamantly told Viika that “the availability or lack thereof of public seating, accessible parking, and public/ accessible toilets impacts individual mobility considerably”. What is not there is often the problem. Throughout the session, Ohsinn continually pointed out problematic, small changes in level to Viika, often occurring when surface treatments changed.
Katya and Brante
Brante, being non-verbal, showed inaccessibility to Katya. Brante couldn’t independently access the gated dog park, making Katya realise that it shouldn’t be assumed that all dog exercisers are ambulatory. In the adjacent public park, Brante had no difficulty negotiating rubberised soft fall but, understandably, baulked at showing the damage that pine bark would cause to his wheelchair. Katya also realised that people with disability want to use playgrounds and/or exercise equipment like everyone else. Elsewhere there was either no kerb cut or no footpath at all in the direction of travel. Moreover, on multiple occasions during Katya and Brante’s session, the footplates of Brante’s powered wheelchair hit hazard TGSIs fixed to the face of a too-steep kerb cut incline bringing progress to a grinding halt.
Coming to a grinding halt is the very definition of Inaccessibility! Therefore, hopefully, these short vignettes illuminate the criticality of our profession working together with people with disability.
Mary Ann Jackson is the director of Visionary Design Development Pty Ltd, and a PhD candidate at the Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of Technology.
One step from inclusion
Words by Sharon Kerr
This is an exploration of the profound impact that inaccessible architecture can have on ordinary lives, spanning over four decades. It is a tribute to my late husband, David Kerr, who departed this world on 14 August 2023, after dedicating his life to advocating for accessibility for individuals with disabilities.
David was an extraordinary individual, possessing a brilliant mind, a keen sense of humour, and an unparalleled understanding of world affairs and history. A surgical error at the age of fourteen left him unable to walk, his spinal cord deprived of oxygen due to a post-operative haemorrhage. After a year-long hospital stay, he returned to his family home, a house with steps, marking the beginning of a new life. A life where the inaccessible design of buildings and infrastructure became his primary obstacle, and the frustration of exclusion, his constant companion.
David quickly understood that the design of buildings and infrastructure, and his ability to access them, would significantly influence his life opportunities and societal perception. He was expected to accept the label of ‘disabled’ and express gratitude for any access or acceptance granted to him. His ambitions moderated, he was no longer to think about what he wanted to do, but rather what he could do, given the architectural barriers of the built environment.
Upon his return home, David faced his first challenge. The steps in his home necessitated crawling, a sight his parents found embarrassing and attempted to hide from extended family and friends. It always struck me that the family continued to live in houses with steps for the remaining 60 years of David’s life. When I questioned this during our marriage, the response was that they did not want to diminish the value of their home with the appearance of accessible adjustments. It was then that I realised that just as people cannot aspire to what they do not see, the same applies to architecture. If accessibility is not normalised and expected in public architecture, the imperative for creating access does not permeate the private sphere.
David completed his intermediate certificate from his hospital bed, excelling in several subjects, especially science. He always maintained that he had the best tutors with doctors and nurses at his side all day, every day. Upon leaving the hospital, he realised that to access life’s opportunities, he needed an education, and he needed to excel. Unfortunately, like his family home, his school was not accessible, and a sheltered workshop was offered as an alternative path. Undeterred, David taught himself to pull himself up on crutches, using the strength of his arms to mobilise and access the local school. This method of mobility served him for the next 20 years until his arms finally gave out, and he transitioned to using a wheelchair.
Each new chapter of life brought more barriers caused by inaccessible architecture. After leaving school, David won a scholarship to study law at the University of Sydney, an impressive achievement for a young man from a public school in Western Sydney. Regrettably, the University of Sydney’s buildings were inaccessible and too difficult to navigate, so he studied at Macquarie University, a newly opened institution that allowed him to drive his car to the back of the lecture theatre, where he majored in economics.
David and I married in 1982 and were blessed with three beautiful sons. From that time, it was not just David who was excluded due to inaccessible architecture, but our entire family. Architecture played a central role in determining where David could work and study, where we as a family could live and play, and with whom we could share our lives and engage with in the community. In the early years of our marriage, we found ourselves paying $500 a month in parking fees to ensure David could park under the buildings where he worked. Life events such as weddings, funerals, and christenings were inaccessible due to the challenging architecture of churches. The homes of friends and family, schools, children’s performances, parentteacher nights, concerts, plays, performances, restaurants,
and holiday accommodations were all limited by accessibility. David returned to the University of Sydney to study law in the 1990s. Despite the university’s buildings still being inaccessible, he advocated for access and found those who understood the need for architecture to accommodate all students. It is a sobering reality that the buildings that were inaccessible in David’s youth, remain so 60 years later.
David was an exceptional individual. His successful advocacy for the introduction of the Mobility Allowance with the Fraser government, a program designed to assist people in navigating inaccessible transport systems and environments for employment, is noted in Hansard. At its peak, prior to the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), this program was assisting 60,000 people a year. Yet even being exceptional was not enough for him, or us, to overcome the barriers caused by the inaccessibility of the built environment. He was able to assume seniority in employment and travel the globe, but not dine out at a local restaurant or attend a play or family function.
In planning, we often refer to disability communities. I propose that there is no such thing as a disability community. People living with disabilities are part of the general community; they are part of every family. If they are excluded due to an inaccessible built environment, everyone who loves or works with that person is also excluded. In 2024 in Australia, it would be utterly unacceptable to exclude someone from a building or public place because of gender, age, or ethnicity, yet exclusion because of disability is still ever present.
We need to ensure that universal accessible design is normalised, ubiquitous, and valued. Public architecture needs to demonstrate that accessibility features need to be factored into all built environments. Further, these features can be aesthetically pleasing and add value to any structure. The discipline and art of architecture is where accessibility solutions are conceived, promoted, and brought to reality. This discipline is at the cornerstone of ensuring that all families do not find themselves just one step away from inclusion.
Sharon Kerr is a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne working on the ARC discovery Indigenous disability project – BlakAbility.
Bargoonga Nganjin North Fitzroy Library and Community Hub
Words by Alex Marfleet
Being given the chance to share my thoughts on inclusion, particularly as it relates to Bargoonga Nganjin, is a rare opportunity. Public libraries are the heartbeats of inclusivity; they are open arms to all, without a price tag or prerequisites. They are, by definition, inclusive and it was a privilege to throw myself at that challenge.
Rather than repeat the obvious (work with your accessibility consultant as early in the process as you can and research/visit as many other like facilities as you can and speak to the users, or perhaps flex about our Changing Places facility or escape-lifts) I would like to share a couple of lessons I learnt from the process revolving around the theme of inclusion with the hope that readers can absorb and build on them.
Inclusive consultation
One of the many aspects of the Bargoonga Nganjin project that marks it out as distinct from others was its emphasis on community dialogue. At the start, community consultation took the form of putting the architect in front of a community group to present and be questioned. It had not gone particularly smoothly.
A third-party facilitator
A breakthrough came with the introduction of a third-party facilitator, smoothing out the conversation, making almost every voice heard. This changed the dynamic in a profoundly positive way. It set a level of calm to the conversation that all of the project team benefited from. We could all be heard and someone independent of the stakeholders kept the process flowing.
Visual presentation
Presenting through a live 3D model brought our vision to life, turning complex ideas into shared understandings. The presence of the facilitator allowed me to encourage questions on the fly from the community, while feeling safe in the knowledge that we
would be kept on track before diving into unproductive rabbit-holes. (Side note – I would look forward to the opportunity to present a scheme to those without our standard range of senses or with additional ones! That would be an enormous learning opportunity.)
Community questions
The magic in design lies in the questions asked. This is broadened and enhanced by community engagement. Facilitation ensured the shy and the bold alike could shape our project; their inquiries added depth and context. It's about truly listening and sometimes saying no in a way that still feels like a yes to inclusion. The most important outcome is that people know that they have been listened to. There are many ways of saying no that start first with acknowledgement and avoid dismissal.
Regardless of safety, however, some of us are quite shy. I would frequently hang around after the presentations so that the quieter members could approach me and give me their questions or comments one to one, which they did.
The other clear requirement for this process to occur is time. I estimate in hindsight that meetings with the community group over design iterations added maybe two to four months to the design program. Not many clients or projects can afford this when they have their own internal deadlines to meet. But I would advise that the more time you can give this, the more inclusive the result will be.
Inclusive design
Getting the basics right is not rocket science. We have codes that we can apply and exceed. We have other facilities to research and their users to ask. We have consultants who can help us see the cutting edge of best practice and to understand the motives behind each measure. What I’d like to share here is a little more abstract.
Designing with empathy
My life path as a perennial misfit is by no means unique, but it has left me with a persistent strong yearning to belong. This has stuck with me through growing up in Trinidad, working in the UK and then moving to Australia. Inside, I’m just a kid who dearly wants to belong but feels that they do not. I’m sure we all feel like this from time to time.
This project was a chance to channel that longing into spaces that speak to a broad cast, especially those who feel on the fringes. The building type choses the cast so in this case it included:
The unfamiliar visitor – hence intuitive building navigation was important
The overwhelmed parent – immediate pram parking and somewhere to sit connected but separate from offspring
The chair-bound patron – material and texture feedback for level changes (an innovative solution suggested by our wonderful DDA consultant)
The shy child – big circular windows creating intrigue or windows just for their scale.
The sound sensitive person – acoustic absorption everywhere … and many more.
The cast is large, but by no means perfect or exhaustive. Neither is my imagination, but first, we try, and then we leverage other experts and community members to expand our empathic range.
Allow users to find their space
This is an early lesson that applies to inclusion which I learnt from a great Trinidadian Architect, Roger Turton (sadly no longer with us). He designed spaces full of character with areas of loose, un-prescriptive planning – like a stage set waiting for actors. This encouraged users to find their own spot according to their social needs and wants. You could be the centre of attention, separated, or somewhere in between. For inclusion, it is important to allow people to find somewhere they feel comfortable on this scale. From the flighty introvert (me) to the gregarious centre of attention (not me).
The rooftop garden is my favourite space and, I would maintain, our most successful. It channels what I learnt from both Roger and from collaborating on facilities for vulnerable youth. The area is 70% accessible, which is just a number, but what it means is there are places for most of us to find their own spot, and to inhabit the space on our own terms.
As much as we want to orchestrate everything, often we should design only the scaffolding and allow the people to complete the design, encouraging their participation and inclusion.
Alex Marfleet operates as Studio Marfleet and is currently collaborating with Hames Sharley Melbourne. He was the principal designer and project architect on Bargoonga Nganjin while working for GroupGSA.
Right Bargoonga Nganjin North Fitzroy Library by GroupGSA. Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country.
Photo: Tom Hutton
Let’s do lunch
Words by Imogen Howe
Let’s do lunch. You might think that this is an innocuous phrase, but it is not so for many people with disability. People with disability often face painful, ugly, time-consuming, and exhausting barriers that many non-disabled people don’t even notice. It is clear that there is a gap in how spaces are designed, made and operated, a gap that should be occupied by people with disability.
Australia is filled with spaces where disability and chronic illness aren’t considered, and I’m frustrated by this thoughtless practice. In 2019, Caroline Criado-Perez’s book Invisible Women exposed the data bias in our world that is designed for (and often by) men. But really, our world is not just designed for men. More specifically, it is designed for fit, ablebodied, white, men. The data-gap and unthinking design that Criado-Perez refers to is design that excludes anybody that is other, and that approach dramatically impacts the lives of many people with disability.
In 2024, we should know that compliant design does not equal good design. It is the minimum standard. Research indicates that architects often take building codes and standards for granted, assuming that if you tick that box and comply with that code your design is good enough. In architecture, the term “accessibility” is used synonymously with a space that simply complies with the Australian Standards for accessibility (AS 1428). Used in this way, accessibility suggests that compliance with the accessibility standards alone is enough. It is not enough. Spaces that merely comply with these standards are often not accessible in the fullest and truest sense of the word. Compliant solutions can still be awful or impossible to use. Compliance with the standards alone does not lead to truly dignified and equitable spaces. Considered and thoughtful design does.
I am bewildered by compliant, accessible ramps or bathrooms that are ugly, institutional looking, distressing to use, time consuming and clearly an afterthought. What is even more confusing is the amount of these designs that have performance
solutions to remove some of the key things that would make them usable. I am bewildered by new multi-million-dollar buildings that have little thought put into spatial wayfinding cues or signage so that people with disabilities can independently, autonomously navigate them with the same ease experienced by their non-disabled counterparts. I continue to see doors that can’t be opened without twisting, are too heavy to open or are concealed and difficult to see.
I am a non-disabled woman and an architect who loves design and practice. But in 2022, after thirteen years in professional practice, it had become clear to me that important voices weren’t being included in design thinking. So, I made the challenging decision to start a PhD researching architectural design and disability to understand where and how to make change. The principle of “nothing about us without us” has been the catch cry for disability advocates for decades and it is important. To have good design for people with disability, they need to be in the room during the design process, particularly in the early phases, and they are not there. Not only are people with disability not in the room, they are not properly thought about in the design process by those who are in the room.
When I started my PhD I met academics whose scholarship focused on disability and social justice, some of them with disabilities themselves. I was so excited to finally meet a crew of like-minded people. Excited by the prospect of disability rights scholars’ meetups, I planned an event to connect everyone. Let’s do lunch! Such a simple idea, I thought. I had no idea what I was in for.
I started my planning with a list of requirements for the venue. Classy but affordable, of course! Close to work, quiet, comfortable lighting without glare, indoor options (but COVID aware) and accessible – righto! To be clear, accessible means not only an accessible entry, but an accessible toilet and a safe and welcoming space for service dogs. And last, but not least, dietary-restriction friendly. Simple, right? Nup, not at all.
I called a few venues that I knew had accessible entrances – vetoed – they were noisy and didn’t have accessible toilets. Other venues were unhelpful and did not know what an accessible toilet was. In fact, people were so unclear about this that in the end I chose to visit them in person to check. I traipsed around the local streets, visiting options one by one. It was good that I did this, because some venues that staff thought were accessible, had a step at the entry or were only accessible by crossing cobblestone roads. Another place that did have an accessible toilet, was using it to store furniture. I thought I had hit the jackpot when I found a venue that met all our disability requirements only to discover they could not manage dietary restrictions.
With the date for lunch looming ever closer and still no venue, it was time to phone-a-friend. I called a friend who has a disability and severe food allergies. Was there a secret place I had missed? Instead, no, “welcome to my world babes”. My best two options were a venue without a suitable bathroom or a venue without suitable food.
Really, those were my best options?
What an undignified choice! And that is the problem, it is not just about accessibility it is about dignity, independence, autonomy, and equity.
Buildings, new and old, that are not easy to use, let alone ones that are truly dignified for people with disability continue to litter our streets decades after the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act (1992). It is now also over fifteen years since Australia signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and yet many of our newest buildings don’t even meet the first principle of the convention. To respect the inherent dignity, autonomy, and independence of individuals with disability.
Spaces that are truly equitable and dignified for everyone to use independently and autonomously are what I long to see. I want spaces like that to become so every day that they are background. I long for ‘unthinking’ design, which refers to spaces where designing for everyone is so automatic it requires no thought. Honestly, I am more aspirational than that. I want dignified spaces that aren’t just equitable because they’re possible for everyone to use them, but because they’re a delight to use. I want spaces where everyone feels they belong.
Imogen Howe‘s architectural practice focuses on creating socially-inclusive places where everyone can belong. Imogen has specialist expertise in creating built environments that consider the equity needs of diverse users, especially those with disability. She is currently undertaking PhD research at the University of Melbourne in disability-inclusive workplace design.
Designing therapeutic environments for residential aged care
Words by Kirsty Bennett
Q: How can we design for radical inclusion in residential aged care?
A: By creating environments that are enabling and empowering for people by designing to include residential aged care in the life of our communities.
Most of us go to residential aged care when we know someone who lives there, but not before or after. People living in residential aged care, and the way their environments are designed, are largely out of sight. There is often discussion about care and costs in the media, but not about living, and the lives of the people who live there.
We’ve all lived through lockdowns, so we know what it is like to not go out when we wish to, to not be able to do the things we would like to do, to be told to do things at certain times and have our options curtailed. For many people living in residential aged care this is still their life. And sadly, the community accepts it. It’s OK, for them. We don’t include people living in residential aged care in the goals we set for our lives, and for our community.
Apply the evidence and strong practice base
If we want to design for inclusion in residential aged care, we need to apply the evidence and strong practice base that has been developed over the last four decades. Over this time, frailty levels in aged care have increased significantly and it is estimated that more than two-thirds (68.1%) of aged care residents have moderate to severe cognitive impairment.
Australian and international research has shown that the environment has a key role to play in enabling people to use their abilities as they become frailer and are not able to live independently, due to physical and/or cognitive impairment. The application of a number of design principles has been shown to have a positive impact on the behaviour and quality of life of people living in residential aged care.
In Australia, these principles are the foundation of extensive dementia design training resources used by Dementia Training Australia, Dementia Australia, and Alzheimer’s WA. They were used to organise and frame the World Alzheimer’s Report 20201 and are described in the Dignity Manifesto of Design as 10 principles:
1. Begin each project by developing a vision for a dignified way of life for people living with dementia.
2. Where safety measures are agreed to be appropriate, design them to be as unobtrusive as possible:
3. Design the environment to reflect a human scale.
4. Plan the environment to make it easy for people to see and move where they want to go.
5. Optimise stimulation, so that helpful stimulation is emphasised and unhelpful stimulation is minimised.
6. Promote movement, engagement, and meaningfulness.
7. Afford people opportunities to enjoy contact with nature.
8. Design all components of the environment to be as familiar as possible.
9. Afford people opportunities to choose to be alone or with various size groups of people.
10. Provide easy access and connection to and from local communities, families, and friends. 2
The manifesto seeks to provide an internationally agreed consensus on the values and principles that guide the design of enabling environments for people living with dementia. Signatories include people living with dementia and their carers, many eminent experts in design and architecture, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The manifesto takes a stand on what is needed if we are to include people living with dementia in the life of our communities, whether they are living in their own homes or in residential aged care.
