Repeat buyers are one of the strongest measures of confidence in any apartment development.

At <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/era-newcastle-west-124-126-bull-street-newcastle-west-nsw-2302">ERA</a> in Newcastle West, some purchasers are returning to <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developers/gwh">GWH</a> after living at the developer's One Apartments. Their decision to purchase again was driven by the quality of life they found after moving into their first GWH home.

Keith Wilton had spent years living in a house in East Maitland before deciding it was time for a change. Apartment living had always been on his radar, but he was selective about what he wanted.

<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FH_1EzB-1vs?si=XScVlP1ERsTDJoME" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>

"I had some boxes I wanted to tick," he says.

Keith points to the open-plan design, generous outdoor areas and considered inclusions as key reasons One Apartments worked for him.

“One of those things was a nice indoor open plan area, but also I wanted a nice outdoor open area that I could entertain on in summer or Christmases or birthdays,” he says.

He also found value in the smaller details, from integrated appliances to shared resident spaces including the pool, cinema and rooftop areas.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=135096 project_image_fid=356818]

After comparing several developments, he chose One Apartments because of GWH's longstanding local reputation and his own experience working with the developer on a commercial project more than a decade earlier.

"I knew that they were local, that the quality of the build was going to be up there. I'd looked at other apartment complexes around and close by, and I just knew that here was a better decision location wise."

Today, Keith says the move has completely changed how he experiences Newcastle.

"I enjoy living in this location because it's more of a lifestyle change. That Newcastle city living where you can walk to restaurants and bars and even beaches and parks and even shopping across the road."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=135096 project_image_fid=356828]

Beyond the location, he says it's the sense of community that has surprised him most.

"Everyone loves living here because they chose to live here, but everyone looks out for each other. It's a real great community feel here."

For Aimee and Lyle Goodman, the journey started almost by chance.

<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tsioMLcnjas?si=zq-ys3JuWpfa5hFv" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>

The couple happened to be having coffee in Newcastle when they noticed the site where One Apartments was about to begin construction.

"We were aware GWH was planning a development," Aimee says. "We made one phone call and things moved pretty quickly after that."

As busy business owners, they initially thought apartment living would simply reduce the maintenance that came with larger homes. Instead, it fundamentally changed how they spent time together.

"We actually catch up more as a family now," Aimee says.

"We've had homes with big yards and lots of space, but everyone ended up in different rooms. Here we'll have dinner together, the kids can play, and we spend far more quality time together."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=135096 project_image_fid=356829]

Lyle says their confidence came from GWH's reputation within Newcastle's building industry.

"I know people who've worked across different apartment projects, and whenever GWH came up the feedback was always the same. They're rock solid. They're quality."

That confidence only grew throughout the buying process.

"One of the things that really impressed us with GWH was the whole process, was the communication," Lyle says. "It was consistent, it was regular, there was no problem if we had some weird questions, there was no problems in getting answers."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=135096 project_image_fid=351104]

Aimee says one moment stood out.

"The project actually finished on time. We realised we needed to hurry up and sell our house because everything was happening exactly when they said it would."

The positive experience at One Apartments ultimately gave all three buyers the confidence to purchase again with GWH, this time at ERA.

Their confidence reflects what many buyers are seeking in today's apartment market. Location remains important, but so too does certainty around delivery, quality and long-term liveability.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=135096 project_image_fid=356822]

ERA builds on those foundations with 280 one, two and three-bedroom apartments across two landmark towers in <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developments/newcastle-west-nsw-2302">Newcastle West</a>.&nbsp;

Designed by <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/architects/fk-australia">Fender Katsalidis</a>, the project will include more than 2,000 square metres of resident amenities, including a resort-style pool, gym, sauna, private cinema and rooftop entertaining spaces overlooking the harbour and coastline.&nbsp;

The development is also within walking distance of the Newcastle Interchange, Honeysuckle, Darby Street, the harbour foreshore, restaurants, retail and the city’s beaches, continuing the walkable lifestyle that existing GWH buyers say has transformed how they live.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=135096 project_image_fid=356826]

For Keith, the appeal remains straightforward.

"You feel at home even before you've moved into your home."

For Aimee, the change is measured in time.

“I just felt like I had more time,” she says.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=135096 project_image_fid=351102]

Construction at ERA is now underway, with more than half of the residences already sold and limited two and three-bedroom apartments remaining in the East Tower release. Priced from $980,000 for two-bedroom residences and $1.46 million for three-bedroom residences, buyers can secure an apartment with a 10 per cent deposit, with premium homes offering ocean views from Level 8 and harbour views from Level 10.

ERA is also backed by Resilience Insurance's 10-year Latent Defects Insurance policy, providing protection against structural or waterproofing defects for 10 years after completion. The project is anticipated to be completed in early 2028.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=135096]

Joel Robinson

From ONE to ERA: Why buyers are choosing GWH again in Newcastle West

Virgate Property Group is preparing to commence construction of Verdé, its new apartment development in Melbourne's Arts Precinct at Southbank, following a strong run of sales that has seen more than half of the project's 173 apartments secured.

Verdé has attracted a broad mix of first home buyers, owner-occupiers upgrading from nearby inner-city suburbs and investors, with younger owner-occupier couples aged between 28 and 45 accounting for the strongest enquiry. Many are already living in Southbank, South Melbourne, Albert Park, Port Melbourne, South Yarra and the CBD.

"Verdé is located in one of the most desirable pockets of southern Melbourne," Blair Property Group Director Darren Blair, who is managing sales at Verdé, said.

"It's within walking distance of the Arts Centre, Royal Botanic Gardens, Albert Park Lake, and Southbank's restaurants and retail. It's a great lifestyle location with strong amenity and liveability, which made it a very attractive choice for the project."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=4661 project_image_fid=372549]

Virgate was already familiar with the precinct, having previously delivered the successful Domain House development in neighbouring South Melbourne. That experience gave the developer confidence to acquire the Coventry Street site and continue expanding its presence in Melbourne's inner south.

"We had been keeping an eye on the site and the broader precinct for a few months before deciding to move forward with the acquisition," Virgate said.

The project was ultimately secured in 2020 following feasibility studies, planning assessments and due diligence, with the brief centred on delivering "a high-quality, considered design that feels both refined and fit for purpose."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=4661 project_image_fid=314259]

Designed by <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/architects/bruce-henderson-architects">Bruce Henderson Architects</a>, Verdé comprises 173 one, two and three-bedroom apartments priced from $599,000. The architecture is distinguished by a faceted glass façade that responds to both the site's outlook and Melbourne's changing light conditions.

According to Bruce Henderson Architects, the coloured glazing gives the building a distinctive identity while also providing privacy and solar shading, with residences oriented to capture views across the bay, city skyline and surrounding parklands.

Inside, <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/interior-designers/designoffice">DesignOffice</a> has created interiors focused on natural light, efficient planning and enduring materials. Apartments feature engineered oak flooring, natural stone benchtops, floor-to-ceiling glazing and SMEG appliances, while a restrained material palette aims to complement the expansive outlooks rather than compete with them.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=4661 project_image_fid=372550]

Resident amenity has also been designed around everyday functionality rather than occasional use. Facilities include a concierge-serviced lobby, residents' lounge with fireplace, library and co-working space, gym, terrace garden with barbecue facilities, ground-floor café, and package delivery management.

The project's location continues to be one of its strongest drawcards. Positioned on Coventry Street, Verdé sits within walking distance of the National Gallery of Victoria, Arts Centre Melbourne, Royal Botanic Gardens and Albert Park Lake, while Southbank's dining precinct, Sturt Street trams and the new ANZAC Station are all nearby. The surrounding education catchment also includes Melbourne Grammar, Melbourne Girls Grammar, Mac.Robertson Girls' High School and several major university campuses.

The sales team says buyers have responded particularly well to the combination of location, design quality and long-term liveability.

"They're responding really positively to the quality of the design, premium resident amenities and the uninterrupted views. Many also appreciate the location and how connected it is to everything they need."

The ability to secure stamp duty savings before completion has also been a key factor for purchasers, alongside the opportunity to personalise finishes ahead of settlement.

With construction set to commence soon and more than half the apartments already sold, Verdé enters its next phase as one of the Arts Precinct's more established apartment developments, offering remaining buyers an opportunity to secure a residence before construction advances further. Expected completion is scheduled for late 2027.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=4661]

Virgate's Verdé Southbank moves toward construction as sales fly past halfway stage

Downsizer-focused apartment development Kooyongkoot in Hawthorn has been recognised at the 2026 Better Future Melbourne Design Awards, taking home Gold and Silver awards in two categories.

<a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/kooyongkoot-hawthorn-1-kooyongkoot-road-hawthorn-vic-3122">Kooyongkoot</a>, currently being delivered by developer PQD and designed by Cera Stribley, received Gold in the Interior Design – Proposed category and Silver in the Architecture – Proposed category.

The dual recognition reflects the design approach behind the boutique development on prestigious Kooyongkoot Road, where the focus has been on creating homes for downsizers seeking the space, quality and functionality of a detached house within a low-rise apartment building.

Rather than maximising apartment numbers, <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developers/pqd">PQD</a> and <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/architects/cera-stribley-architects">Cera Stribley</a> limited the development to just 18 residences, allowing for larger floorplans, greater privacy, generous landscaping and expansive communal spaces.&nbsp;The majority of the apartments also benefit from corner aspects, allowing for dual sources of natural light.

