Evelyn Reynolds

Australian speculative architect, filmmaker and BAFTA-nominated producer Liam Young will stage his first solo Australian exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Young’s work imagines the future of cities through images and animated films that prompt audiences to examine urgent environmental questions.
The exhibition includes the Australian premier of Young’s newest moving image work, The Great Endeavour, which is currently showing at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
The work depicts construction infrastructure powered by renewable energy sources, which could be substituted for fossil fuels to prevent vast quantities of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere.

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A still from Liam Young’s The Great Endeavour depicting a desert solar field. Image:

Liam Young

Another animated short film, Planet City, will also be on display. Originally commissioned for the NGV Triennial in 2020, the film portrays an imagined city that houses the world’s entire population – 10 billion people – while the remainder of the planet is allowed to regenerate, recover and return to wilderness.
NGV director Tony Ellwood said, “Operating in the space between fact and fiction, Young’s work presents extraordinary visions of an imagined future that aim to inspire real collective action in our present. With a practice spanning moving image, installation and performance art, Young draws on his extensive network of collaborators – including choreographers, costume designers and global think-tanks – to create spectacular imagined worlds that are very much based in the realms of possibility.”
The exhibition also features photographic works and costumes for Young’s cinematic worlds by Ane Crabtree, the acclaimed costume designer of The Handmaid’s Tale.
These displays imagine clothing in both the world of The Great Endeavour and the 10-billion-person metropolis of Planet City. The latter’s workwear was designed to conceal workers’ racial and gender identities: an effort to foster cooperation and overcome cultural and social differences.
“Young’s exhibition speculates that addressing the climate emergency is no longer a technological problem – it is now a social, cultural, and political one. It offers hope that through creativity and collective action, we can move together towards ecological balance on earth,” said NGV senior curator of contemporary art, design and architecture Ewan McEoin. More

Deborah Ascher Barnstone has been appointed new head of discipline for architecture at the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning. Ascher Barnstone was previously head of school of architecture at University of Technology Sydney. She also held academic positions at Washington State University, Ball State University, Fachhochschule Cologne, and the Boston Architectural Center. She […] More

The Australian Institute of Architects has announced the shortlist for the 2023 National Architecture Awards and among them are 13 houses that have each received awards in their home states. The national jury will be visiting each of these homes to determine which ones will be most deserving of the Robin Boyd Award for Residential […] More

The City of Port Adelaide Enfield will create a new Aboriginal Culture Centre in the heart of the city.
To be located on a riverbank site formally known as Western Region Park Reserve, the centre will create an open space for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people that directly connects to the Yerta Bulti Country of the Port River.
The centre is designed by Ashley Halliday Architects and Wax Design in collaboration with the City of Port Adelaide Enfield, Port Adelaide Enfield Aboriginal Advisory Panel and the local First Nations community.

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City of Port Adelaide Enfield with Ashley Halliday Architects, Wax Design and the Yitpi Yartapuultiku Custodian Group.

The centre will accommodate a range of activities with indoor and outdoor performance spaces, public amenities, offices, meeting rooms and extensive landscaping.
It will also be a culturally safe space to gather, practise, share and record culture and connect with Country.
In August 2022 at a naming ceremony, the centre was given the name Yitpi Yartapuultiku, meaning “soul of Port Adelaide.”
“At the City of Port Adelaide Enfield, we are conscious of our sphere of influence and aspire to be a City that values its diverse community and embraces change through innovation, resilience, and community leadership. This vision can only be fully realized through the strengthening of identity, wellbeing, and sense of belonging for First Nations people in our community,” the council said.
“Our approach to this project over the past two years has allowed for cultural exchange, with Council and Aboriginal Custodians working together to co-design Yitpi Yartapuultiku in a shared and respectful way. It will be a safe and nurturing community place for healing, connection and reconciliation, for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people to learn, experience and be immersed in Aboriginal culture.”
The project received the Planning with Country Award from the South Australian chapter of the Planning Institute of Australia in 2022.
A tender for a principal is underway. The project is anticipated to be complete in 2025. More

