FUTURE WEST 07 Design Enterprise by UWA School of Design

[AUSTRALIAN URBANISM]

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Future 4 PAIRING DESIGN AND ENTERPRISE Kate Hislop and Daniel Jan Martin The pairing of design and enterprise allows us to imagine how a creative resourcefulness might influence tomorrow’s built environment. 12 NOONGAR DESIGN ENTERPRISE: ALWAYS WAS, ALWAYS WILL BE Gordon Cole interviewed by Grant Revell The importance of embedding Noongar principles into urban design. 20 BLUE-SKY THINKING Brian Klopper interviewed by Kate Hislop, Felix Joensson, Daniel Jan Martin and Jason Macarlino Architects have played important roles as developers and builders, reflecting WA’s enterprising spirit.

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30 PLANNING FOR THE COMMON GOOD David Caddy interviewed by Geoffrey London and Daniel Jan Martin Design guidelines can frame productive interactions between enterprise and design.

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West 38 BUILDING OPPORTUNITY David Hillam interviewed by Amber Martin and Daniel Jan Martin The relationship between enterprise and creativity in urban development. 44 MILLENNIAL ENTERPRISE Olivia Kate Two young Australian companies have forged new business models in order to bring architecture to the people. 54 S UPPORT STRUCTURE: PAYMENT FOR ECOSYSTEM SERVICES Hannah Robertson The Payment for Ecosystem Services model supports self-determined building on Aboriginal homelands.

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62 TAMING WILD CITIES Timothy Moore The tall buildings of Australian cities can be tamed through strong design and planning guidelines.

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Pairing design and enterprise

Kate Hislop and Daniel Jan Martin

This issue of Future West brings together ‘design’ and ‘enterprise’ in an effort to recognise the legacies of this longstanding but not well understood alliance. Encompassing the period since, but also preceding, European settlement in Western Australia, the issue discusses the potential of design enterprise for shaping Western Australian urbanism. The pairing of design and enterprise allows us to imagine how a creative resourcefulness might influence tomorrow’s built environment; most importantly, it allows the envisioning of enterprising activity that takes account of this state’s multicultural past and the living cultures of its Traditional Owners. It is important to define what is meant by the terms ‘design’ and ‘enterprise’. Design is a process to creatively define opportunities, problems and solutions. It is fundamentally a propositional activity, and this is the sense in which we use it here. But – and this is

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Right: James Stirling’s map.

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equally important and makes sense of our pairing of terms – it is also enabled by mindfulness about property and resources, and a utilitarian objective. We use the term ‘enterprise’ in this way – to signify resourcefulness rather than innovation, though these are certainly not two mutually exclusive possibilities. The notion of ‘design enterprise’ can be interpreted in a number of ways. Though private enterprise was ostensibly the driving force of European settlement at the Swan River Colony, a tension between design and enterprise has long existed for architects and developers, who have tended to have different motivations when it comes to making built structures. In the nineteenth century, the ‘improvement’ of property was achieved chiefly through cultivation of land and construction of buildings; together, they were the primary means of capitalising upon investment in land. Enterprise has been vital in the planning and development of Perth’s greater metropolitan area since 1829, but is equally evident in Noongar culture across this region, to which a landscape of exchange is fundamental. It is important to acknowledge that European sites of enterprise have been often the same as those of Indigenous enterprise. Western Australia is uniquely placed to harness the creativity that is possible in the productive alignment of these mindsets. Evidence of this can be found in the examples of early settler James Stirling; developer Alan Bond; architects Krantz & Sheldon; BGC, led by architect-developer Len Buckeridge; and architect-builder Brian Klopper. It is important to acknowledge the obvious gender imbalance here, and the fact that migration has played a key role in the transfer of knowledge, ideas and experience that underpin an enterprising attitude. James Stirling, Scottish naval officer and later the first governor of Western Australia, staked out the parameters of what would become Perth, envisaging a pastoral colony extending from Fremantle to Guildford along the fertile banks of the Swan River. This initial development axis was premised upon the need for a port (Fremantle), a place for administration (Perth CBD) and a gateway to further agriculture and mineral richness (Guildford). The expectations of mineral wealth, agricultural bounty and the health-giving benefits of a temperate climate were instrumental in establishing the Swan River Colony in the 1830s. It was the lure of the temperate coastal conditions specifically that led young British migrant Alan Bond – a century and a

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Top left: Alan Bond’s Atlantis. Bottom left: Bond’s Scarborough Hotel development

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half later – to shape the environment in indelible ways. Opening land as far north as Yanchep, Bond’s legacy of marinas and theme parks extend along Perth’s coastal edge. These have become the symbolic and cadastral precursors to today’s ocean-side suburban housing developments. European migrants Harold Krantz and Robert Sheldon resourcefully created rational and standardised architectural projects from the 1940s to 1970s when, at one stage, they were building up to 1000 flats a year. Their approach allowed for economies of scale and therefore great savings for their syndicated buyers. After an apprenticeship in the office of Krantz & Sheldon, Len Buckeridge continued to produce apartments in a similar vein. By the 1980s, Brian Klopper had begun repurposing old warehouse buildings, creating quality spaces for living through meaningful partnerships with developers and a considered response to context. There are strong cultural and environmental motivations at these intersections of design and enterprise: to be efficient and intelligent, mindful of resources and building processes, and responsive to existing urban contexts. This pairing between design and enterprise can enable Perth to confront future challenges. Reducing the continual sprawl of the city and all its implications, and providing quality development at medium and higher densities will be vital. These challenges offer the potential for intelligent partnerships between architects and developers, who can carry on Perth’s architectural and enterprising legacy. The challenges will require strong collective decision-making, and will hopefully bring about unexpected, even ingenious, solutions.

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Left: Krantz & Sheldon’s Hillside Gardens. Following pages: Brian Klopper’s Schnackenberg House.

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Noongar design enterprise: always was, always will be

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Grant Revell speaks with Gordon Cole, Chair of the Noongar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, about the importance of embedding Noongar principles into urban design.

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Ancient philosophies and customary practices underpin the business structure of the Noongar Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI). The organisation is driven by Indigenous cultural values, first and foremost. Within these frameworks, NCCI tells the stories of Noongar Country. It considers language, family and community as integral to business. These same concerns are fast becoming core to the strategies of many urban design authorities across the south-west of Western Australia. By embedding Noongar cultural values into enterprise, including design enterprise, Noongar significantly contribute to, rather than just become beneficiaries of, Western Australia’s social, environmental, political and economic development. Grant Revell: Firstly, I would like to acknowledge and recognise the rights of the Noongar people to Noongar land here in the south-west of Western Australia, and that this discussion pays respect to the traditional custodians, ancestors and continuing cultural, spiritual and religious practices of Noongar people, and to their Elders both past and present. Let’s begin by discussing the origins and aims of the Noongar Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI), and your role as the Chair of this organisation.