Now around 70 per cent complete and on track for completion in November 2026, Kooyongkoot will comprise a mix of garden residences, ter​race apartments, sub-penthouses, and is crowned by two half-floor penthouses with direct lift access and private rooftop terraces.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=102717 project_image_fid=355297]

The Silver Award for Architecture recognised the way the building responds to its prominent corner position at the ent​rance to Hawthorn's Scotch Hill precinct, one of Melbourne's most established residential neighbourhoods.

Rather than competing with the grand homes that line Kooyongkoot Road, the architectural approach focused on restraint and longevity, using curved brickwork, generous landscaping and carefully considered proportions to integrate with the existing streetscape.

"The form feels fluid and timeless, as though shaped by the landscape itself – architecture that belongs, rather than competes," said Chris Stribley, Co-Founder and Managing Principal of Cera Stribley.

The judging submission also highlighted practical innovations throughout the building, including lift cores servicing only nine homes each, a central landscaped lightcourt designed to bring daylight and ventilation into the building, and fully enclosed private storage rooms with lighting, power and shelving to better accommodate residents transitioning from larger family homes.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=102717 project_image_fid=355293]

The Gold Award for Interior Design recognised the project's focus on long-term liveability rather than display-home aesthetics.

According to the awards submission, the interiors were designed from the inside out, prioritising how homes would function over decades of daily use through generous proportions, practical storage, durable natural materials and flexible layouts.

The specification includes natural stone throughout, upgraded acoustic glazing, V-ZUG appliances and fully enclosed storage rooms, alongside an amenity offering focused on wellness, entertainment and everyday convenience.&nbsp;

Residents will have access to a gym and yoga studio, a wellness centre featuring traditional and infrared saunas, a cold therapy shower and treatment room, as well as a residents' lounge and golf simulator/cinema room for entertainment.&nbsp;Kooyongkoot has also considered the everyday convenience of its residents by offering a private carwash and pet wash facilities on site as well as dedicated parcel lockers and oversized fully enclosed storage rooms.&nbsp;

[smartcode_project:default project_id=102717 project_image_fid=355303]

The project's attention to detail has already resonated with buyers. Earlier this year, Kooyongkoot recorded one of Boroondara's highest apartment sales when an $8 million penthouse was purchased by a Melbourne CEO downsizing from a nearby family home.

"Every detail feels deliberate, from the overall design down to the smallest touches," the purchaser said.

"The level of quality and refinement is exceptional, but what really sold it was how liveable it felt... It felt like a place where everything had been considered, not just a luxury building."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=102717 project_image_fid=355304]

Sustainability also formed a key part of both award submissions. Kooyongkoot is targeting a minimum 7.5-star NatHERS rating across all residences, supported by passive design principles, high-performance glazing, EV charging infrastructure, water reuse systems and a wellness model focused on lower-energy dry facilities rather than pools and large wet areas.

Located within walking distance of Scotch College, Methodist Ladies' College, Koo​yong Lawn Tennis Club, Aubur​n Village and Camberwell Junction, Kooyongkoot continues to target owner-occupiers looking to remain in Melbourne's inner east without compromising on space or quality. A limited selection of two, three and four-bedroom residences remains available, with prices starting from $1.9 million.

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=102717]

Kooyongkoot wins Gold and Silver at Better Future Melbourne Design Awards

New apartment supply has become increasingly constrained across <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developments/parramatta-nsw-2150">Parramatta</a> in recent years, with fewer projects progressing through to completion as development conditions have become more challenging.

It makes <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/developers/novm">NOVM</a>'s 2021-completed <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/buildings/the-lennox-parramatta-12-phillip-street-parramatta-nsw-2150">The Lennox</a> one of the most recently completed residential towers on the Parramatta River, and among the newest apartment developments in Sydney's second CBD.

With the project largely completed before the sharp escalation in construction costs and inflation following the pandemic, The Lennox is now offering pricing that would be difficult to replicate in a comparable new development in Parramatta today, or across much of Western Sydney.

The majority of the 413 apartments at The Lennox sold before and shortly after completion. A limited release of the remaining apartments has recently been brought to market by capital partner <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/project-marketer/equitifund-group">Equitifund</a>, with entry-level pricing from $700,000 and two-bedroom apartments available from under $1 million.

Rising above the Parramatta River at 12 Phillip Street, The Lennox comprises one, two, three and four-bedroom apartments, appealing to first home buyers, young professionals, families, downsizers and interstate investors seeking a completed apartment in one of Australia's fastest-growing economic centres.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=5743 project_image_fid=372394]

Rather than positioning Parramatta as an alternative to Sydney's CBD, Equitifund believes the city has reached a point where it stands on its own merits.

"Parramatta is no longer simply an alternative to Sydney CBD, it's becoming a destination in its own right," Equitifund Executive Chairman Greg Huxley said.

"The Lennox captures that evolution with a level of quality and amenity that's difficult to match at its price point."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=5743 project_image_fid=953]

Designed by <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/architects/marchese-partners">Marchese Partners</a>, the tower responds directly to its riverfront setting through expansive glazing and open-plan layouts that maximise views across the Parramatta River and city skyline. Interiors feature engineered timber flooring, stone benchtops, stainless steel appliances and floor-to-ceiling glazing, while generous balconies extend the living spaces outdoors.

Marchese Partners says the project was conceived to balance high-quality apartment living with practical, long-term functionality, pairing larger, efficient floorplans with amenities more commonly associated with five-star hotels.

That emphasis continues through the resident facilities, which include a 20-metre rooftop swimming pool, fully equipped gym and wellness spaces, full-time concierge, a residents' lounge, function room, private lifts, secure basement parking and rooftop communal areas overlooking the Parramatta River. Ground-floor boardwalk retail and dining further activate the riverfront and integrate the building into the surrounding public realm.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=5743 project_image_fid=925]

Australian housing and finance group Equitifund has secured the remaining apartments, believing there are few completed apartment opportunities in Parramatta that offer the same combination of location, amenity and pricing.

Equitifund National Sales Director Ben Hamblett says buyers are increasingly recognising that premium apartment living no longer needs to come with Sydney CBD pricing.

"The Lennox is where aspirational living becomes attainable," Hamblett said.

"Wake to river and mountain views, step into Sydney's Second CBD, and arrive home to resort-calibre amenities, all without the harbour price tag."

Hamblett says owner-occupiers are also attracted by the convenience of having Westfield Parramatta, Church Street's dining precinct, Parramatta Park, Riverside Theatres, Western Sydney University and major transport connections all within walking distance.

"At The Lennox, lifestyle is not an afterthought, it is the foundation."

[smartcode_project:default project_id=5743 project_image_fid=5374]

The Lennox places residents within walking distance of Parramatta Square, Westfield Parramatta, Church Street Eat Street, Parramatta Station, the ferry wharf, Light Rail, the future Sydney Metro West, Parramatta Park and CommBank Stadium, reinforcing Parramatta's position as one of Australia's most connected metropolitan centres outside Sydney's CBD.

Equitifund says buyers visiting the display suite consistently comment on the quality of the finishes, generous floorplans, river and skyline views, and the walkability of the location. The project has attracted a broad mix of local professionals, upsizers, downsizers, buyers relocating from Sydney's inner suburbs and interstate investors seeking long-term growth opportunities.

That demand aligns with Parramatta's continued evolution as an economic powerhouse. Equitifund Research and Market Insights specialist John Bekiaris says sustained population growth, infrastructure investment and expanding employment opportunities continue to support long-term housing demand across the city.

"Parramatta has evolved from a satellite city into one of Australia's most important economic centres. Population growth, infrastructure investment and employment are all supporting sustained long-term housing demand."

[smartcode_project_cta:default project_id=5743]

The apartment price gap drawing Sydney buyers west

A luxury beachfront apartment at Rainbow Bay has more than doubled in value since it sold off the plan six years ago, setting a new local apartment record in the process.

The three-bedroom apartment in the Flow development on Petrie Street, the first of four new projects locally by Paul Gedoun's S&amp;S Projects, has sold for $7.4 million, after originally selling for $3.27 million when the project launched in 2020.

The seventh-floor apartment, comprising 187 sqm of internal living space and a 54 sqm balcony overlooking Froggies Beach and Snapper Rocks, was purchased by a local family.

The transaction was negotiated by Pezet Matheson director Kerry Pezet and equates to more than $30,000 per sqm.

Pezet said the sale reflected the limited opportunities to buy into the boutique beachfront development.

"The sale highlights the rarity of opportunities within the boutique beachfront development, where residences seldom become available," Pezet said.

"Flow is one of the Gold Coast's most tightly held buildings. Buyers from our database move quickly when residences become available, and achieving an off-market sale at $7.4 million demonstrates the depth of demand for property of this calibre."

<img alt="Flow" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="c585b206-2130-4eee-a50c-3f27c51a7c70" src="https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/inline-images/Screenshot%202026-07-06%20at%208.33.25%E2%80%AFPM.png?VersionId=m3pHRDV62Y3fvN.XQuQHq.52ilTWpRLf" />

Flow was the first of four luxury apartment developments delivered by Paul Gedoun's S&amp;S Projects at Rainbow Bay and was completed in 2023.