Leith Park by MGS. Wurundjeri
Photo: Jeremy Wright
Photo:
Environments that promote wellbeing and quality of life
As architects, we need to create inclusive residential aged care settings that promote wellbeing and quality of life. We need to focus on much more than decoration and furniture and use design to create a familiar environment in every sense, remembering who will live in these places. Residents need an environment that is legible and meaningful to them, not one that showcases the latest architectural trends. This does not preclude great design. It does mean, however, that the focus is on the resident. We also need to give greater emphasis to designing outdoors and going outdoors. We need to design so it is just as safe to be outside as it is to be inside. We need to think about where outdoor spaces are, and how and why a resident would go there.
We need to design environments that support people who live in aged care and the staff who work there. We need to create therapeutic environments that are easily understood and manageable, so people can find their room, and are not left walking up and down a hotel like corridor, searching, because we haven’t paid attention to scale and visual access, because we haven’t paid attention to optimising stimulation, and have instead created environments that lead people to become anxious and sometimes aggressive. This is not good for the resident but is also terrible for staff and for the family.
As part of my PhD research, I have spent weeks sitting in indoor and outdoor social spaces in residential aged care, observing how residents use them, as I explore how we can use design to encourage residents to go outdoors. As architects we need to spend time with people who live and work in residential aged care so we can use their practice knowledge and lived experience to inform our designs. We also need to use the skills we have to help our clients understand the importance of the environment in the lives of residents, staff and families.
Goals, principles, approaches, responses
One way to create a therapeutic environment is to use the schema that was published in the World Alzheimer’s Report 2020. We can start by articulating the goals of the project, and then apply key design principles to achieve these. The next step is to interpret the principles using approaches and responses that are context and people specific. The goals for a project can be described in many ways and are likely to vary for every project and client. We need to encourage clients to articulate a vision, and to think about how people in residential aged care can live, and not simply exist. We need to explore how residential aged care can be part of the wider community, and not isolated and apart from it.
The National Aged Care Design Principles and Guidelines (2024) will be most useful if read with an understanding of the principles contained in the World Alzheimer’s Report 2020. The Commonwealth’s document identifies four key design principles of focus. These are: Enable the Person; Cultivate a Home; Access the Outdoors; and Connect with Community. What if we were to take each
of these as a goal and apply the 10 principles to each? That would mean that as we think about access to outdoors, we would think about all the principles, about visual access, scale and stimulation, about meaningful engagement and creating a familiar environment with places for people to be on their own or with others. The potential is enormous when we use these principles to respond to goals, and then in turn use the principles to guide the design’s direction and detail.
The schema described in the World Alzheimer’s Report 2020 is a way to apply the knowledge we have learnt from decades of research and practice in many different settings. Knowledge can be used in a culturally and contextually appropriate way, rather than taking a cookie-cutter approach where one-size-fits-all and components are selected from a shopping list.
Creating therapeutic environments
Residential aged care is an important part of a community. We need to raise awareness about the importance of the environment in the eyes of the community so that people who make decisions about aged care (and who will live there) realise that the environment matters and know what is important. We also need to encourage providers to spend time (not extra money) creating therapeutic environments, environments that support and enable the people who live and work there. We have a responsibility as a profession and an opportunity to do this. Australia used to be a world leader in aged care design. Let’s reclaim this place.
Residential aged care projects are large projects. But at their heart are the people who live there. That is why they happen, because older people, many of whom will be living with dementia, need care and support to live out their lives. The most important thing we can do to be radically inclusive is to put these people at the heart of our designs.
Kirsty Bennett FRAIA, is the co-author of the World Alzheimer’s Report 2020 Design Dignity Dementia, the founding manager of Dementia Training Australia’s National Design Education Service, a volunteer caregiver, and is undertaking a PhD in design at Swinburne University of Technology. She is a co-founder of the Evoke Collective and Enable Everyone.
Notes 1 Richard Fleming, Zeisel, J. and Bennett, K (eds) World Alzheimer’s Report 2020, Design, dignity, dementia: Dementia-related design and the built environment, https://www.alzint.org/resource/ world-alzheimer-report-2020/
2 Richard Fleming, Zeisel, J., Bennett, K., Golembiewski, J., Swaffer, K. and Henderson, L (eds), The Dignity Manifesto of Design (2019), https://designdignitydementia.com/
Fast-tracking accessible architecture
Words by Francesca Davenport
Accessible architecture1 requires architects who understand the needs of people with disabilities, architects and designers with disabilities, and participation in the design process by people with lived experience of disability. We need a greater number of such architects and designers to accelerate systemic change.
Understanding the needs of people with disabilities
An introduction to issues of disability should start in the foundation year of an architecture degree or design course. By making design for accessibility a mandatory subject throughout undergraduate and postgraduate studies, students can develop a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by people with disabilities in navigating the built environment and thus proactively consider accessibility in their projects rather than treating it as an afterthought.
Architects and designers with disabilities
Lived experience of disability heightens awareness of the needs and issues related to other disabilities. Designers with disabilities bring both their lived experience and professional design skills to universal design.
Students with disabilities need role models, mentors, networking opportunities, and awareness that a career in design is achievable and can be rewarding. 2 Design school premises, including their fitout, must be accessible for students with disabilities. Architects’ offices need to be accessible for students to gain work experience and as their future workplaces.
Participation in the design process
People with lived experience of disabilities can impart reliable knowledge about their needs to access the built environment. On local government projects, for example, this is commonly done through disability advisory committees. This process, however, has had limited value due to the level of participation and project time constraints. More effective participation can be achieved through the co-design process, where people with
disabilities are actively involved in the whole design process. However, availability of more architects with knowledge of disabilities and more architects with disabilities would facilitate systemic change and faster outcomes.
Experience of disabilities
My lived experience of disability – due to poliomyelitis in early childhood in 1948 Indonesia – is not unique among architects and designers with disabilities.
My parents believed that mainstream education would optimise my chances of entering tertiary education and having a professional career. However, practically all buildings, including schools, were inaccessible. I was thus home-schooled by private tutors during my primary and secondary school years. The compulsory nationwide school examinations were taken at the schools where I was officially enrolled.
In 1962, I chose to study architecture. At that stage I was still ambulatory, wearing full leg braces. The concept of accessibility was unheard of in those days in Indonesia. The oldest and well-established School of Architecture was at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), a sprawling campus of old and inaccessible buildings. Instead, I enrolled at the Department of Architecture at Parahyangan Catholic University. Their campus was less inaccessible than the ITB Campus and they were prepared to accommodate my needs as much as possible, such as by relocating lectures on major subjects to the ground floor and providing one-to-one design and construction tutorials on the ground floor. However, this meant that I missed out on important interactions in the design studios.
Drawings were done manually on drafting tables, usually while standing or sitting up on high drafting chairs. My site visits had to be curtailed as construction sites were inaccessible, naturally, as they are now.
Learned experience of disabilities was gained through my specialisation in health care and aged care projects and, especially, during the intensive one-year post
graduate training in rehabilitation architecture in Australia in 1972/1973. The training commenced with a total of three months at rehabilitation facilities and special schools in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. My task was to observe the patients and their therapists – observing the issues they encountered and their needs in daily life. At Shenton Park Spinal Unit, Perth, this included observation in the ward at nighttime.
Benefits of accessible architecture
Providing solutions to the challenges faced by people with disabilities benefits everyone. For instance, while ramps are required for wheelchair users, they are also useful for the elderly, parents with strollers, people on crutches, and couriers making bulky deliveries. Low-height bookshelves in libraries that are accessible to wheelchair users also eliminate the need for staff to reach overhead or strain when organising books. Accessibility of the built environment has improved considerably in the past 50 years, but it can and should be better. In Australia, accessibility of public premises is required by the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Premises Standards 2010, Transport Standards 2002, and the National Construction Code. The mandated minimum access provisions do not meet the needs of all people; the needs of neurodivergent individuals have not been considered; lifts for emergency evacuation and accessibility of existing premises not undergoing building work are still not mandatory.
However, in addition to mandatory and enhanced access provisions, advances in technology will make education and a career in architecture possible and easier for people with disabilities. For example – computer-aided design removes the need to use drafting tables; digital photos/videos can be taken by a third party to enable inspection of inaccessible construction sites; a smartphone camera on a selfie-stick can be used to view certain inaccessible spaces; smartphone apps that translate or convert speech to text assist people who are deaf in one-to-one and group discussions, which would be ideal for use in lectures when combined with a wireless microphone; a web-based hearing augmentation system that streams public address announcements at airports directly as text to any smartphone benefits all passengers; smartphone apps for wayfinding significantly assist people who are blind.
Bargoonga Nganjin North Fitzroy Library and Community Hub (reviewed by Alex Marfleet) is an exemplar of accessible architecture. Completed in April 2017, it provides inclusive access and egress that incorporates lifts for evacuation. The accessibility core principle in the project’s functional brief, which was written following extensive community consultations, stated the client’s commitment to apply non-mandatory enhanced building standards, where possible. Throughout the long design process, the project manager and the architect remained steadfastly true to this commitment and, as the access consultant, I was able to be fully involved.
Francesca Davenport LFRAIA ACAA is an architect and access consultant, specialising in hospital and rehabilitation architecture, and is also a wheelchair user. She is currently a sub-consultant at Architecture & Access.
Notes
1 “Accessible architecture refers to the design and construction of buildings and spaces that can be easily and independently used and accessed by people with disabilities, going beyond mere compliance with building codes and regulations, and focusing on creating environments that are inclusive, empowering, and respectful of human dignity. It aims to eliminate physical barriers and provide equal opportunities for individuals with diverse abilities to navigate, interact, and participate fully in the built environment.” Chicago Architecture Center, https://www.architecture.org/learn/resources/architecture-dictionary/ entry/accessible-architecture/
2 E Ostroff, Limont, M and Hunter DG (2002), "Building a World Fit for People: Designers with Disabilities at Work" Adaptive Environments
Right
Bargoonga Nganjin North Fitzroy Library and Community Hub by GroupGSA. Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country. Photo: Tom Hutton
Breaking anti-tecture
Words by Leonie Csanki
The present state of the design studio creates standardised creativity and a lack of diversity – and if diversity cannot graduate, diverse architects cannot exist.
Calls for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are popular, attracting responses from institutions and industries all over. Unfortunately, it can look like virtue-signalling blanket bureaucracy and selective support for ‘easier’ groups. The reality of accommodating unique and complex narratives ends up feeling like lip service to the individual – a distant fantasy for those who lumber through making it happen. These individuals are the dreamers, the new professionals: those who sign up for architecture school only to have their dreams and diversity routinely ground to dust.
Architectural education and practice are under immense pressure to change. But change of this kind is slow, generational, and well, scary. What is it exactly that institutions and industry are afraid of? It’s a question asked often enough but seldom answered truthfully. Continuing to protect our individual selves by lying is becoming increasingly irresponsible as we face the climate emergency – however, thankfully, we’re becoming publicly kinder and accommodating of these vulnerabilities. It’s OK to not be OK all the time. Take rest, let someone else take the wheel for a while. It’ll be OK.
Last edition mentioned Rem Koolhaas’ scary vulnerability: not feeling in control of over 75% of the structural and mechanical systems in his projects. At face value, such a celebrity would have little to lose by honesty here, and losing degrees of control is relatable to all of us in some way. Last edition’s article (correctly) suggests designers must adapt to alternative degrees of control or face chaos, dysfunction, and failure.
This adaptation, evolution, revolution is sorely needed, and it’s in the works. Designers in less regulated industries
are taking calculated risks to ensure post-climatic futures are sustainable; architectural progress is slower for many valid reasons. One not-so-valid reason isn’t pretty and doesn’t feel good to mention, but we can address it around and despite regulations. Can you guess it? A clue… it’s the ‘f’-word. There’s plenty of groups who are quite used to operating around the ‘f’-word. Politicians call them ‘minorities’. I call them people. I can only speak for a very, very limited number of them – broadly, I’ve observed that diverse groups are used to working around what they’ve been told ‘no’ to, they’re used to re-adjusting needs after realising they were gaslit for too long. They’re used to living with being ignored, avoided or angrily shut down, coerced into situations they didn’t want by other peoples’ f–‘f’-word. More and more, they’re also becoming tired of it. They – we – know how to find a way through this mess, if only we would be heard and given space. Space for which we are un submissively grateful.
The more this space is kept open, our confidence grows and diverse people find their voice, even for a little bit. It is only for a little bit, mind – we know burnout and the limits of a human body. Thankfully, there’s a lot of us, and we like to share. And it’s not just diverse people that will step up: diverse ideas and solutions will come, as will differently accurate definitions of problems with differently attainable solutions. What have we got to lose?
‘Hmph, my livelihood,’ you might retort. Yawn. It grieves≈me to say that’s changing anyway, careers and industry always adapt. Enterprise architects didn’t exist 40 years ago. The inevitable union of built structures with structures of the virtual is happening now. You might scoff ‘That’s not what
I was thinking!’ Oh, I might say, your (lack of) actions speak otherwise. Let’s work on that.
Architecture prides itself as a creative profession improving societal futures, and it is. But equitable and inclusive it hasn’t been, gatekept by abstruse ecclesia pretending an extremely specific phenomenology is where it’s at. We all miss out by this, including the abstruse ecclesia. Becoming more equitable and inclusive means learning to ride the chaos, dysfunction, and failure – an art itself. But if that’s not for you, it’s OK, remember to share our space. The support network for this rodeo is vast, varied and already here. Diversity always existed: it is us all, as we are. Wild creativity and artistic exploration are amazing therapies for overcoming scary things, and our design training and sensibilities empower us to transform such adventures into viable solutions.
We’re creative people raised on stories. It’s how we teach and connect, empathise, understand each other and our world, and feel safe. It’s difficult to comprehend others’ journeys without stories, but telling stories is not without risk. Will it be believed? Will they think it’s made up? Will it forever define the protagonist?
One protagonist is stepping up. A story of life in progress, of personal and academic success and failure. In architectural education, current bureaucratic DEI accommodations force individuals to reveal deeply private or profoundly confrontational circumstances, with ominous consequences. For better or worse, our protagonist began studying architecture, but ended up enduring a two-faced education: wonderfully supported by compassionate people, while in parallel, underhandedly sabotaged by faceless policy. We can’t have DEI by saying we want it while petrified by overcomplicated rulebooks, comfy positions, and old habits. Our designer brains ideally want a nicely defined problem before we start solving it, but with DEI the privacy paradox makes that hard, especially without case studies. Enter: our protagonist and the new professionals, exhibiting stories of failures and successes featuring an enduring love of design and creativity. The new professionals are among us, working already, and more are coming. Navigating careers in what at times feels more like anti tecture, the new professionals have ideas that won’t be stamped out by bullies, bad grades, and creative stagnation. It’s time to break some anti tecture.
Leonie Csanki is a person before any job title, leading a career in design since 2004. In 2015, burnout and chronic illness inflicted drastic lifestyle changes, and a concatenation of design, IT and architectural practice. Leonie co-operates an evolving architectural design company of a contemporary and holistic definition.
Right Birrarung Camps (MArch Design Studio D.3 #24, 2022), BREAKING ANTI TECTURE 2024. Scale model and photograph by Protagonist
An auto-ethnographic account Melbourne School of Design building
Words by Magadalena Sliwinska
I identify as a survivor of an adverse childhood experience (ACE) and have been impacted through my childhood and adult years with multiple mental health issues that can be described as bodily tensions, freeze, fight or flee symptoms, rumination, sensitivity to light and/or sound, and so on.
Having recently graduated with a master’s degree in Therapeutic Arts from MIECAT Institute, I have learned to identify these bodily symptoms and trace them through a multi-modal and creative arts approach. The degree has offered me a way to express myself but also demonstrated that trauma is not personal, rather it is structural.
Having a background in architecture and frequently visiting the Melbourne School of Design (MSD) building within the University of Melbourne, Parkville campus, I have wanted for a long time to combine the different facets of my experiences and to express them multi-modally. I decided to explore an auto-ethnographic process to depict my experiences of the MSD building. Apart from being a familiar place to me and having experienced strong emotional resonances, I thought the space is important as a role model for future young designers who spend time learning and studying there.
I began my research by walking through the MSD building, embodying the interior spaces in silence and reflection, observing how my body related to specific moments of the architecture and details, sounds, and textures. I documented these findings through poetry, drawings, and photography of an embodied practice. In my drawings, I noticed that I have amplified specific parts of the building, its scale, angularity, and directions through the colour red. Through photography, I have captured the tensions I noticed in the steel meshing details. While writing, I noticed a white and smooth interior, artificial lighting and sounds, starkness and inhumane proportions, the overpowering focus of the gaze, and the strong focus on directing movement and eyesight through angles.
The images and words speak for themselves. The space has been experienced through the body rather than rationalised through the mind.
To conclude, the MSD design has been featured in many articles and awards. It has been written about as having a singular vision of greatest strength1 and “unabashed exhibitionism that is likely to become the photogenic fragment that represents the faculty.” 2 However, we also know that as we come to know the world holistically in many different ways, the myth of utility-maximising and the rational, which strongly
informs wealthy, Western, patriarchal culture3 has been far too long outdated. A bottom-up process that engages a bodily way of knowing “has the potential to decolonise the body from normative western thinking”4. It is time that we acknowledge difference as a strength and the many ways of knowing that inform diverse experiences including the impact this has on the students of architecture. Spaces shape the way we think, and if we are to decolonise the field of architecture, we have to acknowledge that clinical and strongly directive spaces with a single vision lack agency and therefore feel oppressive.
Magadalena Sliwinska is a sessional tutor at the Melbourne School of Design, graduate of architecture and a therapeutic arts practitioner.
Notes
1 W Mihaly, “Melbourne School of Design by John Wardle Architects and NADAAA”, Architecture Australia, Mar / Apr 2015 https://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/features/ features-articles/melbourne-school-of-design-by-john-wardle-architect
2 S Kaji-O’Grady, “Melbourne School of Design”, Architecture Australia, Jan / Feb 2015, pp 23-32 https://architectureau.com/articles/melbourne-school-of-design/
3 C Seeley and Reason, P (2008). Expressions of Energy: An Epistemology of presentational knowing. In P Liamputtong and J Rumbold
4 R Johnson (2018), Embodied Social Justice
Right Magdalena Sliwinska, MSD, 2023, ink pens, watercolour paint.
