Architecture Bulletin / Resilience/ Vol. 80 No. 1/ 2023

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FOREWORD

04

Adam Haddow RAIA

EDITORIAL

07

Matida Gollan RAIA David Welsh RAIA

R ESILIENCE IN THE FACE OF CLI m ATE , FIRE , AND FLOOD

10

Coastal Resilience

Words: Nicole Larkin

14

Resilience in Western Sydney and Wianamatta

Words: Scott Davies Aff. RAIA

18

Brisbane flood-resilient ferry terminal Review: Jamileh Jahangiri RAIA

20

Do no harm

Interview: Claire Mccaughan RAIA with Lachlan Delaney of Sago Collective

24

Architects Assist

Interview: Elise Honeyman RAIA with Jiri Lev

28

Building more resilient infrastructure

Words: Alexa McAuley

ARCHITECTURE BULLETIN

VOL 80 / NO 1 / 2023

Official journal of the NSW Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects since 1944.

The Australian Institute of Architects acknowledges 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.

32

Creating climate-ready environments

Words: Carol Marra

34

Sandbags and seawalls: Designing a different adaptation future

Words: Kate Rintoul

38

Resilience and heritage

Words: Jennifer Preston FRAIA

40

Resilience, health and equity

Words: Andy Marlow RAIA

44

An architect on the ground after the Lismore floods

Words: John de Manincor RAIA

46

What does climate adaptation mean for design, architecture, and building?

Words: Elizabeth Mossop

48

Energy efficiency, bushfire and budget: Where are the overlapping wins?

Words: Sarah Lebner RAIA

50

Disruption, regeneration and our socio-ecological systems

Words: Mark Gazy

54

Bushfires, pandemic, floods

Words: Gerard Reinmuth FRAIA with Andrew Benjamin

56

A red tin shack: Scale Architecture

Words: Matt Chan RAIA and Georgia Forbes-Smith

60

Healthy placemaking partnerships in South Western Sydney

Words: Scott Sidhom and Jennie Pry

64

Net-zero ready for Sydney: Innovating policies and buildings in a climate crisis

Words: HY William Chan RAIA

68 Leave no-one behind in 2023

Words: Anna Rubbo LFRAIA

2023 N SW ARCHITECTURE AWARDS

70

Awards and commendations

OBITUARIES

91 Vale Peter Myers

93 Vale Peter Neil Muller AO FRAIA

People often ask me why I nominated for Chapter President. A simple question but with so many layers. As an introduction to you, I thought I’d offer a short explanation.

Growing up in a rural town, so much attention was given to the city that the regions often felt forgotten. Regional development needs to capture what the regions are about, not simply replicate the city from which the development flows. Housing affordability is the biggest challenge in ensuring we have access to basic services and retain our talent. Looking back, the reason we couldn’t get services was mostly because of a lack of housing options. Not only was there only one type of housing – a house on a block, but there was also little of it, and most of it poorly conceived. There were no apartments, no terrace houses, and the only form of retirement was the place you went to die. Great cities need a wide range of housing types across all economic bands – free to market, affordable and social housing. Housing that meets the needs of the community – in all its forms.

My upbringing also taught me inherent sustainability. We had to do more with less. There was no department store or Bunnings. A quick trip to pick up something could be a three-hour roundtrip to the next town. My memories of youth are punctured with making things out of something else, something close, something that someone else no longer needed – making do by stretching out the life of the thing we needed to keep working. We recycled and reused; replacement was not a word we knew. Good learning for where

we find ourselves now. We are a remote continent with remote cities. We need to think locally and be determined to do more with less. To use local resources from our doorstep rather than fly/ship/buy them in. As a profession we will be most successful if our focus is about lengthening the lives of buildings: adapting, reusing, re-imagining, rather than starting again.

It’s these three things that I would like to address during my time as Chapter President; growth and support for the regions, housing and sustainability. We cannot live in a safe, equitable and fair society without addressing these issues. As an institute we can lead the way. I look forward to working with you all to ensure that the built environment and the Institute itself are more resilient.

This edition also showcases the NSW Architecture Awards, which offers the collective opportunity to see what we’ve delivered; first through a critical lens, then through one of appreciation. Every team on a nominated project deserves praise for their contribution; our city is the sum of its parts and together we are an incredible force. Thank you to everyone involved in the awards program this year. Our convivial and collaborative culture is made from these moments of exchange, and we owe thanks and praise to the Institute for continuing to cultivate that. ■

Adam Haddow RAIA NSW Chapter President

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Emma Adams

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE

Matilda Gollan (Co-chair)

David Welsh (Co-chair)

Cate Cowlishaw

Nathan Etherington

Sarah Lawlor

Kieran McInerney

CREATIVE DIRECTION

Felicity McDonald

DESIGNER

Andrew Miller

SUBSCRIPTIONS

nsw@architecture.com.au

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PUBLISHER

Australian Institute of Architects NSW Chapter 3 Manning Street Potts Point, Sydney NSW 2011

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Aija’s Place by Curious Practice. 2023 Newcastle Awards sustainable and residential category winner. Commendation in the 2023 NSW Architecture Awards. Photo: Alex McIntyre.

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ISSN 0729 08714 Architecture Bulletin is the official journal of the Australian Institute of Architects, NSW Chapter (ACN 000 023 012). © Copyright 2023. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, unless for research or review. Copyright of text/images belong to their authors.

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The views and opinions expressed in articles and letters published in Architecture Bulletin are the personal views and opinions of the authors of these writings and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Institute and its staff. Material contained in this publication is general comment and is not intended as advice on any particular matter. No reader should act or fail to act on the basis of any material herein. Readers should consult professional advisers.

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Shine Dome | Roy Grounds of Grounds, Romberg and Boyd, Architects | Photographer: Darren Bradley

As architects look for ways in which to reduce the impacts of our built environment, we must also prepare for the inevitability of a changing climate. In Australia, drought, flooding, extreme weather events and bushfires have all presented as threats and they are likely to do so in the future.

The callout for this edition was originally “Resilience in the face of natural disaster” very quickly it became clear that the idea of resilience when applied to architecture encompasses more than how we as a profession cope with the effects of climate change.

Contemplating the resilience of our built environment has become a critical design driver from concept to completion, affecting the form, engineering, material choices and siting of any project. There are many facets to designing for resilience, including capacity of a structure to adapt to an altered environment or withstand extreme weather events; but also, to support community resilience in the face and aftermath of such events.

Resilience as a virtue, value or aspiration is a word applied to many situations, circumstances and activities. Like the concept of sustainability, it could quickly become meaningless – perhaps due to the breadth of what these terms seek to describe – yet at their core both set out to describe a range of urgent situations that talk about the wellbeing of humanity, and the delicate environment in which we exist that we have pushed to its limits.

It is often designers working in rural areas who are faced with the task of designing for the effects of a changing climate, many of whose stories are featured in this edition. In this issue we explore lessons learned from rebuilding after recent fire and flood events in NSW. We also hear from thought leaders who advocate for designing more resilient structures which can withstand and adapt to our changing environment. Built examples from here and overseas are explored, as are teaching and research practices at our universities where architecture is taught. Coastal resilience, infrastructure resilience and healthy placemaking are all discussed, along with the importance of how Designing with Country methodologies offer important insights that by their nature can build resilience into our built environment.

While difficult to define under a single descriptive umbrella, we can glean from the breadth of articles in this issue is that considering resilience as an approach rather than through discrete initiatives might be the most successful strategy in creating a truly resilient built environment. It’s an incredibly difficult and diverse subject matter, yet it’s essential to what we do, and will sit at the core of what we as architects need to consider for our foreseeable future. ■

Matilda Gollan RAIA, David Welsh RAIA Editorial Committee Co-chairs

RESILIENCE

Photo: Christopher Frederick Jones

Coastal resilience

WORDS: NICOLE LARKIN

The coast is an iconic and highly-valued landscape in Australia. It’s one of our most productive and abundant places environmentally, culturally and economically. For millennia, the coast has been a place of continuous use and habitation. We are a nation of coastal dwellers with 85% of the population living within 50km of the ocean. If our surroundings speak of who we are, this tells of our love affair with the water’s edge.

In 2016 the Federal Government published a revision of the State of the Environment Report which flagged that we are currently at risk of “loving the coast to death”. Multiple competing factors which converge on the coast place

enormous pressure on the landscape, both natural and built. To add to this, climate change and sea level rise have begun to take hold along our foreshores putting further pressure on the coast.

Coastal resilience is about as complex a problem as they come. Our beaches and foreshores draw a significant level of scrutiny as public open spaces. At odds with this, private waterfront properties represent the highest value real estate in Australia. Together these factors often drive a socio-political divide between local communities. The coast is also a place of legacy issues. Where once it may have been acceptable to build on the foreshore, we have realised this

Waverly, Bronte. Photo: Nicole Larkin

landscape is fragile, abundant in biodiversity and subject to significant cyclical changes. The coast is incredibly dynamic and is now under significant pressure due to climate change as seen in the aftermath of recent damaging east coast lows.

Ultimately, we can’t hold back the tide along our coast or retreat landward into already densely developed areas perched along the water’s edge. In addition to this, is the complex balance between protection and our community values. Increasingly we seek to conserve the coast in its current state, which is a positive step for environmental values but can also be at odds with necessary adaptation measures.

We understand what it means to protect and conserve the natural beauty of the coast in its current form. We understand less about what coastal adaptation and future proofing might look like. Increasingly, we find that where our relationship to the coast has failed is where we have seen it as a hard line instead of a zone.

The construction of a seawall at Collaroy in Sydney’s Northern Beaches has been at the centre of this debate in NSW and is an example of one approach to coastal hazards. This hardengineered response illustrates the complex challenges communities are grappling with when future proofing the foreshore. Approved under a development application by the Northern Beaches Council, the seawall protects private, water-front properties which back onto the beach. The rear yard for each property is level, resulting in an approximately 8m vertical seawall to the sand below. Since construction of the wall, east coast lows and wave action have periodically scoured sand from the base of the wall including the footings below. The outcome of the wall has been a diminished beachfront, impacts on the surf zone and, at times, restricted public foreshore access. It demonstrates the risks of engineered hard boundaries which protect built structure (private or otherwise) at the cost of diminished public amenity and the natural character of coastal landscapes.

As a built outcome, it lays bare a gap in NSW’s current coastal planning controls. As such, these controls are poised to benefit from an integrated, mutual-by-design approach for coastal infrastructure. This would place a positive duty on coastal development to deliver outcomes for both the built environment and the natural coastal environment. What this looks like in broad terms is still emerging across the world as we grapple with sea level rise and the impacts of climate change.

/ COASTAL RESILIENCE

WORDS: NICOLE LARKIN

However, in Australia this is not a novel concept. In fact, a commonplace yet iconic example of this can be found among our extensive collection of tidal pools, particularly in NSW. While tidal pools are not strictly defensive structures (although they have the capacity to do so), they illustrate the potential of this approach. Central to this is an aesthetic which does not dimmish the natural landscape. Tidal pools reflect this and are distinctly of their place in Australia as a result.

Nationally we have over 120 ocean and harbour pools, many built in the interwar years as public works projects. They are paired back, introducing structure only as necessary to create a swimming enclosure within a rock platform. Their robust but simple character is secondary to the innate natural beauty of the coast and is distinctly separate from the aesthetic of a municipal pool. Functionally, they are free, public assets that improve access to the coast. They provide protected ocean and harbour swimming for the community, including cohorts who may be less confident in open waters such as young children or older swimmers. The pools by necessity don’t impede natural coastal processes, even filling with sand on occasion only to be drained, dug out and restored to regular use by local councils. They serve as hosts for marine life and are an extension of intertidal habitats which gravitate to natural rock platforms. Tidal pools are integrated with coastal

ecologies while enhancing amenity, access and safety for beach goers. As a group they illustrate one example of how we can manage, site and design foreshore structures to protect and mutually enhance the coast.

As a framework, these unique structures are one example of the potential for a contemporary approach to coastal resilience in NSW. Coastal planning policy (at state and local levels) is poised to address this by providing controls and guidance on desirable built and landscape outcomes, particularly as infrastructure and urban areas are upgraded to adapt to climate change. This is a continually evolving part of our coastal planning framework. If it is to reach its potential, it can serve to ensure our beaches and foreshores are resilient public landscapes which maintain the character of a world-class coastline now and into the future. ■

Byera Hadley, WildEdge. Digital.

Nicole Larkin is an architect currently based in the Illawarra region of New South Wales. In 2017 Nicole was the recipient of the Byera Hadley Scholarship. Nicole’s practice encompasses coastal strategy, design and planning – focusing on how we inhabit and manage coastal areas. She has contributed to the NSW State Government’s Coastal Design Guideline, and is widely recognised for her expertise and commitment to coastal design strategy and the revival of ocean and harbour pools in Australia.

Kiama, Werri Beach. Photo: Nicole Larkin

Typology Overview

Eurobodalla, Bermagui. Photo: Nicole Larkin

Resilience in Western Sydney and Wianamatta

WORDS: SCOTT DAVIES

Western Sydney, with a population now over 2.6 million people1, would be Australia’s third largest city – just larger than Greater Brisbane with 2.5 million people2, and Greater Perth with 2.1 million people.3 Western Sydney’s communities are among this nation’s most vulnerable. In the lead up to the recent NSW state election, the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (WSROC), the peak body representing councils in Greater Western Sydney, identified climate change and resilience as one of the most critical issues to be addressed in forward planning.4

“Western Sydney communities are being battered by climate change, having endured unprecedented bushfires, floods and heat stress… Heat stress kills more Australians than floods, fires and storms combined. We need the NSW Government to make heat resilience a Premier’s Priority” – Councillor Calvert, WSROC President.

To put some specific metrics around this, the Australia Institute regularly updates research on extreme heat in Western Sydney.5 We know that Western Sydney already experiences temperatures 6 to 10 degrees higher than Eastern Sydney during extreme heat events. And the number of days per year over 35 degrees has increased from an average of 9.5 days in the 1970s to 15.4 days today. By 2090, days over 35 degrees could more than triple to a projected 52 days. CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology project that across Western Sydney between a quarter and a third of summer days will be over 35 degrees by 2090.6

A city of this size demands significant design focus to ensure that it is liveable and resilient to climate change. Resilience is therefore a critical driver to the design and planning of Western Sydney, and to one of its key emerging precincts – the Western Sydney Aerotropolis/Wianamatta.

The approach to resilience throughout the Aerotropolis is complex and requires coordination across a range of government agencies and stakeholders. From a design perspective, policy settings relating to bushfire risk, flooding, stormwater, ecology and heritage have influenced the design thinking. But it’s the overarching approach to design with Country and with landscape that underpins everything –and allows the emergence of a city resilient to future climate change risks.

The urban design and landscape structure of the Aerotropolis plan has been underpinned by Country, specifically water, landscape, topography, soil, heritage and culture.

Source: Ogge, Brown (et. al.), 2018, Heatwatch: Extreme heat in Western Sydney, The Australia Institute

Above and left: The Aerotropolis precinct plans. Images source: Hassell.

Precinct planning has prioritised protection of and access to green (open space), blue (water) and pink (social) infrastructure for future residents and workers to ensure a liveable and resilient urban system. By listening to and learning from Indigenous Elders, resilient, sustainable and liveable neighbourhoods is an inevitable consequence.

Dr Danièle Hromek of Djinjama brings a Countrycentred approach and Designing with Country methodology to built environment projects. This is based on the understanding that Country intuitively has its own methodology – a relational methodology guided and inspired by Country itself. Danièle’s approach – based on First Nations Knowledge systems grounded on the land – embeds a holistic understanding of the world and everything in it into the design process. “We know Country is alive and sentient and can communicate, and along with guidance from key Knowledge Holders into Country, we are guided into the process.” Enabling this approach in projects such as the Aerotropolis ensures community, culture and kin are inherently considered as part of Country.

DESIGN WITH COUNTRy

The physical elements of hills, ridgelines, alluvial creeks, dams, open parkland and forested areas give rise to the intangible and the visible: a connection with Country, a Cumberland Plain character, and landscape elements that foretell of this being a place like no other. This is undeniably Western Sydney – the Parkland City.

A connected natural system of blue and green infrastructure is the key structuring element of the urban fabric of the Aerotropolis. The main creeks – Wianamatta – South, Badgerys, Kemps, Cosgroves and Duncans become the spine of the Aerotropolis Parkland City. Smaller creek tributaries then define the public domain and open space framework.