Positioned on the beachfront overlooking Snapper Rocks, the residence includes three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a powder room and views stretching north along the coastline towards Surfers Paradise.

Pezet Matheson Residential principal Mitchell Lambert said buyers continued to prioritise quality beachfront apartments in tightly held locations.

"Flow Residences offers a rare combination of elevated beachfront positioning, architectural excellence, comprehensive resident amenity and premium finishes, which is exactly what discerning purchasers are seeking," Lambert said.

"The transaction further reinforces Rainbow Bay's reputation as one of Australia's premier coastal lifestyle destinations, where limited supply and growing demand continue to support strong market performance."

Pezet Matheson originally marketed and sold out Flow off the plan, making the latest transaction a return to one of the project's original buyers.

Paul Gedoun is selling his third project, <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/radia-rainbow-bay-271-boundary-street-coolangatta-qld-4225">Radia Rainbow Bay</a>, after recently completing, and selling out, <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/buildings/esprit-217-227-boundary-street-coolangatta-qld-4225">Esprit</a>. He has plans for a <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/news/qld/first-look-s-s-projects-proposes-88-apartment-wellness-tower-at-coolangattas-boundary-street">fourth building</a>, 88 apartments on <a href="https://www.apartments.com.au/new-apartments/209-213-boundary-street-coolangatta-qld-4225">Boundary Street</a>.

Rainbow Bay apartment doubles in price since off the plan sale during pandemic

Architecture

<html><body>
Sydney architecture firm Crone has won the award for Delivered Outcome – Small scale for Orange Regional Museum at the Australian Urban Design Awards.
Announced on 25 October by the Planning Institute of Australia, the awards take notice of outstanding urban design projects in Australia.
Orange Regional Museum is Crone’s first civic project, leading the practice into a direction beyond commercial buildings for which it is best known.
“The project blurs the distinction between the architecture and landscape through holistic urban design,” noted the jury.
Crone commenced work on the 1,300 sqm museum after winning a tender responding to the brief to strategically place the building to create a distinctive civic square between the new structures and the existing Orange City Library and Regional Art Gallery.  
The museum houses an exhibition space, visitor information centre, cafe and council office space, while also playing host to a variety of exhibitions.
Seating stairs create an amphitheatre and provide access to the sloping landscaped roof, a defining feature of the design that rises from the existing lawn to provide a public green space and vantage point across the City. 
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/c_scale,w_580,q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/po.images/2017/10/26/OrangePic.jpg" alt="">
The Crone team, led by Greg Crone, Niall Durney, Sandra Furtado and Kieran Gleeson, works across Australia, Southeast Asia and the UAE, shaping city skylines. It has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Picture above (Centre, Ashley Dennis, Senior Associate, Right, Niall Durney, Design Director)
</body></html>

jonathanchancellor-7SQnKwU6yx

Crone wins PIA's urban design award for work on Orange Regional Museum 

<html><body>
The American writer Rebecca Solnit, in her groundbreaking collection of essays, including the eponymous <a href="https://www.guernicamag.com/rebecca-solnit-men-explain-things-to-me/" target="_blank">Men Explain Things To Me</a>, first used the term “mansplaining” to describe how men claim superior knowledge and control making the meaning of things.
In <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/691-men-explain-things-to-me" target="_blank">her book</a>, she describes it as:
<blockquote>
… the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.
</blockquote>
With mansplaining in mind, men who created big visions about places have shaped our sense of the city. Think, for instance, of Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House and Robin Gibson’s Brutalist architecture of the contemporary arts buildings across Southbank in Brisbane.
From its parks and gardens, to roads and traffic light systems, to iconic buildings, cities are known to be created by men.
By capturing the narrative of the city’s places through mansplaining, our experience of cities is dominated by towering office buildings, monolithic civic structures and efficient, looping steel transport networks. As a result, we often experience the world through what men say and decide the world is and does.
For women, these city structures don’t hold so much design interest. As architect Fiona Scott <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/dec/05/if-women-built-cities-what-would-our-urban-landscape-look-like" target="_blank">said</a>:
<blockquote>
… I don’t think there are many women who think, ‘Oh, my ideal project would be a massive tower.’
</blockquote>
The vibe of a city that makes us feel welcome, safe, happy and relaxed from the first moment is more than just the sum of how men plan and engineer a city. Women’s voices and stories are present in the city but are missing from the mainstream.
Architect Paula Whitman, <a href="https://archiparlour.org/going-places/" target="_blank">writing</a> about the career progression of women architects, highlights that women want to be involved in benchmark projects but mostly in those projects making a cultural and environmental difference. As a result, women architects are often relegated to help-mate roles in building cities.
Solnit wrote about the place names of men and their exploits forming the fabric of New York City. She reimagined the city by renaming subway stations after women who contributed to history.
In Australia, from colonial times, women have built our cities, but their names and achievements went unrecognised. By naming places after them, inserting women into the landscape and language of the city, we can demonstrate women’s contributions more clearly and fairly.
<h2>Women’s contribution to our cities</h2>
Women have contributed to shaping our cities by being commissioned to create statues and memorials and designing communities, but their roles have become obscured.
Sydney-born <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mayo-lilian-daphne-14954" target="_blank">Daphne Mayo</a> was a sculptor commissioned to work on the Brisbane City Hall. With the Queensland-born artist <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lahey-frances-vida-7008" target="_blank">Vida Lahey</a>, she established the Queensland Art Reference Library at the University of Queensland in 1936.
The pair set up an art acquisition fund, the Queensland Art Fund, sourcing important works of art – including William Dobell’s <a href="https://learning.qagoma.qld.gov.au/?p=1752" target="_blank">The Cypriot</a> – for the Queensland Art Gallery. Public sculptures Mayo created included the Queensland Women’s War Memorial in Anzac Square and a statue of Sir William Glasgow.
Mayo was awarded an MBE in 1959. Yet the name of Daphne Mayo and the pioneering work of Queensland’s first female sculptor are not well known outside of architecture and academia.
Likewise, Western Australia’s first qualified town planner, <a href="https://feilmanfoundation.com.au/margaret-feilman-obituary/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 12.16px;">Margaret Feilman</a>, has largely disappeared from public knowledge. Among her many achievements, she led her town planning team in the government of Western Australia to establish Kwinana, a refinery dormitory town for 25,000 people 40 minutes south of Perth.
While politicians pressed to industrialise and boost the state’s economy, Feilman was adamant residents should be housed away from the refinery and the fumes blown by the prevailing wind.
In the 1950s, she established the state’s first formal environmental group, the Tree Society, and adopted a holistic approach to heritage, promoting a robust connection between the natural, built and indigenous environments.
<a href="https://www.doloreshayden.com/" target="_blank">Dolores Hayden</a>, in her 1980 essay, asked “<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173814?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">What would a non-sexist city be like?</a>”. For Hayden, the arbitrary division between home and city should be blurred, open and more accessible. Community space for childcare, recreation and communal activities should be in close proximity.
Hayden advocates for communal services, especially child care, aged care and health, with a focus on co-operatives to supply household services. She reinvents the neighbourhood to give people connection and spaces to play and interact, and to prevent them living in isolation.
In her 2016 book <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=1271" target="_blank">Places Women Make</a>, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/jane-jose-on-why-women-should-be-more-involved-in-designing-our-cities-20160101-glxqkr">Jane Jose</a> examines how the spaces we inhabit shape our happiness. She <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/files/extracts/Places_Women_Make_extract.pdf" target="_blank">writes</a>:
<blockquote>
Shared public places and the way they are created will be crucial to successful, enjoyable urban life.
</blockquote>
Jose cites the contribution of women to our cities, seeing liveliness, vibrancy and liveability as hallmarks of this influence. According to Jose, men are the “hero architects” creating city buildings. But surprising, inspiring, delightful places – sea pools, museums, libraries, gardens and walks – are ways women add meaning to cities.
<h2>A way forward</h2>
Pyschogeography refers to the intimate relationship between psychology and geography. Typically, it involves wandering – or dériving, a term from the French referring to drift – unplanned journeying through a landscape, typically urban. It can be a way to make the invisible visible, or the unseen observable.
When used with a purposeful theme such as “women’s contributions to shaping the city”, it can help to focus attention on what is present in a place and what is missing. Siobhan Lyons recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/psychogeography-a-way-to-delve-into-the-soul-of-a-city-78032" target="_blank">discussed</a> the techniques in relation to uncovering the “soul of a city”.
Dorothy Wardale and Linley Lord used psychogeography to reveal the corporate culture of a university. They found, for example, men’s achievement dominated images around the university.
<a href="https://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/7679/" target="_blank">Deborah Knowles employed it</a> to see how organisations are experienced from a feminist perspective and to give back visibility to women’s roles in the workplace.
Anyone can easily use the process:
<ul>
<li>
Choose a topic or a theme.
</li>
<li>
Start to wander or dérive around a location. If you don’t want to wander solo, possibly find a walking buddy.
</li>
<li>
As you wander, note artefacts, buildings, graffiti, signage, conversations, noises, smells – anything, really – and do it with a sense of fun.
</li>
<li>
When you’ve had enough (allow at least 60 minutes, but you could dérive for hours or days), try to make sense of your observations.
</li>
</ul>
Record your observations by taking photos, making a voice recording, or writing down your impressions, ideas and feelings. You may like to try taking photos without using the viewfinder, according to the principles of <a href="https://www.lomography.com/about/the-ten-golden-rules" target="_blank">lomography</a>: “Don’t Think. Just Shoot.”
By tapping into psychogeography, rather than accepting the mansplained version of our cities, we may find it is women after all who have created the conditions for liveability.
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83436/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">Women have made significant contributions to cities from colonial times, when <a href="https://artstas.com.au/our-history/history-of-ancanthe/" target="_blank">Lady Jane Franklin founded Ancanthe</a>, a museum in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1842, to the modern era, with the work of Margaret Feilman in designing entire townships. If men build cities and claim a heroic narrative, women build communities and the stories of connection.
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kerry-brown-405511" target="_blank">Kerry Brown</a>, Professor of Employment and Industry, School of Business and Law, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/edith-cowan-university-720" target="_blank">Edith Cowan University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dorothy-wardale-403819" target="_blank">Dorothy Wardale</a>, Director, Executive Education in School of Buisness and Law, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/edith-cowan-university-720" target="_blank">Edith Cowan University</a>
This article was originally published on <a href="https://theconversation.com" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/mansplaining-australian-cities-we-can-do-something-about-that-83436" target="_blank">original article</a>.
</body></html>

