Assemble Papers

26/06/2024

Tuatahi – meaning ‘The First' – marked the start of Ockham's housing collaboration with Marutūāhu Iwi.

With 119 apartments close public transport options and including community infrastructure, this project highlights an approach to housing - both in terms of density and engagement - that’s missing in the city’s inner suburbs. Since 2023, this partnership has delivered 550 inner-city apartments, including 199 KiwiBuild homes.

Talking future expectations of First Nations and Māori engagement in a more compact city setting, enter the chat between Ockham’s Tania Wong and Assemble’s Andy Fergus. Click the link below or in our bio.

https://bit.ly/3xJpcEN

16/06/2024

Unpacking a more compact city setting with Trans-Tasman neighbours in our latest Radical Renewal story.

Together in conversation, Ockham Head Architect, Tania Wong, and Assemble’s Head of Urban Design, Andy Fergus, discuss and deconstruct the need for considered urban densification both in New Zealand and Australia, the challenges of the next steps, and its future potential.

Join the conversation with the link in bio or below - and don’t forget to add your two cents in the comments.

Cover image by Patrick Reynolds.

 
https://bit.ly/4b2uHfi

16/06/2024

Looking forward by looking back, what does the future hold for the Birrarung Marr and Narrm?

Non-fiction writer, researcher and creative practitioner of Ballardong Noongar heritage, Timmah Ball, speculates a future where Indigenous design and care for Country contributes to the future of our cities and helps to answer the climate catastrophe we’re faced with today.

With images by Jacinta Keefe, read Timmah’s reflective piece from our Radical Renewal series, now live on our website. Experience now with the link below or in our bio.

https://bit.ly/3VqqMmT

12/06/2024

Discover the possibilities and pressure points of urban regeneration in our new series Radical Renewal.

This 10-part series shines a light on the evolution of our cities through local and international voices. Exploring the past, present and future of inner-urban pockets, we ask the question: as transformation in our cities accelerates, what gets taken forward and what gets left behind?

Radical Renewal is now live and yours to experience via the link in our bio or below. As always, we encourage you to read, share, debate.

https://bit.ly/3XjujWC

What might our cities and neighbourhoods look and feel like in a decade’s time? Our series ‘Radical Renewal’ shifts this question beyond its usual remit of city planners and futurists to voices from diverse contexts and fields. Its title nods to the intensive designing, regulating and construc...

06/06/2024

From green rooftops to former stockyards, stroll Narrm’s gardens initiatives in the latest from our Radical Renewal series.  
 
Inner-urban community gardens provide tremendous environmental, physical and psychological benefits – but how can we introduce and prioritise these initiatives in our future cities?  Follow writer and food experimentalist Quincy Malesovas as she discovers the impact that Narrm’s community gardens provides it members and surrounding communities.   
 
One of the first stories in our 10-part Radical Renewal series, take a walk and experience these urban food bowls for yourselves. Read the full story with the link below or in our bio.  
 
Words by , Images by . 
 
https://bit.ly/3KxcJqI

06/06/2024

Reflections on the future of Wurundjeri waterways from our new Radical Renewal series.  
 
Timmah Ball, a non-fiction writer, researcher and creative practitioner of Ballardong Noongar heritage, explores the way in which meaningful Indigenous design and approach to climate resilience can contribute to our future cities, and how these considerations allow us to move forward by first looking back. 
 
Words by and images by . Experience the latest story from our new Radical Renewal series - it’s live today!

Read on with the link below or in our bio. 
 
https://bit.ly/3xd2ch9 
 

02/05/2023

How can we redesign a more equitable housing system? Come along and join discussions at Assemble Papers presents ‘Redesigning the Housing System’ as part of National Gallery of Victoria

As a response to this year’s guiding theme of ‘design the world you want’, we’re gathering some of our country’s most innovative voices in housing to discuss how we can bring about equitable systemic change. In conversation with leading experts, the public and our readers, we’re looking to understand what it will take to ensure financially viable, climate-ready and well-designed housing for more Australians – and how we can achieve this within our current system.