Boronggook Drysdale Library by Antarctica Architects and Architecture Associates. Wathaurong Country.
Photo: Peter Bennetts Entry to the library is from two levels, both designed with ease of accessibility and connection into the existing ground topography. The surrounding landscape has been modified to gently guide pedestrians between the two and remove pre-existing barriers.
Neurodiversity in Australian architecture
Words by Kirsten Day and Andrew Martel
The number of people being diagnosed with conditions such as ADHD for children and adults is increasing in Australia and is currently estimated at around 1 in 20, or 1.2 million Australians. It is estimated that 6 to 8% of children and adolescents are diagnosed with ADHD in Australia – aligning with numbers internationally of 5 to 8%. This increase in diagnosis is also reflected in the number of students at Australian universities that are neurodiverse, including people with ADHD and those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
What is ADHD?
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common mental disorders affecting children. ADHD is considered a chronic and debilitating disorder. It is known to impact the individual in many aspects of their life including academic and professional achievements, interpersonal relationships, and daily functioning.1
Symptoms of ADHD include inattention (not being able to keep focus), hyperactivity (excess movement that is not fitting to the setting) and impulsivity (hasty acts that occur in the moment without thought).
The World Health Organization (WHO) has an adult selfreport scale (ASRS), which is a short screening scale for use in the general population. The full ASRS has 18 questions, whereas the short version has six:
How often do you have trouble wrapping up fine details of a project once the challenging parts are done?
How often do you have difficulty getting things in order when you have to do a task that requires organisation?
When you have a task that requires a lot of thought, how often do you avoid or delay getting started?
How often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations?
How often do you fidget or squirm with your hands or your feet when you have to sit down for a long time?
How often do you feel overly active and compelled to do things, like you were driven by a motor?
Design training, design studios and disability
ADHD profoundly affects life and is especially challenging in design education, where many students with neurodiversity navigate without disclosing their conditions. Discussions on the stress design studios create, dating back to the 1980s in Australia, often overlook these students. Naomi Stead’s research criticises design studios as gatekeepers, upholding a “hidden curriculum” that defines a “proper” architect. 2
For neurodiverse students, the conventional studio’s focus on a polished final project conflicts with their unique work patterns, which may include intense focus, followed by disengagement. This misalignment calls for a pedagogical shift towards recognising diverse contributions and valuing continuous work as much as the final design. Reflecting on your own architectural training – consider again the six WHO questions that screen for characteristics of ADHD.
Building on neurodiversity’s strengths
An alternative studio culture that seeks to build on neurodiverse thinking’s strengths, similar in concept to the idea of DeafGain3 , would value creativity, innovation, and problem-solving skills, place a far greater value on understanding the sensory environment in real life situations, and most importantly value the process as much as the product.
Additionally, studios need to be able to accommodate a much more diverse group of external guests to assess, advise and assist students during semester, rather than yet more industry professionals who reinforce existing stereotypes within studios.
Without these changes, there are ongoing consequences for the urban design of cities when we continue to exclude people with ADHD and other forms of neurodiversity from professions such as architecture. A lack of lived experience
of neurodiversity among practitioners perpetuates unknown and unacknowledged discrimination, and exclusion due to poor design outcomes, as noted in the quote below:
“At my previous workplace, the office wasn’t suitable, and I had to work in an environment that negatively affected my ability to focus and concentrate on tasks. My current workplace allows me to thrive as it is designed for diversity and choice. Bookable private desk spaces, quieter doors, and less harsh lighting, allows me to be my best at work.” 4
Reasonable adjustments legal requirement
In Australian universities, design faculties are bound by the Commonwealth’s Disability Discrimination Act 1992, which outlines specific sections for adherence. Moreover, the Disability Standards for Education 2005 reinforce this commitment, mandating that educational providers take reasonable steps to ensure that students with disabilities can participate on an equal footing with their peers, including access to facilities and services without discrimination.
As a participant in the global community, Australia has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of People with
Disability. Article 24 of this convention underscores the nation’s pledge to uphold the educational rights of persons with disabilities, emphasising an inclusive education system that fosters lifelong learning. This involves providing tailored support to ensure that environments are conducive to both the academic and social advancement of all students, thereby promoting a fully inclusive educational experience.
These legal frameworks collectively emphasise that an inclusive approach to education is not just a domestic policy but also an international obligation. They advocate for environments where all students, regardless of disability, have equal opportunities to flourish academically and socially, thus contributing to a diverse and inclusive society.
An opportunity – not a cost Neurodiversity is inherently human, enhancing our approach to designing living and working spaces. Shifting from a medical to a social understanding of disability, it is essential to value neurodiverse insights in architecture. We must challenge traditional design education and practices that exclude these perspectives, and promote an inclusive, enriched architectural landscape.
Kirsten Day lectures in architecture at the University of Melbourne. She coordinates Construction as Alchemy and Architectural Practice.
Andrew Martel is a lecturer in construction management and architecture at Melbourne School of Design. His research includes innovation in the production of accessible and adaptable domestic houses.
Boronggook Drysdale Library by Antarctica Architects and Architecture Associates. Wathaurong Country. Photo: Peter Bennetts. Offering quiet rooms, a diversity of sensory-friendly spaces, acoustic treatments and flexible programming.
Notes
1 Harpin, ‘The Effect of ADHD on the Life of an Individual, Their Family, and Community from Preschool to Adult Life’
2 Stead, Gusheh, and Rodwell, ‘Well-Being in Architectural Education’
3 Bauman and Murray, Deaf Gain
4 Rebecca quoted in https://workinmind.org/2023/10/06/research-shows-1-in-5neurodiverse-people-decline-jobs-due-to-poor-workplace-design/
Right
Energetic tensions and clashes in Universal Design practice
Words by Lauren Pikó
In Cities of Tomorrow, Peter Hall pithily characterised the rigid urban master-planning practices of the postwar reconstructionist era as the belief that design could and should “get it right the first time”.1 In practice, this meant that the imposition of any singular vision would reflect the limitations and constraints of its moment, due to the belief that all possible relevant knowledge was available to the planner in the moment of their planning. Design of this type does not pre-empt or acknowledge the potential need for retrofit, adaptation, or iterative evolution. It proposes a fixed and temporally flat future; where the social and intellectual norms of the exact moment of design are such that no changes will need to be made.
Universal Design as a set of design principles emerged from the 1990s historical context of disability activism, the language and priorities of the mainstream disability movement at that time, and the preoccupations and focal points of those who were most able to elevate their voices in that movement. The 1997 (version 2.0) Principles of Universal Design, by the Centre for Universal Design at North Carolina State University, defined the practice as “the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without adaptation or specialized design.” The philosophy underlying their seven principles reflected the social model of disability; the idea that disability is a state produced by the way that society is organised to treat some kinds of bodies, and some bodily conditions and variations, as being excessive, defective, or unneeded. In advocating for design which can be used by all users in the first instance, the goal of Universal Design is to pre-empt the presence of people with disability, and to proactively design for inclusion rather than making accessibility a function of retrofit and adaptation. While the guidelines advocate for flexibility and suggest parallel forms of access as an alternative where singular options aren’t feasible, as the idea of Universal Design has filtered through to the mainstream and encounters both regulatory compliance and market-based realities, in practice it can revert to a more
fixed and singular definition of what counts as access, and for whom. In ways that resemble Hall’s cautionary tale of intellectual hubris.
In the intervening decades, disability justice practice has itself expanded and become more critical of ideas of universal accessibility, through greater understandings of access clash and of energetic and temporal disabilities. Access clashes, where different disabilities have directly opposing access needs, often arise in situations where the designed solution is a singular and absolute one. Some common clashes arise around sensory needs, where for example bright lighting or soft lighting might be equally exclusionary to different people. Such clashes emerge more often where there are people with a range of disabilities present; it is therefore common in disabled communities to work to resolve these clashes, though this is always an ongoing practice of negotiation.
Energetic disabilities pose a distinctive access clash challenge, which highlight the limitations of much conventional Universal Design practice. Energetic disability includes a range of auto-immune and neurological conditions, such as ME/ CFS and long COVID, which impact the body’s capacity for exertion and its recovery time. Many people with more acute energetic disabilities are specifically excluded by social and economic organisation where inclusion is measured through physical presence, or the need to spend fixed time periods engaging. Social expectations around capacity for bodily exertion, mobility, the time that particular tasks take, are all ways in which those with energetic variations are often excluded. In this sense, for example, if there is a need to access a building at all, that will be enough to exclude those with moderate or severe energy limitations impairing their ability to leave their home or bed. As Alex Haagaard has noted, any activity which takes place at a fixed time can exclude those with fluctuating health conditions, even where virtual synchronous participation is provided. One way to work around this is to decentre the equation of participation with sharing a common space and time,
providing options for distant and asynchronous participation. An uncomfortable truth for architects and planners is therefore that no building or place can be truly universally accessible to all bodies, because an accessible place for energetic disabilities is one that doesn’t require you to attend it at all. Access for those people requires social structures outside of the direct remit of architects or planners, but which are in dialogue with the artefacts those professions create. Part of what makes this need for dialogue uncomfortable is fear; that given the decades it has taken for Universal Design to filter through to mainstream practice, that some practitioners may give up on being told that any designed space inherently excludes some bodies, and that access clashes require both flexibility and plurality.
The fear of fallibility, however, is also a fear of humility, and a fear of recognising authority outside of the design itself.
Such a vision is analogous to the hubristic commitment to stasis that Hall described at work in early postwar reconstructionism. When defined as a singular and fixed vision which gets it right the first time, Universal Design can risk elevating what Liz Jackson has described as “the heroic designer-protagonist whose prototype provides a techno-utopian (re)solution to the design problem”. 2 Applied in terms of a static, fixed vision, even the most Universal Design will clash and exclude if it insists on its own authoritative and absolute statement. Thinking with Universal Design as a critical process facilitating adaptation and negotiation, recognising that bodily needs are plural, changing and sometimes in conflict, opens more space for design futures that refuse the “heroic”, committing more fully to the breadth and variety of what is human.
Lauren Pikó is a researcher and writer, whose work explores the politics of authenticity, value and authority.
Notes
1 Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design Since 1880, 4th Edition (2014) Wiley-Blackwell
2 Liz Jackson, Haagaard, Alex and Williams, Rua, Disability Dongle (2019) https://blog.castac. org/2022/04/disability-dongle/
Designing for the senses: Wangaratta District Specialist School by
Sibling Architecture
Words by Amelia Borg
In recent years, the Victorian school building boom has seen a profusion of impressive architectural outcomes. While these projects are sensitive to site, address the functional brief, and express the identity of their community, not all specifically address the accessibility or sensory needs of their users.
The recent addition to the Wangaratta District Specialist School’s ageing buildings from the 1980s and mostly relocatable classrooms, provided an opportunity for Sibling Architecture to design for wellbeing through creating tactile and tranquil spaces in a new learning hub.
This addition delivers the first new building of a long-term masterplan to transform and upgrade the existing, underutilised campus. The school caters to students with diverse needs and with wide ranging intellectual and physical disabilities ageing from 5-18. The facility occupies the former site of a neighbouring school with a key aspect of the project involving the realignment of boundaries between these campuses. This adjustment became necessary due to the heightened demand and rising enrolment numbers. The new building offers a range of learning environments including six general purpose classrooms, allied health support areas, facilities to strengthen domestic skills, collaborative staff
workspaces, sensory spaces, and supported amenities. Due to budgetary constraints and the limited area allotted by the Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA), the building is conceived as two mirrored modules linked through a warm sensory breakout space. Each module’s roof is split to allow natural light into the deep interior spaces through southern clerestory windows, and a series of large pop-ups provide northern light and views to the sky from special areas within the centre of the building. The external form is broken down to allow for the building to read almost as a collection or village of buildings to assist with legibility. Further, distinct and inviting entrances assist with wayfinding within the precinct.
The siting of the building required a complex mitigation of existing site levels to ensure graded wheelchair entry on all sides. The adjoining landscape plays an important role in the mitigation of levels, providing integrated accessibility in the context.
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Wangaratta District Specialist School by Sibling Architecture. Yorta Yorta Country.
Photo: Derek Swalwell
Wangaratta District Specialist School by Sibling Architecture. Yorta Yorta Country.
Photo: Derek Swalwell
Yorta
Yorta
Photo: Derek Swalwell
The design response is heavily guided by providing spaces that cater to, and support the needs of, the students. This was grounded in a design process that allowed multiple voices to be incorporated into the brief. An extensive consultation process with staff, allied health professionals (including occupational and speech therapists, physiotherapists, social workers) and community informed the design, and helped in determining what kind of activities would take place in the building.
The briefing focus strengthened the design response, such as identifying the importance of the school kitchen. A central kitchen space in the heart of the building assists students with cooking lessons and acts as a social space in the building. A significant part of the curriculum is centred around growing skills that encourage independent living. Flexible spaces that teach skills like personal grooming are provided to accommodate this.
Focused learning environments with minimal distraction were also integral to the school community. Views from within the classroom out to the corridor and out to the surrounding yard are tightly curated and can be closed off to create minimal distraction. In tandem, classrooms have multiple exits always visible to reduce distress alongside an adjoining outdoor breakout space, which provides an immediate relief for students requiring self-regulation or wanting to remove themselves from the larger group setting. The fences enclosing breakout spaces throughout the rest of the school campus are typically high steel-palisade bars, creating a layered, pronounced language of security and enclosure. For this building, there is a deliberate choice to move away from this dominant form by introducing a warm timber tone, with a playful extent.
Colour is used throughout the design to create identity and familiarity for students. Each classroom within the building is assigned a unique identity that is visible from the main corridor which enables rooms to be easily distinguished. Doors and windows have robust timber reveals framing them to help visually separate openings from the walls they sit within. Close attention was also given to the services design of the building to ensure the mechanical design was not visually or acoustically disruptive. Ceiling-mounted hoist systems allow students with severe mobility issues to be carried from the learning spaces into the amenities by way of a discreet corridor to allow a dignified approach off the main thoroughfare of the building.
Through a lengthy engagement process, the diverse sensory needs of students came to light, in particular, that some students become over-stimulated very quickly, and conversely some students crave more sensory stimulation. In response, a sensory map for the building was created, to overlay opportunities to engage with each of the senses across the spaces.
Taking the place of what is typically provided through some plug-in devices, a variety of sensory spaces are provided, including smaller intimate nooks, dedicated rooms, and an outdoor sensory garden. Sensory design devices are employed including colour, tactility, and atmosphere. Such devices are
an integral part of the pedagogical experience. These are manifested in several sensory-considered spaces, spaces for quiet, spaces for wonder and spaces for respite.
Visual stimulation is provided through custom light features and ceilings: there are nooks for listening to sounds, and apparatuses that engage with the vestibular system. The material choices echo this interest through a selection of tactile finishes both inside and out. Internally, soft spaces are lined with carpet, and textured rubber and timber, while externally a patchwork of different brick textures are laid to create a tactile and undulating surface.
The project acknowledges, celebrates, and embraces the different lived experiences in sensory perception of the students at the school. It was important for the design team to challenge the cold and clinical aesthetic that is often associated with spaces that provide care; in response, the building provides a warm and inviting atmosphere that is supportive but also encourages the student cohort to physically engage with the built fabric.
Amelia Borg is a founding member and co-director of Sibling Architecture.
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Wangaratta District Specialist School by Sibling Architecture. Yorta Yorta Country.
Photo: Derek Swalwell
The International Union of Architects: Architecture for All
Words by Allen Kong
The International Union of Architects (UIA) is a non-government federation of national architectural organisations from 115 countries and territories worldwide. It was founded in 1948 with the aim of uniting architects around the world, providing a platform for sharing knowledge, innovation, and collaborative solutions, with a particular focus on sustainable development. The UIA is made up of five regions, a governing council, a range of work groups and commissions, and organises triennial congresses, forums, and international design competitions.1 The Australian Institute of Architects (the Institute) is a member of the UIA in Region IV – Asia and Oceania, and has representatives on the council, the commission and various work programs, including the Architecture for All (AfA) working group with the current global co-directors (me) Allen Kong (Australia) and Vanessa Zadel (Peru). Australian architects Belinda Seale along with new members Niki Kalms and Belinda Goh are part of the AfA working group.
Architecture for All aims to influence, contribute to, and promote the development of socially responsible architecture that is both accessible and inclusive. It works to ensure equal access to the built environment for everyone, regardless of age, gender, (dis)ability, social, sensory, or cultural background. The program identifies and promotes best practices and innovations in accessible and inclusive architectural design and education. Architecture for All advocates for participatory processes with users in the creation of user-friendly built environments that positively impact people’s quality of life, accommodate diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Recently, I came across an article which reflected on African Ubuntu philosophy and rituals. It noted that while in many societies around the world people with disabilities have largely been excluded and marginalised, over time, language to describe disabilities has become more positive and inclusive. However, it still remains negative for many Indigenous people around the world who do not have a word for disability in their language. The Bomvana people follow Ubuntu African philosophy that promotes the common good of society and humanness: each person is an integral part of society where disability is seen as outside the body. They do not see the disability as the real person saying, “the soul is not disabled”. 2
Around the world we see a philosophical difference between regions and more specifically regions of differing material wealth. One which is based on independence, individual rights, and works in a collective and mutually supportive system. These nuances are shown particularly in the Friendly and Inclusive Spaces Awards to encourage and acknowledge exemplary building and public space design in this area. 3
Friendly and Inclusive Spaces Awards
First held in 2014, the UIA Friendly and Inclusive Spaces Awards demonstrate the highest standards of universal and inclusive design, contributing to the quality of life for all who use them. Award categories are: New Buildings, Refurbished Existing (including Historic Buildings), Public and Open Spaces, and Research. In 2023 there were 116 entries from 37 countries in the four categories – more than half were shortlisted with projects awarded a laureate or honourable mention in the built environment sections reflecting the focus of work across the regions. Awards and citations from the program are listed below.
New
Buildings
Laureate: Village Lounge of Shangcun, SUP Atelier of THAD: Song Yehao, Sun Jingfen, Chu Yingnan, Xie Dan, Chen Xiaojuan, Yu Haowei (China)
Jury citation: “This intervention gracefully enhances the community and its cultural heritage by creating a central gathering space on a complex site. Through the careful choice of materials and scale, it seamlessly blends with the surroundings while maintaining its distinctive character.”