kb-UKnx4S7iY5

Mansplaining Australian cities – we can do something about that

<html><body><div class="page" title="Page 1">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
Canberra's highest architecture honour, the Canberra Medallion, has been awarded to Constitution Avenue by NCA, JILA, Hill Thalis, SMEC and AECOM at the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2017 ACT Architecture Awards.
Constitution Avenue, which also received the Sir John Overall Award for Urban Design, has realised Griffin’s vision with a project that ‘negotiates the macro and micro scale with consistency, clarity and vision’.
The jury noted its character is responsive to its particular location and adjacency, with subtle changes in scale and detail - from civic to boulevard, bushland to ceremonial, yet it successfully conveys integrated design aspirations.
"The NCA in its wisdom gathered a team of collaborators to achieve an outcome of immense public worth, and in doing so, have given us an exemplar to plan, design and deliver public domain works," it said.
Fender Katsalidis Architects won the Sydney Ancher Award for Residential Architecture - Multiple Housing and an Award for Commercial Architecture for their NewActon Nishi development receiving 
"In an era where housing needs to be denser, more compact, of high quality, and closer to civic centres, Nishi NewActon provides a compelling exemplar," the jury stated. 
"A remarkable example of how seemingly impossible constraints can be deftly handled in the hands of a skilled architect,’ saw MD House by Ben Walker Architects take home the Gene Willsford Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations and Additions). 
"The result clearly speaks of the fruitful engagement between architect and clients in delivering a well-considered outcome sensitive to their needs and aspirations."
ACT Chapter President, Rob Henry, praised the entrants and winners for their clear commitment to designing places for people. 
‘Continued population growth in our small territory, with its limited boundaries, must be managed with a commitment to urban renewal and densification," he said.
"It is the ‘voids’ that will provide the ACT with sustainable opportunities for future growth. Underpinning any successful densification will be the inclusion of places for people that enrich sociocultural environments.
<div class="page" title="Page 2">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
"Regardless of the scale of project, our work should be developed on a premise that architecture is simply the backdrop for living, and we should also acknowledge that to achieve exemplary outcomes we must continue to engage with people in the process of making,’ Henry said. 
A total of 25 Named Awards, Awards and Commendations were presented on the night from a field of 45 entries. Named Award and Award winners will now progress to the National Architecture Awards to be announced in Canberra on Thursday 2 November. 
Full list of winners: 
Commercial Architecture 
Award – NewActon Nishi by Fender Katsalidis Architects Award – Casey Market Town by Cox Architecture Commendation – Sikorsky Helitech MH-60R Through Life Support Facility by Daryl Jackson Alastair Swayn Pty Ltd 
Heritage 
The J S Murdoch Award – Embassy of Sweden by Guida Moseley Brown Architects Award – Howitt Street Residence by Cox Architecture 
Interior Architecture 
The W Hayward Morris Award – Willinga Park by Cox Architecture and Sally Hieatt Interiors Award – Canberra Airport – International by Guida Moseley Brown Architects Commendation – Casino Canberra Refurbishment by Cox Architecture 
Public Architecture 
The Romaldo Giurgola Award – Willinga Park by Cox Architecture 
Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations &amp; Additions) 
The Gene Willsford Award – MD House by Ben Walker Architects Commendation – Three Generation House by Light House Architecture and Science 
Residential Architecture – Houses (New) 
The Malcolm Moir and Heather Sutherland Award – McCarthy Purba House by Anthony Knobel Architect Award – SG House by Ben Walker Architects Commendation – O’Connor House by de Rome Architects 
Commendation – Windywoppa by Collins Caddaye Architects 
Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing 
The Sydney Ancher Award – NewActon Nishi by Fender Katsalidis Architects Award – Atelier by Bates Smart Award – Barcelona by Guida Moseley Brown Architects 
Small Project Architecture 
The ACT Award – Corner House by Joanna Nelson Architect 
<div class="page" title="Page 3">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
Award – Pop Inn by Daryl Jackson Alastair Swayn Pty Ltd Sustainable Architecture 
The Derek Wrigley Award – Corner House by Joanna Nelson Architect 
Urban Design 
The Sir John Overall Award – Constitution Avenue by NCA, JILA, Hill Thalis, SMEC and AECOM Award – Woden Stair by Cox Architecture 
Enduring Architecture 
Award – Lakeview by Harry Seidler &amp; Associates 1984 COLORBOND® Award for Steel Architecture 
Award – John James Village by Daryl Jackson Alastair Swayn Pty Ltd 
Chapter Awards and Prizes 
Canberra Medallion – Constitution Avenue by NCA, JILA, Hill Thalis, SMEC and AECOM The Pamille Berg Award for Art in Architecture – Woden Stair by Cox Architecture The Robert Foster Award for Light in Architecture – Canberra Airport – International by Guida Moseley Brown Architects Architectural Professional of the Year – Shoba Cole, May + Russell Architects President’s Medal – ACT Emerging Architects and Graduates Clem Cummings Medal – Tim Reeves and Alan Roberts Emerging Architect Prize – Jessica de Rome, de Rome Architects ACT Chapter Emerging Architect Prize - Special Commendation – Annette Pogas, ArPM ACT Chapter Student Medallion – Daniel Reardon, University of Canberra Daryl Jackson Alastair Swayn Graduate Prize – Eleanor Kirkham, University of Canberra John Redmond Prize – Chloe Yin, University of Canberra 
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div></body></html>