Households across Australia are struggling with soaring energy and housing costs and a lack of housing options. Mixed with a climate crisis, economic volatility and social inequality, it’s a potent set of policy problems. Australia needs a circuit-breaker – a bold national project to tackle the climate crisis and support households by shifting to a more sustainable housing industry.
This is a project based on circular economy principles. The emphasis is on reducing materials and resources, optimising building lifespan, designing for reuse and zero waste, and regenerating nature. By getting the most out of finite resources, we can minimise waste and shrink our carbon footprint.
Our research for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) applies these principles to housing. We developed a comprehensive strategy for the sector’s transition to a circular economy. It gives priority to local jobs, access to affordable housing, resilient and functional design, and carbon-neutral, energy-efficient operation.
Solving two problems at once
The circular economy offers answers to the dual challenges of housing affordability and sustainability. These solutions work across households, renters and owners.
Both the climate crisis and the human right to adequate housing demand urgent policy responses. Despite this, new energy-efficiency standards that the nation’s building ministers had agreed would take effect in October this year have since been delayed in a majority of states.
Standards are the key to unlocking the shift needed to deliver housing that is both affordable and sustainable. In combination with fiscal and financial policy frameworks, business support schemes and education and training, the housing industry can develop its capacity to embrace and exceed standards. Australian households and the planet will benefit.
How can Australia lift its game?
Housing policymakers across Asia and Europe are actively pursuing circular economy goals. As a result, Australia can learn from a wide range of circular economy approaches. Using better designs, techniques and materials, we can readily reduce the carbon footprint of our housing.
As the AHURI report details, a step change of comprehensive housing reforms that lead to more affordable housing and energy bills can also deliver greater resilience and social justice. The strategy identifies four areas of reform:

assign a higher value to the sustainability of housing
shift market processes
tilt investment flows by providing incentives for circular housing designs and projects
build the sector’s capacities to deliver sustainable outcomes.

Our research also recognises the specific forms of housing and the supply chains of materials to build them. These forms include residential neighbourhoods and precincts, new and renovated apartments, and social housing.
Internationally, we see a growing number of “eco-precincts” – walkable, sustainable, mixed-use developments. However, these are still seen as niche experiments, individual and not joined together across neighbourhoods.
Australian apartment building standards also leave much room for improvement. Robust and specific regulations to embed the circular economy in the construction, use and reuse of apartment buildings would provide clarity for the industry.
Apartment projects typically involve major developers and lenders. As a result, success with circular economy practices in this part of the housing sector can be a catalyst for adopting them more widely.
And because a high proportion of apartments are rented in Australia, higher energy standards for rental properties can help counter increasing energy poverty.
In social housing, tenant preferences are rarely considered in sustainable retrofits. Circular economy retrofitting delivers benefits for both landlords and tenants, through better design and lower bills.
Energy efficiency and alternative energy technologies have largely driven sustainable retrofit activity in Australia. Less attention has been paid to other circular economy housing priorities. Much more work must be done to extend housing lifespans and ensure passive design as standard practice, drawing on natural sources of heating and cooling such as sunshine and ventilation.
We lack adequate data tracking material stocks and flows through the housing sector, including for retrofits. This applies to both new and recycled/reused materials in the construction and demolition waste streams.
Our analysis shows the use of concrete in housing continues to increase. This means concrete-related emissions are increasing too. Better data systems to track material flows would give us a clearer picture of where to target efforts to reduce embodied carbon in housing.
Towards a national strategy
Radical decarbonisation is needed. It won’t happen without big shifts in practices and materials.
Circular economy housing is a social project as much as a regulatory reform. Success depends on buy-in to the whole process across all levels of government, civil society, private sector and education and training institutions.
Simply relying on market demand to drive the supply of circular goods and services neglects the nature of current supply chains and the weakness of consumer voices. In particular, the one in three households that are tenants have little say in how sustainable their housing is. Stronger partnerships between governments, private developers and local communities are needed to deliver the scale of change required.
The housing industry can step up, with the support of policy incentives, to embrace leading circular economy practice. Housing has a big role to play in the economy-wide changes needed to achieve sustainable use of materials and net-zero emissions.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. More