Laureate: St Paul’s Cathedral London by Caroe Architecture Ltd (United Kingdom)
Jury citation: “The new ramp and entrance portico to the north transept of St Paul’s was deemed to be one of the best examples of intervention in historic buildings. While quite a radical and contemporary intervention into an important historic building, the new elements, through carefully crafted and considered detail, sit quietly and seamlessly, and enhance user experience and inclusivity.”
Open Spaces
Laureate: Benjakitti Forest Park Bangkok by Arsomsilp Community and Environmental Architect (Thailand) with Design Consultant: Turenscape (China)
Reusing the former tobacco factory area, the design concepts were to, firstly, improve public understanding and knowledge about the ecology, forest, hydrology, and environment to the
Right above
Benjakitti Forest Park Bangkok by Arsomsilp Community and Environmental Architect.
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Village Lounge of Shangcun, SUP Atelier of THAD
urban community. Secondly, to become an initiative of ecological park development. Lastly, to serve the urban communities and preserve the ecological environment of the city, water in the rainy season, and producing clean water.
Jury citation: “This project constitutes a very large and meaningful intervention to the infrastructure of Bangkok resulting in an immersive, experiential and accessible public space that improves the public’s understanding and knowledge of ecology, forest, hydrology and environment in the urban community. The park serves as a lung to the city and is designed to manage both flooding and drought.”
Research
Laureate: The Autism Friendly University Design Guide by Magda Mostafa – Progressive Architects (Ireland/Egypt).
While based on university campus spaces, the guide contains design information that is applicable to all spaces.
Jury citation: “This research had exemplary methodology and application. It covered a wide range of design for senses and environmental conditions and resulted in a set of excellent guidelines.”
2 Ubuntu offers lessons in how to treat people with disabilities – a study of Bomvana rituals (theconversation.com)
3 Friendly and Inclusive Spaces Awards, https://www.uia-architectes.org/en/award/2023friendly-and-inclusive-spaces-awards/
Allen Kong LFRAIA , director Allen Kong Architect , is co-chair of the International Union of Architects' Architecture for All work program, a UN Habitat Scroll of Honour 2024 recipient, co-chair of Indigenous Architecture and Design Australia and a past chair of the Institute's Enabling Architecture Committee.
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St Paul’s Cathedral London by Caroe Architecture Ltd
Identity
Words by Lavanya Arulanandam
Melbourne was a 90s cool girl. Back in 1994, she presided over a tacky vinyl table in a laneway dive-bar with promises of activation, art and a city in resurgence, and we all wanted to sit with her. Year after year, we’ve joined her at the same hole-in-the-wall and celebrate her charm – laneways, hospitality, art. Feet glued to the sticky floor, we say: “Melbourne is thriving and continually evolving”, while quietly hoping she will stay the same.
Today, she navigates a 9-5 in a grey glass tower with a mortgage and 5 (million) kids, but still makes it back to the same little bar when she can because she doesn’t want to let us down (classic people pleaser). Laneways! coffee! culture! We continue to encourage. But Melbourne is searching for more.
After three decades of accolades, it’s time for her next act.
It’s time for Melbourne’s next act
In the 90s, Postcode 3000 planning reforms coincided with relaxed liquor licencelicencing laws for small premises that supported the opening of the casino, and inadvertently led to Melbourne’s laneway activation as we know it today. Thirty years later, the laneway experience remains a benchmark for contemporary developments. (80 Collins Street by Woods Bagot as a recent example). Planning policies further advocate for the retention of laneway characteristics (see the Central Melbourne Design Guide), encouraging developers to create activated pedestrian thoroughfares through their sites. Laneways are fundamental to Melbourne’s identity, and they are very good.
Yet, this is also Melbourne: our CBD remains cardependent, with new developments packing in still more parking and porte-cocheres. Uninspired curtain walled apartments flank the city’s core, but barely address the diverse housing needs of our community. Sterile ground-floor retail spaces fail to engage pedestrians and contribute to street life. Melbourne’s authenticity wanes, displaced by value-managed replicas lacking soul. Yes, new development is necessary, demand suggests a need and the market provides - but every decision we make about the expression and quality of these built form changes either contribute or detract from the whole. Everytime we get it so wrong, I shed a tear for cool girl Melbourne.
We are right to be wary of suffocating our city’s authenticity with too much change. Amid overwhelming change and growth, will the laneways still be enough to define her?
Getting better at staying the same Identity is what grounds us when time keeps pulling us forward. Just like it is important to know yourself, Melbournians need to know that through the growth and change that faces any successful city, Melbourne will still retain something of its essential self: it will still have its laneways, heritage, good architecture, vibrant culture, bars, good food, and coffee culture. This is the antithesis of the shiny panels and glass that typify too much of the city’s new development. There will always be moving parts, but when some things stay the same enough to become an ‘identity’, that is what makes it good. There is precedent for cities that know themselves. While models like Santa Fe, Mexico’s codified adobe style, may not directly apply to Melbourne’s creative ethos, there are lessons to learn in the value of knowing you’ve got a good thing going, and protecting it.
Getting better at change
Melbourne thinks of herself as Australia’s European city, but the lessons from her role models are that change either happens to you, or you shape it; see: Amsterdam scrapping tooth and nail in the 70s to arrest their decline into car dependence to create the cycling utopia we know today; Barcelona building her superblocks; Paris embracing cycling under Mayor Hidalgo; and the countless other copycats proliferating across the continent like a pandemic that doesn’t suck.
For her first act, a major development (the casino) influenced planning change that accidently activated the identity of Melbourne. It tells us two things:
1. Developers fund and shape our built form and lead change in consort with anchor tenants and government. They help to house us and create jobs – but they are not the custodians of Melbourne’s identity.
2. The creatives who give our city its character adapt and innovate, drawn to affordable spaces where they can leave their mark and express themselves. Just like service laneways became cozy spaces for independent bars and cafes, life, surprise and wonder will happen in the spaces between, leftover or left behind.
Melbourne’s next shift in identity might come from a bold and deliberate move – a city-shaping initiative that unlocks new potential in surprising ways. Old lessons could help Melbourne here as we console her in the dive-bar bathroom – the path to reward is paved with risk.
Evolution, a case study.
This could be you, Melbourne: Imagine walking freely down the little streets without shooting glances over your shoulder in constant anticipation of an approaching vehicle. Imagine Russell Street as a pedestrian boulevard, the wide open spaces
of the former roadway giving way to places for people to sit in the sun.
The removal of cars out of our CBD is one way that we could make space to breathe in our city, a chance for tense and tired Melbourne to exhale.
Faced with this possibility, the familiar fear response from traders and the community is understandable in a way. Could this be the thing that upsets the ecosystem of the city? But on the other hand, alongside the obvious benefits, this could be Melbourne’s next chance to let our Design City thrive. With fewer cars, the undervalued gift could be all the newly useless space – the city’s off-street car parks. Not all will close, but some will, and rather than seeing these structures as burdens that can only be remedied through knock down redevelopment, how lucky will the city be to have a new chance to improvise, like a kid in a cardboard box. We already know that our city’s creatives will go for it – as seen in Rising Festival’s rebrand of Golden Square car park as the spiraling, sparkling Chinatown art car park and MPavilion’s residency in Parkade car park on Little Collins Street. Small businesses could leverage the success of Parkade’s own Thai restaurant, Soi38.
Melbourne, let’s step outside for a moment. Lets walk and talk, and please watch for cars as we head out the laneway towards the street. Whether it be removing cars from the city, greening our rooftops, or having another go at Docklands. Let’s commit to one of our many possible paths to radical evolution. My advice is this: take bold steps – it can lead to delightful consequences. Evolve in ways that work for you, and set better boundaries. And always be yourself – we love you, and can’t wait to see what comes next.
Lavanya Arulanandam is principal urban designer and strategic planner at the City of Melbourne. She is also an architect and freelance illustrator, with a passion for built form (and all things) that are creative, authentic and kind.
With special thanks to Murray West
Birrarung and stone
Are we wrong to decide the future of this place?
Words by Bebe Oliver
Recollections of people live on pages now, but they can only be remembered as dead housed in libraries of the state in galleries of stolen memories toasted between bread in coffee shops
Every place has a memory that lives beyond this... colony
Talent lets us remove the past and deny there was life, unless it was ours
Radio then, rialto now, send a signal that every page has a pen, yet
it seems the story of the river was too old to tell, so someone let it die
Dusty men broke mountains apart and took them home
exhume these bodies or leave them alone? shovel the soil and no one will know
It’s impossible to forget.
Good things will come, if we wait for the light from those nightly dreams of rotting timber, yet
it seems the story of the hill was too small to tell, and someone let it die
Cathedrals line the streets where murrnong grew royal blue and golden cups
Eat the bread for it is his body, careful not to savour it after all, a heart tastes nothing like sourdough
it’s shaped like a dome on a central station named for the man who broke its shell given to the city as a thing of beauty
Now, we crave the next iteration
of our spirits and souls, if there might be a theatre that someone can build so ghosts will perform
Songs are preserved in a tower by the water that doesn’t flow through here anymore
even so, turn the dirt and plant foreign flowers
all the more reason to start again, to lift the clouds and stop the rain
We learn of who was here before us names without faces and no one to surrender gumtrees and fire, Birrarung and stone
A selfish desire to churn the unbroken, and remember the shrines we built to travel through time
The language of design was written in rainfall and it was ripped from the grass, for a different kind of standard, where we stand no ground
Inflate the ego, yearning remains where courage once hid
Goodbye is an art we’ve come to master
Bebe Oliver is a Bardi Jawi award-winning author, poet and illustrator. Bebe’s debut poetry collection, more than these bones (Magabala Books, 2023) received widespread acclaim for its authentic and emotional representation of mental health and human experience.
Is identity important to architecture?
Words by Ian McDougall
Defining identity is challenging. Arguments will always be made against any definition, so for now, let’s consider identity as a blend of shared beliefs, memories, experiences, and values within a community. On a personal level, identity encompasses our connections to family, home, village, and nation. In architecture, identity is conjectural, able to be interpreted and expressed in design. In urban design, identity extends to the broader concept of ‘place identity’, a wider area of focus.
Place identity has its origins in the 1970s, in seeking to understand an individual’s relation to the physical environment. The field encompasses social, political, physical, commercial, and cultural parameters, so its meaning is more than just sun, wind, grass and neighbours. Research has boomed in the study of place over the past 30 years, parallelling a rise in suspicion and questioning of globalism and its disregard for the local.
Concern with identity in Australian architecture has been around awhile: there were calls for an authentic regional architecture in Barnet’s Climatic Architecture (1882) and Haddon’s Australian Architecture (1908). Identity here was equated with climate. ‘Climate as identity’ is a regular justifying rhetoric for authenticity – the ‘local-ness’ of a design.
In Australia, identity shaped by climate has always been incredibly resilient. Addressing climate is a practical necessity for every project, and the vastness of the country requires a diverse range of solutions. Each region across the continent demands unique approaches to effectively manage and moderate its climate.
On the other hand, the importance of identity beyond climate has often been less clearly defined. Foregrounding cultural issues as drivers of design has sparked considerable debate. When Australian architecture has been emphatically local, as with the gumnut articulations of Federation architecture, it often faced criticism. Modernist
advocates, like Max Freeland, have been quick to dismiss these local experiments as mere “sugary sweetness” and “decorative clichés”.
Establishing a narrative for design derived from cultural, ethnic and historic material means an architecture of symbols and representations, which thereby contradicts the normative Modernist edict. An imaginative approach to architecture that explores our identity challenges the notion of architecture as a universal language built on abstract forms, structural rationalism, and materiality. International modernism relies on universality, where authenticity stems from a masterful creator arranging minimalist elements into a refined symphony. As Le Corbusier put it in 1923, “a correct... play of masses brought together in light... everyone is agreed to that, the child, the savage, and the metaphysician.”
Years ago, Tadao Ando affirmed his (then) architectural grounding when he wrote that it would be very difficult for him to build in America because he wasn’t “familiar with Americans”. Before his Pritzker Prize in 1995, his work was done in Japan, mostly in the Kansai region. He was affirming a sense of local Identity – the need for a specific regional cultural fit to design. Since then, he has gone on to design numerous buildings across North America and various other countries. Ando is renowned for ascetic essentialist work. His work has become the go-to trophy house for Hollywood rich-listers like Beyonce, Ye and Tom Ford, as well as for the global gallery network. His style is transportable to anywhere that has good concreters.
In comparison, regional architecture, though less explored, sustains a powerful local resonance. Right here in Melbourne, we see this vividly in the influential works of the 1950s and 60s by Peter and Dionne McIntyre, Kevin Borland, and the iconic designs of Edmund and Corrigan, as well as Greg Burgess. Their work is infused with local energy and character. All embody propositions founded in local culture, from McIntryes’ and Borland’s unbuckled bush craft to Edmund and Corrigan’s sub/urban “teatro povera” to Burgess’ beautiful
on-Country humanism. All creatively generate work with an uncanny connection to their community. There are also many others, though less celebrated, who contribute to this rich architectural tapestry.
Identity as a cultural discourse can be dangerous. Universalism, opposed to the expression of a particular nation, region or ethnic enclave, arose in the context of social upheaval from the endless internecine conflicts of the 19th and early 20th centuries, along with the international workers movement. It is no coincidence that the decades following World War I provided fertile ground for the International Modernist movement. Local identity became a battleground, reacting to the horrors of a nationalist war with a desire for a commonwealth of humanity and universal unity. The identity of place (or people) was to be subsumed by the program for global reform and a harmonious international community. The danger remains. National identity, particularly in architecture, is an uncomfortable concept. It rarely features in the tropes of architecture award citations.
But universalism and globalism have become associates with Euro-American hegemony, overriding any sense of belonging for those in colonised lands, those not at the centre of culture, eroding the voices of First Nations people, the disenfranchised, alternative social groups, even regional communities. Since 2015, more than 200 regional Australian newsrooms have closed, silencing many local stories.
In 2018, our office (ARM Architecture) was commissioned to design a vertical arts complex in Auckland, containing a range of dance and theatre studios, a rehearsal hall and new headquarters for the Auckland Philharmonic. The tall structure was to sit behind the Aotea Centre, Auckland and would be visible from the surrounds because of its height – a landmark celebrating the performing arts in New Zealand. Early in the process, we began working with the iwi and hapu (confederation of tribes) of Auckland. At the beginning, working with this council was a very harrowing experience for the Aussie architects. For one thing, meetings with iwi began with each person stating their family history and place of origin, going back some generations. The Māori representatives identify their being through their family history, location and descent. Significantly, some of our team didn’t know their ancestry beyond grandparents (as is the way with white migratory existentialist culture). Such amnesia was seen as disrespectful and untrustworthy. Land, place and family history are central to Māori cultural identity. Indigenous cultures often set identity as the centre of being. And cultural identity is revealed through images, crafts, artwork and narratives. We were directed, indeed scolded, to not proceed until designs had been discussed and verified by the iwi council. As is the ARM way, we presented images for consideration that would embellish the landmark and imprint the building as deeply attached to place and Māori presence. The idea of emphatic Māori spirit was warmly welcomed – the plundering of cultural material was vehemently condemned. So, we began to talk and listen, and then co-work
directly with artists, nominated and guided by iwi. The artists were steeped in Māori narrative and imagery and the design gradually evolved, led by the locals, with ARM as technical makers of the imagery, transferring it to built form. The result was overwhelmingly embraced by the iwi and the Auckland Council. It became a model in how teams work to generate a specific identity, both cultural and place-based, in bult form.
The experience fortified our long-term interest in embedding First Nations stories in our buildings, as done at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra and Barak Building in Melbourne, into a richer and more collaborative co-design approach. It deepened our commitment to using local narratives as the foundation of our designs, recognising their profound value to the communities these buildings serve. It enabled the very fruitful collaborations we had with the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation in the design of the Geelong Arts Centre Stage 3 and Ngarri and Lollypop Creek primary schools in Melbourne’s western growth corridor For us, it further affirmed the importance of identity as the wellspring for architectural expression, equally, if not more, significant than function or structure. Indeed, working with this consciousness anchors the very core of the building's persona to its place, manifesting the value of community and local history.
The challenge of identity is to identify the identity. Australia is replete with cringeworthy clichés of the bush, beaches and larrikins. Architecture that is Australian is plagued by anti-intellectualism and the pseudo-authenticity of the country house. Finding identity in the panorama of Australia, spanning all its regions and histories, is no easy thing. And it is not singular. In her book The Idea of Australia (2022), Julianne Schultz captures the dilemma of our place: an island home to the world’s oldest continuous living culture; a federation of individually governed states, each established as colonial settlements under British Imperial rule; geographically displaced to Southeast Asia; a nation full of migrants; and a society with commercial and cultural bonds to the “Anglosphere.” Which identity? Schultz argues for multiplicity in our identity – a flux of interwoven and contradictory narratives – there is no single integrated identity. “The idea of Australia, like the idea of life, is as much shaped by the silence as the stories we tell ourselves and the institutions we create.”
Identity is crucial in architecture. It is something we must explore and question through design. It is not a single entity but rather a collection of internal contradictions and diverse characteristics. The more complex the identity, the more authentic and inclusive it becomes for its community. Is identity important to architecture? It is fundamental to it.
Ian McDougall LFRAIA is a co-founder of ARM Architecture and joint recipient of the 2016 Gold Medal.
Aotea Studios. ARM Architecture. ARM’s unrealised design for Aotea Studios in Auckland, New Zealand emerged from intensive, collaborative engagement with mana whenua, who played a central role in shaping the cultural and architectural narrative of the proposed building
Practice identity: WOWOWAness
Words by Monique Woodward
Story listening and storytelling seem to be all that really matter. There is magic, healing and insight in the stories we tell ourselves and others, the ones we hear. The union of wisdom and joy.
To consciously know and trust myself. To greet challenges with compassion, bravery and grace. To find, within a life full of memories, those moments that resonate with the person I want to be. These are my hopes and dreams as I approach 40, fifteen years after the beginnings of WOWOWA, the BCorp-certified practice I founded alongside Scott Woodward.