Places for people dominate 2017 ACT Architecture Awards

<html><body>
Winners of the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2017 Queensland State Architecture Awards include the Sunshine Coast University Hospital and Cape Tribulation House.
Winners of the awards, handed down Friday June 23, were selected by the State Jury from a field of 82 entries that received Regional Commendations at their respective Regional Architecture Awards ceremonies earlier in the year.
Named Award and Award winners will now progress to the National Architecture Awards to be announced in Canberra on Thursday 2 November. 
Jury members said the Sunshine Coast University Hospital, (above) by Architectus Brisbane and HDR Rice Daubney as Sunshine Coast Architects, was an intelligent and elegant public building that strives for local use and social engagement through the clearly defined provision of green corridors, public outdoor spaces and community infrastructure.
A small off-the-grid home won the Robin Dods Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (New). The Cape Tribulation House, (below) by m3architecture, is within the World Heritage Daintree and is camouflaged with black cladding and mirrored glass. 
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/06/26/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-26%20at%2010.22.37%20AM.png" alt="">
‘The jury said in this property, social heart is a breezeway deck with pavilions offering contemplation and comfort and a disciplined and deep respect for the rainforest drives the holistic approach from siting to occupation.
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/06/26/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-26%20at%2010.21.08%20AM.png" alt="">
BVN’s office tower at 480 Queen Street (above) won the Beatrice Hutton Award for Commercial Architecture with the jury praiseing the project for its ‘extensive and generous public realm [that] offers the community and tenants memorable experiences guided by themes including linkages with nearby St John’s Cathedral and topographic metaphors referencing the site’s historic condition’.
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/06/26/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-26%20at%2010.44.45%20AM.png" alt="">
Overall category winners for workspaces included Studio for Indigo Jungle by Marc&amp;Co (above) which received the Hayes and Scott Award for Small Project Architect and BHP Billiton Workplace by BVN which won the G H M Addison Award for Interior Architecture.
Full list of winners:
Commercial Architecture
The Beatrice Hutton Award – 480 Queen Street by BVN
Award – Northlakes Vet Hospital by Vokes and Peters
Award – KDV Golf and Tennis Academy, Gold Coast, Queensland by Shiro Architects Pty Ltd
Commendation – Elements of Byron by Shane Thompson Architects 
Educational Architecture
The Jennifer Taylor Award – Mt Alvernia College Anthony and La Verna Buildings by m3architecture
Award – St Joseph's Nudgee College Hanly Learning Centre by m3architecture
Award – Brisbane Girls Grammar School Research Learning Centre by m3architecture
Award – Guardian Early Learning Centre by BVN
Award – UQ Forgan Smith Building – TC Beirne School of Law and Walter Harrison Library Refurbishment by BVN
Commendation – St Ambrose Primary School by Pat Twohill Designs in association with Twohill and James
Heritage
The Don Roderick Award – Cairns Museum - The School of Arts Building by Total Project Group Architects
Award – The Globe by Brian Hooper Architect and m3architecture (architects in association)
Award – Whitty Building Redevelopment Project by Conrad Gargett 
Interior Architecture
The G H M Addison Award – BHP Billiton Workplace by BVN
Award – Bluesky by Marc&amp;Co
Award – UQ Forgan Smith Building – TC Beirne School of Law and Walter Harrison Library Refurbishment by BVN
Commendation – UQ Chemistry Levels 3 &amp; 4 by m3architecture
Commendation – Brisbane Girls Grammar School Research Learning Centre Interior by m3architecture
Public Architecture
The F D G Stanley Award – Sunshine Coast University Hospital by Architectus Brisbane and HDR Rice Daubney as Sunshine Coast Architects
Award – Anna Meares Velodrome by Cox Architecture
Award – Act for Kids Child and Family Centre of Excellence by m3architecture
Award – The Globe by Brian Hooper Architect and m3architecture (architects in association)
Commendation – Coomera Sports and Leisure Centre by BDA Architecture with Peddle Thorp Architects (Melbourne)
Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations &amp; Additions)
The Elina Mottram Award – Burleigh Street House by ME
Award – Dornoch Terrace House by James Russell Architect
Commendation – Paddington Residence by Kieron Gait Architects   
Residential Architecture – Houses (New)
The Robin Dods Award – Cape Tribulation House by m3architecture
Award – Drury Street by Marc&amp;Co and Baber Studio
Award – Byron Bay House and Studio by Vokes and Peters
Award – Bardon House by bureau^proberts (with PHAB)
Award – Tent House by Sparks Architects
Award – Inverdon House by Chloe Naughton
Award – Mitti Street House by James Russell Architect
Commendation – Whale House by Paul Uhlmann Architects
Commendation – Rocky by Base Architecture
Commendation – Ringrose Residence by Brian Hooper Architect
Commendation – Farrell Street House by James Russell Architect    
Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing
The Job and Froud Award – St Joseph's Nudgee College Bathersby Boarding Village by m3architecture
Commendation – Habitat on Terrace by REFRESH*DESIGN
Commendation – Atria at Hamilton Reach by Arkhefield
Small Project Architecture
The Hayes and Scott Award – Studio for Indigo Jungle by Marc&amp;Co
Award – Taringa Treehouse by phorm architecture + design
Award – The Piano Mill by Conrad Gargett
Commendation – Manshed by Paul Uhlmann Architects  
Commendation – SIPS Residence by Kieron Gait Architects  
Commendation – Harveys Bar &amp; Bistro by Twohill and James  
Commendation – University of Queensland Goddard Building Lecture Room 388 by Shane Thompson Architects   
Sustainable Architecture
The Harry Marks Award – Mt Alvernia College Anthony and La Verna Buildings by m3architecture
Award – 480 Queen Street by BVN
Award – Elements of Byron by Shane Thompson Architects
Award – St Joseph's Nudgee College Bathersby Boarding Village by m3architecture
Award – New World City Design Guide: Buildings that Breathe by Arkhefield with Brisbane City Council + Urbis
Urban Design
The Karl Langer Award – Sunshine Coast University Hospital by Architectus Brisbane and HDR Rice Daubney as Sunshine Coast Architects
Award – Munro Martin Parklands by CA Architects
Commendation – New World City Design Guide: Buildings that Breathe by Arkhefield with Brisbane City Council + Urbis  
Commendation – Walton Stores by Aspect Architects and Project Managers with Newlands Group   
Enduring Architecture
The Robin Gibson Award – St Alban's Bush Brotherhood Church, Cunnamulla by Lund, Hutton, Newell, Black &amp; Paulsen Architects
COLORBOND® Award for Steel Architecture
Award – Ringrose Residence by Brian Hooper Architect 
The Australian Institute of Architects Art &amp; Architecture Prize (QLD)*
Winner – TRYP – Art Hotel by Shane Denman Architects
*Chapter Specific prize, does not proceed to National Level
</body></html>

Winners of the Queensland State Architecture Awards announced

<html><body>
<div id="story-description">
Chinese developer Wanda has unveiled its $1 billion Sydney harbour-front hotel and apartment tower, One Circular Quay.
</div>
The new 60-storey glass and stone residential building has been designed by Kerry Hill Architects.
The Crone Architects and Kengo Kuma Architects-designed five-star hotel will have 28 levels and just 181 rooms.
Wanda International Projects global head of sales and marketing Michael Purefoy said the hotel doors are expected to open in November 2020.
The apartment sales would start this year.
"I think this is a project that is going to generate interest from a global base,” he told The Australian.
The Circular Quay skyline is to be re-imagined with the creation of the five star Wanda hotel, following a collaboration between Australian architecture firm CRONE and Kengo Kuma &amp; Associates to win an international design excellence competition.
It is part of Dalian Wanda’s $1 billion redevelopment of Gold Fields House at 1 Alfred Street, Circular Quay.
The residential tower uses sandstone, green walls and large windows framing views towards the harbour.
“We are extremely proud to be involved with Wanda’s ambitious reimagining of this prominent site in Sydney, working alongside our colleagues in Japan,” commented CRONE design director Sandra Furtado, who led the design team in Sydney. 
“The Tokyo and Sydney teams worked very hard to make this a true design collaboration, and both firms are delighted with the opportunity to work together, as part of a wider team to deliver Wanda’s vision,” she said.
“Our design aspirations for the Wanda Vista hotel required the crafting of a building with a distinct identity, while being mindful of numerous site constraints, the client’s ambition, as well as the City of Sydney’s plans for the surrounding Alfred-Pitt-Dalley-George precinct.”
The hotel’s five star features include a welcoming lobby which extends visually onto Herald Square, a 300-person grand ballroom with views of Sydney Harbour, two levels of restaurants and a rooftop bar with outdoor areas.
“This is a truly international project, giving us a chance to work with our friends in Australia to offer high-quality design for the City of Sydney. We look forward to Dalian Wanda’s intent to work with us to hone the city’s vision and give something great to residents and visitors alike,” added Kengo Kuma.
</body></html>

j.ballantyne1990-6AQqhLzZaK

Wanda's One Circular Quay has 2020 completion date

<html><body>
Architecture and the construction industry in general can quite literally take years off your life. Projects often require many years of design, development and coordination, redesign and further refinement before they come to fruition.

From the moment they are first conceived as a sketch to when the the first of the residents or workers begin moving in and occupying these buildings, several years may have lapsed.

The latest skyscraper approved for Melbourne, which also happens to be the biggest of them all - the 90-storey, 323 metre One Queensbridge - is no different. Developed by Crown Resorts and Schiavello, the soaring tower has been designed by Wilkinson Eyre and Architectus, following their success in an invited design competition featuring other international and local firms.

Urban.com.au's forthcoming interview with Architectus will provide further insight into the specifics of the endorsed design, but today we will focus on its evolution over the last few years.

As a point of reference Melbourne's other 300 metre-plus tower, the now under construction Australia 108 (formerly known by its address 70 Southbank Boulevard) underwent many design iterations before becoming the 319 metre behemoth that has begun its skyward ascent. First mooted in early 2009 at 62-storeys and 208 metres, each subsequent design has superseded its predecessor for height, but not necessarily architecture, over the course of the ensuing eight years.

It will be a further two years before it is finally completed. Curiously during this period the design of the tower's podium has remained largely the same: a framed pergola structure housing a jungle of vegetation.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/australia_108_compilation.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="The design evolution of 70 Southbank Boulevard."><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="183" src="/sites/urban.melbourne/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/australia_108_compilation.jpg?itok=g8iUycR6" title="The design evolution of 70 Southbank Boulevard." width="580"></a>

<figcaption>The design evolution of 70 Southbank Boulevard.</figcaption></figure><h2>A not so long time ago</h2>

For One Queensbridge Street the story begins with Schiavello Group's acquisition of the notorious QBH venue at 1-7 Queensbridge Street in 2010. Sometime in 2011 an image surfaced online of the first concept for the site by Enth Degree Architects (EDA) for a 52-storey residential tower characterised by a podium likened to swiss cheese.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/qbh_tower.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="The first concept for One Queensbridge? Image: Enth Degree Architects"><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="377" src="/sites/urban.melbourne/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/qbh_tower.jpg?itok=7SYHNpu2" title="The first concept for One Queensbridge? Image: Enth Degree Architects" width="580"></a>

<figcaption>The first concept for One Queensbridge? Image: Enth Degree Architects</figcaption></figure>Little by little Schiavello's ambitions for the site grew with the further acquisition of 9-15 Queensbridge Street; along with joint venture partners PDG Corporation, the first application for the site was submitted shortly after. Designed by Bates Smart, the proposal sought the demolition of the existing structures onsite including the former Queensbridge Hotel*, with a 71-storey tower including 592 apartments rising to a height of 276 metres, making it the second tallest building (at the time) after Eureka.