When: Thursday 25 May 2023 at 6 pm to 8 pm
Where: Cassette Kensington, 399 Macaulay Road
Who: Moderated by Sophie Rzepecky, Editor at Assemble Papers, joined by Mary Delahunty, Head of Impact at Super Housing Partnerships, Jeanette Large, CEO and Company Director at Women's Property Initiatives, Charlotte Dillon, General Manager of Housing at YWCA Australia, Stephen Woodlands, Founder and Managing Director at Head Start Homes.

We’d love to see you come along to this free event for food, brews and important discussions on how we can reengineer a fairer housing future. Find out more event information with the link below.

Image by Tom Ross

https://bit.ly/designweek-melbourne

This event is part of Melbourne Design Week 2023, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the NGV.

16/02/2023

In March 2022, Melbourne was ranked the fifth least affordable city in the world, with median house prices around 12x the median household income.

Yet despite this growing need for housing, even our current public housing stock may not be around for much longer. Public housing estates in Victoria have been earmarked for a costly, long-winded process of displacing residents and the communities they’ve built, and demolishing and constructing new buildings to replace them.

OFFICE have conceived a different way of doing things: their 'Retain, Repair, Reinvest' strategy proposes a way to refurbish existing public housing to current standards, minimising the impact on current residents and retaining the social, communal and heritage value of what’s there.

Learn more about the benefits of working with what you’ve got in Assemble Papers' latest housing editorial. Click the link below or in our bio for more.

Words by Miriam McGarry. Images By Ben Hosking.

https://bit.ly/advocating-for-an-alternative

In March 2022, Melbourne was ranked the fifth least affordable city in the world, with median house prices sitting at 12 times the median household income.1 At the same time, demand for homelessness services and assistance in gaining access to stable housing continues to increase, with approximately...

16/02/2023

‘It takes a village to sustain a productive society. Right now, it takes a village of women spread all over the world, most alone, isolated. Well, let’s put them together and make something happen.’ Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao.

In the inaugural MECCA X National Gallery of Victoria Women in Design Commission, Bilbao and her explore themes of unseen domestic labour, gender and community in her installation ‘La ropa sucia se lava en casa’ (Dirty clothes are washed at home).

In the latest editorial for Assemble Papers, Ingrid Langtry speaks to Bilbao about the role of the architects and the built environment in forming social connections, communities and home. Click below or head to the link in our bio to read.

https://bit.ly/tatiana-bilbao

In La ropa sucia se lava en casa (Dirty clothes are washed at home), the 2022–23 MECCA x NGV Women in Design Commission designed by Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao and her studio for the National Gallery of Victoria, Bilbao subverts the domestic space to raise conversations about unpaid labour, g...

20/12/2022

In Australia, heatwaves are one of our most dangerous natural hazards. But rather than simply turning to air con, how can we design better buildings to deal with the heat? 

Over in Los Angeles, Sam Bloch turns to a Richard Neutra-designed mid-century icon for inspiration: the L.A. County Hall of Records. 

The building features vertical shade louvres: full-height, mechanical fins that help manage the heat hitting the windows. But today, they lie broken and bolted open, turning what should have been an exemplar of environmental design into an energetic sinkhole.

“Restoring the louvres would be a significant investment [...] but the county would likely make back that upfront cost in operational savings within a few years,” writes Sam Bloch. 

How else can louvres and shade improve urban environments? Click the link below or in our bio to read our final editorial for 2022.

Words by Sam Bloch. Images and video by Monica Nouwens. 

https://bit.ly/lourves-in-la

11/08/2022

Who do you think is making the most impact in solving homelessness? Comment and tag below to win tickets to this eye-opening documentary premiering at '22.

As Australia’s housing crisis deepens, the Margot Robbie–narrated documentary 'Under Cover' shows us the fastest-growing social group facing homelessness: women aged over 55. From domestic violence survivors to displaced immigrants, Under Cover introduces us to the faces of this growing cohort suffering in silence due to mounting housing insecurity in Australia.