This framework creates a foundation for a wellconnected, walkable and liveable city. It retains and re-establishes healthy, interconnected blue-green and soil systems. This ensures the ongoing resilience, balance and health of the whole system that preserves landscape’s capacity to retain water, provides biodiversity

Access to high quality public space enhances opportunities for urban cooling and resilience. Image source: Hassell.

corridors for wildlife and reconnects remnant endemic fauna and flora communities. And importantly, this offers an urban framework that has capacity to remain cooler during hot summer periods.

A NEW APPROACH TO BLUE AND GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE

The Aerotropolis will have compact urban form –a place where centres and local communities are connected by walking, cycling, interaction and collaboration. A compact urban form minimises the urban footprint and leaves more land for open spaces, waterways, and recreation areas. It allows people to access a diversity of uses within walking distance of centres, open space, or transport.

Open space throughout the Aerotropolis needs to accommodate a range of functions to ensure resilient, place-based and sustainability outcomes. This includes:

• water detention and stormwater-flow paths along ephemeral creek corridors to the Wianamatta system

• perviousness – areas of landscape where rainwater can permeate the soil profile, helping minimise stormwater run-off and keep urban neighbourhoods cool

• urban cooling – areas for tree canopy and green spaces that provide transpiration to cool surrounding areas

• heritage – celebrating culture and promoting access to Country through the cultural landscape – including heritage-listed sites

• biodiversity – providing a foundation for the conservation and enhancement of important vegetation communities, and

• corridors for wildlife migration.

Connecting and designing with Country is a process to truly connect with place and allow the creation of resilient neighbourhoods. It’s a method to learn from the oldest culture on earth. And critically, it’s a method to help us move towards sustainable development.

NOTES

The Aerotropolis precincts seek to support a net positive outcome across ecological, social and economic sectors. By listening to and designing with Country, this early planning phase of the Aerotropolis sets up a foundation for future sustainability. ■

Scott Davies Aff. RAIA is an urban designer at Hassell creating healthier, more resilient and connected communities across projects of every scale – from broad regional strategies to community-led revitalisation. Hassell led the urban design approach across the Aerotropolis. The design with Country approach was undertaken in collaboration with Djinjama. Precinct planning was undertaken in collaboration with Hill Thalis Architecture and Urban Projects and Studio Hollenstein.

1 https://profile.id.com.au/cws#:~:text=The%20Western%20Sydney%20(LGA)%20Estimated,rolled%20out%20across%20this%20site

2 https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/3GBRI

3 https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/5GPER

4 https://wsroc.com.au/media-a-resources/releases/support-for-vulnerable-communities-tops-western-sydney-election-wish-list

5 https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/heatwatch-extreme-heat-in-western-sydney-2022/

6 chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/HeatWatch-2022-WEB.pdf

The Urban Design Framework Plan. Image source: Hassell.

Brisbane flood-resilient ferry terminal

BRENDAN GAFFNEy DIRECTOR COX ARCHITECTURE AND ARNE NIELSEN DIRECTOR AURECON

WORDS: JAmILEH JAHANGIRI

Architecture plays a critical role in responding to the needs of those affected by natural disasters. Through design, architects can help to mitigate the impacts of climate events by offering adaptive and resilient strategies, often developed as part of disaster recovery solutions. One such approach is evident in the Brisbane ferry terminal redevelopment project by Cox Architecture in collaboration with Aurecon.

Cox Architecture and Aurecon’s solution for the Brisbane ferry terminal creates simple, resilient infrastructure that uses a series of simple responses to natural environmental processes, such as tidal changes and river surges to provide a new typology for ferry terminals that is simultaneously beautiful, accessible and sustainable. By carefully observing the causes behind the destruction of the ferry terminals by the 2011 Brisbane floods, the project radically questioned the typical ferry terminal design. The competition-winning model consists of three key innovations highlighting the lessons learned and the benefits of designing futureresilient projects.

The first concept involved analysing the shape of the ferry pontoons, replacing the existing square-shaped pontoons with a simple boatshaped pontoon instead. The project team discovered that this new platform shape would naturally provide less resistance to flooding. By questioning the business-as-usual practice, the Cox team with Aurecon were able to develop disaster-risk reduction and recovery strategies.

Secondly, by reviewing the current structural solution, the project questioned the need for the number of piers commonly incorporated in typical ferry terminal design. By locating a large singular pier at the upstream end of the pontoon, the project minimised the provision required for a structurally stable yet resilient ferry terminal. The reduced number of piers also increased the ability for the structure to deflect debris and vessel impact. To facilitate this solution, the Cox team with Aurecon challenged the normal build and adapted an alternative method of design and production. For the team of Cox Architecture with Aurecon, rather than using the previous design method of a ribbon of pylons, they completely reimagined the concept of a ferry terminal structure, resulting in a solution that focuses on a singular sculptural pylon that provides a structurally stable system with minimal assembly.

The third innovation was to challenge the existing gangway model which sat transversely to flood flow and acted like a dam for debris, exacerbating destructive downstream forces. With the integration of a buoyancy tank and some clever mechanical engineering to allow decoupling, the new gangway swings downstream in a flood, allowing the flood and debris to pass through rather than standing dam-like against it. This integrated structural innovation now allows the gangway to rotate during floods and be re-positioned after flood waters recede. This solution is the result of a multidisciplinary-design approach that combines the knowledge of architects and structural and mechanical engineering to design for flood and climate-change events. ‘Go with the flow’ became the project description, referencing the futility of fighting against nature, and its immense and invincible forces.

Pursuing an integrated, multidisciplinary process from the outset, Aurecon’s expertise in designing marine structures was critical to the success of the project. Together with Cox the ferry terminal design sets a new benchmark.

The connection between intelligent architectural design and environmental performance is fundamental to a climate-responsive built environment. From bushfires, floods and heat stress, the world is experiencing an increasing number of disasters. As designers, a focus on smarter and more resilient outcomes is required. Architects, urban planners, landscape architects and engineers, need to work collaboratively using our capacity to work with disaster-prone or impacted communities and develop wellintegrated responses that will guide disaster-risk reduction and reduce long-term rebuilding postdisaster. If we can go with the flow and work with nature in a more agile and intelligent way, we may be able to be more economical with our structures, rather than building taller, more substantial, or exponentially stronger. ■

Jamileh Jahangiri RAIA is the founder of Studio Orsi, a research based, invention friendly design studio based in Sydney.

Above: UQ St Lucia ferry terminal

Photo: Christopher Frederick Jones

Left: North Quay ferry terminal entrance

Photo: Christopher Frederick Jones

Do no harm

INTERVIEW: CLAIRE mCCAUGHAN WITH LACHLAN DELANEy OF SAGO COLLECTIVE

When we consider a commitment to Net Zero Emissions by 2050, how do we stop doing something that is known to be harmful? That is the precept for an ethical framework within climate change.

Broadcast by the Canadian Centre for Architecture: How to do no harm, is a vivid diary of an architect in an ethical crisis. One entry starts: “It is not easy to accept that one’s profession causes harm. We like to think of ourselves as good people–and most of us are. But we live in systems that we did not choose, feel unable to change, or may not even perceive.”

Claire McCaughan interviewed Lachlan Delaney of Sago Collective to discuss how their for-profit and not-for-profit entities have evolved under these ethical pressures.

Claire McCaughan (CM): Why did you start Sago?

Lachlan Delaney (LD): Sago Network was formed by three architects, Rosemary Korawali, Brendan Worsley and me, after we undertook design-build volunteer work in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Prior to forming Sago Network, Rosemary grew up in PNG with a lived awareness of the development challenges faced by her country, and she became PNG’s third

registered female architect. Brendan and I had undertaken community development work throughout indigenous Australia and Africa. We certainly didn’t see architecture as the answer to community development challenges, but we did see the architect’s skillset as able to contribute to capacity-building with communities. As young architects we saw community work as a long-term commitment that would bring balance and purpose to our practice. Sago Network emerged as an effort to address PNG’s community development challenges. Our name is inspired by the creative use of the sago palm, which local people refer to as the ‘tree of life’ which provides various crafted building materials (woven walls and roof thatching) and staple foods.

CM: How has Sago changed since you started in 2008?

LD: Initially Sago relied on volunteer weekends and leave from full-time architecture work but over fourteen years the network has evolved into Sago Collective spanning three purposedriven entities and an amazing team of 37 full-time team members (including 22 PNG nationals) with diversity spanning from architects and carpenters to community development professionals, water and sanitation specialists and a registered nurse. Our mission to address development challenges with greater impact and scale has not only resulted in a diverse team well beyond architecture but has also prompted us to question how design thinking can impact communities at scale to improve village health. This thinking led to the development of a manufactured product, the Sago Dry Toilet, a waterless sanitation solution that is locally manufactured and accessible to communities via hardware stores throughout the country.

Urban Raw an inner-city Sydney design and construction project by Sago. Photo: Katherine Lu

INTERVIEW BY CLAIRE MCCAUGHAN WITH LACHLAN DELANEY OF SAGO COLLECTIVE

CM: Can you explain more about your work in capacity-building for communities, and leaving our design hats at the door?

LD: To be an effective collaborator, we have to realise that conventional architectural outcomes, such as a well-crafted building, is often not the most relevant contribution to community development challenges. For instance, 85% of PNG’s population (approximately 6.6 million people) do not currently have access to a sanitised toilets and 13% of all child deaths under the age of five (approximately 1400 children per year) die from diarrhoea and dysentery which is attributed to informal water and sanitation.

Our early work in PNG perhaps made the mistake of taking too much of an architectural approach when we designed and built aid-posts for primary healthcare delivery. Our team quickly came to realise that stopping the need for the aid-post was the higher-order priority and, thus, water and sanitation became our focus. The Sago team has come to realise that listening, analysing, collaborating and coordinating lesstangible outcomes is what communities often require. We think of this as “designing the invisible” because it relies on identifying causal relationships, engaging in community dynamics, connecting people and developing collaborative ideas to overcome challenges together. This still utilises architects’ skillsets, but it doesn’t always result in architectural outcomes. Paul Pholeros and the exemplary work of Healthabitat were the leaders of this thinking in Australia and our close relationship with Paul was hugely formative.

CM: It’s difficult to see a strong approach to generosity and giving in Australian architecture practices, so it could appear to emerging architects and students that balancing profit with social-driven missions is difficult. How do you do it?

LD: Sago’s founders have always found a rewarding balance between our architecture work and our community work which quickly became reflected in our organisational structure as a not-for-profit NGO and for-profit design-build entities. Today, Sago Network operates as a financially sustainable NGO with our community work having gravitated from its volunteer origins to the current 24 employees across PNG and Australia. Our community work is supported by the Sago Design and Sago Build teams in Sydney who devote part of their time toward innovative ideas that support Sago Network’s community agenda. These ‘ideas for impact’ enrich the professional experience of our architecture and construction teams and they strengthen Sago Network’s community offering in PNG but the operational model is now such that the NGO is financially sustainable in its own right. ■

Claire McCaughan RAIA is an architect, co-director of Archrival and director at Custom Mad. Claire’s focus on ethics frameworks is driven by ambition to find spatial justice for the human and non-human.

Lachlan Delaney is director at Sago Collective, an interconnected team of architects, builders and community development professionals who work across the three entities of Sago Design – a residential architecture practice, Sago Build – a residential construction company, and Sago Network – a not-for-profit (NFP) community development non-government organisation (NGO).

Top: Sago Network and the urban village of Laurabada, within Port moresby, partnering to deliver safe sanitation and improved health outcomes.

Photo: Sago

Above left: Remote village sanitation programme where new permanent toilets (on left) and old toilets (on right) intentionally co-exist to provide some family members with options and a gradual transition to a new and safer form of toilet. Photo: Sago

Above middle: Sanitation programme in remote Sepik Province utilising the Sago Dry Toilet system, off-the-shelf construction for the cubicle and solar lighting for safety at night. Photo: Sago

Above right: Collaborative construction is seen as key to communities building ownership and being confident in their ongoing capability for maintenance. Photo: Sago

Architects Assist

INTERVIEW: ELISE HONEymAN WITH JIRI LEV

Last year Elise Honeyman connected with Jiri Lev, founder of Architects Assist, to learn about the Australian Institute of Architects initiative, its implementation and lessons learned since its inception in January 2020. The conversation touches upon the catalyst for its creation and the various ways architects can make an impact by providing alternative pricing structures, including pro-bono, delayed or reduced-fee services.

Can you tell me a bit about Architects Assist and why you were inspired to create the initiative?

Architects Assist came about during the 2019/2020 bushfires. The awful stories of families losing their homes was reinforced by the inescapable smoky skies that affected Australia, keeping it in the forefront of our minds. As an architect with a background in web development, I created a simple website to connect architects with clients who suffered during the fires to form a partial or full pro-bono working relationship. There’s no shortage of official disaster recovery organisations with big names, funding and politics, however, I saw the need for something that struck a balance between a larger organisation and a coordinated grassroots solution. Architectural registration numbers are required for accountability yet ultimately it comes down to individuals just helping one another.

The response was quicker than expected, with no shortage of volunteers – I think it’s just human nature to do something to help.

Very quickly the process became unmanageable as I was individually emailing and connecting architects and pro-bono clients. With the Australian Institute of Architects, we decided the initiative would move underneath the Institute’s banner to increase the potential for an even broader impact. In time Architects Assist also expanded to include professionals from planning and landscape architecture. At the time of this interview, 636 architects, planners and landscape architects have registered with Architects Assist.

What type of building typologies have been built through the program?

The projects that can be built through Architects Assist is broad. Clients are often individuals, community groups and sometimes even councils. It can be anything from park shelters to a community hub workshop facility, to small cabins in the bush. There were a large proportion of regular homes that were rebuilt as modest sensibly designed BAL 40 and BAL FZ homes, appropriate to their context.

Something that can have a huge impact and is almost second nature to architects, is guidance for individuals on their next steps. Our knowledge of the industry, lingo and approvals bureaucracy is absolutely priceless. Sharing our professional expertise through an initial meeting or chat can provide a sense of direction and increase the client’s ability to make informed decisions, which means a lot to someone who has been through so much.

Why is pro-bono work so important and what do you think it is about architects that make them uniquely placed and enthusiastic to provide assistance?

Firstly, while we know the modern definition for pro-bono work, I’d like to emphasise the Latin meaning – for the public good. Our industry attracts a lot of individuals who have a sense of idealism and seek to do work that positively impacts the public. As Architects Assist demonstrated there is no shortage of willing architects and having an impact for good, during such a tumultuous time in people’s lives is payment enough. A large portion of the housing stock in Australia doesn’t last long or work very well, architects are uniquely placed to slowly but surely shift this. Not only can our services benefit individuals affected by natural disasters, but we can more broadly improve our housing stock, one project at a time. Our idealism and work in the pro-bono sector can make the world a better place.

Following the establishment of Architects Assist, you toured through regional Australia to promote it. What were some of the challenges and barriers to completing these projects?

Funding is always a problem, there’s never enough money for these projects, and often the plans and grant submissions are required before any money can be accessed. That is, however, an area where architects can help.

I also found the big challenge when travelling to these affected areas was dealing delicately with people who have been through an intense and emotional experience. Our day-to-day profession requires us to act as mediator in many ways, but this was amplified. It may be cliché but you must be a good listener and not overload the clients with multiple ideas and solutions. These clients have been through traumatic experiences and need a more measured empathetic approach –often a step-by-step road map to help navigate

Kosciuszko National Park, July 2020.

Photo: Jiri Lev

INTERVIEW: ELISE HONEYMAN WITH JIRI LEV

may be perceived as only working on projects on the other extreme of the social ladder – building facilities for those in extreme disadvantage.

One of the biggest opportunities to improve housing standards, including through the provision of pro-bono work lies within the huge middle ground – simple to construct, humble and affordable buildings, designed to be functional, durable, comfortable and beautiful. They may not be highly acclaimed award-winning designs, yet we can have a far more significant impact through well-designed common buildings on the lives of individuals and the general housing stock. This idea can be applied to how we practice in general.

their way through a problem they never expected to have. It is a privilege to be invited in to help people during their time in need. It still makes me emotional three years on.

Another barrier was occasionally a lack of engagement from local governments, media and individuals when it came to spreading the word about the availability of Architects to help through Architects Assist. My understanding was this came down to the perception of architects only building million-dollar homes and therefore not really being helpful in these situations.

How can we position ourselves to help more effectively in these instances?

I think the public can misunderstand what an architect does. This is worsened by a perception of professional pride and archi-talk being inaccessible. This adds to the problem of poor housing stock in suburbia, not only because clients can’t see how an architect could help them, but these simple projects may been seen as less desirable to an architect.