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Gordon Cole: NCCI was founded in 2018 by a group of likeminded and passionate community leaders who are all running their own Noongar businesses. As we say, our organisation bridges the gap between the commercial world, in which all businesses operate, and Noongar community cultural values. We exist to support the creation of sustainable Noongar businesses. My own business history includes time spent across several state and federal government agencies specialising in Indigenous services, coaching, mentoring and leadership. I also currently run a successful workwear supply business. My role as Chair is to bring my community leadership and business skills to the association, and alongside my Noongar partners encourage other Noongar businesspeople to further develop the capacity, skills and knowledge to grow their businesses to their potential, which will ultimately aid their respective families and their community. The NCCI empowers these businesses through the collective experience and knowledge of its members and their networks. Importantly, the NCCI also provides the opportunity to share individual challenges and successes with fellow professionals and to build support structures, culturally and commercially. Excitingly, a new

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economic forecast for Western Australia has highlighted Indigenous business as one of nine new areas of growth critical to the creation of 75,000 jobs and billions of dollars in economic potential. Perhaps one stand-out example of the mentoring both the NCCI and local Whadjuk Noongar Elders and leaders have undertaken more recently is the cultural heritage management work on Wadjemup (Rottnest Island) with Noongar project officer Ezra Jacobs-Smith. This work focuses on a set of designed processes that address the truth, healing and reconciliation of the living histories of the island, first and foremost as a Whadjuk Noongar place of cultural importance, and subsequently as an Aboriginal prison and burial ground from 1838 to 1931. Managing these complex cultural values and associated histories respectfully will be a test of integrity for Western Australia. You raise some distinctive qualities of Noongar businesses, particularly how they are centred on Noongar community cultural values. With respect to the urbanism of Perth, and its future, can you talk a little more about the vital role of these cultural attributes, and how your Noongar business enterprises integrate the services of designers and planners into the creative processes of business entrepreneurship?

Noongar peoples have been designing and planning cultural businesses for more than 60,000 years. We are very good at it. And we ensure that the health and wellbeing of all our environments – economic, environmental, political, social and spiritual – are maintained and developed in reciprocal ways. This is the importance of looking after Noongar Country. Our living Noongar heritage is strong, and the aim is to ensure our business enterprises draw on this rich heritage and are strong as well. And the role of urban planning and design?

I am impressed by many urban designers and planners in Perth – especially those who have developed inclusive and holistic ways of being culturally responsible. In many ways, it is the ‘new (old) urbanism’ for Perth; it is for the rest of the world to observe and possibly learn from. As I said, we Noongars are the knowledge holders of very old, tried and true sustainable enterprise business models. And we work with many creative partners that are genuinely interested in Noongar world views. The key here is to encourage projects to be Noongar led. We clearly need more professionally trained Noongar architects,

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Previous pages and following pages: Point Fraser wetland. Image courtesy of Syrinx Environmental

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landscape architects and planners who can work across multiple world views and in multiple Indigenous and non-Indigenous business settings. I like to draw upon the design of our NCCI logo as an important example of our collective design enterprise. Our logo shows a small stone, or booya, landing in the water. In Noongar culture the booya was used as a trading currency, and today we use the word when we are talking about money. In the image, the booya is thrown into the water and a ripple effect is created on the surface of the water. This represents the flow-on success we will create when Noongar businesses come together. Our work at the NCCI explores how to integrate culture into business thinking and how to integrate sustainability. You can’t bolt on ‘culture’ to sustainable design enterprises. For Noongar, culture is the business model itself. Noongar culture is dynamic; it continues to evolve, so design enterprise practices need to be specific to place, space and time, draw on existing knowledge and be adaptive. We will continue to experiment and take risks in design enterprise. We can go it alone but realistically we also need partners to share this confidence and expertise, and to help develop real design enterprise opportunities. Of course, there is much at stake.

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Above: NCCI logo.

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Can you speak of urbanism projects in Perth in which Noongar design enterprises have been central to their success?

There are many. The work of the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority (MRA) is a stand-out, of course. It is responsible for large public urban design projects like Mooro Katta or Kaarta Gar-up (Kings Park), Yagan Square, the new Perth Stadium, Scarborough Beach, Wadjemup (Rottnest Island), Point Fraser wetland and Elizabeth Quay. Cultural engagement frameworks, working protocols and Indigenous capacity building, training and employment have been integral to the success of these projects. New opportunities exist, however, where Noongar design enterprise participation grows beyond the contribution of individual public artworks, or isolated business activities. The new master planning of UWA is also a fine example, including the design and development of UWA’s new School of Indigenous Studies; the building and grounds will embrace the location and knowledge connection of the adjacent Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River). You might say that the whole facility – its master planning, design, construction and relationship to the broader campus – is a huge public art and education project or Noongar business venture. The fusing of multiple design disciplines and practices is an important cultural design principle. We are encouraged by the landscape architects’ fusing of multiple design disciplines and practices; their holistic and liberating ways of ‘knowing, being and doing’. The NCCI looks forward to playing a vital and continuing role in research and education, and implementation of cultural design-led business enterprises in Noongar Country. There is much at stake not only in terms of the health and wellbeing of the Noongar people, and the maintenance of their lands and waters, cultural beliefs, practices and knowledge systems, but importantly for the rest of Western Australia and the world.

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Both Gordon and Grant wish to acknowledge and thank their work associates and respective families for their support with this article. Many thanks also to colleagues Karen Jacobs and Greg Grabasch for their additional thoughts and advice along the way.

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Blue-sky thinking Kate Hislop, Felix Joensson, Daniel Jan Martin and Jason Macarlino speak with Brian Klopper about his role as architect, developer and builder.

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Laura’s Wine Bar in Northam.

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Private enterprise was integral to the European settlement of Perth, and has left a profound legacy for architecture in Western Australia. Over many decades, a few notable WA architects have played important roles as developers, builders and planners, or have worked closely alongside them, carrying on that early enterprising spirit. Brian Klopper is one of those architects. Future West met with Brian Klopper in Laura’s Wine Bar in Northam, his most recent project, which was procured in characteristically unconventional ways, built by him and is now managed by him.

Brian Klopper working behind the bar.

Future West: How did Laura’s Wine Bar come about?