Shout out your chosen combating homelessness to spread the good word about their charitable work - and win one of three double passes to any upcoming features as well.

T and Cs - the winners must be Victorian-based and will be notified Friday morning.

                 

09/08/2022

Fancy a double pass to ? Comment your favourite still-standing or lost Melbourne landmark to score free seats.

From Cannes prize winners to local comedies, the 70th annual returns with an expansive programme of 250 features across the city Melbourne and regional Victoria. We've got tickets to give away to your choice of feature film across this years festival.

To celebrate the premiere of 'The Lost City of Melbourne - a locally-made documentary celebrating and commiserating Melbourne's heyday of 1950's picture palaces - we'd like you to name your favourite piece of Melbourne for your chance to score one of three double passes to any feature.

Whether its forever lost or a still-standing monument, comment your answers below! The answers that makes us smile, cry or reminisce will win.

T and Cs - the winners must be Victorian-based and will be notified Friday morning.

Pictured: Padua Cinema that once stood at the top of Sydney Rd. Brunswick from 1937-‘82.

03/08/2022

Women over the age of 55 are the fastest growing cohort of potential homelessness in Australia, with over 400, 000 women at risk of having no place to call home.

Written by Jane Gilmore, this archival piece bears even more relevance today as housing insecurity and homelessness for older women becomes even worse, thanks to factors such as shortages in affordable housing, an ageing population and significant gender pay gaps.

August 1-7 is Homelessness Week in Australia, and a chance to remember that everyone deserves the right to safe, stable, adequate housing. Revisit this piece on calculating the cost of womanhood by clicking the link below or in our bio.

Pictured above is a poster created by artist Mary Leunig in 1987 as an illustrative reminder that homelessness can happen to anybody, women and children included.

https://bit.ly/3vtTGX9

29/07/2022

How can architects and communities work together for a deeper, more constructive path to recovery?

In the aftermath of the 2019-2020 bushfires in Australia, .madabhushi headed to Gunaikurnai Country to co-design with the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation.

'Fracturing the design process in order to co-create and ensure that all “owners,” beyond only the fiscal ones, legitimately benefit from the work, felt like the most responsive way to operate,' she writes for .

Read more through the link below or in our bio.

https://bit.ly/3JbngGs

28/07/2022

From 2011-2015, turned parts of East London into the Canning Town Caravanserai.

"Conceived as a place of succour and exchange, we described the project as a Caravanserai after the inns that lined the ancient silk-trading routes through Asia and Europe. These hostelries were lively meeting places, where travellers sought refreshment, shelter and entertainment, and traded goods, knowledge and ideas," write Ash Sakula Architects on their website.

The project's success as part of a strategy to make use of space that would be temporarily available before and after the London Olympics in 2012 means that 'meanwhile use' has now entered planning policy guidance in London.

So how else can vacant space form an integral part of our cities?

Read more through the link below or in our bio

https://bit.ly/3vjZBOg

20/07/2022

When the smoke clears after a bushfire and it's time to rebuild, can we rethink 'build back better' to address the historical trauma of centuries past?

From Black Saturday to the 'Megafire' of 19-'20, those who live on the continent of Australia are no strangers to reconstruction, but the immediate recovery response often focuses on top-down, state-led efforts to build homes.

Yet as architect and Innovation Fellow 2020-21 Nikhila Madabhushi writes for Assemble Papers, 'There is a counter narrative to recovery that is all too often masked by the dominant story. [...] It is simplistic to replace a building that has been burnt down with another one.' How can disaster efforts be a chance to change the modus operandi, and respond to more than just material loss?

Read more of Nikhi's reflections as an architect responding to the bushfires on Gunaikurnai Country (East Gippsland) via the link below or in our bio.

Images by Lisa Roberts and Nikhi Madabhushi.

https://bit.ly/3B3ZslV

 

19/07/2022

As of 2021, more than a third of Australians nearing retirement age still have a mortgage.