As a profession we have an obsession with the 2% of projects that are full of expensive materials and difficult detailing. Alongside big commercial projects, we present these projects as if they are what we solely do. Pro-bono work

In disaster recovery projects, we should not underestimate the ways our industry knowledge and expertise can have an impact. The work done through Architects Assist varies greatly from beautifully finished projects to guidance through a grant application, to an initial chat, which gets a family on the right path to rebuilding in a clear and confident way. Our advice can help find a good, efficient and effective solution rather than a quick-fix reaction that compromises quality and eventually ends up in landfill. ■

Elise Honeyman RAIA is an architect and director of emerging practice, Abask Studio, founded in Newcastle NSW, after practicing across London and Sydney. She is a current member of the Australian Institute of Architects Regional Committee, was formerly the cochair of the Editorial and Communications Committee and was the founding General Manager of the Sydney Chapter of Women in Design and Construction.

Jiri Lev is an architect, urbanist, heritage advisor and educator. He is the founder of ArchiCamp, a grassroots architecture festival benefitting disadvantaged communities, the founder of Architects Assist (Australia) and Architekti Pro Bono (Europe), uniting hundreds of architecture practices for disaster recovery assistance, and the founder of Cohousing.com.au, an initiative for cohousing and ecovillage development.

Kangaroo Island, September 2020. Photo: Jiri Lev

Wandella Bushfire rebuild (top) with its incorporation of the old chimney stack in front of the build and Nerrigundah rebuild (below). Dickson Rothchild architects has 12 pro-bono projects underway for those in bushfire affected communities from connections facilitated through the Architects Assist program. Renders: Dickson Rothchild.

Building more resilient infrastructure

WORDS: ALEXA mCAULEy

In 2022, it was reported that 68% of Australians lived in a local government area affected by natural disaster, mostly flooding,1 and in its 2021-22 annual report, Treasury reported that natural disasters cost the Federal Government $5.5 billion. Most of this is directed at disaster recovery. There is increasing recognition, including in Australia’s 2021 State of the Environment Report, that in a changing climate, which is bringing natural disasters of increasing frequency and severity, we need to invest more into building resilience, and that this will require a more collaborative approach between government, industry and community to absorb, recover and prepare for future shocks.

Resilience can be considered at multiple scales from local to global, and in many different types of systems, including natural and built environments. Extreme shocks such as natural disasters highlight the interconnectedness of these systems, with the potential for impacts in one area to have significant knock-on effects in others. Therefore, resilience of human settlements is supported by resilience in all their interconnected systems.

Resilient ecosystems support resilient human settlements by performing services such as slowing runoff, retaining and cleaning polluted water, and attenuating wave energy. Therefore, important ecosystems are protected and we invest in their ongoing care. Smaller pockets of urban bushland may not have the same legislative protection but are highly valued by the community, and they also support resilience by enhancing recreational opportunities, with benefits for physical and mental health.

Ecologists study resilience in ecosystems to understand their sensitivity to shock and stress and aid their recovery. Across a range of studies in many different types of ecosystems, there is broad consensus on the main attributes of resilient ecosystems: they are well-connected, spatially heterogeneous, and biodiverse. They are also adapted to variable conditions and have a level of redundancy in how their key functions are performed.2 In response to a shock, resilient ecosystems can quickly adapt to maintain their key functions. For example, after a bushfire, colonising plant species grow quickly, maintaining critical functions which enable other species to recover over a longer period.

Rain garden at Sydney Olympic Park. Photo: Paul mcmillan

Above: Restored wetland at mountain View Reserve, Cranebrook.

Photo: Paul mcmillan

Right: Reconstructed creek and wetland at Blackman Park, Lane Cove West.

Photo: Paul mcmillan

Principles from ecological resilience (connectivity, diversity, adaptability and redundancy) can be applied to built infrastructure. For example, significant changes are needed to our energy infrastructure to incorporate renewables, and resilience is a key consideration in this transition. Renewable energy sources will add diversity to the system, which will require increased connectivity in the grid. The transition to renewable energy also highlights how, while it has been relatively straightforward to add new features such as rooftop solar panels, this creates new challenges as the system is increasingly made up of diverse and decentralised infrastructure. A whole-ofsystem approach is needed to design a more resilient electricity grid.

Resilience also needs to be improved in water supply systems, which are increasingly impacted by climate shocks. For example, Bermagui’s water became undrinkable during the Black Summer bushfires and Dubbo’s water became undrinkable due to flood-related contamination in 2022.3 Recent droughts have also impacted on water supplies in many parts of the country, leading to restrictions on water use while communities are facing hotter conditions and heatwaves. A more resilient approach to water supply would include more diverse water sources, such as rainwater tanks and other small-scale decentralised water treatment and reuse systems. Even very simple measures that retain more water in the landscape, such as passive irrigation, would reduce the impacts of drought and heat on living infrastructure, supporting community resilience.

Architects can learn from the principles of ecological resilience by designing to create diversity in urban design and built form, and by designing a level of redundancy into living and built infrastructure, supporting future flexibility and adaptation. For example, recent floods have highlighted a need for housing that is more flood-resilient, including the use of materials more resistant to inundation, and structures that enable easier evacuation, such as egress onto the roof. Architects should also recognise the need for collaborative, whole-of-system approaches to support management of diverse, decentralised assets in complex, interconnected systems. Working at the intersection between government, industry and community, architects are well placed to play a greater role in fostering high-quality cooperation, collaboration and partnership between these sectors, to support improved management of healthy ecosystems, decentralised infrastructure and resilient communities. ■

Alexa McAuley is an environmental engineer and director of multi-disciplinary design consultancy Civille. She works to create more sustainable, liveable cities by integrating environmental engineering with urban ecology, landscape and urban design.

NOTES

1 ABC News 2023 ‘East coast flooding saw majority of Australians covered by natural disaster declaration in 2022’, accessed 16 January 2023, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-13/majority-australians-live-disaster-zones-2022-floods/101851620.

2 Cassin, J and Matthews, J H 2021 Chapter 4, Nature-based solutions, water security and climate change: Issues and opportunities Pages 63-79, Nature-based Solutions and Water Security Editor(s): Jan Cassin, John H. Matthews, Elena Lopez Gunn. Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819871-1.00017-8

3 Guardian Australia 2022 ‘NSW city goes a week without drinkable water after floods cause contamination’, accessed 16 January 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/13/nsw-town-goes-a-week-without-drinkable-water-after-floods-cause-contamination.

Creating climate-ready environments

WORDS: CAROL mARRA

Climate change, it in its various guises, throws at us sea-level rise, coastal erosion, bushfires, heatwaves, increased rain, flooding, winds and cyclones. The problems faced are not only varied but complex and interrelated. Concurrently, we are faced with biodiversity loss, an aging population and the ever-present affordability of housing. Strained and stressed, nature and humans muddle along on a trajectory lacking clarity and purpose.

While climate change is now mostly acknowledged as fact and we are seeing the consequences, the knowledge of climate change is anything but new. Alexander von Humboldt, the 18th century German naturalist, explorer and polymath, travelled through the Americas and observed firsthand the effects of colonialism on nature. True to his time he used Western scientific methods to study nature from the poles to the tropics. Humboldt came to the same insight that First Nations peoples have long held – nature was an indivisible entity, a web of life, including humans, where everything is connected to everything else. He was critical of the exploitation of nature, and correctly posited that the activities of men had the potential to affect the climate both on a local and global scale.

Though he was much admired, having influence both within the scientific establishment and the imperial court, the status quo carried on paying scant attention to his insights. No doubt the resources of nature, and its capacity to deal with abuse, seemed infinite at the time but humanity was set on an unsustainable path, the consequence of which, climate change, is our unwanted inheritance.

The Churchill Fellowship I received some years ago continues this tradition of observation and investigation in foreign climes, in the hope new insights might inform a way forward. I travelled to China, Japan and the Philippines to investigate vernacular design strategies to cope with extreme climate events. The overarching conclusion of this research was that human ingenuity worked best when nature was not cast as the enemy but rather was understood and respected. In some places this attitude went as far as the worship of nature. Simple but effective design strategies do not attempt to overcome or dominate nature but create buildings with in-built adaptation and mitigation techniques. For example, courtyard building forms in China that provide effective freeboard during high rainfall events, collect and store rainwater, and incorporate durable materials which can be subject to wet/dry cycles. Or in the Philippines, houses incorporating sophisticated but low-tech ventilation techniques to remain cool during the oppressive heat and humidity without resorting to air conditioning.

The pace of change requires us to reconsider our tools of governance, and our belief in technological solutions and breakthroughs. It requires design and nature-based solutions which do not privilege humans at the expense of all else in the natural environment. It requires principles and strategies that provide guidance without being didactic. One such effort in our practice is research into and the creation of a design guide for climate resilient housing funded by an Alastair Swayn Foundation grant.

The guide will be informed by historical and vernacular precedents as well as current best practice, mining past knowledge and experience to develop design-for-resilience principles, strategies and techniques for designers in the age of climate change.

Architecture needs to once again become a broad art, concerned with subjects both laterally and in depth – to be aesthetic, functional, innovative and sustainable in equal measure. It is time to move climate to the forefront, not just one of many issues to consider, but the key driver of built environment design. We can either design our buildings to mitigate and adapt to climate change, or climate change will design a world in which our built environment will cease to cope. ■

Carol Marra is a Churchill Fellow and architect at Marra + Yeh Architects working across practice, education and government. She has contributed to the Environment Design Guide, served as a juror for the NSW Architecture Awards and as a member of the Peer Review Committee for the 2023 UIA World Congress of Architects.

Top: Sky House.

Photo: Brett Boardman

Right: Vigan Section.

Photo: Carol marra

Below: Fujian Section.

Photo: Daniel B Abramson

Sandbags and seawalls: Designing a different adaptation future

WORDS: KATE RINTOUL

Those of us who act as custodians of coastal places have some hard decisions to make. Damaging winds, extreme rainfall and sea-level rise are triggering coastal erosion and inundation that will effectively re-draw our foreshores. Design thinking offers a valuable approach to decision making, posing questions from many angles and hearing from diverse voices as a way of developing a creative approach to the problem itself.

Consider a beach on the NSW South Coast. There’s the beach itself, the dunes, a shared path, a surf club, a carpark and an ocean pool. As a connected place this set of assets is of high value. The local council maintains the place using local rate-payer funds for a user population that is roughly 60% locals and 40% visitors. Let’s assume the surf club is also heritage listed, the dunes are home to an endangered ecological community and the area is of significant Aboriginal cultural value. Climate modelling shows that the risk of these assets being inundated due to sea-level rise is high.

What do we do, and how?

There’s something seductive about designing our way out of a crisis. It’s the stuff of postapocalyptic speculative fiction, we’re fascinated by the concept of re-engineering our places to sustain some semblance of those things that we value in the face of fundamental change. But when does adaptation begin to erode the value we seek to protect? What dangers might there be in the justification to remodel or relocate buildings and infrastructure for their own good?

Increases in sea level, flooding, storm-tide inundation, erosion, bushfire and land-surface temperature are all present impacts of climate change. For coastal areas with significant river and creek systems, the first four threaten a broad array of building assets, infrastructure and natural places of high value. Many of these are publicly owned and managed: schools, social housing, harbours, ports, sewerage treatment plants, boat ramps, beaches, open spaces, ocean pools, roads and carparks to name a few.

Local governments are at the pointy end of public space and asset management. Many are making good ground declaring climate emergencies, reviewing their assets and prioritising adaptation actions. Climate adaptation plans commit councils to considering climate change in all relevant decisions, from broad-scale strategic plans to routine maintenance. NSW coastal councils are required to prepare Coastal Management Programs to consider the impacts of sea level rise and appropriate management responses, and adopted programs open the opportunity for state grant funding of endorsed actions.

The bigger picture strategic planning is easy to envisage but difficult to implement. We know that certain low-lying coastal areas will experience more frequent and more intense flooding, and changes to zoning and other development controls would be a rational response. But limiting housing supply in the current planning climate is an unpalatable position. And that is to say nothing of the political, administrative, economic and social impacts of reducing development rights or implementing compulsory acquisition.

Above: Tidal Ocean Rock Pools are highly valued.

Photo: Kate Rintoul

Left: Cultural heritage is present in multiple layers along the coast.

Photo: Kate Rintoul

SEAWALLS: DESIGNING A DIFFERENT ADAPTATION FUTURE

WORDS: KATE RINTOUL

Let’s bring it down to a smaller scale and consider those individual assets that local governments have responsibility for. At what point should a council decide that it is not viable to keep investing in the assets that serve climate-vulnerable areas? Will it depend on how loudly those communities complain or how adept they are at mobilising political will? It’s an awkward question, but one that will surely be factored into asset-life calculations and maintenance plans moving forward, if it isn’t already.

These kinds of decisions and the frameworks that guide them are subject to astute technical investigation, cost benefit analysis and community input. A large team of technical specialists will have input into the risk modelling, the asset life calculations, the public value determination and the range of engineering scenarios that will be held up as possible solutions. What is often lacking from this process and team is input from a built environment designer – an architect, an urban designer, a heritage architect or a landscape architect. These actors typically only enter the arena once the design requisition is written, often by an engineer.

Designers offer the most value when they are involved from the very beginning. Good built environment designers see the whole picture

and are able to unpack and question a brief in order to neatly articulate the problem to which a design solution is to be applied. Even better than being retrospective authors of reverse briefs, designers should be involved from the beginning, informing the definition of the problem itself. Designers are trained to be adept storytellers, communicating with a broad range of stakeholders about place and crafting a value proposition from an invisible future. And, critically, good designers are creators of whole places – places that are contextual, well performing, inclusive, liveable, functional and engaging. Their role in shaping adaptation responses to our coastal places is critical. Yet, in local government, these professionals are thin on the ground.

Let’s think back to that beach on the South Coast and consider the frameworks we might use to make decisions about its future. Commonly, a protect, accommodate or abandon framework would be applied in such a scenario. Do we protect the beach and shared path with structurally engineered seawalls to prevent erosion and wave overtopping? Do we accommodate the changing conditions by modifying floor levels and access ways, and designing new infrastructure to be light and relocatable? Or do we abandon the place, leaving the assets at the water’s edge to the elements, or shifting them inland?

“

... good designers are creators of whole places – places that are contextual, well performing, inclusive, liveable, functional and engaging. Their role in shaping adaptation responses to our coastal places is critical. Yet, in local government, these professionals are thin on the ground.

Given a voice, and a role in decision making, architects and designers might ask some of the following questions:

• what makes the place valuable, and how is that value understood and appreciated by those who know and use it? Is it the assets that people value, or the broader natural environment in which those assets are sited?

• what are the spatial interdependencies that contribute to the place’s value? How has the place been designed to respond and relate to its natural setting? Does the place play a part in a larger system or network? Could modifying or relocating aspects of the place compromise those interdependencies or networks?

• what future state would see the value of the place maintained? What might an evolved version of the beach, its pools and surf club and other assets look like? How might that picture change over time, as it responds to a new climate normal? And how might that vision be informed by and owned by the community?

As we continue to understand and address the impacts of climate change, government agencies are well positioned to make decisions that will result in positive outcomes for local communities. Built environment designers can bring much value to this process and should be encouraged to step into strategic, asset design and management positions in local government. And government agencies should be looking for ways to attract and retain them. ■

Kate Rintoul is an architect working in strategic planning for local government. Kate is co-chair of the Designers in Government group which seeks to create community, share insight and experience, and raise the profile of design and designers in a government setting.

Coastal assets like Ocean Pools require ongoing condition assessment, proactive maintenance and renewal to ensure their longevity.

Photo: Kate Rintoul

Resilience and heritage

WORDS: JENNIFER PRESTON

for our built heritage confronted by bushfires in 2019/2020. What made this historic town resilient was its water supply, airstrip and the availability of the RFS in sufficient numbers.

During the 2019/2020 bushfires in New South Wales, many heritage buildings, sometimes entire towns, came under threat with historic buildings destroyed and damaged. More recently, in the 2022 floods around Lismore, devastating damage was done to infrastructure and buildings. It’s clear that the resilience of our heritage assets, their capacity to withstand or successfully recover from disasters, depends largely on the measures put in place to protect them.

The historic town of Yerranderie, an old silvermining town in the Burragarong Valley was surrounded by the Green Wattle Creek blaze that raged south-west of Sydney for two months from late November 2019. Although it sustained an extended onslaught from the fire it was a town that the Rural Fire Service were able to defend with a tanker for each building and utilising the town’s private airstrip with a dozen aircraft. This was one of the good news stories

Not all towns were so fortunate. The town of Cobargo, west of Bermagui, was severely impacted by bushfire losing much of the Main Street Conservation Area and at least four heritage-listed buildings. Buildings on the Princes Highway and Bermagui Road that were previously in excellent condition with a high degree of historic integrity were completely destroyed. These included the former grain store, the timber building of the former Australian Joint Stock Bank built in 1882 and two double-storey weatherboard buildings with traditional shopfronts from the 1880s. The damage in Cobargo was so extensive because of a poor water supply, unusually dry conditions, heavy fuel loads, an unusually high number of thunderstorm-ignited fires and challenges the NSW Rural Fire Service had not experienced before. The damage was compounded when electricity and phone wires were destroyed by the blaze.

