Editor’s Letter

Building quality issues have prompted both NSW state and federal governments to legally fortify the position of future homeowners.

This does however raise a series of issues, none more put more clearly than The Australian’s chief economics editor Alan Kohler.

“Underlying the crisis are two things: deregulation and Australia’s practice of build-to-sell rather than build-to-rent.”

“In other countries apartments are built by institutions, usually pension funds and endowments, which then rent them out. They make sure they are well built, because these are long-term investors who want the buildings to last a long time,” writes Kohler.

In other words, the current approach to building our residential towers, especially in Sydney is well and truly proving to be unsustainable.

This leads me to another part of the sustainability debate – that is the 2019 Architecture & Design Sustainability Awards, to be held in Sydney on November 7. This year, we have an 11-member judging panel, one that I believe, is the best so far. You can of course take a lot more of an intimate look at our judges and what makes them tick on page 24.

Being the 13th year for our awards shows that far from becoming set in our ways, we have pushed the boundaries of highlighting the developments surrounding sustainability as well as implementing it ourselves.

Then it is of no surprise that six out of the total 11 judges are women, nor the fact that we will be focusing on Indigenous design and its impact on the built environment in our Sustainability Live panel event.

Sustainability as we all know comes in many shapes, sizes and forms, and it’s this that we need to fully understand before any new residential development gets the green light.