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Brian Klopper: [First, I] built a house here. But the background is that I was born in Northam and I left when I was ten. I still think there’s that initial ‘dreamtime’ – I kind of like the big sky, I like the stars, the rolling hills. I feel quite comfortable. I don’t really feel comfortable on the Swan Coastal Plain, [though] the discomfort is slight. So, I came up here, retired, bought, built, looked around and I saw, you know, the ‘supertown’: lots of cars … government workers, [of whom] a large proportion are women over thirty. A large proportion of them drink and almost none of them like drinking in the old pubs. I thought I’d try and get something that was … near the government offices. I tried a number of people and the guy that owned this spot was a developer. I rang him out of the blue and asked, “Do you want sell your property? Do you want to sell a bit of it? Do you want to do a

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joint development?” And he said, “All of the above!” So, we settled on buying a bit of it, just this chunk, and then proceeded to go through the long process to get the licence … We had to do petitions, and I think [ultimately] we had something like 98 per cent approval [of people canvassed regarding the liquor licence]. So that was pretty good … Even people who don’t drink thought it was a good idea!

Because of what it was going to do for Northam, for the community?

Yeah, for what it was going to do for Northam. The idea of it becoming an institution, you know. I get so much advice … “What you should do is this”, “How you should advertise is that” and so forth. When I say the money’s not important, they all say, “You’ve got to be joking.”

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Brian Klopper with Daniel Jan Martin and Kate Hislop.

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This diminutive regional building in the classic Klopper idiom – recycled brick, steel glazing bars, brick-vaulted interior structuring – has been a great success for the architect and for the community. Klopper is barista and barman, and hosts film nights and tango classes; more tangibly social, a generous porch casually addresses the street and river frontage. When we met with him, he had been working on teaming up with neighbouring restaurants to share the provision of food and drink to customers. Laura’s is a lesson in design enterprise, in architecture’s part in realising the vision for a place. Klopper’s resourcefulness as an architect, developer, builder and as a community-minded citizen is on full display here. The conversation then turned to Fremantle, where Klopper’s enterprising design thinking and making of buildings happened on a much larger scale. We asked him how he saw his work in the context of Fremantle, from the late 1970s through to the America’s Cup period in 1983 and beyond. Most notably, he was one of the trailblazers in the repurposing of industrial warehouse buildings in Fremantle and elsewhere in the early 1990s. I suppose I drifted towards Fremantle from Subiaco because it was a more comfortable place to live. I did design the dunnies for the America’s Cup. But the Cup wasn’t quite as important in the development of Fremantle as we think.

What do you think was the motivation for the warehouse developments you were involved in during the early 1990s in Fremantle? The need for cheaper housing, but also a loophole in the planning regulations. If you were keeping an old building the density rules were thrown away in an immense way. If the R-Codes said ten and you kept the building, you could probably get 30.

What do you think was the driver of this interest in keeping the old buildings rather than demolishing them, from the council’s point of view?

Well, I think it’s a broader thing. It’s whether people like [older buildings as opposed to modern buildings].

Do you think it had anything to do with an appreciation for heritage that was perhaps emerging in Fremantle at that time?

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Oh possibly, I don’t know. My attitude is that I feel a connection with [those who build]. That’s the nice thing about hands-on building: it’s the connection with

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Above and right: Brian Klopper’s Henry Street warehouse conversion in Fremantle (1990).

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the trades, the builders; really, they are interested in the building.

One of the buildings we’ve been interested in is the Bannister Street shops from the late 1970s. Was that the first project on which you worked with John Dethridge? Yes, it was. John only lasted about three months. I was paying all the money, and John said [he couldn’t] go on.

But you did other ones with him subsequently? Would you have set them up without him or was he key to helping you? He only set them up – he rarely stayed [involved] – but he was always there as a friend. He was pretty good to have around; he knew where land was. He’s got a very natural sense, a good nose for types of development. You get a block of land and he would say, “What you should do here is …”

How did you and he connect?

I think he was a client. Yeah, I did a house near the Claremont Showground. I think he was related to Bob Gare too. It’s all that way.

Was he a footballer?

Yeah, a good one.

Interesting how elite sports players end up becoming developers as well: the Longleys, Bob Shields … And [AFL footballer Matthew] Pavlich owned the Seaview Hotel at one stage. It’s fairly self-evident – a young man with a lot of money has to do something with it!

We were also interested in Klopper’s architectural aesthetic, and how that might relate to his approach to design resourcefulness. While his contemporary Bob Gare was working in a modernist idiom, Brian moved away from that, commenting that to those of the modern mind the “idea of a double-pitched roof was an anathema”. So, you developed this formal language in details. How does the recycled brick come into it? Is it because you don’t like the look of new brick? Basically, and they are better bricks, of course. They’re not dimensionally as good as new ones, but they’re stronger. And it came about because someone gave us an old building.

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So, you pulled it down and cleaned up the old bricks. Was there economy in using the recycled materials?

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There used to be – not anymore.

Where did you get the railway lines for Bannister Street? Westrail. They pulled down a lot of country lines. I think they were what was called 45-pound lines, not standard-gauge line. They went quite cheap. We went out to Midland where they had a whole stack of them, and cut them up with an oxy torch.

In terms of the evolution of your buildings over your career, clearly there was a shift in emphasis when you brought the brick vault in. There have been a lot of things that have remained constant, but other things that have evolved. What do you see as the things that you changed? We changed the timbers mainly because there was a shortage of timber, in the interests of preserving the jarrah forests and the karri, and we used more brick.

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Like many of his warehouse conversions around Fremantle, Brian Klopper’s Salvation Army Hall Apartments filled the shell of the old Salvation Army building in the centre of Perth with eleven dwellings. He wrote in 1994 that this work “seemed a long way from stand-alone architecture … where is the juxtaposition of styles? Where is the clever architectural comment? Perhaps this is the nature of sustainable development …” He continued: “If we do re-use resources and the existing building fabric is a valuable resource and should be re-used, perhaps we are going to end up with some funny results.” It is this spirit of creative resourcefulness that is embodied in Brian’s work, where economy (in its true sense) is the driver. This mindset is pivotal to design enterprise.

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Brian Klopper’s Salvation Army Hall Apartments.

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Planning for the common good

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Geoffrey London and Daniel Jan Martin speak with David Caddy, Chairman of the Western Australian Planning Commission, about how productive interactions between enterprise and design can be encouraged in Perth.

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Daniel Jan Martin: How have entrepreneurial threads and Perth’s enterprising history informed our planning system in this state?