In the alpine areas of NSW and the ACT in Kosciuszko and Namadgi National Parks, more than ten historic alpine huts were destroyed, and the Kiandra Courthouse was severely damaged. Great effort was put into protecting many of the huts through a variety of mitigation measures by NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and ACT Parks and Conservation. These included establishing bare-earth lines where graders were used to create fire breaks, clearing fuel loads, installing and activating hoses and drip systems, placing buoy walls containing 48,000 litres of water to be deployed by sprinkler, removing timber infrastructure, and literally wrapping entire buildings in fire retarding foil.

Photo: myson + Berkery

Despite these efforts many of the historic huts including Pattinsons Hut, Wolgal Lodge, Mathews Cottage, Delaney’s Hut, Sawyers Rest House, Hill Rest House, Happy’s Hut, Brooks Hut, Round Mountain Hut, Bradley and O’Brien’s Hut and Four Mile Hut were all severely damaged or destroyed.

One of the buildings severely damaged was the Kiandra Courthouse. It was designed by the New South Wales Government Architect, James Barnet, in 1859 and built during the period when the area experienced a short gold rush. It was added to the State Heritage register in 1999 and many of the 1960 additions were removed. Not only was the courthouse building severely damaged to the point where it may not be feasible to restore it, but the collection of historic material related to the area’s mining and recreational history that was housed within the courthouse was also lost. Kiandra Courthouse, Patterson’s Hut and Wolgal Hut had been conserved and restored over the past decade following damage during the 2003 bushfires.

In February and March of 2022, the area around Lismore was inundated by unparalleled flooding and many historic buildings were impacted. In the clean-up process, as more recent plasterboard linings and false ceilings were removed, the beauty of the original structure and its detailing was revealed. It also became clear that the original buildings with their tiled walls, asbestos floors, high pressed-metal ceilings and solid hardwoods such as cedar and oak had been designed to be resilient to flooding. Later alterations and decorative linings had increased many buildings’ susceptibility to flood damage. As part of effective flood mitigation strategies, we need to understand the natural function of floods, natural flood behaviour and risk. We also need to look at our heritage structures in flood-prone areas and understand the design elements that have enabled them to survive past inundations. Once collected and analysed, this knowledge can help us to build new developments outside known flood zones to mitigate the impact of potential future flooding extremes.

It is stating the obvious to say that not all loss of heritage assets occurs through natural disasters. Human-made disasters seem to occur on a regular basis whether through neglect or deliberate action. The recent fire and partial collapse of an old RC Henderson hat factory in Randle Street Surry Hills vividly illustrates how vulnerable buildings are when left empty. This is particularly true of vacant buildings that provide free-sleeping accommodation for the homeless, and of mysterious, intriguing, and sometimes spooky heritage structures which provide the temptation to break in and explore and then post discoveries on social media. This then amplifies the risk.

To help our built heritage to be resilient and have the capacity to withstand or recover from disasters, whether natural or human created, we need to plan not only for its protection now but maintain those plans consistently into the future. The ability to muster the full resources of the RFS can save an entire town as was the case with Yerranderie, but as the fight for Cobargo illustrates, if the resources including an adequate water supply are not available the results can be disastrous. Measures such as sprinkler systems can make a real difference and for smaller buildings, temporary buoy walls with associated sprinkler systems can be moved into place ahead of the threat or the entire building can be wrapped in fire retardant foil which may prevent or at least reduce the severity of the damage. All heritage buildings in bushfireprone areas require a bushfire-management strategy and those in flood-prone areas require a flood mitigation strategy. Practises of cultural burning, where small blazes are used to clear underbrush, are likely to reduce the likelihood of catastrophic fires. These strategies need to be well-thought-out, practical and regularly checked and updated. ■

Dr Jennifer Preston FRAIA is the director of JPA&D and chair of the Australian Institute of Architects Heritage Committee, NSW Chapter.

Resilience, health and equity

WORDS: ANDy mARLOW

Architecture has the potential to contribute positively over the next few decades as humanity adapts to the changing world we have co-created. While the resilience of our current building stock is poor, we have an opportunity to improve it and create new buildings that are appropriately resilient to the future we face.

Responses to climate disasters, unsurprisingly, garner most attention and while incredibly important they only tell part of the story. Buildings that resist the physical impacts of fire, flood and storm are required in certain locations, although there will be increasing calls to retreat from some, yet many places will not be impacted in these ways.

The chronic stresses are ones that will be more geographically dispersed – increasingly long and intense heatwaves and, as we saw in 2019/2020, the impacts of bushfires significantly beyond the fire front itself.

The role of architecture positively impacting on the health of a building’s occupants would be one measure of success. Responding to the climate crisis presents the opportunity to not only address these newer stresses but also to remedy those previously created.

Historically, and even today at a residential scale, architecture has relied on natural ventilation for maintaining indoor air quality. While effective when conditions are favourable, it is a driver of poor outcomes in many situations.

Airtight, appropriately ventilated buildings provide great indoor air quality year-round while also allowing for natural ventilation when the

Huff’n’Puff Haus by Envirotecture, a strawbale house that is off-grid with completely self-sufficient power, water and waste. The certified Passivhaus building focuses on being healthy, natural and non-toxic. Photo: marnie Hanson

external environment is desirable. Increasingly in Australia, architects have been embracing the Passivhaus standard as a low risk, high-reward pathway to delivering health and comfort for their clients.

The data above shows the impacts of airtightness and ventilation in dramatically reducing the inflow of particulate matter (PM2.5 and smaller) into a Canberra home during the Black Summer bushfires. Many Passivhaus projects now have additional HEPA filters that can be easily inserted during smoke events to further reduce indoor pollution.1

While focus on extreme events garners attention, some existing stresses are far less publicised. Australia has the highest prevalence of asthma in the world and while the causes are varied, poor indoor air quality is a factor.

As this article reaches you, winter will be setting in and many will be remembering that even in our own wonderful state it does get cold, if only for a few short months. With most older

homes not being fully heated, most are not consistently warm nor inadequately insulated. The cold surfaces of the walls befriend warm, humid air and condensation and/or mould. Instinct prevents people from opening windows due to cool outdoor temperatures, resulting in increasing humidity levels (from breathing, cooking, showering) which exacerbates the impacts.

While higher humidity may cause mould where the surfaces are cool, for those wealth enough to afford the energy bills, this can be avoided by heating rooms sufficiently regardless of the building’s levels of insulation and ability to retain that warmth.

Unfortunately, the lack of reliable ventilation also causes carbon dioxide levels to rise – 1000ppm is generally accepted as a maximum for good indoor air quality. Research on my own house showed that a non-mechanically ventilated bedroom in a leaky (10ACH50) house can reach 2400ppm overnight. Data from the monitoring of various schools shows classrooms reaching over 5000ppm.

Smoke infiltration in an airtight building over several days in Canberra. The black line shows outdoor Pm2.5 concentrations; coloured areas show indoor Pm concentrations—red < 1 micron, blue 1.0 to 2.5 microns. Source: renew.org.au

/ RESILIENCE, HEALTH AND EqUITY

WORDS: ANDY MARLOW

Mechanical ventilation and secondary glazing have provided a temporary fix for my child’s room, yet it is not a holistic or efficient solution. The Passivhaus standard with its interrelated principles of airtightness, insulation, appropriate windows and shading, minimisation of thermal bridges and mechanical ventilation underpin my strategy.2

When implemented consistently, these principles deliver not only healthy and comfortable homes but also efficient ones. Airtightness equals control which you would think could appeal to the stereotypical architect! However, choosing some principles while ignoring the others, will have undesirable consequences, as decades of building science have shown.

As the global response to the climate crisis evolves, the smarter reactions have been blending mitigation and adaptation. Low energy buildings are a critical aspect of mitigation and net zero buildings are a subset of those when appropriate amounts of renewable energy generation are paired with them. It is important to remember that resilience is not net zero but it is an appropriately performing thermal envelope. Solar panels alone will not save us.

The UK cities of Exeter and Norwich have been leading the way. All new social housing constructed is now designed and built to meet the Passivhaus standard. In 2019, the Mikhail Riches designed Goldsmith Street Housing took out the Stirling Prize, RIBA’s highest accolade.

The climate crisis is an opportunity for architects to equip society with the best chances of success. We can embrace the (building) science and apply our skills to create a beautiful future that allows us all to thrive; the data has been in for decades. Can we please accept it as we have accepted gravity and create the future we need – everything, everywhere, all at once. ■

1 https://renew.org.au/renew-magazine/efficient-homes/keeping-the-smoke-out/

2 https://www.envirotecture.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/S56-EE-Andy-on-air-quality-in-increasingly-airtight-homes.pdf

Andy Marlow RAIA is a director at Envirotecture.

Goldsmith Street Housing by mikhail Riches. Photo: Tim Crocker

An architect on the ground after the Lismore floods

WORDS: JOHN DE mANINCOR

This story starts 40 million years ago when Gondwanaland was covered in rainforest. Fast forward past the invasion of 1788 to the 1840s when cedar getters began clearing the “Big Scrub”, an area of approximately 75,00 hectares of remnant rainforest near Byron Bay, Ballina and Lismore: Bundjalung Country. By 1900 forestry and agriculture had wiped out 99% of the forest.

My part of this story starts a few years back when my family and I moved to a remote valley in the region where we are regenerating a small patch of the Big Scrub. More specifically, it starts on 28 February 2022 when the region experienced intense, prolonged rainfall.1 The biggest flood event recorded in colonial history swept through Lismore, where our own office building is located, displacing thousands from their homes and causing hundreds of million dollars’ worth of damage – directly or indirectly as the result of colonisation and climate change. What’s fascinating, if not concerning to me is that during the multiple community events on building resilience I’ve attended since the floods, everyone seemed to be talking about building

back better but save for JDA Co’s wonderful publication on flood resilient detailing, rarely were architects or architecture discussed.2

Resilience starts with people, with community, of course they eventually need infrastructure possibly even architecture. In the daze (not a typo) immediately following the big rains, I witnessed resilience and community generosity in ways I’ve never seen. As soon as it was dry enough in our valley, three people in our valley used their own earth moving equipment to clear a 50-metre-long, 3-metre-high rockslide from our road. Two days later they and others built a temporary bridge to replace the rickety old structure that, like so much infrastructure in the region, had been washed away. Materials and additional machinery were provided by a local timber mill, this act of generosity allowed forty or so isolated residents to at least be able to walk over the river where friends could drive them to get supplies. This type of community activity was happening all across the region. It was not simply a case of friends helping friends, in one instance two warring neighbours worked side by side as we cleared a tree from another river crossing.

Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw when we eventually made it into Lismore; the city’s innards regurgitated onto the street. Tens of thousands of tons of the inner life of buildings now tossed onto smelling piles of rubble one story high along the streets. How did it get there? People! Not just emergency services and armed forces but everyday people from all walks of life had begun the seemingly insurmountable task of helping residents and business owners empty waterlogged carpets, swollen chipboard, and soaked plasterboard from what had been home or work, into stinking piles awaiting removal to a yet-to-be-determined location – in all an estimated 95,000 tonnes went to landfill.3

The heroic efforts of the “Tinnie Army”, the agility and generosity of Southern Cross University which established an emergency evacuation centre, and the tenacity of grassroots organisations like Resilient Lismore are well documented. Three other stories of resilience stick in my mind from that first day in town and the months afterwards.4, 5 Firstly, the sight of the fire station opposite our office, its doors smashed and furniture piled outside hinting

Resilience starts with people, with community, of course they eventually need infrastructure possibly even architecture.

that even the rescuer’s building would need rescuing. Another was the sight of my son’s school which had already been completely emptied by concerned parents. Where would he go for learning, would he end up online again?6 Finally, the emergency flood hub set up by the Koori Mail, the national newspaper owned by five Bundjalung Aboriginal community organisations reporting on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs.

The fire station was repaired, no architects were involved. The Living School mobilised its community and began building a temporary school on the founder’s family farm. A group of volunteers erected a massive geodesic dome tent lent to the school by a patron in a day. The only architect involved was me – but I was acting as a member of the school community – no need to be registered for that. The school later moved into space at Southern Cross University and more recently has been working with Cave Urban on the redesign of the primary school and middle school campuses in the Lismore CBD.

The Koori Mail flood hub organised multiple volunteer groups and businesses to cook free (or by donation) meals for those in need. I say need as people like us working to rebuild in the town needed lunch now-and-again as there were almost no alternatives to purchase food in the city, we had the cash to make donations. Yet for many others, need meant something completely different, they’d lost homes, possessions and employment. Initially working from marquees and tents the Koori Mail also offered donated clothing and household items along with counselling services legal advice. Their makeshift operation needed no architects nor bespoke shelters to, in the words of one of their volunteers, “get shit done!”. They continued to do so until recently when pressure from council forced them out of the public car park they operated from.7

NOTES

1 Our local macadamia farmer recorded more than 900mm in 24 hours.

Beyond community activity there have been architects working from the outside. Donga-style emergency housing has and continues to be provided by the NSW Government. The NSW Government Architect’s office has had a role in the initial planning of sites across the Northern Rivers. The off-the-self prefab structures appear adequate, although a little daunting. They are a welcome relief for many but a far cry from the architecture for similar situations such as the proposal by the Norman Foster Foundation and the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction solutions recently exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Some fifteen months after the multiple floods that struck the region, there is some talk of master planning and design for the city and surrounding townships and people are talking about architecture and urban design. One government agency asked me informally who I’d bring in for that. My answer was locals that have a direct understanding of resilience themselves. Communities do need architects and other design professionals, but architects need communities more. Design professionals are there to translate community resilience into places and spaces tough enough to withstand the impact of flood and similar events but flexible enough to bounce back from them. We should also understand that communities might just get shit done faster without us and may even do a good job in the process. ■

Dr John de Manincor RAIA is a principal of Possible Studio in Lismore on Widjabul Wiabal Country in the Bundjalung Nation. John is a regular contributor to architectural discourse and has been a contributing editor of both Architecture Australia and Architectural Review Australia

2 “Flood Resilient Building Guidance for queensland Homes”, https://www.qra.qld.gov.au/resilient-homes/flood-resilient-building-guidance-queensland-homes

3 “Removal of rubbish from flood sites in Lismore is almost complete” https://www.lismorecitynews.com.au/story/7707181/95000-tonnes-of-rubbishremoved-from-flood-sites/ accessed16 May 2023. Also, if there’s one thing we should do as architects, its lobby the Australian Construction Codes Board to ban the use of plasterboard in flood prone areas. We need an equivalent of Australian Standard 3959: Construction of Buildings in Bush Fire Prone Areas.

4 The Tinnie Army is the colloquial term for the hundreds of people who rescued thousands of stranded people from rooftops with “tinnies”, jet skis, kayaks and canoes. Without their help the death toll in Lismore alone would have been unthinkable.

5 Learn more about Resilient Lismore here https://www.floodhelpnr.com.au/

6 Three high schools in Lismore were inundated to the extent they are still operating from the Southern Cross University campus.

7 Read more about the Koori Mail hub at https://www.patagonia.com.au/blogs/stories/the-story-of-the-koori-mail-flood-hub

What does climate adaptation mean for design, architecture, and building?

WORDS: ELIzABETH mOSSOP

The existential threat of the climate crisis is driving significant change in architectural education around the globe. It drives us to engage with the decarbonisation of our built environments, a carbon positive circular economy for supply chains and the support of robust, inclusive communities so we can adapt and thrive in the future.

The disciplines in our faculty encompass design and the built environment as well as the architectures (landscape, interior and building). We have had a big conversation over the last few years to understand our role as part of a public university, and what an effective response to the crisis might look like in education and research in our disciplines. As a university of technology we are focused on how our disciplines use technology and what potential emerging technologies have for future practice. We need to focus on both continued mitigation and adaptation and move very fast to understand what this means for every aspect of our work. This is also leading to the investigation of new areas of study and new forms of education that can be faster and more flexible in response to the new areas of knowledge that are demanded by our circumstances.

Architecture graduates will require all the skills of carbon accounting, a focus on adaptive re-use and building performance broadly conceived to operate in carbon positive design. We also have to re-think architectural procurement for more effective modes of fabrication and a much stronger focus on how the discipline can serve communities and not just capital. Professional

practice needs to address hiring and business formation practices to genuinely account for gender, diversity and employee wellbeing.