We are settlers living on Aboriginal land. We are people, connecting and designing in service of the spatial wellbeing of communities, the health of Country, and our own creative ego. While we are remunerated so that we can continue doing the deeply vocational work we have been called to do, no amount of business acumen will convince me that this is simply a job. We want to see, know and appreciate both what is, and what could be. Spending my weekends doing sketches over plans for fun tells me that I chose my career correctly. At our heart WOWOWA is a practice that loves a good renovation and revels in our role as barometers of spatial style. We brought our residential DNA to adaptive reuse within the school and civic spaces but, fundamentally, we see everything as a home. A home for sleeping, a home for learning, a home for a night or two (manifesting our designing a hotel dream).
Our first jump from homes to multi-residential projects saw our Literature Lane micro tower manifest as a neo-deco, triple-fronted, cream-brick-veneer vertical neighbourhood with pink bubble gum balconies with one specifically big enough to host a circular Weber. We invoked the architectural logic of the post-war period, when the more elevational tiers you had on your zigzagged War-service plan, the more status you had. Why would we choose to reference this? Because property is a wealth generation mechanism and apartment living for families need to be recognised as of value and worthy of dignified investment
in high-quality materials. Why tell this story? Because it’s both playful and political. It’s spatial and referential across a multiplicity of scales. It’s us upholding our promise that every piece of design or content that leaves the studio will inspire, educate, and entertain. All three, always.
To inspire and educate are potentially more obviously in line with our values to advocate for what we think is right. WOWOWA’s desire to entertain stems from the belief that this is a crucial aspect of architecture – one that is often overlooked or missing entirely from the spaces we inhabit. Melbourne has a strong lineage of humor in architecture. As a student at RMIT, I took a Peter Corrigan studio, worked at Cassandra Complex and, as a graduate, I worked at ARM Architecture. With such a strong grounding in the celebration of the vernacular and cheeky in-jokes, it’s perhaps not surprising that we aim to delight. Despite this, I think our approach is softer and more nuanced than that of the generations before us. We invite our client, the people we collaborate with and the audience viewing our designs, in on the joke too. We laugh together, not at anyone else, and not at the expense of others. Our larrikin energy is to be a gift to anyone reading into the symbology of our built form. Inclusive collective generosity to create belonging.
We approach every problem with the question –if WOWOWA was a $10m house, what would it be? If WOWOWA was a sauna and wellness spa refurbishment or university building upgrade, what would it look like? Our commercial identity is more than a brand position, it supports our ability to help our clients spatialise and reimagine their own brands and identities. Having worked with Crumplers Melbourne, Adelaide, Singapore and with Sydney stores on the way, this couldn’t have been a more obvious coupling with our interest in memory. It was this brand awareness that led us to designing five CLT timber construction student accommodation towers in the city all wonderfully themed after Wes Anderson sets to provide international students with a collective Hollywood retro glam. It’s often easy to see the potential within another’s imaginings.
Identity is a big nut to crack. I don’t know that I know who I am without architecture. Could the desire to entertain be part of a search for connection? Given that architects, very often, are the misunderstood outlier within their own family structures, do we seek community in the industry we all love (and sometimes love to hate)? I was the arty one among a large group of relatives and most of my peers tell the same tale. Is our creative expression and approach to architecture really our own set of protective mechanisms, wrapped around a need to belong? Without boundaries between who we were and what we produced, were we therefore ok with overnighters and growing competition expectations. Refusing to be trapped in a fixed place – WOWOWA reflects who I was (we were) when we started, who I’ve (we’ve) grown to be now and will change again in the future as I (we) learn, grow and Heal.
As architects, we benefit from an unquestioned belief in our own abilities, bolstered by a healthy dose of self-doubt about the work that we do, to keep the fire burning. Nothing could be more important within our studio than our current work with First Nations elders and Traditional Owners on larger-scale projects but especially on government schools on Crown Land – that is to say, unceded land. Our contribution to the creation of culturally safe spaces is a privilege, providing the opportunity to work collaboratively with the incredible humans who generously share their wisdom and stories. Uncle Alfie said in our last session “you don’t realise what this will mean to our young people,
thank you for listening and hearing us. I wish I could go back in time and be a kid at this school” the Principal of Richmond Primary replied “Uncle, you’re welcome back anytime you like” as he was a former attendee of the school. It’s our honor to work within Country.
At the centre of all of us is our own “[name]ness” – a phrase coined by my dear friend Cecille Weldon as a provocation to all of us to identify what’s at the unshakable heart of things for each of us. This goes far beyond the appearance of things. What would WOWOWA be if we didn’t use another brick? It’s interesting to consider how our sense of self (or sense of identity) can play out materially, but strength is realising that our WOWOWAness would still exist even without our wonderful brick textures and ornament. Identity is the house itself at the centre not the verandah wrapped around it. The inputs we select to garnish our personal projections for others. Compassionately stepping further into who we authentically are is the only real work as we inhabit all the worlds that we create for ourselves. I find myself stepping more into my motherness, more into my power-ladyness, more into my own happiness.
WOWOWA would literally be nothing without the gloriously talented architects and interior designers that have contributed over so many years. All their personal stories, quirks and preferences have shaped the journeys that we have been on together. So much reciprocity, for which I am forever grateful.
Monique Woodward RAIA is co-founder and creative director of the award-winning practice WOWOWA Architecture & Interiors and is currently a national councillor of the Australian Institute of Architects.
Left
Literature Lane new build by WOWOWA with Reko Rennie. Render by WOWOWA
Tiger
Prawn by WOWOWA. Wurundjeri
Country.
Photo: Shannon McGrath
Gore Street Apartment
Words by Rebecca Lewis
I was 26 when I bought my apartment. Young, inexperienced, green as an olive. I had been house-hunting for nine months when I stepped inside the 1960s Gore Street apartment. It had stained carpet, enclosed beige, baby blue and turquoise walls, rotting timber windows and a kidney-shaped bench. Yes, I thought, this was the place for me. After winning the auction and shakily handing over my life’s savings with tears in my eyes, I was completely unprepared for the next three years.
These are the moments that surface when I reflect upon the entire experience. These memories are not of pursuing refined details and Insta-worthy spaces. They are memories of pushing shit uphill when everything is going wrong.
My firm belief should be raised here, to provide a backbone for what would otherwise be a questionable investment. I’m a strong believer that buildings should be reused, and, regardless of appearances, there is potential
to breathe life into any existing space. In our current housing crisis, looking into obscure corners and bending the way we see opportunity is paramount. I also believe that the unredeemable mental stigma associated with derelict spaces can be repaired, without demolition.
On a more personal note, (as an architect) I was driven by a need to prove that it could be done. I had been informed that I was plateauing at work, and I might be in the wrong industry; architecture may not be for me. This, unfortunately, is not a dissimilar experience many students encounter after they graduate from university. At the time, I was trapped in a toxic relationship, sliding further downhill at work and surrounded by my endless apartment designs that never seemed complete. To add to my trainwreck, I was living like a squatter in my own apartment while being harassed by a Peeping Tom, who haunted my windows for over a year. And finally, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. At this lowest of lows, I sat on my swivel chair (the only other seat I owned was my toilet), looked around and did the only logical thing; I took a sledgehammer to the wall. Looking back, I realise the gravity of how architecture defines our physical space and how our physical space shapes our mental space. It was at this point that I understood that they are one and the same thing. As architects, we underestimate the potency we have on the psychology of those we design for. My space was broken, and therefore so too was I. I didn’t need a highly curated design worthy of an award. I craved peace, warmth, nourishment and to feel safe again. I wanted a home. As my close friend Brett Mitchell writes, architecture creates a ‘here’ for our ‘where’. And if we have no ‘here’, then we are ‘nowhere’. For me, this is our fundamental duty of care as architects.
There are many other memorable moments that come to mind. Carrying a bathroom sink on the plane because what I needed was in Sydney. Knocking a hole in the wall and realising the neighbour’s sewerage pipe ran through my kitchen. Demolishing the entire kitchen using a single pink screwdriver.
Below Gore Street Apartment living room . Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country . Photo: Lauren Basser
Fashioning a raw leather belt into joinery handles and heating it on a fry pan. (A desperate attempt to achieve the right shade of tan. As it turns out, an iron works best.) And more frequently, watching time drag on, wondering if I would even make it through at all.
Since completion, this apartment now contains some of my happiest memories: time spent in warm gatherings around a tiny coffee table; the sun trickling in through the leaves during cold winters; and more recently, finding sanctuary during lockdown. Now, it has been an unexpected delight to share it with others as an Airbnb. It was part of the recent Melbourne Design Week as a backdrop for Soft, a display of exquisite
objects handcrafted by local artists which was curated by Andy TT and Calum Hurley. Something which was beyond what I had envisioned for this tiny, simple home. Hearing others’ experiences of the space has meant its meaningfulness and identity have taken form into something I had not imagined. As for this question of identity, it does not simply exist; it is made. Cripplingly slowly. It is not one grand sweeping gesture, but an accumulation of many small incremental moments, both defeats and victories. Much like the work of artists, our work is the externalisation of our internal self, a reflection of our innermost being. And therefore, it is completely and wholly personal.
Rebecca Lewis is a freelance architect with experience in practice, urban design, research and teaching.
Below
As the backdrop to Soft for Melbourne Design Week 2024. Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country.
Photos: Kayla May Petty-Kook
Lyons' collective identity
Words by Tess O’Meara
Identity is no doubt critical to the architect, though one could argue the singular hand of genius does not (or should not) have a place in today’s practice. Collective identity drives our dayto-day practice; collective authorship and the encouragement of diversity in the creative voice – to hold up a mirror to our complex and diverse society and see an honest reflection of our evolving shared identity and memories.
Recent industry discussions consistently measure and attribute successful design as a “backdrop to our lives” – rewarding the sensible, silent and neutral – but we wonder if architecture should be doing more than this?
We propose a series of three design provocations that question if architecture can be an active participant/vibrant foreground to our lives, reflective of our shared histories, memories and identities. These propositions seek to challenge our design community to reflect and question the ‘we/us’ over ‘I/me’ when considering the value of identity in today’s city.
Don’t go it alone
As a practice focused on urban context, Lyons recognises the city holds a diverse and ever-changing society, and in our view, architecture should actively participate in forming society’s identity.
The city is not singular; therefore, it remains shared. It is never finished; it is conducive to change. We argue identity shares these qualities; sometimes singular, with the idea of selfplaying an important part, but more often collective, complex, messy, diverse, and ever changing. We suggest designing in a diverse environment is to encourage a diversity in creative voice and genuinely engage in the complex process of collaboration – simply put “don’t go it alone”.
When we reflect on the idea of identity in design, we recognise that of course the architect is formative in this. We also suggest however, that the potential for cultural innovation comes from an expression of a collective identity. What if the identity of a project, is derived not simply from
the architect, but from the client, the user, the individual occupying the building (in many of our cases the student), and the collaborator? We are fortunate to design through discourse with clients who are leading sector experts themselves, to consider how to best represent their ideas and identities, not simply our own.
On the scale of society, isn’t the varied expression and interpretation of identity in architecture a good thing for the contemporary city? Take for instance the Swanston Academic Building by Lyons, and The Design Hub by Sean Godsell, two major public buildings designed for the same client, on the same street, in the same city. Neither right or wrong, arguably their variation in expression is what contributes to the cultural value of RMIT and its identity, in addition to the wider identity of Melbourne.
But what of the place for the master in today’s practice? As a practice, we’re interested in ideas not as something passed down but instead worked up, and suggest the opportunity is to master collaboration and discourse, not architecture itself. We ask: Is the time over for the singular architect bestowing or gifting their (read his) vision to the client? Is the time over where they (he) insist and enforce the careful preservation and conservation of the gift? Does an opportunity now present itself for a band of architectural anti-heroes, who leave room for interpretation, shared experience, memory and identity in the design process?
Extending on this, we recognise there is also a heavy weight to self-expression, an idea of genius authorship that often serves as a design hurdle too high, something we’ve observed when teaching students in Melbourne academies. To relieve this burden, we turn to the collective. We place them in collaborative teams, we give them a client, a place, a city. To learn how to design with an open creative process – in a space where the individual has personal agency tempered by a public shared condition – where other voices are heard, considered and valued. We teach this, because ultimately this is how we practice.
Springvale Community Hub by Lyons. Wurundjeri
Country
Photo: John Gollings. Springvale Community Hub is
Say no to neutral
We aspire to encompass the widest range of technical, social, cultural, disciplinary, and functional possibilities in our projects. To not be neutral or mute. To be a foreground not a backdrop, an active participant not a passive observer. In response to the current ‘backdrop’ narrative in the industry, is it time to instead look to attitude, position, courage and bravery, over the pursed subtly of the singular vision?
As a practice, we firmly believe in taking a position, on Country, on place, on occupants, to form the idea of a contextually, culturally and programmatically specific building. This is what drives our work – perhaps surprisingly to some –it is less about, say, the willful application of colour, but more about interrogating stories and seeking to tell narratives as explicitly as possible.
This could be read as our kind of brand – deep collaboration, discourse-based design leadership, testing ideas and options, while genuinely gaining buy-in (ownership of the narrative) from our clients. We seek to comprehend, not condescend. It is this process or approach to the representation of identity that allows our resultant forms to be read as brave, loud and opinionated but of their place.
Are cities missing out on the artistic expression or identity of the architect (singular/self), or are they missing out on opportunities for storytelling of shared narratives? Can storytelling express richness and complexity over singularity and abridgement, to create an architecture that can speak back to community, as opposed to merely existing behind? And what place is there for attitude in architecture? An attitude that embraces society, culture, and identity, setting out to create public architecture that is relevant and honest, and distinctly “not neutral”.
Yes, and
Finally, we question if citizenship is about being active participants in building a good society, and architecture also has a role in building such a society – does architecture need to play a role in this reframing of our nationhood?
A layered approach to narrative, storytelling and identity is therefore required, reinforcing the need for a big theatrical “yes, and”!
Is there more space for design outcomes that can be easily understood and owned by our clients, the community, the public and the city? To truly reflect the rich layering of the metropolis, is it possible to explore design outcomes that are organisationally, culturally and contextually responsive and representative of a specific client and sustainable and genuinely inclusive of First Nations narratives and operationally innovative and diverse in their design voice?
Similarly, the trending language of sustainability in the industry very much ties into the earlier backdrop discourse where an idea of conservation is often mis-correlated to conservatism. But does sustainability mean a retreat to silence? Can’t architecture be both environmentally responsible and culturally expressive? Are ideas of application and reductionism automatically opposed? And can’t we take a leap of faith, to be brave and to go against the ‘greige’ while also starring in sustainability?
We see over time that brave architecture results in deep community and public connection, a love of sorts with peculiar public buildings that seek to express identities (Edmond & Corrigan’s Building 8 comes to mind). This sort of embodied cultural value might too result in longevity and preservation. We leave you with these what ifs to continue the ongoing discourse around creative speculation about city, society and identity.
Tess O’Meara is a principal and design architect at Lyons, deeply committed to design that is culturally and politically aware, with a strong interest in collaborative models of practice. She is passionate about contextually responsive designs that imbue narrative and are representative of community in their expression.
Right Yagan Square by Lyons. Whadjuk Country . Photo: Peter Bennetts
Yagan Square is a civic space in Perth, and one of the city’s most popular community, meeting, and celebration places
Postcard from the in-between
Words by Ben Schmideg
In May this year, en route to Europe, I was fortunate enough to spend a few hours in transit at Doha’s Hamad International Airport (HIA). The Orchard, a large garden located beneath a billowing glass ceiling, is a recent addition to HIA and was where I whiled away the time before my 2am flight to Berlin. Observing travellers wander aimlessly through this artificial Eden, passing by each other but never interacting, I was struck by the notion that today’s airport occupies a curious place in our world.
Ubiquitous, homogeneous, and anonymous, the airport is everywhere, anywhere, and nowhere in particular all at the same time. This makes it the quintessential non-place, a term coined by anthropologist Marc Augé in his book NonPlaces: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity.1 The concept of non-places refers to spaces that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as places in the traditional anthropological sense. These are locations where the human experience is largely characterised by anonymity, fleeting encounters, and transitory existence.
The observations that follow, sketched out during those hours in The Orchard but substantiated post-delirium, delve into how the airport offers a fascinating lens through which to examine modernity, globalisation and the human experience of space.
Non-places epitomise the importance of mobility in contemporary society. As arteries of the global economy, transport hubs enable the rapid flow of commerce and tourism, streamlining the daily flow of millions of passengers around the clock. This reflects a broader societal trend towards a fastpaced, future-oriented mindset where time is both a precious commodity and highly relative.
The transient nature of the airport alters our perception of space and time, with little consideration for creating a sense of place or belonging. As a bridge between destinations, the airport is designed to seamlessly funnel us through a familiar but endless array of checkpoints, travelators and baggage carousels. In these liminal spaces, we experience a unique blend
of anonymity and shared purpose, heightening the surreal sense of being in-between worlds, suspended in a state of perpetual waiting and movement.
While the airport flattens and sanitises space, it also stretches and blends time. International time zones, schedules, and the constant flux of arrivals and departures create an environment where conventional notions of time are challenged. The food court simultaneously hosts breakfasts and dinners. The airport lounge alternates between a makeshift playground and bedroom. The temporal dislocation of the airport influences how space is perceived and utilised, further reinforcing the sense of placelessness.
Non-places are a direct product of globalisation and the modern world’s increasing focus on regulation and productivity. Unlike traditional places imbued with cultural, historical, and social significance, non-places are chiefly designed for functionality. Their standardised, uniform nature reflects a world where cultural differences are eschewed in favour of predictability and ease of navigation.
It is the standardisation that defines the most uncanny feature of the Airport: its homogeneity. Whilst the design concept of an airport may paint a picture of a building that is emblematic of its host country, the sheer number of functional considerations, structural requirements, economic interests and security concerns ultimately influence the architectural language. Whether you find yourself in Suvarnabhumi (Bangkok), Kastrup (Copenhagen) or Narita (Tokyo), the airport landscape remains largely consistent: the trussed ceilings spanning over open plan layouts lined with glazed walls, the broad tiled corridors plastered with standardised signage and advertisements, the familiar barrage of duty-free shops and global fast-food chains. The functionality of the Airport prioritises efficiency and productivity over aesthetics or cultural significance.
