Gall Architects

23/11/2016

BIG THINKING, SMALL HOUSING.
I'm tired. Getting to the frantic end of another year of ...adventures.
Tired of hearing the same conversation about housing, sustainability, design etc, etc.
Tonight there was a presentation of QUT students' optimistic, practical and thoughtful work about beautiful small housing that made a pleasant and attractive place to live. It was, for all intents and purposes, stamped into the ground by boring conventionalists rediscovering/re-stating the issues, making the the same opposing arguments and frowning about the same dilemmas -following the market v. shifting the market (the vicious cycle of demand and choices provided was well documented in 1993)
I wanted to ask what year it was ...1995? But, fortunately probably, time ran out for questions because of ongoing discussion about the financial models. Discussion dominated by serious men who really seem to think they know best.
The future is determined by what we desire and imagine.
The students are right and the old blokes wrong.
One more conversation, supposedly about a better future, ruined by the same imagined/constructed ( that is, not real) divide between those with imagination and heart and unthinking convention.
The problems of 1995 have not been dealt with or even seriously considered. They've gotten worse.
The dilemmas do not exist.

20/07/2016

There is a simple lesson here for Brisbane ... Queensland ... Australia.
Its not to do with typology , style or appearance. As it says, this is not rocket science, its
good, simple design put in place despite Planning Regulations and despite the questioning of globalisation.
It's especially relevant in Brisbane where we are in the process, largely, of putting in place the equivalent of this projects preceding disaster: guided by, for the worse, a cacophony of regulations and political machinations.
Doing good housing is so easy, so why has it become so hard?
And ... why are we still having the conversations we had 25 years ago?

Thanks to the enlightened thinking of Brent council and Alison Brooks Architects, a notorious London estate now has some of the best housing in the neighbourhood

20/07/2016

The title is hard to resist, but it really is a good message.

Good community-engaged design practices can not only create good projects, but also advance social justice.