In Australia we appear to be a long way down the track of thinking of universities as corporations and this is dangerous to our societal health. The unique role of universities in teaching people to think critically, to understand society and culture more broadly, and to have ambitions for a more just and equal planet. This is what draws many of us to work in academia and to bring this vision to the forefront of our thinking about our daily work.

To this end researchers in the Faculty of Design Architecture and Building are focusing on designing practical solutions for a climateadapted future. Cross-disciplinary collaboration both within the university and with academic and industry partners has been crucial to the faculty’s research program. The Material Ecologies Design Lab (MEDL) undertakes transdisciplinary research to develop new sustainable materials such as the project to transform algae and oyster shell waste into a novel biomaterial. The Fairwater Living Lab Project, led by Professor Leena Thomas is a three-year, commercial-scale demonstration of renewable energy infrastructure undertaken at the Frasers Fairwater residential development in Blacktown NSW and draws on multi-disciplinary expertise from around University of Technology Sydney (UTS) as well as partnerships with other agencies. It is the largest installation of a geothermal heating and cooling system both in Australia and the southern hemisphere.

Two recent projects within the school of design are exemplary of research approaches to recent climate-driven disasters. In 2022 Professor Deborah Barnstone led a team of academics and students from architecture and engineering with Atelier Ten engineer Manasa Marasani, in the Solar Decathlon International Design Competition. The larger goal was a design for a low cost, bushfire-resistant house with passive solar performance that could be built around the country. The simple rectilinear plan reworks the iconic Australian bush house with fire-resistant materials, extensive water collection and storage and passive solar design. We were delighted that the design took first prize in the 2022 Solar Decathlon competition’s New Housing Division.

The Living Lab Northern Rivers is a collaboration between the UTS and Southern Cross University. Its genesis was in the aftermath of catastrophic flooding in the Northern Rivers region in early 2022 when the two universities got together to discuss ways for Southern Cross to provide leadership as the long-established regional university, and for UTS to provide specialist expertise in climate adaptation and resilience using experience gained from other post-disaster environments such as the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Together we developed a strategy that

builds on the established strengths of both institutions in research, creative practice, education and community engagement. The Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation is the Living Lab’s founding partner and shares its governance and funding with the universities.

Landscape architecture academics (professors Martin Bryant and Penny Allan and Dr Andrew Toland, and James Melsom) with students from UTS have developed the lab’s first exhibition and academic course director Brooke Jackson and students in architecture and landscape architecture are currently working in studios on housing and adaptive urbanism. Through the work of the Living Lab, we are demonstrating how universities can provide leadership by leveraging education and research to play critical multi-faceted roles in communities recovering from disasters and grappling with adaptation in the face of climate uncertainty. ■

Professor Elizabeth Mossop is Dean of Design Architecture and Building at the University of Technology Sydney and a founding partner of Spackman Mossop Michaels landscape architects.

“

... we are focused on how our disciplines use technology and what potential emerging technologies have for future practice. “

Energy efficiency, bushfire and budget: Where are the overlapping wins?

WORDS: SARAH LEBNER

To go above and beyond minimum building standards is adding more – more to the scope, labour and materials of a home and, therefore, construction budget. This is almost always true when it comes to upgrading the energy efficiency of a building envelope or complying with a higher bushfire attack level (BAL) rating. As architects, we understand the significant savings these higher-quality homes offer over their lifetime, but there’s usually little hope in avoiding the upfront increase in investment.

So where in this tricky trifecta are the golden opportunities that offer a threefold win? Are there any tactics we can apply as architects to save money while addressing energy-efficiency and bushfire defensiveness? I believe the answer is yes, and architects are uniquely positioned to provide these leading solutions.

FOOTPRINT

The first opportunity is the footprint. No matter what kind of client engages us, architects are uniquely skilled to do more with less. A spaceefficient floor plan with flexible uses is an obvious opportunity for cost-cutting. It’s also clear that building less is one of the best things we can do environmentally, using fewer resources and heating/cooling a smaller area. But you’d be forgiven for not seeing the third win on this one in regard to bushfire defensiveness, which I will break down below. A smaller footprint home is:

• a more easily maintained and prepared home, as well as a more easily defendable home in the event of active bushfire defence

• attracts less risk of ember attack and ignition due to reduced surface area, internal corners, courtyards, nooks, etc

• more likely to be constructed on grade, making it easier to address the challenges of screening and protecting subfloors and understories.

Let’s also include siting at this point. A well-sited and oriented home can be simpler to build, more passively heated and cooled, and more sensibly located to minimise directional bushfire attack. Landscape design can also provide affordable solar passive solutions and planting that poses less bushfire risk.

FORm

An intelligent approach to the shape of the home offers similar opportunities to the points above. Simple elevations with minimal projections will invite fewer opportunities for gaps and ember entry. A sensible roof is even more critical; a simple gable or skillion roof without pitch changes at verandahs or garages means:

• easier maintenance during bushfire season (box gutters can trap leaves)

• gutters are more easily blocked and filled during bushfire defence

• fewer joints, valleys and ridges mean less opportunity for ember entry

• a pitched roof usually invites a generous roof cavity that can be easily monitored and defended during a bushfire event or a pitched ceiling with a roof cavity filled with insulation may reduce oxygen supply and dampen chances of ignition in the roof space.

As Joan Webster states in her book Essential Bushfire Safety Tips (2012), “a strong, continuous, 15-degree roof is suitable for ceiling cavity access, fire-wind passage over the house, limiting fire-feeding air space, and allowing for ground observation of roof and works for several roofing types.”

How does this weigh up with sustainability and cost-consciousness? These solutions align with a more conventional and, therefore, budget-friendly price tag. From a sustainability perspective, they are consistent with using fewer materials and coordinating simple

and effective rainwater catchment. They can combine with solar-passive principles to complement eaves for shading, skillions to welcome northern light or pitched roof towards the north to host solar panels – depending on the priorities and unique site features.

mATERIAL SySTEmS

The wall and roof systems we choose to employ are perhaps one of the most charged discussions when it comes to high performance and cost consciousness.

I’d like to insert here that there is much confusion in the industry around the overlap between draft-proofed vapour-permeable homes and how they intersect with ember proofing. Designing for bushfire is about sealing and screening the external skin of a home, whereas maximising airtightness and draughtproofing is about limiting air movement and leaks at the internal skin of the home. Both can go hand in hand perfectly well.

The trifecta of opportunity here comes from executing conventional systems with skill. Note that responses to each climate, jurisdiction, site suitability and BAL rating should be considered and are available in the Acumen note: Site Planning and Design for Bushfire. The descriptions below primarily target cool and cool-temperate climates:

• air-leakage and the risk of interstitial condensation can be reduced by treating the internal plasterboard envelope as the air barrier, avoiding ceiling penetrations, and draft sealing all joints/openings. (Alongside appropriate cooking and wet-area ventilation.)

• well-taped vapour permeable membranes with drainage cavities will reduce airmovement past insulation (boosting performance) and assist in condensation management. (The same system can be applied to the roof.) Employ ember screening to close these cavities. The NCC in cooler climate high bushfire rated areas allows for vapour-barrier-blanket roof systems behind cladding to block embers. An experienced architect can detail ember-screened ventilation cavities that don’t compromise the vapour-permeable sarking.

• many window manufacturers have independently tested to AS1530.8.1, meaning you can likely find a more affordable energy-efficient and high BAL-rated option that won’t require additional shutters under AS3959 (uPVC windows are a common example.)

• depending on trade rates in your region, popular steel-sheet profiles (like corrugated steel) and brick are both two of the most cost-effective, durable and conventional claddings while also being acceptable in high BAL areas.

In summary, if we’re serious about plugging the gaps between energy-efficiency, design for bushfire and budget consciousness, we must question complex construction systems and instead apply our advanced skill to standard systems to achieve a beautifully simple result. Premium approaches have their place leading the industry, but for the majority of Australians we need a retrofit-and-repair revolution alongside uncomplicated but intelligent new homes.

As Glenn Murcutt frequently says, “to be simple is not to be simplistic”. This combination of current issues places new meaning on these words and the bar that they set for architects in demonstrating beautiful and truly affordable high-performance outcomes. ■

Sarah Lebner RAIA is the director of Cooee Architecture, a new regional practice focusing on energy-efficient and low-carbon homes. Sarah is also the author of 101 Things I Didn’t Learn in Architecture School, the founder of myfirstarchitecturejob.com, and the recipient of the 2020 National Emerging Architect Prize.

A simplified diagram for an affordable, energy-efficient, high BAL home envelope in a cool to temperate region.

Disruption, regeneration and our socio-ecological systems

WORDS: mARK GAzy

Following years of successive crises, the built environment sector’s ability to withstand, respond to and recover from disruption is becoming decidedly dependent on our capacity to mitigate risks and push boundaries. In an era of data proliferation, infrastructure demand and exponential advances in science and technology, each period of disruption now presents us with an opportunity to transform the delivery of design.

Today, the seven ‘c’s of resilience – competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping and control – are as integral to human development as they are to the built environment sector. If resilience is defined as the ability of socio-ecological systems to absorb and withstand stressors, then we can look to this to reconnect humans and nature.

A REGENERATIVE FRAmEWORK

At HDR, for example, our global Regenerative Design Framework is supporting designers in moving beyond basic high-performance design goals towards net-positive impacts and metricdriven targets for carbon, water, nutrients, air, biodiversity, social and health categories. By visualising and measuring the key performance indicators of a project and looking at existing benchmarks, predictive performance levels for a resilient future can be realised.

ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE

In Australia, unprecedented river and creek flooding across South-east queensland and the Northern Rivers region has reinforced the importance of disaster preparedness and the urgent need to embed climate resilience into our infrastructure and land-use practice.

We can look to global examples of watersensitive urban design for tangible nature-based solutions in Australia that consider the interrelatedness between natural, built and human systems. In Atlanta, Georgia, for instance, the HDR-designed Rodney Cook Sr Park alleviates severe flooding in the area by capturing and storing stormwater. Sustainable design features such as rain gardens that filter storm flow from incoming pipes, stormwater planters, constructed wetland and native plantings have transformed the park into a regional attraction and amenity, which has increased housing prices by 165%.

Similarly, in the flood-impacted area of Washington state’s Hamilton Center, HDR employed triple net-zero design – net-zero energy, net-zero water and net-zero carbon –within a circular economy framework to relocate a resilient town above the flood plain and mitigate flooding and biodiversity degradation.

If we applied this thinking to the Northern Rivers, we could not only build the community up to withstand, respond to, and recover from climate change disruptions, but at the same prioritise community wellbeing.

SOCIAL RESILIENCE

According to Peter Calthorpe’s recent book Ending Global Sprawl: Urban Standards for Sustainable & Resilient Development, building resilience begins with creating robust communities and wellness-driven neighbourhoods that reverse social isolation, economic inequality and environment degradation.

Left: Country workshop with Temora High School Students. Students designed their ideal hospital using nature.

Photo: Joe mihaljevic

Below: The public living room at Ed Square Town Centre.

Photo: Grace Lu

/ DISRUPTION, REGENERATION AND OUR SOCIO -ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

WORDS: MARK GAZY

In south-western Sydney, we took our design dialogue beyond architecture to consider how we could design a mixed-use town centre in Edmonson Park that is an antidote to social isolation in a climate where 33% of adults experience loneliness in their lifetime. Our design team conceived a “public living room” underpinned by permeability, walkability, inclusion and wellness – all woven around a green, pedestrian perimeter that transformed the town from a siloed suburb to a sustainable social patchwork and extension of the home. With more people working from home and cities becoming de-centralised nodes, sustainable town centres like Ed Square are critical to our ability to, as a social unit, respond to external stresses and build collective resilience.

Rodney Cook Sr Park wetlands bridge. Photo: Courtesy of HDR

CULTURAL RESILIENCE

The increasingly acknowledged interdependencies between people, place, culture and Country is teaching us to live more harmoniously with our planet, its natural flows and its rhythms – rather than being a force to be feared.

As part of the masterplan phase of the HDRdesigned Temora Hospital Redevelopment project in regional New South Wales, we walked Country at Temora High School to learn about the animate and inanimate inhabitants around the site and conceptualise our learnings into the masterplan and design development. In collaboration with Traditional Custodians and students, we considered how native flora and fauna such as she-oaks (weaving), saltbush (delicate), curved bark (protective), feathers (comfort), and seeds (renewal) can create a nuanced understanding of place and strengthen socio-cultural resilience.

ORGANISATIONAL RESILIENCE

Climate change, rising interest rates and energy prices are disrupting business-as-usual concepts and forcing organisations to review their financial and built-form resilience. At HDR, our clients are adapting to a multitude of climate-related risks, whether that be damage to fixed assets or supply chain disruptions caused by transitioning to a lower-carbon energy supply.

To support this transition, we are currently developing digital twin applications that create virtual replicas of building structures and

measure the resilience of an urban environment more holistically. By examining architectural design, structural components and building systems, we can experiment with heating and cooling loads, solid-to-glass ratios and use of embodied carbons across the project lifecycle, all in a digital realm that manipulates parameters and aids regenerative design. The Ontario Line Subway, Sydney Biomedical Accelerator and NEXTDC’s Merlot 3 data centre, are a few examples.

THE ROAD AHEAD

As disruption becomes the new normal, codesigning for humans and the environment is becoming second nature. With increased competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping and control, we have an opportunity to scale up nature-based solutions across carbon, water, nutrients, air, biodiversity, social and health categories and reconnect humans and nature. If we do this, we can lay the foundations for future preparedness and build long-term resilience for the road ahead. ■

Mark Gazy is civic principal at HDR. He has 25 years of transdisciplinary experience, which spans mixed-use, residential, commercial, education and urban design, and empowers HDR’s design teams to deliver human-centered, wellness-driven communities that enrich the places people call home.

Bushfires, pandemic, floods

WORDS: GERARD REINmUTH WITH ANDREW BENJAmIN

December 31, 2019 will be remembered as a date where a local event intersected with an international one. The progression toward that moment started months earlier in a series of fires that commenced, uncharacteristically, in the middle of winter. By September, the ferocity and number of the fires had reached levels rarely seen and by early October people had started to die. The fires reached international consciousness by November and December, when images of Sydney in an orange haze were flashed around the world. The imminence of the Christmas break created a sort of metronome for the increasingly worsening fire reports. Each day bought reports of new deaths or losses of property and an increasing tally of lost bushland – all juxtaposed with images of towering walls of smoke and flame. In a piece of impossibly perfect timing, the greatest ferocity of the fires increased at the year’s end where, finally, on December 31, the fires reached the town of Mallacoota, pushing holidaymakers onto the beach, forced to spend New Year’s Eve with the unenviable status as Australia’s first climate refugees.

We know that by their end, the fires claimed a total of 20 million hectares, up to three billion animals, 34 people, over 3500 homes, an air tanker, two helicopters and numerous fire appliances. After a lost decade of climate action in our country, the pubic dialogue started to change. Yet this important moment was immediately consumed by events in China as a new virus was detected in Wuhan. On December 31, the same day as people on the beach at Mallacoota were waiting for military evacuation, the World Health Organization announced the discovery of a novel coronavirus.

The link between the Australian bushfires and COVID-19 is not arbitrary, for the bushfires cannot be separated from the inexorable transformation of the world’s climate. Yet, the presence of that particular crisis was, until recently, still met by denial and disavowal from those in a position to lead us out of it. Amid continued obfuscation and distraction by the Australian Government, Lismore suffered two catastrophic floods, months apart, before the federal government changed in May 2022. The floods opened of yet another front that questions the resilience not only of our physical infrastructures but of those relating to our governance and our society, more broadly.

Bushfires, pandemic, floods. These separate events are part of a constellation held in play by the climate crisis – a constellation so clear that they provide the chapter headings for David Wallace-Wells’ The Uninhabitable Earth (2019). According to his chapter titles, next on our list are Dying Oceans (which we see in the disappearance of the Great Barrier Reef), Economic Collapse and Climate Conflict.

With COVID-19, there was an acceptance, as much by governments as by populations, control was necessary. States established policed borders, movement within the city was controlled, entry to houses and apartments restricted, handshakes spurned, kisses impossible. Yet in regard to climate change, even now, and even in our profession, what we are prepared to do is incredibly limited.

Our response to the bushfires and floods differed considerably from COVID. Rather than restrictions and changes of behaviour, we focus on the rebuild – a discussion that includes questions such as the impact of regulations on cost, new definitions for flame zones or flood areas and the difficulty in obtaining insurance. The narrative is that of the phoenix, as we praise the resilience of those who will persist and build again as architects signed up to help, offering pro-bono services to rebuild. Unlike the response to COVID, the denial of climate change that led to the bushfires and floods is accompanied by a denial of the consequences.