The design was characterised by dual semi-cellular forms merging into a trefoil shaped extrusion sheathed in reflective platinum tinted glazing, atop a fine lattice like podium. A permit was issued for the 71-storey tower by then Planning Minister Matthew Guy in April 2012.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/art353-queensbridge-tower-200x0.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="The initial 71-storey Queensbridge Tower. Images: Bates Smart "><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="273" src="/sites/urban.melbourne/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/art353-queensbridge-tower-200x0.jpg?itok=tCT31_fd" title="The initial 71-storey Queensbridge Tower. Images: Bates Smart " width="580"></a>

<figcaption>The initial 71-storey Queensbridge Tower. Images: Bates Smart</figcaption></figure>Following Schiavello's further acquisition of 7-23 Queensbridge Street, the site was merged into the development which allowed for a tower with larger floor-plates than its predecessor, and thus a third 'cell' was added to the tower, atop an expanded podium footprint.

It was at this point that debate about density and over development on the site really erupted with the approval of The Falls residential tower at 25 Queensbridge Street, nestled snuggly between QBT and Prima Pearl.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/image14_9.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="The revised Queensbridge Tower and the nneigbouring The Falls development. Images: Bates Smart and Bruce Henderson Architects"><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="193" src="/sites/urban.melbourne/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/image14_9.jpg?itok=0QZsPY4S" title="The revised Queensbridge Tower and the nneigbouring The Falls development. Images: Bates Smart and Bruce Henderson Architects" width="580"></a>

<figcaption>The revised Queensbridge Tower and the nneigbouring The Falls development. Images: Bates Smart and Bruce Henderson Architects</figcaption></figure>It was not long before 25 Queensbridge Street was added to the portfolio with the site now extending from Freshwater Place all the way to Prima Pearl encompassing 1-25 Queensbridge Street. This allowed the development and design team to address some of the issues relating to overlooking and proximity to surrounding towers via increased setbacks.

<h2>Enter Crown</h2>

During the course of 2014 Schiavello entered into a joint development agreement with Crown Resorts which would see the site form an extension of the existing Crown Towers and Entertainment Complex, by way of a skybridge over Queensbridge Street. Additionally the design was revised to rise 84-storeys and 308 metres above Southbank, overtaking Eureka and sitting just behind Australia 108.

The proposal included a 400 room five-star hotel in addition to the 626 apartments, along with a glazed lift that extended the full height of the tower's facade. The skybridge, overall size and scale of the development proved to be a sticking point for both Council and planning officers, so it was decided that for the site to be truly considered a project of state significance, which would be exempt from the usual planning process and instead fast tracked, an invited design competition would be held.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/queensbridgetower_crown.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="Crown Plaza? Crown Resorts joined as a JV partner before running a design competition. Images: Bates Smart"><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="188" src="/sites/urban.melbourne/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/queensbridgetower_crown.jpg?itok=lKqmxLF6" title="Crown Plaza? Crown Resorts joined as a JV partner before running a design competition. Images: Bates Smart" width="580"></a>

<figcaption>Crown Plaza? Crown Resorts joined as a JV partner before running a design competition. Images: Bates Smart</figcaption></figure>The design competition was eventually won by Wilkinson Eyre and Architectus, with plans proceeding for a 90-storey, 313 metre tower comprising a 388 room six-star hotel and 680 apartments. Almost six months later this was increased to a height of 323 metres.

On 9th February 2017, seven years since Schiavello acquired the QBH, the tower now known simply as One Queensbridge was given conditional approval by Planning Minister Richard Wynne.

<figure><a class="colorbox colorbox-insert-image" href="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/www.urban.com.au/s3fs-public/pictures/article-images/3366b78cdbb098097cfe7f2b38817cd8.jpg" rel="gallery-all" title="One Queensbridge. Image: Wilkinson Eyre and Architectus"><img alt="" class="image-article-full-width-580px" height="327" src="/sites/urban.melbourne/files/styles/article_full_width_580px/public/pictures/article-images/3366b78cdbb098097cfe7f2b38817cd8.jpg?itok=gi3ZZ0pS" title="One Queensbridge. Image: Wilkinson Eyre and Architectus" width="580"></a>

<figcaption>One Queensbridge. Image: Wilkinson Eyre and Architectus</figcaption></figure>* The interior of the Queensbridge Hotel was gutted during the $12 million redevelopment previously undertaken in 1999 before it reopened and was rebranded QBH. As such it is not protected under a heritage overlay and exists in its current form primarily as a facade.
</body></html>

Laurence Dragomir

All in good time: The evolution of One Queensbridge 

<html><body>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/72966/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
It’s always fascinated me, the place that architecture holds in the public imagination.
I don’t mean that regular people frequently get carried away about buildings, which they generally don’t. I’m talking about the heady, even intoxicating way that architecture as a practice, and architects as practitioners, appear in popular media: on TV, in movies, in books, in toys and games, and increasingly also in art galleries.
The idea of architecture, as a constructive kind of daydreaming, remains strikingly potent in fiction and pop culture. By extension, the idea of architects themselves as feverishly creative individuals, conjuring new worlds into being, remains (sometimes quite literally) seductive.
As a result, if I had a dollar for every stranger who has confided in me (often quite shyly, perhaps a little disappointedly) that they always wanted to be an architect, I would at this moment be retired and lying on a beach.
The construction is almost entirely fantastical. Ask any architect about their actual working life and they will tell another story altogether – albeit one with its own satisfactions and fulfilments.
But the fact that these ideas are fanciful doesn’t diminish their power; and to try and debunk them would anyway be missing the point: they are whimsies, wishful thoughts, romantic reveries. People really seem to want architecture to be this otherworldly, world-making activity. Or maybe they want to believe we live in a world where such wondrous transformations and constructions are possible. Whatever the reason, architects get an awful lot of good press.
(Actually they also get a fair bit of bad press: it’s an eternal irony that architects are on the one hand charged with keeping alive all our most treasured dreams about inspiring places and ways of living, and on the other condemned as out-of-touch prima donna aesthetes who make (ugly) art with other people’s money).
I’ve written about all of these issues before (forgive the shameless self promotion): about how such ideas manifest in childrens’ books and about how the popular conception of architecture seems to link it inexorably with play – framing architectural design as the exercise of childlike creativity; architectural drawings and scale models as dramatic props; architectural instruments as toys; and the work of architects as really a frolic: hardly work at all.
Then, a few weeks back, I saw yet another example of the phenomenon – and it got me thinking again.
Imaginary Architecture
Imaginary architecture was an interactive, “all ages” installation at the Melbourne Arts Centre, which ran for several weeks in January. Conceived by artist Lara Tumak, the exhibition was commissioned by the Arts Centre, following an earlier incarnation developed with ArtPlay – the City of Melbourne’s dedicated children’s cultural centre and program of art workshops.
The installation posed the question, “is it possible to create architecture out of nothing more than dreams?”
Of course in the real world the answer is, emphatically, no. But in the realm of art, and furthermore the realm of fiction and play, of fantastical exploration and imagined occupation, then anything is possible, and architecture becomes an incredibly rich field of conjecture and concoction.
The Imaginary Architecture installation was mounted in the dim downstairs of the Arts Centre, in a space that is as much theatre as foyer, and from the outside it looked like a pile of cardboard boxes. At intervals, mysterious sounds would emerge from within, and coloured lights would flicker and flash. 
A perimeter of large appliance boxes piled up to form a loose enclosing wall, which you entered through a cardboard arch, at the scale of a child, forcing adults to bow their heads. Within, smaller boxes were stepped and stacked all over.
Each of these little boxes had been contributed by a visitor who, having been encouraged to bring a biscuit or cereal or shoe box of their own, could make their own scene inside the box, using art supplies and materials provided. They could then choose to add it to the colony.
Attendees were each given a torch to shine through a specially-made aperture in the top of each box, revealing the scene inside.
The dioramas were inventive, and evidently mostly by children. Some had set a whole house within the box/room, others created outdoor scenes – dinosaur habitats, playgrounds, cemeteries. I saw a pet adoption centre, and a room full of hanging clothes. There were of course many bedroom scenes, with little cardboard kids inside, doing their own things. The attendant told me that some of the most popular had been undersea worlds, and party scenarios.
My own little boy worked diligently to make a paper campsite inside a shoe box - a person sleeping in a tent, under a blanket, while outside a river flowed by. He specified that it was night time, and that there was a “golden night-fish” in the river. It was very serious business.
Working your way around the installation, lining up your torch at the top and illuminating each little interior in turn, was like peering into the windows of innumerable strange and wonderful buildings. But even more than that, it was like peering into other possible realities.
The city as collective space
The installation, unassuming as it was, offered some profound observations.
First was its proposition about urbanity: to me it seemed a new take on showing the human life of a city (as opposed to, say, its infrastructure or built form). It framed the city as a collection of fantastical rooms: as the stacked accumulation of many lives, a colony of people each in their own separate spaces, each engaged in their own pursuits.
Like the lit windows of apartment buildings at night, each box thus represented a life taking place: separate, distant, unknown and yet familiar. This seemed a strangely compassionate vision of cities, of the commonalities of humankind, even alongside its multitudinous, mysterious difference. The vision is humanist without being nostalgic: this is how so many of us now live, in cities, this is how we co-exist in urban space, piled neatly one upon another.
Perhaps one of the reasons that architecture and cities are so frequently appearing in art galleries these days, as an instrument of interaction and “immersive” engagement, is precisely because they represent such collective activity. Like a coral reef or an ant colony, a city is the result of thousands and millions of individual agents, coming together in cooperation.
The interior life, not the exterior form, of architecture
Another refreshing aspect of the installation was its focus on the inner life of architecture – on rooms, and what goes on inside buildings, rather than their external form. With cardboard boxes as literal building blocks, the show was not about “signature” design or buildings as novel sculptural objects.
In this sense it was the opposite of another very popular recent instance of architecture in the art gallery - Olafur Eliasson’s The cubic structural evolution project. That work, recently reprised as part of Queensland’s Gallery of Modern Art’s 10-year celebrations, involves visitors making and remaking a city of white Lego, constructing teetering towers and elaborate, lace-like forms.
I saw that same work at the City Gallery Wellington in their intriguing 2015 show Demented Architecture, and it was amazing to see adults and children alike sitting down, with such commitment and concentration, to build a city together.
But while Eliasson’s work is clearly engaging, and very well loved by public audiences, Tumak’s Imaginary Architecture is another proposition altogether. It is a show about interior space and scenography and human action - the kinds of (both possible and impossible) things that people might conceivably do in a room.
We might even say it was a show about interiority: the quality of insideness that interiors have, and the sense that buildings have a secret and perhaps completely unexpected life going on within, which can rarely be read from the façade.
In this way, the interior becomes a metaphor for imagination itself. The inner life of rooms reflects the inner life of people. Dream homes are not only made from dreams, they are homes for dreams: places where whimsical ideas can take refuge from an increasingly frightening, turbulent world.
Maybe this is why architecture still holds such a particular place in the popular consciousness: it seems to provide a shelter and occasion for the play of the imagination.
Naomi Stead is Professor of Architecture, Monash University and author for The Conversation. She can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/naomi-stead-108029" target="_blank">here</a>. 
 