David Caddy: During my very early childhood I lived by the train station in Claremont and we later moved to Merredin, near the station. Of course it was all steam trains in those days, and commerce was based along the train lines. It was the discovery of gold in Kalgoorlie that gave the stimulus to that corridor that went all the way to Fremantle. The proceeds from the goldfields flowed back down into West Perth, Peppermint Grove and Cottesloe. When you look at planning, the railway line informed the main streets to the connector roads: King William Street back to Guildford Road, Rokeby Road and Station Street, Bay View Terrace, Napoleon Street. It has always been a boom and bust mentality in Perth, and these development booms were led by significant entrepreneurs involved in the extraction of firstly gold then nickel, through to iron ore. DJM: In 1979, Western Australia: An Atlas of Human Endeavour was published by the Department of Lands and Surveys. On the last page, it locates all the new shopping forums on a map: Garden City, Karrinyup, Carousel. It talks about these in very optimistic ways, laying out the vision for what are now activity centres. These centres prefigured the suburbs around them; the directions of the city were formed around these sites of consumption and enterprise.

Yes, I remember this as a very forward-thinking publication for its time. At the time I was a planner in the Shire of Mandurah and I took the atlas, with its description of a hierarchy of centres, and applied the principles of that document to Mandurah. It was a very interesting outcome as you might imagine; the Shire was 43 kilometres long and only four kilometres at its widest point! Geoffrey London: We are a mining town, boom and bust, as you describe it. What do you think that this cycle has given back to our public realm that might be seen as unique?

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The types of buildings that we have in the city centre parallel these periods of boom and bust. I remember during the early 1990s there was very little development in the city and it was very hard to get work. In private practice I lodged development applications with some of the large architectural firms for whatever work was available, and you look back and think ‘that was a fairly pedestrian development’, but

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extremely tight economies mean that quality is sometimes harder to achieve in the in-between times. But then, during the last boom, we got something like Brookfield Place, and the fantastic public realm and ground plane there. It’s a building in which 3000 people work every day, and all the facilities provided are to a very high standard. GL: What do you think the planning process can do to help encourage these good outcomes and mitigate some of the worse outcomes that occur during these recession periods?

The work that the Department [of Planning, Lands and Heritage] and the [Western Australian Planning] Commission are doing at the moment will go a long way to ensuring better outcomes for our built environment. We have released Stage 1 of Design WA SPP 7.3 [State Planning Policy 7.3: Residential Design Codes Volume 2 – Apartments], also known as the Apartments Policy. It was developed in response to the problem of the built environment at this scale. The Apartments Policy provides a framework within which the other elements will be developed, those being the Design WA policies for precincts, mediumdensity development and single houses. GL: I can recall, as you probably can, a time when project builders were more closely aligned with architectural firms. Syd Corser was the emblematic one, and he worked closely with Peter Overman to produce a really terrific range of housing types for Perth. It is interesting to go back to those houses and see that they’re around 130 square metres – a bit more than half the size of the typical house now. DJM: How can more productive relationships like this be forged between developers and architects through thinking at the intersection of design and enterprise, and how can the planning process encourage these kinds of outcomes?

Our answer lies with the Design WA planning framework that we are developing at the moment. The Apartments Policy is predicated on the idea that an architect will work with a developer and a planner to achieve a great outcome. Now, with the Design WA precincts policy, we see the same thing happening. It will look to collaboration between developer, architect and planner, to achieve good design outcomes. The next substantial piece of work will be the Design WA

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Left: Page from Western Australia: An Atlas of Human Endeavour showing the proposal for shopping precincts as centres for urban activity.

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medium density policy. This is something that we don’t do well in Perth and it’s not a space that architects have been in lately. It’s investors, draughtsmen, and there have been some fairly poor outcomes. Then what’s left? The Design WA single houses policy. When we’ve done all of this in, dare I say, two and a half years, we will get back to a document that is effectively the R-Codes dealing with single houses. Single houses will remain an as-of-right development, but we also hope that the policy will encourage that same relationship, so that we go back to an architecturally designed outcome. DJM: There are many design issues around the environmental impacts and layouts of precincts. Without appropriate regulation or incentives, these are essentially forcing poor design outcomes. What is the role of design here in ensuring precincts are more appropriately planned?

A lot of it will depend on the willingness of the private sector to get involved in precinct design, but Design WA is incentivising the provision of good design. With the precincts policy, just as you would orient a single house to take advantage of its solar aspect, that’s where you would start with the precinct. What we hope to do is actually plan and develop community, then put the buildings within those precincts. I think if you have a precinct design-led response to our built environment, then that’s going to help achieve great outcomes, creating places where people want to live and work. GL: I occasionally do Google sweeps over our metropolitan area, particularly at the edges. When you come up to some of those suburbs and you look at how the houses are laid out, there is probably a metre between roof edges, there is no usable external space, nowhere to plant a tree. It is very difficult to live an outdoor life in those settings. Air conditioners and heaters will be on all the time, because there is poor cross-ventilation, poor solar access. How do we correct that? Is there an opportunity here for enterprise, where a developer might be prepared to sit at the table and go through this?

Sure, it’s got to be through dialogue with the developers in the first instance, in fact between planners, architects, developers, local government and the community. The Design WA suite of documents will help enormously in this regard.

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GL: The problem is that we don’t have enough examples of density done well.

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Not in WA, no. GL: There are other things going on: there’s a British company that has shipped out some very sophisticated machinery to work with lightweight timber. We also have the only laminated veneer lumber (LVL) factory in Australia here in Perth, and the majority of its product goes over east. There is a terrific opportunity to do a display village that shows mediumdensity housing types and different forms of construction, demonstrating good design and better outcomes. These could be more economical – certainly more sustainable – and one would hope cheaper to run as a result. We could make it open to the public, take people through them, sell it on later. But publicise it to the hilt, so that people can begin to understand the benefits.

It’s a great idea. We’d need to find a willing developer. It is also a matter of changing the mindset of the project-home builder, shifting into the medium-density area. If you can get that happening, and do it very well, the others will follow. DJM: One final question about this mindset: it isn’t only an industry mindset, is it? It is about people accepting different urban futures, different from ones that they’re used to or have grown up in. Is there a role for planning there, to illustrate and even market the benefits of these denser futures to the people of Perth?

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Daniel, there is a huge role. Honestly, we don’t do it very well at all. It should be the Department [of Planning, Lands and Heritage] and the [Western Australian Planning] Commission leading the discussions on density and diversity and what it means. Everyone is talking about all the negative aspects at the moment. You’ve got to go and talk about it to the people who live there. There are differences of opinion, and that is great, but we need champions of density and diversity to lead the discussion.

Designing the Future

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in the enterprising West→

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Building opportunity Amber Martin and Daniel Jan Martin talk to David Hillam, developer and principal of Hillam Architects, about the relationship between enterprise and creativity in urban development.

Right: This twin-tower mixed-use development at Scarborough Beach by Hillam Architects soars up to 43 storeys high.