Denial exists in other quarters, for example, in the rezoning of land due to predicted sea-level rises is being corrupted by property owners who

prefer defending the short-term valuation of their homes rather than preparing for the inevitable.1 But we have to ask, given the disavowal of climate change that allows these fictions to take hold about the question of culpability. Who pays when coastal housing is inevitably swamped by rising sea levels? Who pays when bushland properties burn, again? Who pays, when as a society we have known for three decades that these events were predictable?

Architects cannot escape this question of culpability and diversion. We have form, having created a complex methodology of climate change avoidance shrouded around concepts of sustainability – a concept that is finally being questioned. For example in Denmark earlier this year the Government Consumer Advocate decreed that calling a building sustainable was, in effect, false advertising and misleading to consumers.

The tragedy is that by the turn of this century, global warming and its consequences were not only known but acknowledged across the political spectrum. And we started responding – but not with questions around how to limit our carbon consumption, about how to build less and to replace extraction with contribution, but with solutions that would allow us to build more. We talked about ‘efficiency’, rather than ‘sufficiency’. So in the name of sustainability we started covering buildings in louvres and other paraphernalia to signal our climate credentials. We invented ratings systems that congratulated us for more resource extraction and carbon consumption.

And we knew at the time that we were doing this. Alexander Cuthbert, teaching at UNSW, wrote in 2001 that the “very concept of sustainability has been colonised by big capital and turned into another huge marketing operation to guarantee the reproduction of corporate profits”2. In 2008 in an issue of AR, we3 singled out green ratings tools and carbon credits as capitalism’s response to ensuring that the crisis is not addressed. The impact of our sustainability industry and its permission to keep polluting can be found in Wallace-Wells insight that majority of all carbon emissions in history

have occurred since the premiere of Seinfeld in 1989.4 That means that all architects reading this issue of Bulletin were not only alive for this whole period but for those of us approaching 50, this doubling has occurred in the exact duration of our professional lives, training and working as architects.

The coincidence of the duration of our sustainability industry with the doubling of carbon should give us cause for a brutal moment of reflection. Our acceptance of immediate changes to our freedom bought on by COVID show that we could equally accept massive changes to our behaviour if it was demanded of us. Our dilemma is that, as Daniel Kanemann and others have pointed out, we are, as a species, appalling at assessing risk. Something as immediate as COVID generates a response while the prospect of an uninhabitable Australian continent within 50 years doesn’t move us.

There must be a radical reframing of architectural work and thus, architectural practice. To suggest this, is to be quickly dismissed in most quarters as much has been invested in maintaining the models we have. Yet, if coal mining can go from a sure thing to an unviable industry in a few years, it follows that large multi-national practices make no sense the minute that the true impact of designing for climate change is considered. So the question for the profession is, do we wait for COVID-like lockdowns (architecturally speaking) do we get ahead of the curve now, change how we work, what we work on, and most importantly, start providing some leadership as a profession. ■

Professor Gerard Reinmuth FRAIA is the founding director of the architectural practice TERRIOR and Associate Head of School and Inaugural Professor of Practice: School of Architecture at University of Technology, Sydney.

Professor Andrew Benjamin is a graduate of the Australian National University, Université Paris 7 and the University of Warwick. He is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Monash University.

NOTES

1 https://www.domain.com.au/news/community-action-on-climate-change-blocked-by-concern-for-property-prices-study-finds-878795/ accessed July 7, 2020.

2 Cuthbert, Alexander R. Form of Cities: Political Economy and Urban Design. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006.

3 Reinmuth, Gerard. “Fatal Distraction” in Architecture Review Australia 104, 2008. P40-44

4 Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth, Tim Duggan Books, New York, 2019. p4

A red tin shack: Scale Architecture

WORDS: mATT CHAN AND GEORGIA FORBES -SmITH

In the aftermath of the Black Summer bushfires of 2019/2020, like many, we were struck with grief, despair and hopelessness. Not because we were directly impacted, but out of a collective grieving over the loss of fauna, bushland and people’s homes. Desperately wanting to assist, we travelled to Cobargo and Eden to add to the volunteer effort, only to discover how ill-equipped we were to deal with the fragile mental state of post-trauma fire victims. Between offering small-talk and mediocre fence-tying-skills, we simply asked: how we could put our professional skills to better use?

When our clients Tom and Julia approached us about their bushfire rebuild in Rosedale, we found our way to make a small, but meaningful contribution to the rebuilding effort.

The original house was commissioned by Tom’s father in the style of a traditional Polish summer house in 1979 by architect Douglas Partners, but it’s the stories of the ping-pong tournaments on a long summer night and endless days exploring the coves and beaches that made this place special to the family.

Our clients’ brief was for a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house which needed to be constructed within a $430,000 insurance budget

with little to no room for additional contingency. Early in the design process, we identified a maximum 100m2 area for the build, aiming to keep the m2 costs between $4000-$4500. This project became an exercise in restraint – how to design an extraordinary home with the least amount of architecture.

The final design is a result of a series of pragmatic decisions:

1. Shifting the new house as far away from the dense bushland as possible. Although the original house was completely destroyed by the bushfires, our clients wanted to minimise any harm to the beautiful bush context.

2. Raising the house on a steel frame to address the level change across the site and provide framed views of the treetops. This allowed for on-grade access to the north and a floating deck in the trees to the south.

3. Providing a singular compact plan to simplify the built form, reduce facade area and roof complexities and allow for a consistent, unified architectural language.

A lot of thought and time went into streamlining the bushfire compliance and council approval processes for our clients. We wanted to do all in our power to reduce their time and financial risk early in the project.

Rosedale House by Scale Architects. Photo: Soueast Studio

/ A RED TIN SHACK: SCALE ARCHITECTURE

The design was wholeheartedly endorsed by our bushfire consultant, Andrew who appreciated the compact footprint with simple details to reduce areas that could trap vegetation debris and embers. It’s also worth noting that after the black summer bushfires, the NSW RFS provided an option to cap the BAL ratings to BAL 40 for the replacement of destroyed homes. This was a key factor to allow this project to proceed with the highly restrictive budget while still providing as much bushfire protection as costs would allow.

For the development approval, we pursued a fully compliant scheme to simplify the process with Eurobodalla Shire Council. An additional part of this process was accessing and navigating any available fee rebates or exemptions to help the clients maximise every cent available for the rebuild.

At this stage, in particular, we were still grappling with the question – given our budget, how do we provide an alternative to a project home while maximising typical construction details, materials and finishes? And then, how can we still make this a unique, beautiful place for our clients?

Upon receiving the first tender price closer to $6000 per m2, we quickly realised that using a traditional residential builder was out of reach. Due to our recent experience building a similarly scaled project down the South Coast, we decided to extend the typical architectural service and help our clients proceed down the owner-builder pathway.

WORDS: GEORGIA FORBES -SMITH AND MATT CHAN

Rosedale House by Scale Architects. Photo: Soueast Studio

After tutoring the clients through the ownerbuilder online course during a global pandemic, the perfect addition to the team materialised in a one-man-band craftsman named Bruce (Ambidextrous Projects).

In collaboration with Bruce, we devised a partially prefabricated construction methodology to maximise off-site fabrication and minimise installation time on site. After minimal groundworks, the steel sub-frame and upper timber framing was installed within weeks. In addition, this methodology could provide costing certainty for the construction of the building shell and minimise construction waste to almost nothing.

Once the shell was finished, Bruce was able to complete the majority of the additional building work with a skeleton team, reducing any overhead costs and allowing continuous opportunities for collaboration with a craftsman on small details throughout.

Our challenge was to utilise our skills in rebuilding a home with an impossibly small budget. This house will have no expensive detailing or finishes, with minimal joinery and light fittings. Anything else vaguely superfluous to the necessities of a home was designed out of the equation, but, despite our pragmatic approach, this home is a place of memory and for memories in the making.

As a small practice, our biggest contribution to the project was to collaborate in the building process. By proposing methods borrowed from large-scale projects, we combined prefabricated and standardised construction systems with improvised typical details. This allowed us to organise the entire design and delivery process to get this project over the line.

Reflecting on this project and parallel project types, we asked ourselves: how can architects continue to have an impact in disaster recovery projects and how do we best locate our agency? We concluded that it requires a shift in thinking about the role of the architect and the design process. Although we produced a typical building design and navigated a path of least resistance approvals process, in order to achieve a high-quality architectural outcome, we curated the assembly of the building, retaining influence over the details and budgetary control. ■

Matt Chan RAIA is an architect and the founding principal of Scale Architecture. He is also Adjunct Associate Professor in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Sydney.

Georgie Forbes-Smith is an associate at Scale Architecture.

This project became an exercise in restraint – how to design an extraordinary home with the least amount of architecture.

Healthy placemaking partnerships in South Western Sydney

WORDS: SCOTT SIDHOm AND JENNIE PRy

We know that where we live influences our ability to stay healthy and well.1 For many people in South Western Sydney, staying healthy is challenging due to reliance on cars, limited active transport options, exposure to urban heat, and fewer leafy open spaces, all of which contribute to below average liveability scores.2 Together, these factors have highlighted the need to find innovative solutions to improve the way that state and local government collaborate to deliver public health outcomes, through urban planning and design.

In 2018, South Western Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD) established the healthy places program to address this need, and partnered with Liverpool City Council through the development of a memorandum of understanding, which included the establishment of a jointly funded healthy places senior urban designer to deliver healthy placemaking focused projects and initiatives. The built environment influences our health in many ways, including activity levels, access to nutritious food, the homes in which we live, where we work, our contact with nature and the places where we socialise. It also affects the air we breathe, the water we drink and shelters us from the weather.

Timing is critical because the LGA is undergoing rapid change and development including the transformation of Liverpool into Sydney’s third largest city, development of the new Western Sydney International Airport and Western Sydney Aerotropolis, and the delivery of significant transport and infrastructure projects. There is also unprecedented private development occurring across established and new release areas to accommodate the city’s growing population, which is forecast to reach approximately 386,646 by 2041.

By using research to understand how urban environments influence health3 and to inform partnerships with local councils,4 we are creating capacity for healthy urban planning and design practices, and the delivery of health focused projects in the Liverpool LGA. Both recognised their shared strategic objectives and priorities to support active and healthy lifestyles, delivering and advocating for a sustainable, cool, green city, and delivering new and improved footpaths and cycleways, and other infrastructure that promotes and supports active transport. In Identifying these shared objectives, the following projects and initiatives were created.

URBAN GREENING

A Liverpool LGA-wide Tree Management Framework comprising updates to council’s existing tree policy, development of a Tree Strategy and Technical Guideline, and updated objectives and controls within council’s Development Control Plans. Collectively, these projects will establish a blueprint to increase canopy cover to create a greener, cooler, healthier, and more liveable urban environment in the Liverpool LGA.

Evidence indicates nearby green space may reduce cardiovascular disease risk by strengthening health capacities (eg physical activity, social connections, reducing stress and mitigating exposure to ambient harms (eg excess heat and air pollution)5, and support the need for urban greening projects.

HEALTHIER PUBLIC SPACES

To deliver health and wellbeing benefits to the community, healthy placemaking principles are being integrated into priority projects identified in the Liverpool City Centre Public Domain Master Plan, such as people-focused streetscape improvements and new/upgraded open spaces which will provide increased amenity and facilities.

HEALTHIER STREETS

Street Design Guidelines developed by the Western Sydney Planning Partnership –a step-by-step guide on designing street types in the Liverpool LGA includes the integration of Healthy Streets assessments. Several council staff have completed international training to become accredited healthy streets practitioners. The council partnership initiated a small demonstration project to pilot a healthy streets assessment on Moore Street, Liverpool,

Top: Proposed pocket park, Liverpool NSW. Produced by Liverpool City Council

Above: Proposed streetscape upgrade, Liverpool NSW. Produced by Liverpool City Council

including a design check, Moore Street community questionnaire and a street-based place audit. The data will be used to inform a plan for the future re-design of a healthy Moore Street.

The Railway Street Demonstration Project also applied the healthy streets approach to better understand the impacts of installing parklets and other upgrades.

SPECIALIST ADVICE INTO mAJOR PROJECTS AND DEVELOPmENT

Healthy placemaking advice is provided into major federal, NSW government, and council-led planning and infrastructure projects. This includes advocating for improved public spaces to facilitate social interaction, increased access to water and nature to enhance mental wellbeing, and increased cycleway and footpath infrastructure to support physical activity. Healthy design input is now provided on major private development including state significant developments, planning proposals and development applications.

TOOLS FOR HEALTHy PLACEmAKING

A reference tool is being developed for urban design professionals to translate the NSW Healthy Built Environment Checklist6 into council practice. It will include planning objectives and controls that councils across South Western Sydney can integrate into planning legislation, to guide developers in considering health impacts for proposed developments.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING

Healthy Places, Healthy People was an online event hosted by the partnership in October 2022, which brought together over 100 representatives from state and local governments who are shaping healthy urban environments. The event showcased case studies and enabled cross-agency networking to share placemaking knowledge, information, and learnings (see WSHA video link).

Co-creating built environments in Liverpool LGA that encourage people to walk, cycle, be physically active, use public transport, interact with others, are cooler and inclusive, contribute to lifelong good health and wellbeing during a decade of unprecedented growth and development. ■

Proposed Open Space Improvements, Liverpool NSW. Produced by Liverpool City Council

/ HEALTHY PLACEMAKING PARTNERSHIPS IN SOUTH WESTERN SYDNEY

WORDS: SCOTT SIDHOM AND JENNIE PRY

Scott Sidhom is the coordinator of city design and public domain at Liverpool City Council, responsible for leading council’s urban design, heritage and public art functions.

Jennie Pry is the manager of healthy places within the population health service of South Western Sydney Local Health District, responsible for leading the strategic healthy urban planning and placemaking partnerships with councils in South Western Sydney.

The authors would also like to thank the many practitioners, service directors/managers and academics who contributed to the Healthy places urban design partnership between Liverpool City Council and SWSLHD, particularly: Alison Dunshea, Ariz Ashraf, David Petrie, David Smith, Prof Evelyne de Leeuw, Hayden Sterling, Karla Jaques, Lina Kakish, Mandy Williams, Maria Beer, Dr Patrick Harris, Dr Stephen Conaty, Tim Hays and Tina Britton.

NOTES

1. José G. Siri & Ilaria Geddes (2022), “Mainstreaming health in urban design and planning: advances in theory and practice”, Cities & Health, 6:5, 853-857, DOI: 10.1080/23748834.2022.2148844

2. Australian Urban Observatory (2023)

3. Giles-Corti, B., Vernez-Moudon, A., Reis, R., Turrell, G., Dannenberg, A.L., Badland, H., Foster, S., Lowe, M., Sallis, J.F., Stevenson, M. & Owen, N. (2016). City planning and population health: a global challenge. The Lancet, 388, (10062). doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30066-6

4. Hirono K., Haigh F., Jaques K., Crimeen A (2017) Integrating Health Considerations into Wollondilly Shire Council Planning Processes. Liverpool, NSW: Centre for Health Equity Training, Research, and Evaluation, part of the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney

5. Feng X, Michael A, Navakatikyan M, Toms R., & Astell-Burt,T, 2023, ‘Leafier communities, healthier hearts: an Australian cohort study of 104,725 adults tracking cardiovascular events and mortality across 10 years of linked health data’, Heart, Lung and Circulation, vol. 32, no.1, pp. 105 -113.

6. NSW Ministry of Health. (2020) Healthy Built Environment Checklist A guide for considering health in development policies, plans and proposals

Railway Street Shared Spaces Demonstration Project, Liverpool NSW. Produced by Liverpool City Council

Net-zero ready for Sydney: Innovating policies and buildings in a climate crisis

WORDS: Hy WILLIAm CHAN

The push for sustainability in the built environment has been a focus for government and our industry since the 1990s. The implementation of various measures to improve energy efficiency in buildings has ranged from NABERS, Green Star, BASIX to Section J of the National Construction Code (NCC). While these policies have helped to improve the energy efficiency of cities, shifting architecture and urban design towards a lowcarbon future, the holy grail of reaching net-zero buildings was always an elusive pipe dream. Until now.