Over the last 20 years, there has been a 15.5 percent increase in those aged 55 to 64-years-old who still have mortgages still to pay off — a statistic that reinforces growing concerns around elderly Australians. With homeownership typically being the backbone of retirement in Australia, what will the twilight years look like for generations to come who increasingly look like they may not have stable housing to fall back on?

Revisit our excerpt of Sibling Architecture's study 'New Agency: The future of dwelling and ageing', the culmination of three years of research into prospective models of housing that could benefit our elders today and tomorrow, on .

Hit the link below or in our bio for more.

https://bit.ly/3coQEfY

14/07/2022

Worth protecting? The off-form concrete facade of Cardigan Street Car Park, Carlton.

Recently, this 1970s car parking structure that previously served the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne was recommended for inclusion in a local Heritage Overlay. Some say the 'robust and bold' façade with unique grain-of-wood formwork is worthy of retention, whilst others think extending protected status to car parks is a ludicrous idea, to say the least.

Are car parks worthy of heritage status? And if so, what will we do with them in a future that needs us to be less car-dependent?

Read Sam Holleran's latest piece for on the future use of car parking structures. Link below or in our bio.

https://bit.ly/3cd4bHD

       

08/07/2022

Key to Melbourne's reputation as a creative hub are spaces like the heritage-listed Nicholas Building, a 'vertical village' of artists, in the heart of the city's CBD.

Recently, it was announced that the building will be sold to a local investment firm, who, tenants are hoping, will preserve the building's existing dynamic.

"The continuation of the building’s hundred-plus creative spaces isn’t just about preserving cultural heritage; it ensures that the city remains a place not just for the enjoyment of art, but an environment where artists and makers can live and work, too," writes Sam Holleran on Assemble Papers.

Meet some of the tenants, and read more about the Nicholas Building and why cities need spaces like it through the link below or in our bio.

Images by Krystal Torre.

https://bit.ly/3NSBv3Q

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04/07/2022

How are you participating in this year's in your city?

Swipe over for events across Melbourne this or visit the link below for this year's full program.

Above: Reko Rennie’s ‘Remember Me’ in North Fitzroy. Photo by Tom Ross.

https://bit.ly/3nDvH3i

30/06/2022

From Yellowstone to northern Bangladesh, major flooding events are becoming more frequent and more destructive than ever – and so is the number of people displaced by weather-related disasters.

After the floods that hit Australia’s east coast this year, Sama Balson, Byron Shire councillor and founder of non-profit housing group Women’s Village Collective, said: “We need to change the language: This is not a ‘one-in-500-year flood’. This is nature, and nature has its own ideas. We need to be realistic about the climate impacts and we need to be preparing for them.”

In the aftermath of disaster, communities often come together in solidarity, helping each other solve issues like: how do we house those left displaced in the short and long term?

Revisit the words and images from Annette Lin on the ground in Lismore and Mullumbimby earlier this year.

Read on with the link below or in our bio.

https://bit.ly/3I0wViG

28/06/2022

After 10 years of residency in the Nicholas Building, illustrator relishes the unstructured nature this community of creatives has offered.

‘We have no board, no charter, and no formal agreements of any kind… you’d think this arrangement would be a shambles but it’s the opposite,’ she says.

Artists communities, like those that occupy the Nicholas Building, have a long history of informality. Could too much of a focus on their potential as ‘job creators’and ‘tourism drivers’ drain them – and their cities – of their vitality?

Read more in ’s latest piece for Assemble Papers.

Words by Sam Holleran. Images by Krystal Torre.

https://bit.ly/3QkWDSM

16/06/2022

What do you do with an emptying city that has lost a quarter of its population in less than 15 years?

In Halle Neustadt, once a thriving city in East Germany, turned an empty high-rise into a hotel and festival. Prototyping the building's transformation from empty office to community resource through temporary use, their intent was to create long-term repercussions for the vacant building's future.