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Daniel Jan Martin: The foundation of Perth owes much to enterprise, speculation and capital – these inform an ethos that continues to drive the city today. To what extent do you see your practice’s work standing on the shoulders of this local tradition, and which contexts in Perth have driven your work? David Hillam: Perth is seen as a place where you can prosper if you want to – it’s a cliché, but the Wild West is a point of reference for us. I think it is about having a sense of where the opportunities are and having the confidence to have a crack at it. For me, that’s been in vertically integrating an architecture practice, a development business and a product supply business. I realised early on in my interactions with developers that they just had the inclination to go and do it, despite their qualification. I think that as creatives, architects are also ideally qualified to be entrepreneurial. We’re often not commercial enough though – there’s that expectation that an architect should have a patron. Perhaps here, we are less wedded to this rule than other parts of the country. DJM: We would like you to consider your dual role as architect and developer. The profit motive is often in tension with design quality. This tension manifests in very poor density and fringe development across Perth. Any thoughts on how these competing objectives can be brought together? It’s tough to balance commercial realities with the realities of designing a quality building, but it’s also exciting. Gavin Hawkins, my partner in the development business is from an accounting background. As a result of having both the design and the financial side represented in our projects, they are profitable and a significant step up in terms of design quality in comparison to other comparable builder-led projects. We achieve that in a number of ways. Being really vigilant about holding consultants to account is one, and understanding where efficiencies can be increased in, say, the services of the building, is another. It allows us to create a leaner proposition, which in turn lets us reposition a lot of the budget towards things we care about as architects, such as the experience of the building. Wearing both hats, so to speak, lets us use design quality to create profit. As creatives, we were able to make a case for

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quadrupling the permissible density on site in one of our first development projects after the GFC because of the quality of our proposal. This was the difference between the project being viable or not at the time. I think the quality we bring is also reflected in the sales – we’ve had apartments selling for 10 to 30 per cent more than the valuers’ figures. Since observing this, we’ve had to suggest that certain valuers or valuation methods just aren’t accurate for our projects. DJM: It’s very interesting to hear you describe this tension as an opportunity rather than a challenge. It’s our opportunity to differentiate ourselves. In the same way, when we’ve had investors say to us, “Design WA … you must be worried”, we say no, it’s a commercial advantage to us, because we feel we’re better equipped to understand what outcomes are being asked for and how to achieve them. And if the profitability of projects is impacted, that doesn’t concern me. We’re all in the same boat in that regard, and if it means a better urban outcome, then it’s a good thing. Amber Martin: Sprawl is an economic phenomenon as much as an urban one. How do we make sense of this and how do we limit it? This topic came up at the Design WA launch the other day, and Nigel Shaw [architect and councillor for Nedlands] made a great comment to the panel about the need to put a ring around Perth to mark the limit of urban sprawl. Minister [for Transport; Planning] Saffioti replied that she was against the proposition as she’s worried about how a finite supply of land might harm affordability at the entry level; she believes that people should still be able to build in Two Rocks and have the Australian Dream. That statement bothers me because the cost of bringing infrastructure – trains, freeways, services and so forth – to the fringe hasn’t been factored into the prices of the lots. And there are other costs associated with living in those areas, such as commute time and expenses. Instead, the government – of either party, I’m not making a political statement here – could think more creatively about how that money could be used to provide better outcomes for the whole city. They could allocate a chunk of the money to eliminating stamp duty for downsizers who are moving into apartment buildings, for instance, as that’s a huge anchor on urbanisation. How would that affect the fabric of Perth? 41

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Planners rightfully say that we need greater population density to have more viable neighbourhoods with high amenity. DJM: So affordability on the fringe is sort of a furphy because there are infrastructural costs, environmental costs and social costs that are seldom factored in. Absolutely. AM: Really good outcomes can be achieved by bringing this ‘dirty’ world of enterprise fully into the world of the creatives and architecture. Perth’s had a great history of enterprise that we can draw on, but only if we learn to recognise what and where it is. There’s a lot of enterprise locally in architecture today – great initiatives by younger practitioners. It was great to get frequent feedback at an open day for the Botanical Apartments; visitors were saying that is great to see projects being “design led”. There are opportunities for our profession. The question is: how do you leverage that into something bigger? For instance, house and apartment affordability is a big issue. There’s potential for enterprising architects to try to address this. Perhaps the incentives to engage with it are not there. Architects are only responsible for approximately 5 per cent of individual houses. Obviously that percentage is a lot higher when it comes to apartments. The project-home industry serves the public well in some respects. However, I feel there is opportunity around affordability, especially looking at new construction methodologies, which I think we’re better qualified to lead. I think that designers need to be more focused on what commercial opportunities they bring to their projects – I think you could change the whole character of the city based on a really targeted framing of the way you want things to happen. It’s sort of like a trading mentality. For many ‘creatives’, this mentality is counterintuitive, though I think it’s a way that we can become more empowered and achieve better outcomes. It’s surprising to me that there’s a reluctance not only on the part of architects, but also planners and politicians, to embrace an approach that significantly rewards better outcomes and greater contributions to the context and communities. Right: Eden Floreat, designed by Hillam Architects, has “enviable resort-style amenities, including a health spa, state of the art gym, yoga studio and sauna for your wellbeing” on Level 1.

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Millennial enterprise Olivia Kate Two young Australian companies have forged new business models in order to bring architecture to the people.

Isometric drawing of a New Resident project by Whispering Smith.

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Graduate architects often enter the workforce with lofty design ideals, but soon find themselves faced with pressure to provide an affordable service to potential clients. In an Australian context, where most residential buildings are not architectdesigned, the architect must factor in housing affordability for first homebuyers without losing sight of the need for quality design. Whispering Smith and Arcadia Design Studio are two practices led by young directors that are managing to do just this. Providing access to architecture: Whispering Smith Kate FitzGerald founded Whispering Smith in Perth as a sole practitioner in 2011, and gained widespread recognition for her self-commissioned House A project in 2017. Following this success, she established the product New Resident with the promise to deliver “affordable, off-the-shelf architect-designed residences”. This new business venture supplies a product for clients who admire the Whispering Smith design philosophy, but who may not be able to afford its services. Olivia Kate: Can you provide a little background about the New Resident project? How did it come to be and who is involved? Kate FitzGerald: When you design a small house and market it, you’re going to get a lot of enquiries in that bracket because people are excited by the fact that they might be able to get an architect to design them something that they hadn’t actually thought was possible. All of a sudden we have at least two enquiries a week that are sub $500,000 … It’s hard to provide an adequate service on that budget for a brand-new build. But those people are the people we want to work with; they’re into sustainability, they’re young, they’re trying to build their first houses. That’s what we’re passionate about. So there’s this glitch in the architectural servicing model where we can’t do architecture properly under $500,000. A lot of those [clients] don’t necessarily want a custom-designed superstar piece of architecture with all the bells and whistles. They just want a really nicely designed house. So what we’re doing with New Resident is taking all the stuff we’ve learnt from House A and other residential projects that we’ve done over the journey and put them in a pre-designed house. Right and following pages: House A by Whispering Smith. Images: Ben Hosking