Entries have opened for the 2024 AA Prize for Unbuilt Work, the only public recognition for unrealised designs in Australia. The jury for the 2024 prize comprises influential industry voices who have been appointed based on their expertise, professional standing and profile. Nigel Bertram is a director of NMBW Architecture Studio in Melbourne, which he […] More

More than 30 Australian projects are among the 495 from across the globe that have been shortlisted in the 2023 World Architecture Festival Awards.
Australia is among the top 10 countries with the most shortlisted projects.
“We are delighted with both the quantity and quality of this year’s entries,” said WAF program director Paul Finch. “They are a reminder in a world experiencing numerous crises that architects continue to address both everyday and unusual challenges with skill and imagination.”
The World Architecture Festival will return to Singapore for the first time since 2015. The shortlisted projects will be judged live in front of various panels of judges. The festival program will also include keynote talks and social events.
The 2023 World Architecture Festival will take place at Marina Bay Sands from 29 November to 1 December.
The shortlisted Australian projects are:
Completed Projects
Creative Re-use
55 Southbank Boulevard – Bates SmartLocomotive Workshop – Sissons Architects, in association with Curio Projects, Buchan and Mirvac DesignThe Greenland Centre – BVN with Woods Bagot
Culture
Melbourne Holocaust Museum – Kerstin Thompson ArchitectsMPavilion 2022 – All ZoneOman Across Ages Museum – Cox ArchitectureTe Pae Christchurch Convention Centre – Woods Bagot in association with Warren and MahoneyThomas Dixon Centre – Home of the Queensland Ballet – Conrad Gargett (now merged with Architectus)
Display
Puffing Billy Railway Visitor Centre – Terroir
Health
Murrenda Residential Aged Care Home – STHVictorian Heart Hospital – Conrad Gargett (now merged with Architectus) and Wardle
Higher Education and Research
Boola Katitjin – Lyons with Silver Thomas Hanley, Officer Woods, The Fulcrum Agency and Aspect StudiosUniversity of Melbourne Student Precinct – Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture, NMBW Architecture Studio, Greenaway Architects, Architects EAT, Aspect Studios and Glas Urban
Hotel and Leisure
Delatite Cellar Door – Lucy Clemenger ArchitectsIron Creek Bay Farm Stay – Misho and AssociatesThe Jube – Blight Rayner Architecture
House and Villa
Concrete Curtain – FGR Architects
Housing
Liv Munro – Bates Smart
Office
Heritage Lanes 80 Ann Street – Woods BagotKew Office – Kavellaris Urban Design
Religion
Macquarie Park Cemetery Mausoleum of the Holy Way – GW
School
Alexandria Park Community School – TKD ArchitectsLibrary and Innovation Centre, Abbotsleigh Junior School – AJC ArchitectsThe Centre for Science and Art, Abbotsleigh Senior School – AJC ArchitectsWurun Senior Campus – GHD Design and Grimshaw
Sport
Allianz Stadium – Cox ArchitectureSt Margaret’s Girls School Sports Hub – Blight Rayner Architecture
Transport
Lilydale and Mooroolbark Railway Stations – BKK Architects, Kyriacou Architects, Jacobs, Aspect Studios
Glenroy Station – Genton and MALA Studio
Future Projects
Commercial Mixed-Use
Lighthouse at Darling Park – Henning Larsen, Architectus
Education
Resource Recovery Learning Centre – Terroir
Health
Alexandria Health Centre – Warren and Mahoney
Infrastructure
Metro Tunnel Project – Hassell, Weston Williamson and Partners, and RSHP
Leisure-led Development
Mallanganee Lookout – Terroir
Office
55 Pitt Street – Woods Bagot and Shop ArchitectsFulcrum – Bates SmartWarada on Walker – Woods Bagot
Landscape
Gardens, Parks, Ecological/Environmental
Delprat Cottage and Garden – Bosque Landscape Architecture / School of Architecture and Built Environment More