The absence of personalised or localised elements means that travellers can often move through the airport without
Jewel Changi Airport, Safdie
any sense of where they are geographically. The only point of reference is with other airports. Scaled up, to consider an international network of airports is to imagine a constellation of non-places, physically removed from the urban fabric that it services, blurring the boundaries between distinct geographic and cultural contexts.
Non-places are also characterised by anonymity and individualism, where people coexist in a shared space without forming personal connections or a sense of community. The anonymity observed in non-places is an extension of the individualistic nature of modern urban life, where people can navigate through crowded spaces while maintaining their privacy and autonomy.
The airport exemplifies the paradox of increased physical proximity and decreased social connection. While departure and arrival halls are often highly emotionally charged spaces, we are almost always spectators and rarely participants in other travellers’ journeys. Elsewhere, passport control and security checks are examples of threshold spaces with purely transactional behaviour. Despite being crowded, wandering through the airport can be a solitary experience.
One cannot overlook the role that technology plays in shaping the airport experience. From automated check-in kiosks to biometric security systems, technological advancements are designed to streamline processes and enhance efficiency. However, they also contribute to the impersonal nature of the airport. Prior to even setting foot inside a terminal, e-tickets forwarded to our mobile devices expand the virtual presence of the airport and further erode the traditional boundaries of a physical place. I am reminded of Rem Koolhaas’ essay on Bigness, wherein he cites that French intellectuals speak of architecture being the first “solid that melts into air”. 2
The airport offers a profound reflection of our contemporary world, encapsulating the themes of transience,
anonymity and globalisation. The architectural design of the airport, with its emphasis on homogeneity, efficiency, and functionality, is instrumental in shaping our experience of the non-place. As we move through these symbolic and functional beacons, we are reminded of the complex interplay between movement and stasis, connection and isolation, that characterises modern life.
As an architect, my appreciation of the airport as nonplace is twofold. Aside from revelling in the people-watching, I marvel at the idea of airport as architectural interlude, as a spatial palette cleanser between place of origin and place of destination. On a deeper level, examining non-places, identifying their qualities and the conditions conducive to their proliferation, highlights the importance and challenges of creating places that are both functional and meaningful.
Placemaking begins with understanding the dialogue between thinking global and acting local, as well as between authorship and stewardship. Designing our built environment requires a perpetual balance between the desire for global connectivity and the preservation of cultural diversity. This approach can help cultivate communities that feel connected, grounded, and engaged with their surroundings, countering the anonymity and transience that define so many of our modern spaces.
Equally important is the recognition that spaces are designed whilst places are created. One lies within the gambit of the architect and the other exceeds it. Only through a sensitive appraisal of local culture and a consideration of the experiences we envisage framing can we hope to design buildings that facilitate a sense of identity and belonging. The emergence of successful places and the meaning that we attribute to them is sustained by the cultural memory and practices of the communities that inhabit them. Simply put, true places require more than good architecture. For that, I am humbled and grateful.
Ben Schmideg is an associate at Davidov Architects. He believes that conceptual rigor, high amenity and sustainability are the defining qualities of buildings that create kinder cities.
2022.
Notes 1 G Reeves, ‘Marc Auge and Non-place’. In J Tambling (eds), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban Literary Studies, (Palgrave Macmillan) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62592-8_67-1
2 R Koolhaas
Right The Orchard, Doha Hamad Airport, HOK,
My Melbourne patch
Words by Chris Macheras
“To be human is to have a personal identity.” I wonder the extent to which this notion of personal identity is influenced by where we live. I can only speak from my experience, having been born and raised in the vibrant city of Melbourne. But my experience is further influenced through my work with Old Vintage Melbourne.
During the depths of Melbourne’s long enduring lockdown of 2020, I found myself sitting on the couch, aimlessly scrolling, ordering unhealthy meals and having exhausted all options on Netflix. Things took a turn however, when I discovered that State Library of Victoria had digitised its photographical archive of Melbourne. This led to my social media project, Old Vintage Melbourne; a new way to reach an audience, and hopefully provide some insight into the recent history of our city. As the project attracted a following, currently a community of 175,000, I was offered a book deal and have since released two publications that focus on the post-settlement history of Melbourne.
The reason I mention the above is I did not expect to learn that there is something so unique about Melbourne as a city. The identity of this place is strong, but at its core, it’s a city made up largely of people whose roots are elsewhere. Is it the never-ending chat about our weather or coffee superiority? Meet me under the clocks or shopping at Chaddy? The latest Japanese restaurant on Flinders Lane, that vintage store in Fitzroy?
Contemporary Melbourne is a melting pot of culture that’s seen significant change since John Batman looked upon Naarm in 1835 and wrote in his journal, “This will be the place for a village.” As a kid growing up in a migrant family myself, I look around and see a city with an identity made up of people from all over the world; 200 years of immigration tends to do that.
In the 1850s, only 15 years after John Batman wrote that sentence, gold discoveries in Victoria, Beechworth, Castlemaine, Daylesford, Ballarat and Bendigo sparked gold rushes similar to the California Gold Rush. At its peak, some two tonnes of gold
per week flowed into the Treasury Building in Melbourne and Melbourne quickly became one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Can you believe that in 1851 the population of Melbourne was 77,345, and a decade later it had risen to 538,628 –a 7-fold increase! It was at this time that we saw the erection of some splendid examples of Victorian architecture from the GPO Building in Bourke Street to the Princess Theatre, Royal Exhibition Building and the spectacular Federal Coffee Palace, hence, the city being dubbed Marvellous Melbourne.
With the wild influx of European immigrants, however, came a lot of waste and pollution. For all its grandeur at the time Marvellous Melbourne was soon dubbed Marvellous Smellbourne.
Moreover, it wasn’t only immigrants from England and Europe. Some 40,000 Chinese migrants travelled to Victoria by boat to work in the goldfields. An obvious example of this enduring culture is our very own Chinatown, established in the 1850s during the gold rush, and notably the longest continuous ethnic Chinese settlement in the Western world and the oldest Chinatown in the southern hemisphere, yet another major contributor to the identity of our city.
If we fast forward 100 years, we see the influx of post-war European migration. I recall my grandmother telling me about the time she tried an Aussie meat pie for the first time as she walked towards the Jam Factory in South Yarra, where she worked as a seamstress. She was taken aback by how delicious it was; quite the contrast to the traditional ethnic recipes she bought along with her via the arduous journey from Greece in 1960.
And her story resembled so many others. To this day, Melbourne has a Greek community of about 400,000 people. It has been holding the title of the third largest Greek city for decades and is justifiably considered as the city with the largest Greek-speaking population outside Greece.
We can attribute Melbourne’s renowned cafe culture to our vibrant Italian community. It is widely accepted that
Italian immigrants installed the very first coffee machine at a restaurant in Lygon Street, Carlton, in the 1950s. While Italians have been migrating to Australia since the 1850s, it was this post-war period that saw suburbs such as Brunswick, Carlton and Fitzroy full to the brim with sauce making, espresso drinking Italian immigrants.
These are just two examples out of so many. Melbourne’s identity has been influenced by ethnic communities from all over Europe and the middle east. By the 1970s, for example, there were 12 ethnic clubs and coffee lounges along Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, run by Greek, North Macedonian, Turkish, Albanian and Yugoslav community groups.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Australia experienced another significant influx of migrants, as well as refugees, from various Asian countries. Similarly, to those who had established themselves from Europe, this mass migration was driven by factors like war, political instability, and poverty. Despite the adversities these new communities faced, including racism and discrimination, they continued to make significant contributions to Melbourne’s cultural identity.
All the way through to the 1990s, we continue to see Asian cultural and religious institutions, media outlets, community organisations, imported goods, a myriad of restaurants and bars. By going through these stages of immigration, Melbourne today is in large part a city made up of people from somewhere else. Even for so many of us who were born and raised here, our ancestry is from some place else, and it’s this intersection of culture and heritage that, in my view, has been the catalyst for Melbourne’s identity.
Whenever I post a photo on Old Vintage Melbourne, I am always smiling when I see a comment such as, “I grew up next to a Serbian family. They always had us over at Easter time and we felt a little Serbian ourselves because of it” or “Chinatown after class with my uni friends was a staple in the 90s.”
So, from Marvellous Melbourne to Multicultural Melbourne, we, as people, are so accountable for our city; for the good and the bad. We take ownership of it and as a result, each one of us wears a Melbourne badge of honour, and proudly so. I like to think that if our skin was a patchwork quilt, we would all have a Melbourne patch.
Chris Macheras is a Melbourne-based industrial relations lawyer, as well as an author who curates the popular Old Vintage Melbourne page on Instagram.
Left Family photos. Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country
How is context-responsive design facilitated through the planning process?
What is context and character?
Words by Andy Fergus
Ensuring that development responds to context or urban character is a central ambition of most established planning systems. However, the aspects of character which are protected, and how this is achieved, and the quality of outcomes vary greatly.
The physical character of a place; comprising built and landscape elements, as well as the socio-cultural aspects of an environment are a key aspect of place identity. These inform both place attachment and by extension the economic competitiveness of a place. The importance of place has a particular significance in Australia for First Nations People, where the physical environment represents a coding of cultural memory, and relationships between elements can be central to spiritual life.
Importantly context and character are distinct concepts, but often conflated both in planning policy and guidelines as well as in the process of development assessment. The London Plan Supplementary Planning Guidance on Character and Context (2014) provides a helpful definition of each:
Character is created by the interplay of different elements, including the physical or built elements that make up the place, the cultural, social and economic factors which have combined to create identity, and the people associated with it through memories, association and activity.
Context can be defined as the way in which places, sites and spaces interrelate with one another whether physically, functionally or visually, or the way in which they are experienced sequentially and understood.
In this sense, while character and context overlap, character captures a broader social, cultural and economic overlay
beyond the purely physical environment, adding meaning and richness to a context. The methods available through planning or development control to ensure a response to context in the physical sense, may differ greatly from the tools required to achieve a response to the urban character of a place.
Far from limited to physical attributes, character requirements can extend to concepts such as urban porosity, diversity of land uses and the presence of affordable housing and creative and cultural uses. An environment that responds meticulously to context, might maintain a strong visual continuity with its surroundings, while gentrifying and displacing the social and cultural dynamics that underpin its character.
A spectrum of context types
Character in the context of built environment regulations can be articulated in a range of manners depending on the anticipated rate of growth or relative sensitivity to change. This can vary from areas of high conservation and heritage significance (The UNESCO Vienna Schutzzone or Chinatown, Singapore) through to areas of transformation where a new or aspirational standard is articulated (Nieuw Zuid, Antwerp or Buiksloterham, Amsterdam).
The framing of character along this spectrum through regulation and supporting processes will determine the degree of change that is palatable, and the prominence or otherwise of contemporary design contributions. The regulatory context of character can be understood in the simplest sense as a framework which informs the design process for public or private development, trading creative freedoms of the individual project against a collective aspiration for the built environment.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the absence of character, and resultant removal of a contextual framework for design, can lead to discordant environments at best, where private investment determines the preferred visual character based on marketing aspirations, or at worst can cause trauma to its residents whose attachment to place is severed by
the disfigured environment. The ultimate risk is that an undifferentiated global environment, that responds only to market forces and lacks a clear and distinctive identity, can result in a diminished attractiveness, liveability and subsequent global competitiveness.
Herein lies a critical question in applying principles of context or character within a planning framework – is there a sufficient consensus around the quality of an existing context in order to derive a new urban character from? Moreover, in a relatively new city such as Canberra, where urban heritage is less prominent than a Vienna or even a Potts Point or a Fitzroy, is there sufficient material to draw upon in informing a new development character, particularly where the new development is likely to be of much greater density and scale than what already exists?
Flexibility and certainty
As articulated eloquently by Ivan Rijavec (Boyd’s Error, Planning’s Curse, 2011) conceptions of character are never static, and whether built, landscape or cultural, need to be understood as in a constant state of change. Where a regulatory conception of character is fixed, there is a risk that this framing can drift further from both contemporary design discourse and public opinion.
The fixed description of character as a moment in time attracts significant criticism from the architecture fraternity, where the discourse of various tendencies, global and local trends result in a constant re-evaluation of what constitutes design excellence. As part of a research project conducted in the ACT in 2021 (Hodyl&Co, Andy Fergus, Oculus & Adams Urban), a range of interviews were undertaken with designers in the ACT, Melbourne and Sydney context. Interviewees suggested that character or context requirements were often used to refuse development applications which demonstrated innovation. Their critique was that neighbourhood character requirements were often used as a thinly veiled method to limit change of any kind, even in areas where the existing character could not be described as of high value. The risk of disconnect between regulatory processes and public discourse can similarly be seen in the high-profile political media battles around the efforts to preserve mid-century and brutalist architecture both in Sydney and Melbourne in the past decade – where a significant gap in literacy exists between the public and the profession.
It is important that any framing of character, both existing and aspirational, should be framed in such a way that enables discourse, and an ongoing evaluation and contemporary interpretation. In essence, the framing of character should demonstrate an understanding of and continued faith in the value of the design process.
Andy Fergus is an urban designer and design advocate, working at the interface between architecture, urban planning and development with a strong interest in the relationship between urban governance, economics and design quality.
No I.D.s
Words by Lachlan MacDowall
Historical graffiti, and more recently, forms of street art exist as a rich archive of the life and times of a city and the many layers of its identity. I began photographing Melbourne’s graffiti in the late 1980s, when the local version of New York graffiti was coming of age. In the early 1990s, I rode every street of the Melbourne suburb of Springvale, recording the racist graffiti of the One Nation era on the rear of shops and in parks, with their slogans marking the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
At that time, it was still possible to see signs of vintage political graffiti across Melbourne. For example, the hand painted ‘Impeach Ford’ on a factory wall near Huntingdale referred to US President Ford controversially pardoning Richard Nixon in 1974, and a local version, ‘Lynch Fraser’, on an underpass in Glen Waverley, referencing prime minister Fraser’s Treasurer, Lynch, who was embroiled in scandal before being replaced by John Howard in 1977.
In the 2000s, on a house in Scotchmer St, Fitzroy North, I found the cryptic phrase ‘NOIDS’, which I initially took to refer to paranoia and anxiety. Only on closer inspection were the faded spray-painted punctuation marks visible –it read No I.D.s, a legacy of protests against the proposed introduction of a national identity card by the Hawke government in 1987. Dubbed the Australia Card, the identity card proposal sparked a public firestorm, compared at the time to the burning of mining licences at the Eureka Stockade. These debates remain relevant today; the Australia Card was referred to as the “building blocks of surveillance”. Soon after seeing this, I listened to a Rwandan Bishop explain how the issuing of identity cards by the German, then Belgian, colonial administrations in Rwanda had formalised and hardened tribal affiliations, laying the foundations for the later conflict. Far from being reassuring, identities could be divisive, and their formal control and regulation suspect.These political slogans, now all cleaned off or painted over, belong to an earlier era.
Jumping forward into the late 1990s in Melbourne, the explosion of written graffiti was overtaken by the advent
of the figurative imagery of street art in the inner suburbs, which was galvanised by the 2003 political protests against the war in Iraq. In street art, politics was no longer about clever slogans but rather, the circulation of meme-like visual imagery, using mass production techniques such as stencilling and posters. Politics itself was moving away from party politics and a focus on political leaders, and towards the broader arena of cultural politics and everyday life.
In 2020-2022, as creative director of the City of Melbourne’s Flash Forward project, I curated the installation of 40 art works in Melbourne’s laneways, (paired with the commissioning of forty albums by local musicians by co-director Miles Brown). Drawing on Melbourne’s rich archive of graffiti and street art, Flash Forward commissions would be semi-permanent additions to the city becoming, over time, part of the identity of Melbourne and the next layer of the archive.
One example of the Flash Forward commissions takes a constellation of three artworks in two adjoining lanes – Crown Place (a short access lane running south of Lonsdale Street with towering buildings on either side) and Goldie Place (a dog-leg street with a modern carpark on one side, a jazz club on the other). The topography of these sites was complex –a mix of orientations and scales, with no obvious walls to be painted. However, as with the best street art, the eventual works responded to both social and spatial context.
On a curved, vertical sliver of wall over four levels, the pioneering graffiti writer and designer known as MERDA, painted a work in greys and blue. MERDA’s work represents the high modernism of graffiti, always cleanly rendered and using complex geometrical effects. Utilising remixed typographic elements, this work also tugs at childhood memories of the 1980s, playing with small plastic puzzles where squares could be rearranged to complete an image.
Adjacent to MERDA’s piece, atop a wall messily rendered in sprayed concrete, is Jarra Karalinar Steel’s work which sits as part of a series that transects the CBD. Steel is
of Boon Wurrung, Wemba Wemba, Trawlwoolway, English and Scottish descent. This work reads, simply: You Are on Country, rendered in green neon-like lighting. In a city where land is claimed by naming rights and corporate logos on buildings, this work provides a counter-narrative of a different relationship to the earth.
In the laneway at the back of these two works is a mammoth painted mural by the artist known as Bootleg Comics. Hand-painted in black and white, across four storeys, is a grid of dense squares, each with cartoon elements that mix autobiography with imagery drawn from pan-Asian and internet cultures. The work is topped with a giant bear, with three-dimensional claws. Presented as the cover of a comic
book, the meaning of the work is fragmented and opaque. Eyes zoom across its surface, looking for purchase. Its effects are humourous but also nauseating and unsettling, like a day of doom-scrolling.
As part of the Flash Forward program, these three works inherit the traditions of political graffiti and street art, mixing dazzling graffiti abstractions with faux-corporate signage and deranged comic book aesthetics. Like the best of these genres, they resonate and clash with each other and the spaces around them. Each work reaches back to earlier traditions of graffiti and political protest while, taken together, they also stretch forward to new modes of identity – ones that identity cards can never capture.
Lachlan MacDowall is the director of the MIECAT Institute. As a writer, photographer and curator, his work explores forms of urban informality and modes of research tha mix genres, images and data.