CLOSING THE OPERATIONAL CARBON LOOP

Recognising that the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Greater Sydney is the energy used in the operation of buildings, accounting for around 55% of emissions, the City of Sydney took on this ambitious challenge of closing the loop for operational carbon. We knew it was possible because we had first prototyped in-house. Back in July 2020, we successfully achieved net-zero operational carbon for all of the city’s operations including community centres, libraries, swimming pools and even the historic Sydney Town Hall.1

In August 2022, the City of Sydney’s planning controls, Performance Standards for Net Zero Energy Buildings, were unanimously passed by council.2 From January of this year (2023), all new office buildings, hotels, shopping centres and major redevelopments within the Sydney local government area are required to comply with minimum energy ratings. From 2026, these developments will also need to achieve net-zero energy use. We have also introduced evidencebased alternative pathways to allow existing buildings to demonstrate net-zero operation.

This environmental performance standards and controls policy is a first for Australia within the existing planning system. It demonstrates how the city and other Greater Sydney councils can embed passive sustainable design, optimum energy efficiency, on-site renewable energy, and off-site renewable energy in the planning and design process for larger buildings.

CO -DESIGNING WITH THE BUILT ENVIRONmENT INDUSTRy

Despite ambition, such strategies can only be successfully actioned with co-designed policy input from stakeholders, including architects, property developers, owners, industry groups and government.3 Industry research and consultation found that performance standards per asset class, rather than per building typology, enabled improved clarity of planning controls. The four asset types developed are:

1. office (base building)

2. shopping centre (base building)

3. hotel (whole building), and

4. multi-unit residential (whole building).

To meet overall targets, greater flexibility was adopted by including a minimum energy efficiency requirement that can be achieved through a combination of energy efficient measures and on-site renewable energy generation. Additionally, we found that purchasing off-site renewable energy is nearly always required to achieve net-zero energy, particularly for larger building asset classes most commonly found in Sydney’s CBD, such as offices, hotels, multi-unit residential, and mixed-use developments.

City of Sydney (June 2021). Planning for Net zero Energy Buildings. Photo: Katherine Griffiths

“

... the holy grail of reaching net-zero buildings was always an elusive pipe dream. Until now.

In order to surpass the minimum energy requirements, set by the NCC’s Section J or BASIX, various additional energy-reduction measures were analysed, such as enhancing the building facade, implementing energy efficiency measures, utilising alternative fuel technologies and generating on-site renewable electricity. A comprehensive analysis was conducted, in which nearly 20,000 different combinations of parameters were evaluated to determine the best combination for each building asset class. This innovative building information modelling and analysis considered various factors such as the orientation of the building, the ratio of windows to walls, the insulation of walls, floors, and roofs, the performance of glazing, and the level of shading.

NOW IS THE TImE

While industry stakeholders expressed support for taking immediate climate action, they also noted the need for ample lead-time to factor in the cost and design implications, in addition to preparation for accelerating targets. Balancing climate ambition with data-driven feasibility needs to be taken into account to achieve successful urban policy outcomes for Sydney.

The alignment with national or state policy positions supported by legislation was also considered. The NCC was updated last year as part of its three-year cycle, which is consistent with the review timeline of energy-efficient building policies and codes of international jurisdictions. This is in contrast to the state policy counterpart, where the BASIX State Environmental Planning Policy, which is used in NSW’s residential sector, has not undergone much revision with the exception of one increase in stringency for the energy (glasshouse gas) target in 2017.

The 2022 NCC review successfully implemented the cross-industry call to action involving the Australian Institute of Architects and Climate Emergency Australia, which the City of Sydney leads on the executive board. The NCC update now requires new residential dwellings to achieve the equivalent of 7-stars, which is an improvement from 6-stars, on the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS).4

For Sydney’s Performance Standards for Net Zero Energy Buildings policy, both council’s incremental targets of 2023 and 2026 align one year from the NCC updates. The first step enables the exhibition of the planning controls to the broader industry and for adoption across multiple Greater Sydney councils, while the latter step allows for sufficient lead time for the industry to prepare and adjust their strategies, particularly with applying the off-site renewable energy criterion. As such, the resulting performance standards are step-change improvements over three years. Sydney becomes the precedent for other local governments and development industry actors to play their part in addressing the climate crisis.

City of Sydney Councillor Hy William Chan and Architects Declare’s Caroline Pidcock successfully campaigned to lift minimum energy efficiency ratings in the National Construction Code in 2022.

Photo: Anjali mullick

TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE SyDNEy 2050

Australian developers have not shied away from these ambitious net-zero goals, and in fact have embraced Sydney’s bold leadership, outlined in the new Sustainable Sydney 20302050 Continuing the Vision community strategic plan (endorsed in April 2022).5 Over the past year of planning approvals on council’s Central Sydney Planning Committee, and the Transport, Heritage, Environment and Planning Committee, new inner-city developments are already signing up to meet these controls. This includes developments in Chifley Square in the CBD, Bourke Street in Waterloo, and Epsom Road and South Dowling Street in Zetland.

We are shaping a green, circular and net-zero revolution by bringing stakeholders along on this journey to value the social, environmental and economic impact of zero emissions. Through an independent cost-benefit analysis, these measures are expected to save more than $1.3 billion on energy bills for investors, businesses and occupants from 2023 to 2040. This includes avoided investments in power generation and transmission infrastructure. The mandated procurement of renewable energy starting in January 2026, will encourage further investments in the renewable energy sector, benefitting our regional towns in NSW, and will significantly contribute to the greening of the grid.

So what’s next? This solution at the intersection of policymaking and city making showcases the foresight in what is possible to address embodied carbon in buildings. We need upward pressure for the implementation of whole-of-life

NOTES

carbon assessments, this time with the inclusion of embodied carbon of new developments. Together with architects and local governments, there is again, a bold opportunity to reform the National Construction Code for 2025.

It also requires leadership and policymaking from councils, including the City of Sydney, and the NSW Government to implement co-designed, mandatory approval measures within our Development Control Plans and Local Environmental Plans. By assessing both operational and embodied carbon, across all asset classes, performance benchmarks can be set to incrementally increase.

The City of Sydney is breaking ground on climate policies and actions that serve as a model for other cities and municipalities to follow. The race towards net-zero buildings is not only a necessary step towards addressing the climate crisis but also an opportunity to innovate legislation and the industry, ultimately creating a more sustainable, resilient and liveable built environment for the next generation of Sydneysiders. ■

Councillor HY William Chan RAIA is the resident architect-councillor at the City of Sydney. Elected on the Lord Mayoral governing team, William is focused on designing the city of the future. He chairs the urban planning, heritage, transport, traffic, cycling, environment and sustainability portfolios, and serves on the Central Sydney Planning Committee.

1 City of Sydney (2021). Annual Report 2020/2021 in Statutory Returns. https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/surveys-case-studies-reports/annual-report

2 City of Sydney (August 2022). Post Exhibition - Planning Proposal - Performance Standards for Net Zero Energy Buildings - Local Environmental Plans and Development Control Plan Amendments in Resolution of Council. https://meetings.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?AIId=13194

3 WSP, Common Capital, WT Partnership and Elton Consulting for the City of Sydney (June 2021). Planning for net zero energy buildings. https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/surveys-case-studies-reports/planning-for-net-zero-energy-buildings

4 Australian Building Codes Board (2022). National Construction Code 2022, Canberra. https://ncc.abcb.gov.au/editions/ncc-2022

5 City of Sydney (July 2022). Sustainable Sydney 2030-2050 Continuing the Vision. https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/-/media/corporate/files/ general/2030-2050/sustainable-sydney-2030-2050-continuing-the-vision.pdf

Leave no-one behind in 2023

WORDS: ANNA RUBBO

With its Leave No One Behind sustainable futures theme and the aim “to make architecture a central tool in achieving the UN17 Sustainable Development Goals”, the July 2-6 Union of International Architects Congress (UIA23) in Copenhagen brought the importance, and the potential of the goals to the attention of practitioners, educators and students from around the world. Through six themes –Climate Adaptation, Rethinking Resources, Resilient Communities, Health, Inclusivity and Partnerships for Change – UIA23 offered design professionals, researchers, and educators a more inclusive and deeper definition of sustainability, one that also has a strong focus on environmental and social justice.

Adopted in 2015 by 193 nations, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a roadmap to a more sustainable future. The SDGs are a call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Lofty goals, yet with the climate crisis (and dire IPCC predictions), increasing inequality, housing crises worldwide, and authoritarian populism on the rise, lofty goals translated into action are precisely what is needed if we are to have resilient communities. Sustainability certifications are showing their limitations; it is no longer enough for built environment professionals to rest on the laurels of a good score.

While the built environment is not specifically addressed in most of the SDGs, SDG 11 –Sustainable Cities and Communities – and the UN Habitat New Urban Agenda (NUA) provide plenty of guidance for the design professions. On examination, SDG 11 links with many other SDGs, including poverty (G1), health (G3) gender equality (G5), decent work (G8), industry,

innovation, and infrastructure (G9), reduced inequalities (G10), responsible consumption and production (G12), climate action (G13), and others. On examination, consideration of the SDGs and their targets offer new approaches to making and learning about architecture. Examples include:

• New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in its current $2 billion building program, has taken on issues of equality and inclusion, climate action, decent work, innovation, responsible consumption, and more. For the renovation of the Michael C Rockefeller Wing, which houses the collections of Ancient Americas, Oceania, and Sub-Saharan Africa, the architects – WHY and Beyer Blinder Belle –retained existing granite floors rather than replacing them with an imported stone. Cost savings are made, and substantial emissions avoided. In the development of new artisanal skills to refinish and transform the stone as well as an innovative treatment of wall surfaces, new homegrown industries support a crafts revival and the growth of some good paying jobs for the middle class. Adopting lessons learned from imported high-quality light refracting exterior glass, the next step is to promote local production of similar glasses. Such actions with important social, economic, and environmental consequences acknowledge current crises, from climate change to the hollowing out of the middle class. The actions are deliberate, comprehensive, and inspiring but in no way shirk the responsibility of making a great space to house some of the world’s most important artefacts.

• In 2021 the UIA and UN Habitat partnered to launch the biannual 2030 Award for projects that considered the SDGs. In the award’s inaugural year 125 architecture, landscape, and urban design entries at varying scales were received in six SDGs categories. Some 40 finalists were invited to make short films to explain the project and the reaction of users. There is much to be learned from these projects about how the SDGs can be realized. A call for projects for Round 2 of the SDGs 2030 award is imminent; winning and commended projects will be announced in Cairo at the World Urban Forum in 2024. The award will run through 2030.

• UIA23 – in the leadup to UIA23, 24 universities from around the world have undertaken design and research projects that focus on one or more of the congress themes. The 1-2 July Global Student Summit brought participants together with their work exhibited from 3-6 July in Copenhagen. Schools from Western and Eastern Europe (the Bartlett, the Danish Academy, the Academy of Fine Arts in Ukraine), the Americas (Harvard, Yale, RISD, Federal University Rio de Janeiro), Asia and Oceania (UTS , Monash, CUHK, Hangyang in Korea, KMUTT Bangkok), and Africa (universities of Nairobi and Johannesburg) have participated. This work is an important step in realising UNESCO’s 2022 report, Knowledge-driven actions: transforming higher education for global sustainability, which advocates for the uptake of the SDGs across higher education institutions.2

The environmental crisis demands change. Inequality must be addressed. Poor and marginalised communities are disproportionately impacted by climate change and pollution, and worldwide the housing affordability crisis impacts middle as well as low-income people. For almost three years the UIA23 Scientific Committee has worked to develop the six

NOTES

1 https://www.uia-architectes.org/en/news/uia-2030-award-winners/

congress themes that challenge the status quo. A call for papers yielded over 700 submissions from more than 70 countries. Design for Resilient Communities, with its seven sub-themes3, received 176 papers demonstrating a high level of interest and a sense of urgency on the topic. All papers were double-blind peer reviewed. Of the submissions, 65 were presented on 3-5 July and will appear in Design for Resilient Communities (Rubbo and Du eds. Springer 2023). Of the seven Resilient Communities sub-themes Housing and the Right to the City, People as Partners, the SDGs and Everyday Life, and Design Education generated the most responses.4 These topics deserve to be taken up at the local level. ■

Anna Rubbo LFRAIA is a research scholar at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development in the Climate School at Columbia University and a Board member of the NY-based Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization. With Juan Du, Dean of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto, she is co-chair of Design for Resilient Communities. She was the recipient of the Neville quarry Education Award in 2011, and the Marion Mahony Griffin Prize in 2006.

2 Knowledge-driven actions: transforming higher education for global sustainability – https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000380519

3 seven sub themes – https://uia2023cph.org/design-for-resilient-communities/

4 UIA23, July 2-6, 2023 Copenhagen – https://uia2023cph.org/

Cave Urban Working with Community.

Photo: Courtesy of Jed Long, Cave Urban

Photo:

2023 NSW ARCHITECTURE AWARDS

NSW ARCHITECTURE mEDALLION

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE CONCERT HALL RENEWAL ARM ARCHITECTURE

Photo: Chris Bennett

COmmERCIAL ARCHITECTURE

THE SIR ARTHUR G STEPHENSON AWARD

POLY CENTRE 210 GEORGE STREET

GRIMSHAW

AWARDS

EASY STREET COMMERCIAL | DFJ ARCHITECTS

qUAY qUARTER TOWER | 3XN WITH EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT BVN

SUB STATION NO. 164 | FJCSTUDIO (FORMERLY FJMTSTUDIO)

YIRRANMA PLACE | SJB

COmmENDATIONS

LOCOMOTIVE WORKSHOP | SISSONS ARCHITECTS WITH BUCHAN AND MIRVAC DESIGN

MODUS OPERANDI BREWERY | PREVALENT

Photo: Peter Bennetts

EDUCATIONAL ARCHITECTURE

THE WILLIAm E KEmP AWARD

CRANBROOK SCHOOL – HORDERN OVAL PRECINCT REDEVELOPMENT

ARCHITECTUS

AWARD

UTS CENTRAL | FJCSTUDIO (FORMERLY FJMTSTUDIO) AND DJRD WITH LACOSTE + STEVENSON (ORIGINAL BROADWAY PODIUM DESIGN)

COmmENDATION

THE VILLAGE PRESCHOOL | CARTER WILLIAMSON

Photo: Brett Boardman

HERITAGE

THE GREENWAy AWARD

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE CONCERT HALL RENEWAL ARM ARCHITECTURE

AWARD – CONSERVATION

ST SAVIOUR S CATHEDRAL | MICHAEL FOX ARCHITECTS

AWARDS – CREATIVE ADAPTATION

BONDI PAVILION RESTORATION AND CONSERVATION | TONKIN ZULAIKHA GREER

SUB STATION NO. 164 | FJCSTUDIO (FORMERLY FJMTSTUDIO)

THE ESTATE | LUKE MOLONEY ARCHITECTURE

THE IMPERIAL AT CLIFTON | WELSH + MAJOR

COmmENDATION – CONSERVATION

MILLERS POINT TOWNHOUSE | DESIGN 5 – ARCHITECTS

COmmENDATIONS – CREATIVE ADAPTATION

80 ALBION | SqUILLACE ARCHITECTS

LOCOMOTIVE WORKSHOP | SISSONS ARCHITECTS WITH BUCHAN AND MIRVAC DESIGN

Photo: Daniel Boud

PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE

THE SULmAN mEDAL

ART GALLERY OF NSW, SYDNEY MODERN BUILDING

LEAD CONSULTANT: SANAA

EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT: ARCHITECTUS

AWARDS

ART GALLERY OF NSW LIBRARY AND MEMBERS LOUNGE |

TONKIN ZULAIKHA GREER ARCHITECTS

BONDI PAVILION RESTORATION AND CONSERVATION |

TONKIN ZULAIKHA GREER ARCHITECTS

ST GEORGE SAILING CLUB, SANS SOUCI | JON JACKA ARCHITECTS

COmmENDATION

PHIVE – COMMUNITY CULTURAL AND CIVIC HUB | DESIGNINC

SYDNEY, LACOSTE+STEVENSON AND MANUELLE GAUTRAND ARCHITECTURE

Photo: Iwan Baan

URBAN DESIGN

COmmENDATIONS

TOP – CITY OF SYDNEY STREET FURNITURE

GRIMSHAW AND CITY OF SYDNEY

ABOVE – OPERA RESIDENCES

TZANNES AND CRONE (EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT)

Photo: Peter Bennetts

Photo: The Guthrie Project

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE –HOUSES (NEW)

THE WILKINSON AWARD

19 WATERLOO STREET

SJB

AWARDS

LITTLE MANLY HOUSE | CHROFI

MOSSY POINT HOUSE | EDITION OFFICE

COmmENDATIONS

BRONTE HOUSE | TRIBE STUDIO ARCHITECTS

DRAPED HOUSE | TRIAS

SHIPLAP HOUSE | CHENCHOW LITTLE

Photo: Anson Smart

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE –HOUSES (ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS)

