The year started with Tone on Tuesday, morphed into Design Notes and finished as design-i. A change in nomenclature, but no loss of focus on the topics traversed in design and politics. 

Here's a summary.

Housing and politics 

The most dominant issue in Australia for the last two years has been housing costs, whether rental or purchasing, and its contribution to the cost of living. We found a housing minister who didn't build a single house; and failing housing policies.

One of the key aspects of understanding housing is that we need to get more architects and planners involved and less economists as we canvased. In this short, pithy piece

Albanese failure to live up to his log cabin story and his desire to cash in his investment properties to buy a ridiculously poorly designed holiday house at Copacabana, and we offered alternatives.

And while on Albo, we wrote why his suggestion for more housing on Parramatta Rd won’t work – we tried, and tried.

Social housing

We presented several recipes for better social housing. One was a didactic list. Another was a single diagram for sustainability. One was an examination of homelessness. And one diagrammed how low-rise apartments, already the most sustainable form of dwellings, could be made more sustainable, and appropriate for social housing.

Housing design by diagram

Speaking of diagrams, there was a special two-part series on housing policies: firstly in six, easy to digest, diagrams. Following, we showed how social housing could be better understood. 

Climate: Reduction VS resilience

At the same time climate issues were raised at COP 29, we suffered a reversal of fortune as the warming exceeded 1.50C. We are no longer designing to change the climate, but now designing for a changed climate. 

The Pattern Book Design Competition

We took a long hard look at pattern books this year from the beginnings of patterns, particularly as that supported by Christopher Alexander's research to the idea of patterns in housing, to why they just don’t work as promoted, to the pattern book design competition in NSW, and it said with some poor outcomes.

Three-storey walkup flats

Much of the year was taken up our study of the 3 storey walkup flats. Firstly a review of their history and what we can learn from them. Then a hymn of praise for 3 storey walk-up flats, the most sustainable, most desirable and most affordable of housing solutions. Before making some observations of the winners, and presenting some designs of our own. And lastly, why they're never allowed.

Prefab

On the one hand, prefab has a rotten reputation and is being discouraged by the NSW Building Commissioner, on the other prefab holds out so much hope. We asked, is it prefab or pre drab? 

Electrification

Much has been written about the desirability to turn away from gas and fossil fuels towards electric power, but there are stumbling blocks in electrification, which were covered in this short essay. And for suburbia we revisited the issue of 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2,  as a form of planning for electrification in the city.

The Grenfell Tower

Many argued that the Grenfell Tower highlighted disasters could befall high-rise living in Australia. It couldn’t and won’t as we explained here, given our excellent building codes. But that didn’t stop the nutters espousing the misinformation. The Grenfell Tower could never happen in Australia. Full stop.

Olympics

The Olympics prompted a review of the Parisian villages, both old and new, which led to a review of Australia's Olympic villages, one in Melbourne which has faded in memory; one in Sydney which aimed only for bronze; and a putative one in Brisbane to inject density into a much needed part of Brisbane. 

And finally, the buzz

We got caught up in Taylor Swift mania, but we were very down on Barnaby Joyce.

Thanks for the support and let’s hope next year there a lot less fighting in someone’s house.

design-i #10, 18 Dec 2024. Researched and written by Tone Wheeler, architect / Adjunct Prof UNSW / President AAA. The views expressed are his. design-i is a new column that replaces Tone on Tuesday. Old ToT columns can be found here, and you can still contact TW at toneontuesday@gmail.com.