Right MERDA, Untitled (2022) for the Flash Forward project, Goldie Place, Melbourne | Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country | Photo: Nicole Reed
A piece of city: What Melbourne’s historic land uses can reveal
Words by Roslyn Rymer
Have you ever looked at a building and wondered what stories it has to tell?
The historic purposes of buildings, and their adaptability to Melbourne’s changing markets, technologies, tastes and cultures, can be researched in a number of ways, but my favourite is delving into Melbourne’s Sands & McDougall directories. These directories offer rich insights into land uses, occupant names specific to each address. In this article I explore the Melbourne block bordered by Exhibition, Bourke, Russell, and Lonsdale streets – purely, because it is one of my favourite parts of the city with evidence of past uses from first storey hoists to ghost signs. I have chosen to compare 1925 with 1965, which were both positive times for Melbourne.
The 1920s were a time of hope and productivity after the devastating Depression of the 1890s and the ending of WWI. In 1965, Melbourne had left the austerity of WWII restrictions. It was a time of confidence in the future, with Melbourne redefining its purpose in the central city as society became more affluent, educated, and global.
It is evident from the 1925 Sands & McDougall directory, that this eastern block was diverse and thriving with a range of land uses. The most prominent type of activity was fabrication including furniture manufacture, cabinet makers, tailors, drapers, underclothing manufacturers, shirt manufacturers, lock makers, toothpaste fabricators, and jewellery manufacturers.1 There were many warehouses, including for His Majesty’s Theatre, and curiously, several that were specifically devoted to storing bananas (as with the vaults at Banana Alley). In the early 1920s, there were many Chinese grocers and fruit merchants, who “were Victoria’s principal vegetable cultivators and distributors” and “Little Bourke Street merchants almost monopolised fruit and vegetable wholesaling”. Also found were herbalists, practitioners of traditional Chinese Medicine. 2
His Majesty’s Theatre appears to have been a locus for piano stockists, music teachers, and a dancing school. Apart from the theatre, there was a billiard room, shooting gallery,
clubs and societies, and refreshments available at tea rooms, coffee lounges/temperance halls and pubs. This was a diverse and dense block that must have been bustling with deliveries, shoppers, students and patrons. On occasion there may have been stage sets transported from the workshops and stores in Cohen Place to the theatre in Exhibition Street.
According to the 1965 Sands & McDougall directory, the most prominent land uses were now services including offices and agents. 3 While there were still goods made in the block, productive activities had more than halved since 1925. There was now more fashion retail such as shoe shops, knitted goods, and handbag stores. A dancing teacher still taught in the block, and places to relax included cafes, restaurants, or the theatre, and one remaining corner pub. The number of clubs had grown and reflected Melbourne’s mid-century cultural diversity including the Greek Club, with Hercules Tailoring next door. Chinese businesses were still clustered around Little Bourke Street. Of interest to me as an archaeology student is the presence of the Australian Institute of Archaeology in Little Bourke Street, just at the very moment when Australian archaeology was emerging as a professional practice, and radiocarbon dating was rewriting human history. It is easy to imagine animated debates occurring at the Society in Little Bourke Street, with researchers walking to and from the nearby Museum (at the State Library Victoria) to share news of the latest dated material evidence.
The motor vehicle had now well and truly arrived in the city. Surprisingly, automobiles were already evident in the block in 1925. By the mid-1960s, these showrooms had perhaps relocated to be near to their primary clientele in the suburbs, who now commuted by car and parked in the city, perhaps at our block’s new off street parking station. This car park correlates with a loss of urban grain in Russell and Little Bourke streets and is well known to us - Total Carpark. Constructed on land purchased by the City of Melbourne between 1959 and 1961 for the purpose of providing central city car parking.
After WWII, there was a “massive rise in car ownership” and associated car parking issues, which City of Melbourne gave “vigorous attention” to addressing.4 Council invested in a number of traffic projects around this time, possibly instigated by their role in hosting the 1956 Olympic Games, including the synchronisation of lights, a diamond turn system, 8000 new parking meters, and a new parking lot “where wharf buildings had stood”. 5
With the automobile becoming a fixture of Melbourne life, it is not surprising that there were no blacksmiths or stables left in the block by 1965. There was also a drop in grocery stores and all fruit merchants had disappeared. As residents left the city to live in the suburbs and were liberated from public transport as first time car owners, they became devotees to modern supermarkets. Our study block also lost almost half of retail activities between 1925 and 1965, a downward trend likely shared elsewhere in the central city. Certainly, concerns for central Melbourne’s share of the postwar retail economy were expressed as early as 1954 in the Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme 6 In October 1960, Myer’s Chadstone Shopping Centre had opened on a former greenfield site, strategically located next to “settled suburbia with rising incomes and car ownership, and well located for a drive-in shopping centre”. In the same year that Chadstone opened, there “were a minuscule 41,000m2 of drive-in shopping mall floor space in metropolitan Melbourne. By 1970 there were 287,000m2, and by 1980 there were 981,000 m2 ”.7
Government and traders sought to arrest retail decline and reassert central Melbourne as a principal shopping destination with two main strategies: offering convenience such
as car parking – and providing comfortable and safe shopping environments – often being car free. 8 & 9 Mahler states that the “success of the large planned (suburban shopping) centre (w) as ... such that many downtown areas (were) now copying the concept by redeveloping large sections of the CBD into Malls and concourses designed largely to attract the custom of the local workforce”.10 In the 1960s, the Southern Cross Hotel (1962) with restaurant/pub, shops and bowling alley was constructed on the former Eastern Market site. The Mid-City Cinemas (1964) in Bourke Street was an entertainment complex offering cinemas, shops, restaurants, and car parking, allowing visitors to conveniently drive in and remain onsite. Total Carpark (196465) is thought to be “possibly the first building in Australia to combine a multi-storey carpark, an office building above, shops at ground level and a theatre in the basement”.11
Delving into the Sands & McDougall directories is a fascinating way to understand how our city has evolved and the past and future potential of its urban structure and historic built form. What feels to be missing is an appreciation for the human narratives associated with our block. How were people’s lives and livelihoods shaped by this piece of city? Further research may be possible through historic images, ephemera such as shop receipts and advertisements, diaries, newspaper articles and so on. In doing so it may reveal what Melbourne has lost through suburbanisation and globalisation, but also provide inspiration for what it tries to now regain by people returning to the city to live. Melbourne’s ongoing challenge is to cultivate liveable places for people to live, work and visit in each and every block of the city, each block a piece of city.
Notes
1 Sands and McDougall (1925) Sands & McDougall’s Directory of Victoria for 1925. Available at: https://viewer.slv.vic. gov.au/?entity=IE14210804&file=FL21835459&mode=browse (Accessed July 2024)
2 Brown-May, A, Swain, S and Davison, G (2005) The Encyclopedia of Melbourne. Port Melbourne, Vic.: Cambridge University Press, p131
3 Sands and McDougall (1965) Sands & McDougall’s Directory of Victoria for 1965. Available at: https://viewer.slv.vic. gov.au/?entity=IE13786633&mode=browse (Accessed July 2024)
4 National Trust (nd) Total Carpark. Available at: http://vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/search/nattrust_ result_detail/65572 (Accessed July 2024)
5 City of Melbourne (1956) The Annual Report of The Melbourne City Council for the Municipal Year 1955-1956. With an Account of the Council’s Part in the Staging of the XVIth Olympic Games of the Modern Era. Melbourne: City of Melbourne, pp.20-22
6 Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) (1954). Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme 1954: Report. Melbourne: MMBW, p.121
7 Young, J and Spearritt, P (July 2008) Retailing. Available at: http://www.emelbourne.net.au/ biogs/EM01241b.htm (Accessed 19 April 2018)
8 City of Melbourne (August 2014) Melbourne Ground: Intrinsic Ground. Unpublished research for University of Melbourne Studio
9 Marsden, S., Australian Heritage Commission and Australian Council of National Trusts (2000). Urban heritage: the rise and postwar development of Australia’s capital city centres Canberra: Australian Council of National Trusts. Australian Heritage Commission pp.51-52
10 Mahler, C (1982) Australian Cities in Transition. Melbourne: Shillington House, p.55
11 Goad, Philip and Bingham-Hall, Patrick (1999) Melbourne architecture. Balmain, NSW: The Watermark Press. Roslyn Rymer is an urban designer at the City of Melbourne.
Language and the meaning of place-based words
Words by Alisha Baker
I write from and live on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, a four-minute walk from the fig tree at the end of Gertrude Street. Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land.
I studied landscape architecture in Oslo, at an architectural school with a strong history and a celebration of horticulture and women in the industry for well over one hundred years Teachers encouraged skills and confidence in reading the land firstly through our feet and hand-drawing, rather than relying on computers too early in the design process. The course was taught in English, and I slowly learned Norwegian.
Several Norwegian friends told me, during forest walks or coffee breaks, that “ there isn’t a word in English to accurately describe aspects of this landscape.” In Norwegian, words relate to place, people, land formations, and landscape systems. They explained that English often simplifies descriptions; for example, ‘hill’ refers to land with undulation smaller than a mountain. Norwegian has a richer vocabulary for describing the local landscape – and their words to describe the variations between hill and mountain are plentiful. I began to learn Norwegian much faster after that.
It’s no wonder that another language feels clunky if it was created for a different place. Upon returning home to Narrm/Melbourne, I reflected on the stories I knew about the place I was born and lived for many years. Language, authorship, censorship, and word choices are central to my thoughts on landscape stories.
Recently, I’ve listened to stories about this beautiful Country from Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Elders and those passed down through their ancestors. I cherish the time spent re-learning and listening, being sad, being curious, and being inspired with Uncle Dave, Uncle Bill, and Aunty Joy by the Birrarung – void of project briefs, simply being together.
The impacts of colonisation on language are devastating and ongoing. Languages developed in place, spoken for over
2000 generations, enriches culture for everyone and celebrates place. Right now, I cannot think of anything more important or meaningful in our profession than educating ourselves, shifting our practices, and being there with our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities through self-determination and treaty processes across the country. We all have responsibility to care and listen.
Being resourceful and valuing materials
I’m exploring my responsibility to local place and to Country, through the way we value and care for materials. For me, being resourceful involves visualising a material’s journey, its relationships while living, the processes that transform it, and ensuring we use materials to their fullest and most respectful potential. Caring for a tree that bears fruit, shelters a possum, or becomes timber for a table adds meaning to each limb. Giving meaning to a living thing also gives it significance as a material, then as an object that will eventually need repair, and ultimately return to the ground to replenish and become an energy source for others.
Our industry is aware of its reliance on new materials and have weak aspirations to shake it. Our processes often do little to disrupt this or impose requirements for change. The labour involved in sourcing used building and landscape materials – dismantling, cleaning, storing, and designing with them – is often said to make it cost or time prohibitive. It is our responsibility to respect the materials we have used and will use, and to make their re-use the norm.
Photo:
A small apartment kitchen renovation
This project was undertaken with design-collaborator and architect Joseph Gauci-Seddon of Collective Territories, and carpenter and craftsperson Andrew Shaw.
There was never a question about who I’d partner with to design the renovation of my apartment, I’ve had a lot of creative fun and conversations about wonderful things in the world with Joseph over the years. Collective Territories embrace resourcefulness and the many voices involved in design collaboration.
The concept proposed the reuse of a second-hand kitchen. For about a year, we kept our eyes on marketplace and Revival Cooperative app for building materials. We eventually found a beautiful wattle-yellow melamine benchtop with Tasmanian oak cabinetry in very good condition from a 70s beach house on marketplace. Within weeks, we were moving forward.
Andrew Shaw and our crew of trades worked with the hand sketch to transform the apartment into a warm space, where every material and object tells its own story.
Some of my most precious items at home include a blue and grey tapestry by my friend Jess that hangs on the wall, accompanied by traditional Norwegian woven mats. Our family friends’ 70s dining table from Italy also holds memories of loved ones feasting together. The ceramic cups and plates I made in Oslo are made using sand from the local beach, their speckles take me back to summer swims. A precious made by Marnbeangrook, gifted by Joseph and his family, reminds me of my dad’s love for possums, the Bombers, and his respect for the landscape and the First Peoples of this land.
My kitchen is the heart of my home, especially in summer when the doors rarely close between the veggie garden, barbeque, and kitchen table. My love of feasting is deeply tied to the passion my mum and sisters put into growing, preparing, and sharing food with loved ones. Mum is an incredible cook; you could give her any ingredient, and she would make it sing.
Lastly, I take pride in my seed collection. I gather, dry, and swap seeds with friends throughout the seasons, nurturing our gardening community. And then there’s the outdoor table – Andrew quickly returned with tools for a day of making furniture in the garden. It was our first attempt at designing and making an outdoor table and benches from a eucalyptus tree in Parkville. This process serves as a prototype for larger public projects.
Project 2: Piloting a replicable material and timber-reuse process for public space
This project was undertaken with Robbie Neville from Revival Projects and City Design – Sustainable City team. We’ve been working on a project with a limited budget but great soul: a community garden in need of extra love, seeking to be more inclusive for a diverse range of gardeners.
Industrial designer and sustainable city design lead, Albin Pulche, connected the project with a large sugar gum in the city that was nearing the end of its life, and Collingwood-based Urban Tree Recovery initiative by Revival Projects.
Led by Robbie Neville, the Urban Tree Recovery initiative offers affordable timber milling and kiln drying processes 2km from Melbourne CBD. The tools and processes the team provide unlocks great potential for our city trees and the ability for government and private practice to act responsibly with such a precious resource in a range of architectural, landscape and industrial design projects. Revival centres their approach around custodianship, rather than consumption. By choosing not to handle resources as a commodity, they’re disrupting the typical linear consumption dynamic which has become normalised.
With Robbie and the arborists, it was very hands on, we discussed the best sections to cut on-site for usability and workshopped milling processes. By valuing the tree and timber, only a small portion was turned into mulch (mostly leaves and small branches). And we can give back to the city through elements such as furniture, bespoke architectural features, as well as designed pieces to support habitat.
Revival’s approach garners change in our industry. Their generosity, and their guidance displays their passion for disrupting the typical. This one tree pilots a process that is scalable and what we should all be advocating to be our norm.
Wrapping this into identity
Every day, I’m learning and evolving the landscape language I use to better relate to our unique context. I strive to understand what this offers to all who live among it, emphasising that we are part of it, not separate. We might not have the right words, but connecting and listening to what is growing around us is a good way to start.
My voice is becoming clearer and stronger as I share what I care about and why it matters, learning from passionate people driven by their values. Like many horticultural-type landscape architects, we see landscape and materials as part of a much bigger system that considers what has come before –such as geological layers or the knot in a tree branch. I question if these are being celebrated and cared for enough in modern practice in a way that ensures their longevity and continual evolution, perhaps long beyond our time.
Until then, you can find me sketching, dismantling, rebuilding, gardening, feasting, continuing to build a network of thoughtful collaborators, and listening to the trees.
Special thanks to my friends in Aboriginal Melbourne, City Design, Parks and City Greening, Joseph Gauci-Seddon (Collective Territories), Andrew Shaw, Robbie Neville (Revival Projects), Michael Zito and Michael Pham (photography), Traditional Owner Elders and colleagues, and teachers and friends Sabine Müller, Bebe Oliver, Tom Hastie and Ella GauciSeddon – who all care a lot.
Alisha Baker is a senior landscape architect at the City of Melbourne, a gardener, and a maker. Her practice values collaboration with teachers, craftspeople, ecologists, landscape carers, designers, and the community. She explores aspects of time woven into all her projects. Moving between scales and places, Alisha has studied and worked in Narrm/Melbourne, Norway, and Germany. Her roots continue to ground her in the city by the Birrarung.
Architect Victoria
Above Small apartment renovation. Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country. Photo: Michael Zito
Canvas Projects: Identity and the predicament of belonging
Words by Michelle Harris and Martina Tempestini
Our identity is the way we emerge among others, as human beings and as professionals, with our values, desires, and actions. As such, it is in constant flux and continual negotiation with the world outside of ourselves. Within this constant and necessary dialogue of self-criticism, there exists a predicament for the role of the architect in contemporary Australia: what is the gap between our aspirations, our conscience, and the reality of our industry – where the value of architecture is relentlessly challenged. The familiar condition where budgets and timelines are established through value systems that are different from our own and at odds with the belief that good architecture should be made available to all and not just the privileged.
This struggle is embraced within our practice. The complexity within us as individuals and among us as a group – the kaleidoscopic nature of our identities that reflect the traditions, languages, and rituals of our families and cultural homelands – has much to do with what draws us to this profession and the way we decide to practice it. We each are products of a dichotomy, experiencing firsthand the cognitive dissonance of carrying within us multiple cultures
and ways of acting and thinking. These are sometimes in conflict with each other or stereotyped by others, leading us at times to feel the need to repress, hide, or forget them. But what opportunities do we have as architects to be shaped by and learn from this discomfort, transforming this inner toil into new forms of architectures and new ways of practicing it?
Canvas Projects’ identity is moulded by our collective vision of creating places that are sympathetic to the cultural context and improve the social wellbeing of the communities they serve. To be sympathetic, to feel together (syn-pathos), requires temporarily suspending our own ego and personal judgments, and opening ourselves, respectfully and patiently, to listen and understand the voices and context that emerge from the conditions present.
Below Truganina Community Centre by Canvas Projects. Bunurong and Wadawurrung Country.
Photo: Peter Bennetts
Truganina Community Centre by Canvas Projects. Bunurong and Wadawurrung Country.
Photo: Peter Bennetts
Truganina
Photo: Peter Bennetts
We invite a conversation with and among those whose identities are in search of a safe and shared space where they can expand the complexity, they carry within themselves and celebrate that beauty. Bringing light to the vortex of languages, accents, phrasings, ethnic dresses, and transformed appearances that we have observed growing up or as misfits or immigrants in the informal interstitial spaces of our suburbs. Creating these physical spaces is our contribution to the beginning of something new and unexpected.
On our projects, our hands as architects are loosening from the role of the solo author and creator. Our role becomes primarily that of curator, weaving together the various narratives that arise and harmonising them into the final design of place. As a result of the participatory process, the sense of co-ownership and authorship that has been awakened among participants is embedded in the very walls of the buildings, permeated with deep meaning and themselves becoming part of the community’s identity.
