#WeLiveHere2017 aims to turn inanimate buildings into metaphorical sentient structures, with ‘mood lights’ expressing the feelings of Matavai and Turanga Tower residents about their neighbourhood’s redevelopment.
Nic Walker courtesy of #WeLiveHere2017
Residents of two high-rise public housing blocks are being given 'mood lights' to express how they feel based on their experience of the process of redeveloping their neighbourhood.
A photograph of Penn Station’s interior from the 1930s.
Bernice Abbott
We asked five architecture experts to name one building or structure they wish had been preserved, but couldn't resist the tides of decay, development and discrimination.
At first glance, old industrial sites, like this one in Carrington Street, don’t look like much. But they provide vital spaces for creative precincts to flourish.
Paul Jones
A new project documents who uses urban industrial lands slated for redevelopment. It reveals a vibrant but largely hidden sector at the interface between creative industries and small manufacturing.
Such projects should be clear from the outset about who owns them, who will build them, and who they are for.
Residents of high-density housing might value features such as balconies, but when roads get busy this increases exposure to pollution.
Adam J.W.C./Wikipedia
Many new housing developments are being built along busy roads and rail lines, but lack design features that would reduce occupants' exposure to harmful traffic pollution.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle explains the revised Queen Victoria Market redevelopment, flanked by Planning Minister Richard Wynne and Premier Daniel Andrews.
Joe Castro/AAP
Mixing public and private housing in urban renewal projects can be a contentious business. But public good and optimal use of public resources, not developer interests, should guide such decisions.
Brutal police raids on São Paulo’s so-called ‘Crackland’ have shocked the city and paved the way for redevelopment of this prime piece of real estate.
Paulo Whitaker/Reuters
Luz, a once-elegant 19th-century neighbourhood in downtown São Paulo, is prime real estate. But redevelopment means clearing out a homeless encampment known as "Crackland".
The closure of the Gatwick Hotel means those most in need of shelter have lost another place they could stay.
Darkydoors from www.shutterstock.com
When wealth accumulation becomes the driver of urban regeneration, residents who already have little or no say in the future of our cities are further marginalised by gentrification.
Community murals can rekindle an area’s shared memories and sense of identity.
Photo: Martin Purcell. Reproduced with permission
Over the past 15 years, community groups in a rundown inner-city district have created public murals as part of a successful process of reversing decades of stagnation.
How will it fit in? Every new development should consider the existing neighbourhood character.
Tod Jones
The Melbourne suburb of Richmond is prime inner-city real estate, but the community is paying a price for redevelopment that jars with the existing neighbourhood.
With the addition of minarets, Hagia Sophia was converted from a Christian basilica to an Islamic mosque.
Candace Richards
Adaptive reuse and recycling of heritage architecture may be all the rage, but are not new. Making new buildings from old has a long history in the ancient world.
Interior of the ‘Great Hall’ at the old Fyansford Paper Mills.
Photographer: Donna Squire
Big ideas and big dollars have been invested in making 'memorable' places. Paradoxically, as similar solutions are adapted in diverse settings worldwide, this can lead to an uneasy new placelessness.
Premier Mike Baird (right) has been out promoting the Sydney Metro project, but has yet to explain how the benefits of massive public investment will be shared.
Stefanie Menezes/AAP
Who’ll profit from the value uplift arising from the huge investment of taxpayers’ funds in creating better-serviced, higher-density suburbs? And what will the changes mean for existing residents?
At Tolhuistuin, the government provides the land, old building stock and a maintenance budget for a fixed period while the creatives develop the precinct themselves.
Maurice Mikkers/flickr
When municipal or state governments join forces with smaller creative communities to shape urban regeneration the results can be far-reaching.
The closure of the Myer store would once have been a crippling blow for Fremantle, but now it is a site of new activity and possibilities.
City of Fremantle
The rise in temporary use of urban space requires a looser planning vision that can draw on this new type of city-making to inform longer-term developments.
Public protests forced a backdown on a proposed merger of university art schools, but their value to cities is still being underestimated.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Art schools are emerging globally as very powerful instruments of urban renewal. In a time of transformation, Sydney must learn to tap into the value of having multiple art colleges.
The Queensland government’s interpretation of public housing transfers conflicts with that of Labor colleagues federally and in some other states.
AAP/Dan Peled