THE HUGH AND EVA BUHRICH AWARD

LANE COVE HOUSE

SAHA

AWARD

BALMAIN HOUSE | SAHA

COmmENDATIONS

AIJA’S PLACE | CURIOUS PRACTICE

FISHERMAN’S HOUSE | STUDIO PRINEAS

HOUSE FOR BEES | DOWNIE NORTH

TRILOGY HOUSE | PETER STUTCHBURY ARCHITECTURE

Photo: Saskia Wilson

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE –mULTIPLE HOUSING

THE AARON BOLOT AWARD

IGLU SUMMER HILL

BATES SMART

AWARDS

BIGGE ST LIVERPOOL | TURNER

THE CROSSING | CHROFI WITH DE ROME ARCHITECTS AND DEZIGNTEAM

COmmENDATIONS

THE GREENLAND CENTRE | BVN WITH WOODS BAGOT TRACES | MHN DESIGN UNION

Photo: Felix Mooneeram

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

THE JOHN VERGE AWARD

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE CONCERT HALL RENEWAL ARM ARCHITECTURE

AWARDS

70 GEORGE STREET, COX SYDNEY STUDIO | COX ARCHITECTURE

AMARA | SMART DESIGN STUDIO

APARTMENT FOR AN OLDER MAN | PLUS MINUS DESIGN WITH LYMESMITH

ART GALLERY OF NSW, SYDNEY MODERN BUILDING

GALLERY SHOP | AKIN ATELIER

COmmENDATIONS

ART GALLERY OF NSW LIBRARY AND MEMBERS LOUNGE | TONKIN ZULAIKHA GREER ARCHITECTS

CORRS CHAMBERS WESTGARTH | BATES SMART

YIRRANMA PLACE | SJB

Photo: Chris Bennett

SmALL PROJECT ARCHITECTURE

THE ROBERT WOODWARD AWARD

MONA VALE BEACH AMENITIES AND LIFEGUARD FACILITY

WARREN AND MAHONEY

AWARDS

DAY01. GALLERY | IAN MOORE ARCHITECTS

DIMENSIONS X / FARM STAY | PETER STUTCHBURY ARCHITECTURE

COmmENDATION

STEALTH PAVILION | PLUS MINUS DESIGN

Photo: Sean Fennessey

SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE

THE mILO DUNPHy AWARD

LANE COVE HOUSE

SAHA

AWARDS

BAY PAVILIONS ARTS + AqUATIC | NBRS WITH DONOVAN PAYNE ARCHITECTS

RE-GENERATION HOUSE | ALEXANDER SYMES ARCHITECT WITH SECOND EDITION AND JANE THEAU

COmmENDATION

PHIVE – COMMUNITY, CULTURAL AND CIVIC HUB | DESIGNINC SYDNEY, LACOSTE+STEVENSON AND MANUELLE GAUTRAND ARCHITECTURE

Photo: Saskia Wilson

COLORBOND® AWARD FOR STEEL ARCHITECTURE

WARREN INTEGRATED STUDIES HUB

MAYOH ARCHITECTS

Photo: Chris Warnes

EmAGN AWARD

Photo: Saskia Wilson

ENDURING ARCHITECTURE AWARD

OLYMPIC PARK STATION

HASSELL, KEN MAHER, RODNEY UREN, GEOFF CROWE, ROBIN MCINNES, WILLIAM SMART, ANDREW CORTESE , JOHN WOODMAN, MANO PONNAMBALAM, VANESSA YEE, ADRIAN GOTLIEB, MICHELLE MCSHARRY, CHRIS THOMAS AND ROSS DE LA MOTTE

Photo: Peter Hyatt

LORD mAyOR’S PRIzE

qUAY qUARTER TOWER

3XN WITH EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT BVN

PREmIER’S PRIzE

BIGGE ST LIVERPOOL TURNER

COmmENDATION

OPERA RESIDENCES | TZANNES AND CRONE (EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT)

Photo: Adam Mork

Photo: Brett Boardman

EmERGING ARCHITECT PRIzE

BEN PEAKE | CARTER WILLIAMSON ARCHITECTS

Ben Peake is awarded the 2023 NSW Australian Institute of Architects Emerging Architect Prize in recognition of his extensive leadership and demonstration of the role of architects as agents of social and cultural change.

As Design Director of Carter Williamson Architects, Ben is an esteemed leader and colleague, responsible for many of the practice’s awarded projects and expanding the company’s capability into public architectural projects. He is an important mentor to the next generation of emerging architects and graduates and sits at the forefront of the company’s gender and diversity policies. In 2021, Ben’s contribution to the growth and values alignment of Carter Williamson Architects was recognised on an industry level and was awarded the NSW Chapter Best in Practice Prize.

BLACKET PRIzE

GOULBURN PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE BREWSTER HJORTH ARCHITECTS

Photo: Shaw Photography

NCS® - NATURAL COLOUR SYSTEM

Available in Australia through Taubmans.

The NCS® – Natural Colour System is an international colour communication system. NCS® is based on how we visually perceive colour. It focuses on the psychological and visual appearance of colour perception and not the physical properties of light.

The NCS Natural Colour System® uses a notation system consisting of a colour code, with numbers describing the percentage of Blackness and Chromaticness; the Nuance of the colour. The end is the hue, the position in the colour circle, of the colour.

NCS®’ s 2050 standard colours are now available in the Taubmans’ BIM files, and you can also access these in the NCS® Fandeck and NCS® Atlas available at our Colour Swatch Shop.

unsettling Queenstown explores contemporary architectural tactics and projects in the context of decolonisation. In response to the international theme The Laboratory of the Future, it looks through the lens of Queenstown in lutruwita (Tasmania) and on Kaurna yarta (Adelaide Plains, South Australia), both as a real place and an idea. The exhibition encompasses a ghostly fragment of colonial architecture, immersive sounds and imagery, and propositions of Country demapped: a third, fictional, and unsettled, Queenstown.

The 2023 Australian Venice Biennale exhibition unsettling Queenstown was unveiled at the 18th International Biennale Architettura in Venice, on May 18, 2023. The exhibition is open to the public until November 26, 2023.

The exhibition can be experienced online at unsettlingqueenstown.org

unsettling Queenstown | Creative Directors: Anthony Coupe, Julian Worrall, Emily Paech, Ali Gumillya Baker and Sarah Rhodes | Photographer: Tom Roe

Vale Peter Myers

1941-2023

The architect Peter Myers died on 24 April. The staff of the School of Architecture, Design and Planning offer their condolences to Peter’s family and friends. His creative and professional endeavours escape easy categorisation.

An architect who worked with Jørn Utzon in Sydney and himself designed a series of intriguing projects – a keeping place on Bathurst Island, public housing in Sydney and more. He was also a memorable teacher and critic, a potent advocate, original writer and thinker, and a committed collector of art and rare books. His essay on Aboriginal housing in Wilcannia from the 1970s is a remarkable work of unvarnished reportage and as powerful an account of racism in Australia as you are likely to read by a settler writer. It is just one of his many contributions to thinking about buildings and places in this country that is not as well-known as it should be. A graduate of UNSW, he taught architecture for many years at the University of Sydney, employed our students and worked alongside our graduates.

In recent days at the time of writing, Peter’s students, friends and colleagues have reflected on his life. A selection of these reflections is collected herewith.

“As architecture goes, Peter Myers was a modernist – in the post-war sense of what modernism became. But Peter was also a classicist in that his proclivities returned to ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. And these inner proclivities always resided not far below his modernist instincts.

Peter and I both loved Jørn Utzon’s masterpiece and as many know, he worked for Utzon in the early days on the Sydney Opera House and was close to him.

Thirty years after Utzon resigned as architect, Peter was distressed that the great bulk of Utzon’s drawings were unkept and rapidly deteriorating in inappropriate storage and atmospheric conditions.

As Prime Minister, Peter approached me to fund the protection and maintenance of the trove of Utzon’s own work on the Opera House.

As a result of Peter’s representations, I gave the New South Wales government $6million to save the treasury of Utzon’s work. And that expenditure saved the work for posterity.

Peter and I believed Utzon’s Opera House was not simply the greatest building of the 20th century but one of the greatest of all history.

Peter left behind a body of important work himself.

It is that, that we remember today along with his smouldering attachment to classicism and its breakout into modernism at its best.”

Paul Keating, Former Prime Minister of Australia

Eulogy for Peter Myers, 4 May 2023

“Peter was a dear, dear friend for six decades, so it’s quite a challenge to do justice to his rich life in these few minutes. It would be much better if he could remind me, correct things – although that’s not the right word – lead me on in one of those deeply engaging, superbly articulate conversations, he in his deep mellifluous voice. This was the case in many places and over so many decades.

Peter myers at the zingaro horse circus, Paris, 1991.

Photo: Tim Williams

Peter was a man of great humility from whom I learnt so much. In a recent conversation, Landscape Architecture Professor James Weirick said, with clear emphasis, that Peter was a genius. I know what he meant and consider it so. Peter’s story is so big and complex, with many strands…

With my filming of Peter’s 1975 Senate submission on Aboriginal housing, Room to Move, I understood Australia’s complexity so much more deeply. Tim Williams has been working closely with Peter on this still relevant and important insight towards an exhibition for which Room to Move will be the centre. … I can think of communities where he practiced what he believed, at Wilcannia, at Maningrida, and the ‘Keeping Place’ on Bathurst Island of which he was so rightly proud.”

Richard Dunn, Emeritus Professor, Sydney College of the Arts

“We invited Peter as guest speaker to Cranbrook in 2004 and his story, concerned the Sydney rock oyster industry and how it was successfully operating prior to the First Fleet landing –redefining reconciliation as recognition and challenging the so-called facts of British settlement and the origins of lime for mortar. Sydney was not settled by the British at Sydney Cove, but on peoples’ oyster beds, on peoples’ Country…

I invited him to a weekend design workshop for architecture students, in a small, highlands country town called Bothwell, in 1994. He gave two lectures, entitled ‘The Section – Transforming Grid Suburbia’ and ‘Architectural Books in Colonial Australia’, to a packed house in the local Town Hall. Thirty years later, people still talk about and remember something special happened at Bothwell and at Cranbrook, where a gentle man stood up and shared his deep knowledge and unique understanding of the world, with unmatched generosity of spirit and trademark sense of humour – ever present.”

James Jones, architect

“Being an antiquarian is indeed an advantage. While Peter’s voracious curiosity is fuelled by a collection of treatises, pattern books, monographs, and copies of old trade catalogues,

they are indeed used to progress his architectural thinking and project work. When the placement and proportion of a window is questioned by a Town Planner – shown punching a wall on his most recent DA for an inner-city residential project – Peter quite simply explains the logic of this window by copying a page out of his copy of Sebastiano Serlio’s 16th century builder’s guide – “All the works of Architecture and Perspective” (published in 8 volumes between 1537-1575, 1966 and 1994). This practical treatise is instantly used to help explain a universal problem for a western project.”

Glenn Harper, architect From: It starts with a pencil, a Dixon Ticonderoga, no doubt. Eulogy for Peter Myers, 1941-2023

“As an architecture student, I was extremely fortunate to have learned from Peter Myers, and benefit from his remarkable depth of knowledge, his wisdom, and his perception of the world. I completed many courses he taught, and it was a rare privilege to have Peter as a design tutor during my graduating year.

Time with Peter was revelatory: his depth of thought and critical insight showed me just how seriously one had to contemplate any architectural intervention one might be exploring. Beyond this, it was Peter’s unending generosity, with his time and intellect, coupled with his patience and care for our tentative thoughts, that was so striking: he was incredibly sharp but also extremely kind.

I recall once, having lost my way in a design question I was pursuing, Peter offered to review my work out of hours. I met him at his Edmund Blacket designed house on Albermarle Street in Newtown. I explained my problem:

‘I know just your issue Jonathan,’ and hurried away, to return with an enormous folio of drawings that documented the mosques in Cairo. He opened it to a very precise plan with: ‘That is your issue.’ He invariably showed how well he understood an architectural puzzle, together with a way forward.”

Jonathan Temple, architect

Vale Peter Neil Muller

1927-2023

WORDS: JACQUELINE URFORD

Having started his practice in 1952 with the Audette house in Castlecrag, Muller’s most impactful residential project was for his own family in Whale Beach in 1954 with the adjacent Walcott house in 1955, the futuristic Richardson house c.1956 and the Richardson Ski Lodge in Thredbo of 1959. His last built residential project was the Williams house in Bayview c.1985-1987.

Peter Neil Muller AO FRAIA, the Australian architect who was responsible for many memorable and seminal organic and site-specific works, passed away on the evening of Friday, 17 February 2023. He was 95.

Born in 1927, Muller grew up in the Adelaide suburb of Leabrook. He knew from an early age what he wanted to be: “I knew when I was three years old I wanted to be an ‘artichoke’ …”.

By 1948, at the age of 21, Muller had dovetailed two degrees and completed these six-year courses in engineering and architecture at the University of Adelaide and the South Australian School of Mines and Industries in a record four years. These courses provided a practical education where architectural history was taught from Bannister Fletcher. He moved to Sydney and in 1950 was the first Australian architectural graduate to receive a Fulbright Scholarship. Muller completed a two-year Master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania in one year. During his travels he reacted negatively to a building by Le Corbusier, having made no attempt to embark on an architectural tour. “I never visited a Frank Lloyd Wright building or a Marcel Breuer building. I just went skiing instead”.

Muller returned to Sydney in 1952 and worked for Fowell, Mansfield MacLurcan where he met Adrian Snodgrass who would become a profound influence and lifelong friend. It was Snodgrass who introduced Muller to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and traditional Japanese philosophy and architecture.

These early designs articulate the underlying principles that have remained throughout Muller’s architecture: attenuated long low lines with hovering planes that extend laterally as porches and port cochères into the Australian landscape; flexible and spacious open planning; overlapping and interpenetrating volumes; unique sectional concepts; treatment of materials so that their character is displayed and allowed to weather naturally enhancing patina and above all a harmonious union between building and the distinct features and qualities of each site.

It is this aspect which sets Muller apart from his contemporaries. His buildings played a crucial role in the establishment of an indigenous Sydney and Australian Architecture through their respect for the natural landscape. His part in the so-called “Sydney School” must be noted.

Peter Muller was also one of the first architects to embody Japanese ideals in his work having travelled to Japan in 1961 and 1963. Many residential and commercial Muller designed buildings display a discernible Japanese influence including the Michell House in Adelaide, the Bourke St Cinema Centre in Melbourne, the demolished Lance house 1 at the end of Darling Point, Sydney and the demolished Hamilton house at Pindari Place, Bayview. In 1963 he was initiated into the Jodo sect of Buddhism at the Chion-in Temple in Kyoto.

Since the early 1970s Muller’s interpretive work in resort architecture, particularly in Bali, has been acclaimed as a responsible approach that introduced critical regionalism through adapting traditional forms of building, culture,

art and craft. He employed local craftsmen, artisans, materials and building techniques to realise resort buildings and introduced plumbing to respond to the requirements of international tourists.

Muller played an important role in the future of Canberra in 1975-77 when he became the Chairman of the Capital Branch of the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC). Focused specifically on the design and planning of the National Triangle including the brief for the international design competition for the New Permanent Parliament House in Canberra, Muller retrieved and restored the original 1911 competition winning drawings by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahoney Griffin. Having been the instigator for their restoration, Muller referred to these magnificent drawings to develop the brief and rationale to site the building on Capital Hill with a massing image that bears a striking resemblance to the winning design.

The philosophy of architecture of a harmonious union between building and site was introduced to Sydney post WWII by the early houses of Peter Muller. In all the work he produced, Muller organised the building and its surrounds in a way that was in harmony with the site allowing

the resident and visitor to appreciate aspects of the site that would not have been noticed without Muller’s intervention.

Peter Muller was made a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1970. In the 2014 Australia Day Honours, Muller was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) “for distinguished service to architecture, to the adaptation and preservation of Indigenous design and construction, and to the integration of the built and environmental landscape.”

From the outset, Muller’s work was influential for its careful attention to the preservation of a site, its aspect, native flora and the zeitgeist of the region and times. His inventive and romantic work is respected by many architects. He holds an influential position in the psyche of Australian architecture that is sensitive and responsive to its place and climate. ■

Jacqueline Urford, is an architect who knew Peter Muller for almost 40 years through her postgraduate research into his life, work and continued friendship. She is the author of Peter Muller, the complete works, (2008).

Top left: Audette house, 1952

Peter muller Architect

Photo: Pat Purcell

Top right: Richardson House Palm Beach, 1956

Peter muller Architect

Photo: max Dupain

Learn more at architectsassist.com.au

Cobargo Santa Project | Breathe | Photographer: Pablo Veiga