</body></html>

jchancellor-FAypfDUnLy

Dream homes: Architecture and popular imagination

<html><body>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/69868/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
Peter Corrigan died last Thursday morning, the first day of summer.
He was 77. He had worked as an architect and theatre designer from the early 1960s, and from 1974 with his collaborator and life partner Maggie Edmond. Their partnership saw through a succession of major projects, each with the intensity of a last design, and often bringing storms of controversy. 
Corrigan’s maxim for his many students was simple. As Vivian Mitsogianni has written, it was: lead a life of integrity. For students and architects, the greatest compliment he could pay anyone was to say they had “a commitment to architecture”.
He supported younger musicians, artists, fashion designers, as well as mentoring a generation of architecture students: “these kids need support”.
He was famous for attending every exhibition at RMIT University’s gallery, and he was unswerving in his dedication to RMIT University, being a major factor in its current status as an architecture school. In his architecture history lectures, which often ran for three to four hours and were supported by hundreds of images, he would trace the principles and the lapses of one modern architect after another: they were architects and dramatic characters, with all hopes and disappointments embedded in them. 
Unlike so many Australian architects, who tended to see architecture generated in some overseas metropolis as a dependable standard of excellence, he saw such “centres” as contested and unstable environments. He placed architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn in what was to us an unfamiliar context of American cultural anxiety. Correspondingly, he totally rejected the Australian cultural cringe.
He saw so much through a prism of integrity, and would pull most of us up short if he sensed any backsliding, glossing or easy options. He waged perpetual war on fuzzy thinking; for example challenging the general assumption of Australia’s “suburban wilderness”.
He would be thinking, all the time. In architecture at least, Corrigan did not make a customary intellectual’s progress: from a youthful enactment of someone else’s theory or passion, towards a fixed pattern of thought and certainties that defined their identity. 
He was never a real adherent of any school or movement. Integrity, and in building design a commitment to architecture, was really the only irreducible element.
<h2>Complexity and contradiction</h2>
Corrigan embraced architecture’s complexity and contradiction, rather than the widespread desire in architectural modernism to simplify tasks and to purify form. The modernist movement in the 50s and 60s embraced industrialism and scientism, demanding refined and replicable forms. This led to such absurdities as architects complaining that the Sydney Opera House was flawed because it didn’t offer an industrially reproducible model.
But Corrigan had already rejected this by the early- to mid-1960s, by the time he was producing his first built designs. He recognised, as did an increasing group of architects, that the complexity of modern living often defied refined form and absolute resolution; posing problems and demanding imagery that polished architectural beauty simply ignored.
He became fascinated by the haunted realms of Old Europe after collaborating with Australian director Barrie Kosky on the Dybbuk Trilogy plays in the early 1990s. His Building 8 at RMIT University, the Library and Humanities Building (1991-5) has winding corridors and internal “streets” that echoed Prague or Lviv, or the old Jewish quarters of the Vienna Neubau. 
The lift foyers spoke of the tiles, colours and raucous movement in the concourses of Berlin U-bahn stations, especially in Berlin’s doomed prewar theatre districts. Externally, Building 8 looms over Swanston Street as a great polychrome folly, tumultuously Gothic in bearing (though without explicitly Gothic detailing); capped by canted rooftop “faces” and quoifs in Colorbond steel, animated in colour and facial expression. 
The nearest counterparts are Antoni Gaudi’s houses and apartment blocks in Barcelona: triumphant follies confronting an often grim industrial city. 
Corrigan would constantly crash ideas and architectural themes together, often in oblique, smudged or “momentary” images and glimpses. If he faced an issue, as his friend and early champion Norman Day said, he would circle round it in a kind of spiral: I found this constantly, as he would draw getting closer to the point by telling anecdotes, parables, in a sense.
These stories were mostly of his own and other people’s incredible luck; he never ceased to be amazed by these tales when recounting them himself. During discussions in libraries, pubs or his little office he would associate an immediate issue with a broader point, and illustrate it with a vivid account of some miraculous occurrence.
Among these he would often recall being sacked from a succession of mighty American architectural firms for, as he put it, “inappropriate enthusiasm” and “asking too many questions!” In one instance he was so fired up he started sketching foliage over an exhibition drawing of one of legendary architect Paul Rudolph’s prize projects. Unfortunately, Rudolph was standing behind him at the time. 
This love of storytelling was reflected and supported by his huge library: 3,000 or more books, which which he was invariably generous. When he moved back to his house in his last year, as Maggie Edmond told me, he was reading constantly. 
<h2>Embracing Australia</h2>
Though he lectured on the greatest of modern architects overseas, Corrigan’s crucial guides were often major Australian architects: Frederick Romberg, to whose raw concrete buildings he eagerly took friends; Roy Grounds, long criticised for the monumental expression and the regional referencing in his Victorian Arts Centre. 
I recall how the McCartney house in Kew, 1981, reshaped my own assessment of 1900s Federation architecture. It brought out the diagonal force implicit or latent in so many of Australia’s suburban house plans, and in so doing became an absolutely precarious arrangement of shapes, which are almost quarrelling with each other.
A polygonal tower bumped against a living room wing that cranked round in facets. The hooded upper windows seemed to form a toothy mouth. The main hall was dominated by a massive crystal chandelier – and what was wrong with a bit of domestic aspiration? Were Australian buildings always to know their place in some divine order?
This sense of “movement and energy”, as Corrigan put it, was at the core of Corrigan’s design. Almost all of Edmond and Corrigan’s buildings expressed mobility and with a constant theatrical flourish.
The Athan House (1988), a v-shaped semi-rural residence with an open triangular courtyard in the centre, brought home to me many of these the dramatic possibilities in a completed building. Instead of a continuous veranda around the house, a series of ramps, walkways and bridges almost stutter out into the bush outside.
The house wings doubled back on themselves, and you would see another room through two windows with an external space in between, so the house interior becomes the compressed and half-viewed proximities of inner city apartments. 
Architecture could be loaded with one item after another – the sky was the limit, because good architecture did not always have to be perfected in simplification. 
When I took students to Edmond and Corrigan’s controversial Resurrection Parish, visited by architects and students from all over the world, the Parish school featured the bright 19th-century polychrome stripes of so many Melbourne railway stations or inner suburban terraces. 
He embraced the suburban bungalow and veranda; the Parish church featured bay windows and and a broad, Vatican II nave. A wide veranda is set in a blowsy, slouching curve. 
<h2>Inspiring a movement</h2>
This was now a realm in which Australian architects could now stay home and in Corrigan’s words “bite and fight”: you didn’t have to go overseas to do “proper” architecture. Your duty, he felt, was to stay in Australia, immersed in its particular complexity, and to sort it out here. 
His influence meant that throughout the 70s and 80s young architects would more often stay on in Melbourne and open offices. In contrast, Sydney absorbed bright young architects into established offices, tending to assimilate them into wider and less queried traditions.
Corrigan was a fulcrum in the 1970s to 1990s transformation in Australian architecture, arguably the most radical shift since the Federation period of 1890-1910, or the full surge of architectural modernism between 1930 and 1950. 
In so being, Peter Corrigan was also at the forefront of a new movement of recognisably Melburnian style that emerged in the 90s. Increasingly foreign architects, often bemused, gravitated to Melbourne, lured by the creativity and innovation of the moment.
Despite his strength of feeling for Australia, he spent significant time overseas. There was the United States itself: Corrigan sought out a Yale degree when the almost universal Australian path was toward British training. When he went to Asia it was in the totally unfavoured year of 1963, through Laos, then at war; through Vietnam, soon to be embroiled in war, to Japan – to study Noh theatre.
Despite Peter’s rejection of orthodoxy, he never relinquished one long-standing myth in architectural modernism: the reforming architect as hero. He gravitated to architects who were often isolated or marginalised, but used their designs to project their ideas into the world.
In many senses this idea looked creaky in the 1980s, in part through feminist critique of the notion of “heroes”, in part through the necessary scepticism and caution of historians and critics. 
He wanted so many of his own students to become heroes too, and this was part of the pursuit of integrity. 
From that broad base of intelligence and enthusiasm, it was natural that his great personal quality was generosity – even if it was sometimes alloyed with a lightning-sharp tongue. Those who really disappointed him dwelled in some eternal Coventry. 
As Jennifer Hocking wrote in 1995, there was scarcely a Melbourne architect coming through in the 1970s and 1980s who was not affected in some way by Corrigan’s example. Among overseas friends were Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, Patrick McCaughey and later, after a reconciliation of sorts, Paul Rudolph. 
All these people, and so many more, I sense will gather, and remember. Peter Corrigan was raised as an Irish (though half-German) Catholic, and into this others read all manner of Irishness and wayward madness. 
Architects in both Melbourne and in other cities, who did not see things as Corrigan did, would say, “well, that’s very Melbourne”, or “the Mad Irish were at it again”. 
But in a most surprising way, Corrigan’s constant search had a streak of the dissenting sternness of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress:
"Then fancies fly away, He’ll fear not what men say, He’ll labour night and day, To be a pilgrim."
 
