Much of our public housing stock is ageing and substandard. But we can learn from outstanding examples of retrofit projects that have transformed existing blocks into high-quality housing.
Public housing renewal often aims for a 70:30 private-public mix of dwellings. Modelling shows applying this mix to Waterloo housing estate would cut the suburb's social housing share from 30% to 17%.
Community projects play a vital role in city life.
The Crown Casino rising over the Barangaroo precinct on Sydney Harbor was approved without a competitive tender or public planning assessments.
Paul Braven/AAP
Overseas, city-shaping mega-projects are generally overseen by local government, but in Australia state governments often step in and exclude council and community representatives from the process.
Greater Dandenong Civic Centre was completed in 2014 with new council chambers, a library and Harmony Square.
Photo: Hayley Henderson
A major investment in renewing the urban centre of Dandenong is starting to pay dividends. But while research has found three keys to success, the benefits haven't reached everyone.
It was once seen as a public menace – now, skateboarding is a global sport that empowers young people to improve their cities.
Sydney’s Darling Harbour: popular but noisy and expensive. Here’s how we could do better to provide a safe place to work and play.
from www.shutterstock.com
Rob Roggema, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen
Cities around the world are redeveloping their waterfronts to be accessible and resilient to the effects of climate change. Here's where Sydney's Darling Harbour went wrong and what we can do better.
Canberra’s Civic is home to a high concentration of knowledge workers.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Canberra is growing as fast as anywhere in Australia. It's driven by a knowledge economy that is transforming the city centre but is also displacing poorer residents.
Heavy traffic in Lagos, Nigeria.
EPA/Ahmed Jallanzo
Universities teach students and produce research -- but do they have responsibility to engage with the communities that surround them? Two university presidents explain why their answer is an emphatic yes.
A car is set alight during the 2005 riots that prompted soul-searching in France about segregated and badly designed housing projects.
A.J./Wikimedia
Planning matters. The 2005 riots in France started in badly designed housing projects, while innovative planning helped Medellín, Colombia, shed its reputation as the most violent city in the world.
Flint, Mich., has one of the highest crime rates in the country for a city of its size. One neighborhood has found a novel way to fight back.
Carlos Osorio/AP Images
Crime is way down in one Flint, Michigan, neighborhood, where locals have teamed up to revamp neglected public spaces. Here, why 'busy streets' can prevent violence and save cities money.
The design for Paris Rive Gauche incorporates a mix of uses and access to green spaces.
Paris Rive Gauche/SOA Architects
Many cities could learn from Dundee, which overcame industrial decline to become a UNESCO City of Design, with a shiny new cityscape to match
#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.