In the recently completed Truganina Community Centre project, Canvas, Wyndham City Council (WCC), and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) successfully navigated the challenges and rewards of the community co-design process.
At the periphery of Melbourne’s western growth belt, the suburb of Truganina is rapidly converting from pastoral land to housing and industrial estates. The fledgling community that resides here does not share the convenience of infrastructure and amenities afforded to their inner-city counterparts, contributing to the feeling that this place is still very much a frontier, where the line between settled and unsettled becomes blurred. The process of co-design was initiated here to foster self-determination for this culturally and linguistically diverse community.
The participatory process included Canvas Projects, representatives from WCC, MCRI and a cohort of local residents and community end-users. Online workshops carried out over a six-month period during COVID lockdown were deliberately prolonged, affording all those involved the time and space to find their voice. This voice was the generator of the vision for this project:
A centre for cultural learning,
A place to share my culture,
A place to learn more about the culture of my neighbour.
Wyndham City Council recognised the value and importance of this input and swiftly expanded the brief to facilitate this evolving vision: a library lounge and more interstitial spaces were included to implement, test, and realise the contributors’ ideas.
Beyond the vision and brief, the participatory design process gave shape to aspects of the building form, materiality, and the warp and weft of this project. The online workshops provided all participants with a distinct window into each other’s lives, and with this an insight to the familiarity of the domestic condition.
The sameness of our plasterboard boxes, relieved with the upholstery, art and artifacts of our cultures. This perspective became a catalyst for our investigation of the textiles of the cultural groups represented in this region, eventually being woven into the articulation and the material quality of the built form.
The textures, patterns and form of the Truganina Community Centre are distinct and clearly recognisable from the formal language of the estate housing that surrounds it, yet they are familiar to the community, who recognise the echo of the broader culture it welcomes and represents. This new aesthetic emerges as a product of the cultural context in which it is immersed, away from the whimsy of fashion, and provides a new measure of its inclusivity, generosity, and ability to generate a sense of belonging as an essential part identity.
Michelle Harris is an architect and a director of Canvas Projects, a Melbourne-based architecture and design practice focused on the creation of community infrastructure, the process of community co-design and the act of place making through the study of cultural context.
Martina Tempestini is an architect in Victoria and Italy, with a focus on designing community and educational spaces. She is an associate teacher of the history of architecture at Monash University.
Right
Established in 2017, Canvas Projects consists of architects, designers and facilitators dedicated to the production of public and community architecture.
Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity
Jackson Clements
Burrows
Photography by Tom Blachford
Words by Nikita Bhopti
Jackson Clements Burrows play with subtle and overt, tangible and intangible, static and ceremonial, to craft a rare space that references layers of Country through time where the University of Melbourne now sits.
It is always interesting to think about what existed on sites hundreds of years ago. The University of Melbourne’s New Student Precinct (NSP) is not an unfamiliar place for Melburnians, particularly, among architects. It holds ground as a dynamic towering addition to the university’s rich heritage campus in Parkville, however, very few are familiar with what once occupied this site.
Before the University of Melbourne was established, a series of waterways, overland flow paths and water bodies traversed the grounds, connecting the campus that we know today to the Birrarung. Over time, many of these waterways have been diverted, filled in or buried underground; it is believed that some of the underground pipework, even today, is being used as a migratory pathway for eels. Above ground, however, there is little reminder of what once used to be. Jackson Clements Burrows (JCB)’s recent renovation to level 5 of Building 168 within the NSP is a gentle nod, not only to the creek lines that one passed through the site, but also the woodlands and outcrops that shaped the land on which the University of Melbourne sits today.
Left
A collection of woven eel and fish traps in the Elders Lounge. AFSE by JCB, the University of Melbourne, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country.
Architect Victoria
Indigenous-led social change fellowship program, Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity (AFSE) appointed JCB as the lead Indigenous architect to deliver a space for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous leaders, visitors and staff to meet, work, rest and collaborate. Sarah Lynn Rees, palawa woman and associate principal and Indigenous lead at JCB shares how it is “a very rare experience for a client to demand Indigenous design leadership and then fully enable what that truly means,” noting how their trust in JCB allowed the practice “to push the boundaries on what Indigenous led design could be.”
“We looked across 400 million years of geological time, to the ecologies of the site before Western development, and to the cultural uses and practices that these ecologies support," shares Sarah. “We agreed that we would not draw from any one language, marking, or story so that the project could become a canvas of the tangible elements of Country from which stories could be told from in the future.” The resulting look and feel of AFSE’s spaces evoke a sense of being within waterway, woodland and outcrop environments that existed on site many years ago.
To the west of the space, the floorplan is designed around cultural practices associated with the creek line, such as gathering to yarn under the canopy of a tree, fishing, and collecting Lomandra for weaving. “Weaving became an important
connector of cultures across nations and seas,” explains Sarah, sharing how this led JCB towards celebrating the craft through embedding a variety of weaving practices throughout the fitout. The Welcome Space includes several plants that can be harvested and dried for weaving materials. The kitchen has a custom drying rack that can be used for drying grasses. In the Elders Lounge, a collection of woven eel and fish traps from across the nation are suspended in alignment with the creek that once ran on the grounds below.
To celebrate the material identity of place and embody the woodland environment, JCB also hero blackwood timber throughout the fitout. Being Indigenous to this area of Country, the architects reintroduced blackwood timber to this land through contemporary means. Utilised for timber detailing, Sarah shares how they were able to “evoke a sense of this verticality and movement through clustering and spacing the timber to create the perception of a changing sense of density and openness depending on where it is viewed from.”
The concept of the outcrop is captured through the Welcome Space. It is “defined by openness, raw materials, and the Melbourne formation geology,” says Sarah. Being a ceremonial space representing introduction and connection, the Welcome Space is shaped through 360 suspended message sticks.
With each stick representing a degree of the circle, they also invite user agency and promote a sharing of history for every visitor that walks in the door. Sarah explains how “fellows, staff and visitors that are inducted into the fellowship program [are invited to] locate their Country on a map placed at the circle’s centre and adorn the corresponding message stick with a woven sleeve. Over time, the collection of woven sleeves will represent the AFSE community and allow those on site to reconnect with where they are and with where they are from.”
Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity by Jackson Clements Burrows Architects
Project team
Sarah Lynn Rees (Trawlwoolway), Indigenous design lead
Veryan Curnow, Project director
Tim Jackson, Design director
Saba Komarzynski, Project architect
Natalie Iannello, Interior designer
Chloe Hinchcliff, Interior designer
Adelle Mackey, Interior designer
Consultant team
Agency Projects, Procurement of major artworks
Aspect, Wayfinding
Aurecon, Engineering and ESD
BG&E, Structural engineer
DCWC, Project manager
Deloitte, Project manager
Dobbs Doherty, Fire engineer
Irwinconsult, Engineering consultants
Lucid, Services consultant
Marshall Day, Acoustic consultant
Mckenzie Group, Access consultant
McKenzie Group, Building surveyor
Slattery, Quantity surveyor
Builder
Kane Constructions
Right Blackwood timber used for timber detailing celebrates the material identity of place. AFSE by JCB, the University of Melbourne, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country.
Nikita Bhopti RAIA is a project architect at Sibling Architecture, writer and curator.
NELP Bulleen Park & Ride
Peter Elliott Architecture + Urban Design with GHD & CPB
Photography by Dianna Snape
Words by Hugh Goad
Anyone who has passed the new freeway interchange in Bulleen near Heide Museum of Modern Art will be shocked by the amount of new infrastructure works that are occurring. It is an other-worldly dystopia, evoking feelings of a concrete Mad Max scene of gigantic machinery, and what appears to be a village of portables and temporary fencing.
The new roadway is a product and call to arms to our age-old issue of sprawl. Rather than attempting to reduce the number of cars on the road, it feels like we are catering to serve more. Sitting in the middle of the new roadworks is a recently completed Peter Elliott Architecture + Urban Design project with GHD & CPB, the scale of which feels modest and reasonable in comparison – a diamond in the rough. The Park & Ride is the first component of the North East Link and Eastern Freeway Upgrade and the first of its kind in Melbourne. The practice’s challenge here – “how to create a destinational identity that forms part of a larger transport infrastructure project yet to be designed.”
The project is basically a place to park your bike or car and get a bus into the city. It feels fun to use and is eyecatching from the road: the expressive yellow truss a signifier of Melbourne’s public transport colours, “a distinct urban language of linear platforms”, and the unique style of a public transport system more generally. The different levels have the qualities of a train station or underground metro, a taste of the efficient city in suburbia. Its typology has moments of the incredible bicycle car parks in Holland or Niemeyer’s multi-level bus station in Brasilia. This makes sense as Peter later tells me that “this model can be expanded to integrate cars, buses, trams, trains, bicycles and pedestrians in various multi-nodal combinations as is commonly found in major international cities.”
The parked cars are hidden from view, and the hierarchy is given to buses, bicycles, pedestrians and the natural landscape. Cleverly detailed handrails and metalwork dominate the elevations, demonstrating how to cater to all in a safe, colourful and stylish way. Missing a bus and being stuck waiting for Melbourne’s extremely punctual and constant public transport doesn’t seem so bad here. The indoor customer service and waiting room has you under an orange-gridded ceiling and having access to plenty of natural light. The smart urban interventions and attractive public architecture are a gift to this freeway upgrade. If it wasn’t for its site context, it would have the ingredients for a New York style subway environment and language. Unfortunately, its location and the vistas onto freeway may stunt this potential.
While visiting, using and approaching this building, I couldn’t help but compare it to Le Corbusier’s Towards a New Architecture released 100 years ago; a collection of essays advocating for a new type of architecture – one succumbing or responding to the industrial age and mechanical transport. You can clearly see Corbusier’s five design principles: the pilotis (pillars), roof garden, open floor plan, long windows and open facades in this project. While this transport-focused theme may now be outdated in relation to cars, its relevance can still be targeted at bicycles and public transport, anything that requires less emissions, and less concrete than a freeway.
Peter Elliott Architecture + Urban Design with GHD & CPB show how public architecture can be done right, and perhaps some lessons could be learned in the way of freeway design that we’ve seen and will undoubtedly see again, which don’t feel like they belong to this city. The Park & Ride is the saving grace in this larger infrastructure project, the best has been completed first, and it’s just kilometres of roads to come.
NELP Bulleen Park & Ride by Peter Elliott Architecture + Urban Design with GHD & CPB
Landscape Department, Arborist, Consulting Neocheck Kinban Group, building surveyor
WT Partnership, Quantity surveyor
Builder
CPB Contractors and Symal
Hugh Goad RAIA is an architect who recently opened his own practice.
Office of the Victorian Government Architect
Our role in shaping inclusive spaces
Words by Georgia Chisholm
While diversity is the acknowledgement of all the factors that make us, inclusion is the active process of integration for an outcome of belonging.
It is this active process that we undertake as built environment designers – creating spaces where people belong. As stated by Elizabeth Farrelly, “our mental lives are still strongly conditioned by our physical experience.” 1
Though inclusion is inherent to the practice of architecture, it can be an elusive concept, easily lost sight of amidst competing project objectives. Inclusion is a fundamental tenet of well-designed buildings and spaces. In principle, best practice design shapes people’s interactions positively, makes lives easier, and improves health and wellbeing. Well-designed places are enjoyable and welcoming, catering to the diversity in our community.
The Office of the Victorian Government Architect (OVGA) has a unique role in reviewing a significant breadth of projects across Victoria and we acknowledge the great responsibility we have in our work as design advocates. In a just world, inclusion would be one of the baselines of all we create as designers, a driving motivation for good design in architecture. Among the commitments made in the 2024/25 state government budget, 2 housing, education and healthcare continue to be key priorities. At the heart of these critical social infrastructure projects is the need for belonging. The success of these projects relies heavily on the State’s ability to operate as the most intelligent of clients, embedding processes to design and deliver built works that embody inclusion and care from day one.
Over the life of a building, evidence shows us that bad design will cost money. 3 Design decisions that result in poor user experience and a lack of inclusion, create a ripple of financial impacts, whether in maintenance, running costs, lost opportunity, refit or even replacement. Further, we are only just beginning to unpack the hidden health burden created through poor design in the built environment and acknowledge the qualitative impacts of good design as a cost benefit.
The OVGA spoke with Heather Mitcheltree, architecture tutor and final year PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, whose research career has focused on the impact of architecture on people in diverse, vulnerable and minority groups. This has included shelters for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence, supported accommodation for homeless youth, and the influence of biophilia on people with neuroinflammation.
According to Heather, we have a lot of work to do in identifying and understanding the gaps in the prevailing stories that are told around how people live and, thus, how much benefit there would be if spaces were designed for inclusion. Compliance, as a bare minimum consideration isn’t nearly enough.4 An intersectional approach that appreciates the variety of lived experiences is pivotal.
An integrated design approach recognises both the broad and the specific requirements of users. Through longstanding collaboration with Michael Walker, one of our expert design reviewers, OVGA committed to applying a human rights framework and identifying universal design as a foundation approach in our public buildings – whether transport, housing, schools, a health or sporting facilities. This simple shift in language is an appreciation of the broad spectrum of people’s needs and changes the perception of who it is we are designing for – our client is everyone.
This is not to recommend a homogenous approach to spatial design which could sacrifice the individual needs of users, and undermine inclusion to negatively impact health, wellbeing, and quality of life. Ensuring that project teams have a solid foundation of evidence to undertake genuine researchbased design is critical.
Early consultation with end-users and researchers, evidence from lived experience and investment in an ongoing dialogue throughout the design process, is likely to generate rich outcomes that embody inclusion. This is evident in education, where studies show that younger school students respond
differently to the form of learning spaces compared with older school students. Learning space design informed by the way students of different ages experience space can significantly impact learning outcomes.5
Post occupancy evaluation is a crucial tool for gaining a better understanding of individual user experience.The OVGA plays a critical role in post occupancy evaluation of school projects through involvement in the Victorian School Building Authority's (VSBA) internal Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) reports. In association with the Aurecon POE reporting cycle, the OVGA undertakes project inspection and review to produce independent reports assessing design outcomes and processes. Our POE work results in design guidance for the development of future school capital works. Through adopting more transparent approaches to post-occupancy evaluation, learnings can be shared across industry, and fed into the development of the next suite of projects.
In housing, Victoria’s existing building stock has not kept pace with an evolving, complex and heterogeneous demographic context. As of 2021, 73.4% of Victoria’s dwellings were detached homes, and a majority of these with three bedrooms.6 Housing projects from Australia’s leading design researchers have shown that adaptability, flexibility, and amenity can combine to create affordable fit-for-purpose homes for a range of household types.7 Diversity has become integral to the offering of housing stock and also to the types of education and health spaces that are provided in Victoria. By adopting universal design principles, genuinely engaging with research and where possible, consulting users with lived experience, industry will deliver more inclusive outcomes for all project types including housing, health, and education. When supported by procurement procedures that recognise the realistic time and financial investment required to undertake a thorough process that embeds best practice, all areas of the built environment design industry can continue to reinterrogate what it means to create truly inclusive places.
Notes
1 Elizabeth Farrelly, Architecture AU, 28 November 2023
2 Department of Treasury and Finance, State of Victoria, 2024-25 State Budget
3 Office of the Victorian Government Architect, Government as Smart Client, 2021
4 Heather Mitcheltree, OVGA Discussion, 6 June 24
5 Barrett P et al, ‘A holistic, multi-level analysis identifying the impact of classroom design on pupils’ Building and Environment Journal, 20 February 2015
6 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Snapshot of Victoria, 2021
7 Office of the Victorian Government Architect, The Case for Good Design, 2019
Georgia Chisholm is an adviser for landscape architecture and urban design, Office of the Victorian Government Architect.
What does the concept of home mean to you and how does this differ between Melbourne and Tokyo?
Post-Covid, the notion of home feels more important than ever. Melbourne is a place of familiarity, where my roots are, and the city’s slower tempo and green spaces give a sense of balance. Australia allows me the freedom to practice in an environment that is natural and casual. In contrast, Japan can feel diametrically opposed, a place that constantly challenges me, for better or worse. Moving between these two cultures, the transitory nature of what a home is, has become quite apparent.
How would you describe your home?
A humble 70s walk-up in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.
Ben Hosking
When photographing a project, what elements are important to you and how do you try to capture these? Typically, I would focus on capturing the materiality and spatial experience of the project. This is what resonates with me as a photographer, but also a viewer. While not always successful, I always aim to document architecture as honestly as possible, avoiding trendbased post-production.
How do you select the things you surround yourself with at home?
At home, we tend to prioritise craftsmanship and personal significance. We enjoy how this serves as connections to memory and each item reflects both of our personal and cultural narratives. Over the past 15 years, our collection has grown significantly through the acquisition of art, craft and publications
sourced from all across Asia. However, this can be a little problematic when living in the tight confines of a small apartment.
How do you select and think about colour in both your own home and capturing it in photographs?
At home, I approach colour organically, based on personal preference and mood. While it may not be Instagram friendly, I am certainly not averse to colour in everyday life. In photography, I have a tendency to capture it as accurately as possible but also slightly on the gentler side.
Nuance is important, and working in Japan has taught me to see it and treat it differently.
Photographer at home
Interview by Elizabeth Campbell. Photography by Ben Hosking
Elizabeth Campbell RAIA is a senior architect at the City of Melbourne. She is a contributing editor of Architect Victoria.
Ben Hosking is a photographer based in Melbourne, Australia. He studied at RMIT University and has been an active practitioner since 2008. His work is noted for its explorations of East Asia, with a significant focus on Japan, and has been featured in prominent publishing houses both domestically and internationally.
MAKE A BETTER WORLD THROUGH ARCHITECTURE
The Institute has launched an Embodied Carbon Curriculum endorsed by the Australian Federal Government and Green Building Council of Australia to tackle the complex challenge of reducing embodied carbon in buildings.
Gain 5 CPD points and lead our profession on regenerative design.
architecture.com.au/embodied-carbon-curriculum
Image: Nightingale Village | Hayball and Breathe and Architecture
Austin Maynard Architects and Clare Cousins Architects and Kennedy Nolan | Photographer: Tom Ross Architect Victoria