Conrad Hamann is associate professor of Architectural History, RMIT University and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/conrad-hamann-320980" target="_blank">here</a>.
 
</body></html>

Remembering Peter Corrigan: a life of movement, energy and integrity

<html><body>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/66515/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
The Australian Ugliness, architect and critic Robin Boyd wrote in 1960, incorporated the “background ugliness” of Australia’s cities: a suburbia of:
"… unloved veneer villas and wanton little shops, and big worried factories."
These are the kinds of suburban places that in 2016 sell at weekend real estate auctions for six or seven figures. Despite the frequent outcries of today’s residents of “Trendyville”, these buildings are readily converted to fashionable heritage homes, or demolished to make way for new apartment blocks.
Heritage has a history. The kinds of things and places that Australians have preserved and the ways they have gone about preserving them have expanded in recent decades.
This heritage exists not only in museums and galleries or at historic properties and CBD buildings. It also forms part of our everyday urban experiences: located in suburbs and neighbourhoods, along and between streets, among current and former factories, stores, pubs and homes.
<h2>Finding Trendyville</h2>
A place where this heritage history has played out dramatically has been in the inner suburbs of the Australian city.
Why call this place Trendyville? Without a conventional gentry, the term gentrification is arguably historically inappropriate for Australia. So we might instead consider gentrification as trendification, the inner suburbs as Trendyville, and the residents as trendies.
The trendies arrived in the late 1960s. Like hipsters today, few people considered themselves a trendy, except perhaps ironically. More commonly, a trendy was identified by another person based on dress, clothing and shopping bags. 
For urban historians Renate Howe, David Nichols and Graeme Davison, Trendyville evokes:
"… the junction between geography, culture and politics, on the road between memory and history."
The city of memory is a productive way of thinking about urban heritage. It is also a powerful way of tackling the relationship between cities, people and history.
<h2>Before Trendyville</h2>
Until the mid-to-late 20th century, the Australian inner suburbs – New Farm and Subiaco, Carlton and Glebe – were not the desirable places of today. 
The houses, terraces, villas, cottages and other buildings that lined the streets of Trendyville had been built in the 19th and early 20th century. By the post-war period, many of these buildings had become run down, perceived as both unsustainable and contrary to social progress: in need of urban renewal. 
Those people able to do so moved to the then-outer suburbs, and so the inner suburbs experienced population decline. Drawing on North American sociological thinking, Australian urbanists imposed similar “rings” on the nation’s cities. 
These rings included a CBD core for commercial activities, an underdeveloped inner circle, and an aspirational outer suburban circle. Post-war urban planners thought the emptying out of the inner-city – “the doughnut effect” – was inevitable. 
The residential suburbs of the inner circle were identified as transitional zones, assuming that aspiring residents would eventually seek out the outer suburbs. Urbanists designated these seemingly dilapidated areas as slums, to be cleared for comprehensive modern redevelopment
High-rise social housing schemes were built, inspired by French architect Le Corbusier. The results of these policies include the Brutalist Sirius Apartments in Sydney and the 1960s high-rise housing that circles inner Melbourne.
<h2>Heritage in Trendyville</h2>
From the 1960s, the backlash against these inner-suburban clearances was led by the trendies. Not everyone was enraptured by the “white-picket fence” suburban ideal. Following southern and eastern European migrants, students and middle-class professionals moved to the inner suburbs. Other people had never left, witnessing the demolitions around them.
With the assistance of the National Trusts and other sympathetic organisations, the trendies formed resident action groups to advocate for their urban heritage. Their efforts prevented further clearances, whether for modern housing or often freeways.
The union-imposed “green bans” – at places like the Rocks and Woolloomooloo, South Melbourne and Collingwood, Highbury Park, and Fremantle – was another powerful way to intensify this heritage advocacy. 
A particular achievement of the trendies was to redefine the boundaries of heritage. No longer were the things worth preserving limited to, say, grand 19th-century public and commercial CBD buildings or stately suburban mansions.
The trendies transformed Boyd’s “background ugliness” into heritage that warranted preservation. Australia’s residential vernacular, its neighbourhoods, streets and homes, were looked upon with increasing fondness. This occurred amid a shifting mentality toward community building, the environment, sustainability and local amenity.
Drawing on urbanists such as North American Jane Jacobs, heritage preservation became an aspect of community-making. The resident action groups brought people together, and the green bans helped people to claim their right to the city.
<h2>Trendyville’s troubles</h2>
From the 1970s, Trendyville became subject to new heritage laws, which sought to preserve its “historic character”. 
Although these heritage protections were in part intended to give residents a greater say, those responsible for making the assessments were nevertheless heritage experts, often distanced from the communities.
The trendies had arrived at a time when the inner suburbs were still perceived as in decline. The heritage protections had been implemented in response to their aesthetic and historical sensibilities. 
Today, those heritage protections envelope large and sought-after areas of the inner city. With Australia’s population booming, urbanists advocate for greater density. More people will need to live in existing suburbsto make our cities sustainable.
How heritage places are preserved and new places constructed amid living historic environments must be reconciled with these urban and social realities. Striking a balance between heritage, development and the desires of local communities is key. 
What it means to meaningfully preserve Trendyville’s heritage, Australian inner-suburbia, must be rethought for the 21st century. 
After all, as illustrated by recent calls to preserve Sydney’s Sirius Apartments (which were once opposed by heritage advocates) our understandings of heritage are always shifting.
James Lesh is PhD candidate, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies and Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/james-lesh-257650" target="_blank">here</a>.
</body></html>

Preserving cities: how ‘trendies’ shaped Australia’s urban heritage

<html><body><div class="page" title="Page 1">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
GUEST OBSERVER
The announcement by NSW Minister for Planning, Rob Stokes, that an architecture and design policy will be developed to give a focus on design quality is positive, provided a balance between innovation and regulation is achieved. 
Clearly it is better to have good design rather than bad design of the buildings and precincts in urban areas.
While the intent of the policy is good we need to ensure that design does not become a tick the box assessment criteria measured against prescriptive design manuals.
The draft document states that guidelines, standards and manuals will be developed ‘to assist authorities in the assessment of design proposals.’ 
The draft policy document has many worthwhile statements about the importance of design quality but design quality can be a very subjective issue. The draft policy, for instance, says good design is 'local and of its place' as well as being ‘distinctive, visually interesting and appealing’. This raises the issue of balancing local design that fits in with the existing context compared to the one off exceptional design that stands out.
The Urban Taskforce is supportive of the need for design excellence in the built environment particularly as our urban areas become more compact. Currently State Environmental Planning Policy 65 defines design quality through the Apartment Design Guide for buildings above 3 storeys. 
Any new policy must not duplicate the current SEPP.
The role of The NSW Government Architect is supported by the Urban Taskforce as an advocate for design quality across New South Wales. The current Government Architect, Peter Poulet, is chair of the Taskforce’s Development Excellence Awards jury and we are positive about supporting his role.
The most likely way to lift design quality is to ensure the best designers do the work. This is what SEPP 65 does by ensuring qualified architects design apartment buildings over 3 storeys. The use of design excellence competitions with floor space uplift as an incentive are worthwhile and design review panels with a diverse group of reviewers can also help ensure quality.
The Urban Taskforce is keen to work with the NSW Government to develop appropriate approaches to ensuring design quality as cities like Sydney double in size over one generation. Clearly denser cities need to ensure that design quality gives communities a positive sense about both the private and the public built environment. The NSW Government Architect can play an important role in delivering these quality outcomes.
Chris Johnson is chief executive officer of property development industry group Urban Taskforce and can be contacted <a href="https://www.urbantaskforce.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=97&amp;Itemid=126#.Vdaart55dFI" target="_blank">here</a>.
</div>
</div>
</div></body></html>

Architecture

Editor's Picks

Have something to contribute?

Developments

New apartments

New townhouses

News

Architecture

Editor's Picks

Receive the latest news stories to your inbox

Have something to contribute?

Developments

New apartments

New townhouses

News