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The New Resident model is reminiscent of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects’ Small Homes Service (SHS) of the mid-twentieth century, with its objective to make the modern home widely available to the public following the Second World War. Robin Boyd, the first SHS director, sought to “do a lot better with less”, designing a family house each week to be promoted in The Age. In line with contemporary modes of information-sharing, New Resident promotes the value of architectural design via its well-curated digital channels. OK: Do you think people are misinformed about what an architect can provide on a tight budget? KF: Well, people are being misinformed about how much things cost, and how much custom designing a one-off house costs. There are some simple equations there: land is very expensive, and our generation wants to live close to the city; the architectural fee adds 10 to 15 per cent to the overall cost, and when you’re being pushed to get a house and land for the average couple’s wage, the first thing that goes is the architect’s fee. And most architects won’t work on something that’s under $500,000, anyway, so that takes out about 90 per cent of the population as clients. The entrepreneurial part of that is: how can you [make architecture for $400,000]? How can you provide a service for that particular section of the market? It’s about bringing the expectations of the client not down, but somewhere else. You’re not going to get a completely custom-designed masterpiece, but we can give you an amazing architect-designed house that we’ve already pre-designed for you. So it’s not a service, it’s a product. The one-stop shop: Arcadia Design Studio Arcadia Design Studio’s founders Sally-Ann Weerts, Amy McDonnell and Mitch Hill established the practice after their entry for LandCorp’s 2013 Gen Y Project housing competition was short-listed. The brief called for flexible, affordable and sustainable design proposals to address the “missing middle” in the housing market. Nowadays, Arcadia Design Studio operates as a responsive practice; the directors have tailored their business to address tight budgets without compromising design outcomes. Arcadia’s collaboration with building company Assemble makes them a one-stop shop. This relationship allows the designers and builders to understand the other’s craft, and opens a dialogue about balancing design ambitions with financial constraints. 50

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OK: Mitch, you are a director of building company Assemble as well as of Arcadia. Can you explain the relationship between the two? Mitch Hill: It became clear that you had to be able to provide that building licence if you wanted to design something, be involved in it, and deliver it as well. We formed Assemble so we could have the vehicle to do that. It gives us a chance to take a project from its inception right through to final delivery on site. Sally-Ann Weerts: We saw an opportunity to follow a project more seamlessly [by] borrowing the things from [the project-home model] that are successful … [We wanted to find] a way to tap into that market and, as a design-focused office, deliver a higherquality product to that same market. MH: So we thought, let’s [tackle] the hard part of getting the delivery done … As a practice we pride ourselves on the fact that we can help get most projects that come through the door all the way to site. SW: It’s much easier for us to have those up-front difficult conversations with clients because we have the ability to be quite Above: Potter & Co. Showroom by Arcadia Design Studio and Staple Design. Image: Meghan Plowman

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open with building costs and procurement methods. It’s much more integrated than it would be in a traditional practice, where the client is blindsided right up until they get to tender and then realise the project is maybe too expensive for them to build. We’re having those conversations much earlier on, so we know the projects we do have are going to get built. Is a ‘traditional’ architecture practice that may not have that building experience able to have those conversations? SW: I think that the next generation of architects coming through is acknowledging the fact that design and construct really is the only way to get something procured in the current environment, and that traditional full-services architecture agreements to some extent don’t work. Do you think that’s beneficial from a building perspective as well? MH: I think part of it is being a designer who is a builder; you can educate other builders about the value of design, and the value of the two being integrated early in that process. Amy McDonnell: It is also important for designers to be more aware about what goes into those processes – understanding what costs money and why – and then you can design that in. Given that the majority of practising Australian architects work as sole practitioners or in small businesses, their success is essential if there is to be a healthy architectural community in Australia. Whispering Smith and Arcadia Design Studio demonstrate an ability to adapt, applying their creative problem-solving skills to their daily business operations as well as to design challenges.

Right: The Number Nine House by Arcadia Design Studio, under construction.

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Support structure:

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Payment for Ecosystem Services

Hannah Robertson The PES model supports selfdetermined building on Aboriginal homelands, but how can its reach be extended? 55

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Just as agricultural and mining enterprises built and continue to shape the morphology and mythology of colonial towns and cities, the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) model is supporting a new wave of self-determined construction on Aboriginal homelands. In an environment where there has been a retraction of government infrastructure investment on homelands, PES suggests an alternative building approach that synthesises technical, practical and traditional knowledge to support the creation of meaningful livelihoods on Country and, importantly, generate revenue that can support self-determined and appropriate building there. PES schemes are incentivised land management schemes that provide an economic return in exchange for an environmental service. Indigenous PES enterprises uniquely harness both traditional Indigenous knowledge and contemporary science to improve environmental quality. Activities like carbon abatement, feral animal management and biodiversity conservation and restoration are all examples of PES. In their 2014 article for journal Progress in Human Geography, ‘Reconceptualizing ecosystem services: Possibilities for cultivating and valuing the ethics and practices of care’, human geographers Sue Jackson and Lisa Palmer argue that PES is “most effective” on remote Aboriginal homelands and outstation settlements; PES fundamentally values cultural knowledge and the vastness of the landscape allows for economies of scale. On remote Aboriginal land PES is often one of the few enterprise opportunities, due to such restrictions as distance from economic centres, poor accessibility and skilled labour shortages due to limitations associated with Aboriginal land tenure. In their United Nations Research Institute for Social Development paper, Payment for Ecosystem Services Markets on Aboriginal Lands in Cape York Peninsula: Potential and Constraints (2012), authors Michael Winer, Helen Murphy and Harold Ludwick argue that PES is not only a significant enterprise opportunity with the ability to attract financial remuneration from government, such as for ranger programs, and from private sources, in the form of carbon credits and corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds, it is also “crucial for improving social outcomes for Indigenous communities”. Previous pages: Kabulwarnamyo outstation, West Arnhem Land. Image: Hannah Robertson