The New South Wales government has unveiled the winning design for a 1.85 hectare park on the foreshore at Central Barangaroo.
First Nations-led consortium Akin, which comprises Yerrabingin, Architectus, Jacob Nash Studio, Studio Chris Fox and Flying Fish Blue, with Arup as engineering consultants, has been named winner of an open design competition launched in December 2022.
The winning design features nature play for all ages and abilities, a 6,000-capacity event lawn for hosting community and cultural events and winding pathways to explore.
The design honours the long and deep history of the Gadigal people and showcases First Nations design methodologies. The Country-led design supports regenerative ecology, natural systems, drawing insects, birds and other fauna.
The landscape will be planted extensively with a variety of endemic grasses. Native trees such as Sydney red gum, casuarina and cabbage tree palm will provide canopy cover, and a series of interactive waterways and ponds will collect and filter water through the landscape before it returns to the harbour.

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The winning design for Barangaroo Harbour Park by Akin (Yerrabingin, Architectus, Jacob Nash Studio, Studio Chris Fox and Flying Fish Blue, with Arup). Image: Akin

The design also includes a series of significant public art installations that will become places for exploration, play, education, shade and celebration. The artworks reference natural elements of water, wind and moon (or “vessels”) that have special significance in Indigenous knowledge systems.
The water vessel, which will become the connection point to the harbour and a place for gathering and ceremony, will be made from timber, referencing pre-settlement campfires that burned along the harbour. The artwork will frame Me-Mel Island/Goat Island, which is the largest island in the harbour and was recently transferred back to the local Gadigal people. It will be a significant cultural landmark for Traditional Custodians.
The wind vessel will be located at the windiest corner of the site to capture the westerly winds each morning, giving “voice” to them.
The moon vessel will feature an oculus and a lined underside that reflects the tidal waves of the harbour. It will be located at the west-facing end of the site – a landscape that “never sees the dawn.”

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Annotated plan of Barangaroo Harbour Park by Akin (Yerrabingin, Architectus, Jacob Nash Studio, Studio Chris Fox and Flying Fish Blue, with Arup). Image: Akin

The design team will consult with community to further refine the design.
“We are incredibly honoured and humbled to be part of such a defining public project, weaving together the threads of landscape, art, and architecture,” said Yerrabingin founder and CEO Christian Hampson.
“For us, this is much more than a park – it’s a place for us to celebrate an enduring culture and to move with Country, acknowledging and experiencing our collective past and present while dreaming of our future. This design is a new chapter connected to the most ancient of stories, carved in the Sydney sandstone: the story of Country and of us, its people.”
“Our design is a new chapter connected to the most ancient of stories, carved in the sandstone of Sydney: the story of Country and of us, its people. We hope this new chapter inspires all our young people, fanning the embers inside them into a fire as the future artists, architects, designers, and engineers of our cities and our nation.”
Jessica Hodge, landscape architect and urban designer at Yerrabingin, added, “This project represents a symbolic shift in the landscape architecture and design culture of Sydney. It’s significant, city-shaping work led by an entirely local team, with a scheme built upon First Nations knowledge and a deep respect for Country. Setting a new benchmark for design and process, the landscape architecture unifies all elements, including art and architecture, with a shared objective of elevating Country and ultimately creating a place for all kin.”
The Harbour Park at Barangaroo will be part of a 14-kilometre continuous harbourside walk from Glebe to Woolloomooloo.
“Barangaroo Harbour Park will generate for Sydney a public place like no other: a city-scaled platform positioned on the Harbour’s edge, where a Country-led, layered landscape will positively contribute to a deeper understanding of First Nations people, culture, and knowledge,” said Architectus principal Luke Johnson. More