How else can urban designers, planners and practitioners take advantage of cities in flux? Find out more in Mel Dodd’s latest editorial for

Link below or in our bio.

https://bit.ly/3NZ9KYe

14/06/2022

The International Social Housing Festival '22 begins today in Helsinki, Finland.

Leading housing providers, developers, and social and public housing actors from across the globe will converge over the next three days to explore and interrogate three main concepts: quality of housing as quality of living, affordability and sustainability in housing, and the right to housing for all.

It's clear why Finland was chosen to host: taking a ‘Housing First’ approach, it is the only European Union country where homelessness is currently falling. Learn more about their approach in our archives, as Cat McGauran speaks to Juha Kaakinen, CEO of Y-Foundation, Finland’s largest non-profit housing provider.

Link below or in our bio.

https://bit.ly/3QkzvDS

13/06/2022

Don’t miss the at the Nicholas Building – a space to celebrate its namesake’s belief that ‘every person is an artist.’

“We are a not-for-profit art gallery and education space showing the multiple works of German artist Joseph Beuys who believed, as human beings, we all have the potential (responsibility) to be creative in our chosen field,” says Ian George, curator and owner of Joseph Beuys Café.

Read more about the Nicholas Building and how it has contributed to Melbourne’s creative landscape through the link below or in our bio.

Words by Sam Holleran. Images by Krystal Torre.

https://bit.ly/3QkWDSM

10/06/2022

The percentage that evictions rose from 2020 to 2021, as reported by the newspaper El Sol de México.

Though it may be still too early to confirm this data, according to Habitat International Coalition’s Maria Silvia Emanuelli, in real terms, the percentage could be even higher: that data only tracks those with formal rental contracts, who only make up 49 percent of the population.

The reasons behind these housing struggles? Follow Ann Deslandes on the ground in Mexico City as she delves into how gentrification and financialization have impacted local housing – and what can be done about it.

Hit the link below or in our bio for more.

Images by Ana Paula Álvarez

https://bit.ly/3aKazVY

08/06/2022

How can we radically rethink the way housing works in Australia in favour of the elderly?

Increasingly, people are spending more of their income on housing, particularly as housing prices are rising much quicker than the average wage growth. This has contributed to a lack of affordable housing for people right now and as they age into the future, particularly for those who currently do not own a home.

It is clear that the future of ageing tomorrow will be very different than today if the current trend continues.

So what models of housing can benefit our elders today and tomorrow? From build-to-rent to Swiss cooperative models, read our excerpt of Sibling Architecture’s report ‘New Agency: The future of dwelling and ageing’ by tapping the link below or in our bio.

https://bit.ly/3tqByfJ

05/06/2022

Tattoo artistry at the heart of the Nicholas Building

With walls covered floor-to-ceiling in ink-spiration art and the studio filled with the gentle humming of tattoo guns, you know you’ve arrived at the vibrant studio space of the expierenced Heart & Soul team – Brian Graydon and T.J. Day.

‘[It’s] a beautiful, historic building with lots of interesting stuff going on, it is such a significant cultural landmark, its great to be a part of it.’ BT.J. Day at Heart & Soul Tattoo Studio

Acquiant yourself with the creatives of the Nicholas Building and the importance of preserving these artistic enclaves.

Words by Sam Holleran. Images by Krystal Torre.

https://bit.ly/3xiy4hA

01/06/2022

Kick off Pride month by q***ring your bookshelf with ‘Queer Spaces: An Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places and Stories,’ a compendium of spaces where q***r people have found ways to exist and be together around the world.

Published by books, the book “provides a grounding, a canon and an accessible history for young architects and designers who wish to design in a q***r manner consonant with their community and identity, and who are interested in q***r themes,” says one of the book’s co-editors .

The book features histories and stories from a community of contributors, including long-time friend .

Available now. Order your copy with the link below.

https://bit.ly/3ag5YdK

***rspaces ***rplaces ***rpride ***rarchitecture