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ES and building at Kabulwarnamyo outstation by P Warddeken Land Management The example of Warddeken Land Management at Kabulwarnamyo displays how PES activities simultaneously cause and provide a way of meeting the demand for buildings on remote Aboriginal land, often in more contextually responsive ways than current government-provided alternatives. Kabulwarnamyo is a small outstation of about fifty people located on Nawarddeken Country in West Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, about an eight-hour drive from Jabiru. It is extremely remote and cut off for up to five months of the year during the wet season. Kabulwarnamyo was established by the not-for-profit company Warddeken Land Management as an outstation in 2002, following the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission’s (ATSIC) moratorium on the creation of new homelands due to the Australian Government no longer making funds available to build houses on them. PES activities – namely carbon abatement and biodiversity conservation – are the core business of Warddeken; however, the organisation also built fourteen dwellings on the outstation using a small $80,000 grant from the Northern Territory government and redirected PES funds from the sale of carbon credits to multinational energy company ConocoPhillips. The flexibility of the PES carbon credit funds meant that Warddeken could be very agile by building in ways that directly responded to their needs of the people, rather than adhering to centrally determined regulations, which typically drive up building costs. To establish Kabulwarnamyo, the Warddeken rangers, who are also the Traditional Owners and residents of the outstation, self-built an office and fourteen balabbala (traditional Nawarddeken shade shelters). The contemporary balabbala have been through a number of iterations and consist of a raised timber platform floor on steel rails with local cypress pine posts and two trucking tarpaulins as a roof. Dome or safari tents are pitched on the platform to provide sleeping spaces and privacy for occupants. The structures have solar-powered electricity and bottled-gas-fired hotplates for cooking. Access to water is facilitated via a creek-fed pump. A separate structure houses a shower and long-drop toilet. Excluding wages for construction staff, each balabbala structure costs a total of $15,000. These simple structures do not adhere to public-housing standards, but 57

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they have responded to critical local needs. The balabbala project has allowed Warddeken rangers to conduct PES activities and maintain cultural connections to Nawardekken Country in the absence of government funding for services support. As Warddeken’s business has developed so too have the building typologies. In 2015, Warddeken self-built a school to enable children to also return to living on Country. The school is a modified and extended balabbala, built using Warddeken Land Management core funds, with the ongoing teaching funds raised via a crowdfunding campaign. Financing the ongoing running costs of the school remains a challenge. Unlike remote non-Indigenous townships, there is little Northern Territory (NT) Government support for homeland education and the school, like the balabbala, represents this community’s reinvestment of PES-derived funds to meet their critical needs in innovative ways. With formal registration of the Nawarddeken Academy as an independent school achieved in December of 2018, it is clear that these unconventional buildings are fit for purpose and satisfy the registration requirements of the NT Department of Education. PES-enabled balabbala are not the ideal solution for building development on homelands, but in the context of Kabulwarnamyo they are appropriate because they are simple and largely appropriate to the environment and the cost of building them matches available funds. Warddeken CEO Shaun Ansell has said, “What we do at Kabulwarnamyo is appropriate for our resourcing, environment and capacity but it’s not proper housing. If we had the capacity to build beautiful mud brick houses for everyone we would.” There are long-term plans to improve the balabbala using locally sourced stone for half walling that will retain the structures’ passive ventilation properties while also improving wet season and cold weather protection. The structures can therefore be seen as staged projects, improved upon as resources become available. Most importantly, the balabbala provide significant social returns to local Nawarddeken. A 2014 report commissioned by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and conducted by Social Ventures Australia documented significant, positive social, environmental, economic and cultural outcomes as a result of PES Previous pages: A newer type of balabbala under construction. Steel rails enhance the longevity of the structure while the white tarp has improved reflectivity. Image: Hannah Robertson

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investments at Kabulwarnamyo. Social Ventures Australia used financial proxies to estimate the value of these outcomes at $55.4 million for the financial years 2009–15 and a return on investment of $3.40 for every dollar invested. The Warddeken experience shows us that there are several policy conditions that could support building and PES enterprises on other remote Aboriginal lands. These are: 1) Implementing government policies that recognise, or at least do not inhibit, self-driven building initiatives. 2) Loosening restrictions on using PES carbon credits and Working on Country funds, to support building that directly responds to needs arising from living on Country. 3) Providing incentives for urban-based corporates to support remote PES partners and a widespread environmental strategy. 4) Recognising the value PES creates beyond an environmental return. 5) Continuing government support for major PES economies in remote Australia. As Warddeken has shown, buildings play a critical role in enabling PES; conversely, PES supports building in response to locally identified needs. PES provides extensive environmental benefits, but it is the broader social and cultural returns, such as maintaining connections to Country and creating sustainable livelihoods, that are most meaningful on remote Aboriginal land.

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There are over 44 skyscrapers in Melbourne with over 20 more under construction. Image: Arun Clarke

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Taming wild cities

Timothy Moore

The tall buildings of Australian cities can be shaped through strong design guidelines. The skylines of Australia’s cities seem shaped by private enterprise, and this is reflected in the names of their highest towers. The towers of Sydney shout finance: Deutsche Bank, MLC, EY, ANZ, Suncorp. The tall buildings of Perth read like a mining index: BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Woodside. In Melbourne, residential skyscrapers for investors make up the mass of new development, with names like Aurora, Verve, Empire and Vision – names that are timeless (and placeless). The recent large-scale transformation of Australian city centres, due to a mix of economic growth, financial investment and migration flows, makes them appear unruly and wild, with their gilded towers, curtain walls compiled from a cladding company catalogue, and hybrid building types; for example, two-storey Victorian-era fronts abutting six-storey apartment buildings, or completely engulfed by towers. This bricolage, paired with aspirational branding, creates the impression that property developers and financiers are the main drivers and shapers of this ‘anything goes’ approach to urban development. 63

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This is partly true. Market-driven development has always played a leading role in the urban settlement of Australia. But markets operate within a framework of rules that mitigate the negatives of urban development for the public good. Governments have a key role in setting policies, rules and regulations that steer those driving urban development through the morass of planning policies, design guidelines and codes for buildings. Within these planning mechanisms, government actions should reflect the standards and expectations of the communities they represent. So, why is there such a disjuncture between what the centres of Australian cities look like, including their public realm, and community expectations? One part of the problem is the lack of guidance during the planning and design phase about quality design and the consistent decision-making necessary to achieve it. Nowhere is this more obvious than some of Melbourne’s recently built tall towers. Over the two decades up until 2015 there was a lack of strong regulation of planning schemes around taller built forms. The state government removed density controls (with a plot ratio of 12:1) from the city centre in 1999 – a period of recession – to encourage maximum flexibility in property development. It is only by chance that Melbourne’s height limit was set between 265 metres and 315 metres, so that lofty buildings did not intrude into aircraft flight paths. The soaring heights of Melbourne’s buildings are not necessarily a major problem. The new residential towers take their share of the 100,000-plus new residents that move to greater Melbourne each year, and these people are more likely to walk than drive. Additionally, restricting building heights does not necessarily lead to the creation of better buildings and neighbourhoods. However, setting height limits through density controls – regulating floor areas, and apartments, in a building, block or precinct – is an important lever for achieving better quality design. Without this ‘bargaining power’, offering a few extra floors in return for better public amenity, there can be many bad outcomes, particularly at street level, as is obvious in some of these recently built towers. The City of Melbourne’s Promoting High Quality Urban Design Outcomes in the Central City and Southbank Synthesis Previous pages: New residential towers along Elizabeth Street as viewed from Queen Victoria Market. Image: Shawn Ang

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report (2018) notes that there has been a “lack of design investment in the lower 20 metres of building facades and in particular in shop front design” in the past. The problems include allowing parking above ground in podiums, tinted glass that renders active uses invisible, and poor materials and architectural details that undermine the quality of the streetscape while reducing surveillance and visual connections. These private developments have had significant negative impacts on the public realm. Some of the development just looks incredibly cheap and bland – flat finishes and facades, tinted glass, floor-to-ceiling glazing with repetitious frames and mullions, building services taking up much of the street frontage – despite the luxury apartment taglines disseminated by marketeers. Planning controls in the Central City and Southbank area of Melbourne have become tighter since 2015, when interim controls were put in place; these became permanent in 2016. Most of the podium and infill towers recently springing up in Melbourne received planning permission prior to this time. New controls now in place stipulate stronger requirements for minimum street setbacks, overshadowing, wind effects, floor area ratio limits, uplift and tower separation. There are also new height limits based on density controls (however, high-rise apartment towers are still permitted to produce densities higher than those found in areas of Tokyo or Hong Kong). The new planning controls have already led to a reduction in above-ground car park podiums, as developers aim to increase their yield in the face of restrictions on floor area ratios. Despite these new planning provisions promoting quality design, there is still an ambiguity around what good design means among Melbourne’s taller building proposals. This becomes an issue when tall buildings are subject to discretionary height limits (where heights can be increased if the building is of quality design). The report Measurable Criteria to Assess Development Applications Exceeding Preferred Heights: Analysis and Recommendations by MGS Architects observed through several case studies across Melbourne – including in South Yarra and Collingwood – that extra height can be negotiated for projects that demonstrate a “high standard of architectural design”. But good design here may not relate to setbacks, overshadowing, publicspace provision or quality architectural details. It could be because a building is marketed as a ‘landmark’, ‘gateway’ or ‘icon’. But does 67

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a building’s height make it a landmark? If so, how high should it be? And should poor public amenity (such as generating traffic or overshadowing) be traded away because a building is ‘slender’ and ‘sculptural’? And is the extrusion of a site’s boundary to form a building envelope that allows the building to be considered tall, slender and sculptural still appropriate when neighbouring properties reciprocate and form a wall of towers? The City of Melbourne report remarked, in the case of projects that went to the planning tribunal VCAT, that “where the tribunal was required to make a decision between an acceptable urban design outcome or project viability (such as the ability to achieve a viable tower envelope), viability and consolidation objectives prevailed on balance”. There is a lack of certainty and consistency, which MGS Architects writes “undermines the public perception of a fair and orderly process for development approvals”. All property developers, architects and planners desire consistency and clarity in urban planning, design and policy in order to deliver their projects – as do local communities. And while there are moves in the right direction in Melbourne, there is still room to improve the regulation of the built environment through introducing clearer density controls in relationship to quality architectural design, design-led envelope controls, and a design review process in which designers lead decision-making, which will ensure the desired outcomes are achieved. However, the regulations should also allow for flexibility in order to encourage innovation. Unambiguous guidelines and planning schemes steer the market towards better outcomes for all. Melbourne’s recent residential-tower growth reinforces to the inhabitants of Australian cities the need to regulate for quality design outcomes. It also acts as a warning for strategic town centres in Melbourne, and across Australia, which are not performing adequate quality control of their taller buildings. Height restrictions have recently been eased in part of Adelaide’s city centre; this has seen a slew of new commercial, residential and hotel buildings over 100 metres proposed or under construction. Let’s hope that with strong design guidelines Adelaide does not suffer a similar fate in replicating the mistakes of some of Melbourne’s recent additions. Right: Abode318, designed by Elenberg Fraser, reaches to a height of 187.3 metres. It has an eight-level car park podium. Image: Victor Garcia

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BIOGRAPHIES SIMON ANDERSON is an architect, educator and author, and a professor at the School of Design at the University of Western Australia (UWA).

AMBER MARTIN is a graduate of architecture working in the Urban Design section of the Department of Communities, State Government of Western Australia.

ALESSIO FINI is a Melbournebased, Perth-raised freelance designer. He previously worked at Casper Mueller Kneer Architects and Universal Design Studio in London, and at Fieldwork in Melbourne.

DANIEL JAN MARTIN is a researcher at the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities and a PhD candidate at the UWA School of Design.

KATE HISLOP is the dean and head of the School of Design at UWA. FELIX JOENSSON is a UWA graduate of architecture. OLIVIA KATE is a UWA graduate of architecture and has previously taught at the university’s School of Design. She currently works for a small practice. GEOFFREY LONDON is a professor of architecture at UWA. He is a former government architect of Victoria and Western Australia, and a past dean and head of architecture at UWA. JASON MACARLINO is a UWA graduate of architecture.

JENNIE OFFICER is the director of architecture practice Officer Woods. She is also a senior lecturer at UWA. GRANT REVELL is a Wadjella (whitefella) writer, design researcher and critic from North Fremantle, Western Australia. He was formerly an associate professor at the University of Western Australia in both the School of Indigenous Studies, and the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts. HANNAH ROBERTSON is the 2018/19 Innovation Fellow in Monash University’s Art Design & Architecture (MADA) faculty.

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TIMOTHY MOORE is the editor of Future West (Australian Urbanism) and director of Sibling Architecture. He is also a lecturer in Monash University’s Art Design & Architecture (MADA) faculty.

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DISTRIBUTION Future West (Australian Urbanism) is distributed by the School of Design at the University of Western Australia. To obtain a copy, navigate to www.alva.uwa.edu.au/ community/futurewest

Future West (Australian Urbanism) is a biannual publication that looks towards the future of urbanism, taking Perth and Western Australia as its reference point. EDITORIAL BOARD Simon Anderson Alessio Fini Geoffrey London Jennie Officer

Future West (Australian Urbanism) has been made possible with a generous private donation.

EDITORS Timothy Moore Kate Hislop Daniel Jan Martin

SUBEDITOR Rowena Robertson PUBLICATION DESIGN Stuart Geddes PRINTING Printgraphics, Melbourne PUBLISHER Future West (Australian Urbanism) is published by the School of Design at the University of Western Australia. COVER IMAGE Stuart Geddes

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