Revival of the suburban dream?
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognize their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Architecture Australia has been tracing the impacts of the significant events of the last year or so, beginning with an article by Rory Hyde entitled “A new world” in our July/August 2020 issue. We asked Rory, who was living in London at the time, to reflect on how the built environment might change post-COVID. In the piece, he suggests that the new, post-COVID world is becoming apparent not only in small but also in large ways – “at the scale of the city and the region.” In the same issue, Anita Panov and Andrew Scott maintained that our city-centric view of the world has been shifted by the pandemic, presenting the possibility of a more dispersed urbanism that comprises a series of overlapping spatial networks or neighbourhoods.
Now, a year later, with many people seeking more space to live and work at home, there is a sharp focus on our regional centres and outer suburbs. We invited Rory, now based back in Melbourne and working as associate professor in architecture (curatorial design and practice) at the Melbourne School of Design, to guest-edit this issue. Along with a group of visionary designers, writers and photographers, he explores the architectural possibilities for our suburbs – places notoriously shunned by architects.
In his introduction, Rory reminds us that “the rural fringe is undeniably the dominant landscape of Australians’ daily lives. Of the 89 percent of the country living in metropolitan areas, 86 percent (some 19 million people) live in areas considered suburban and exurban”
(page 12). He asks that we, as architects, surrender our prejudices and embrace the suburbs. Instead of “fixing” them, could we instead work more constructively with what is already there?
The projects featured in this issue begin, as Rory says, to “sketch the outlines” of a possible future for the Australian suburbs. In Brisbane, John Ellway reinvents the suburban house, suggesting a new, repeatable model. In Perth, we consider the learnings from a demonstration project in White Gum Valley led by Development
WA. In Melbourne, Harrison and White embraces the playful vibrancy of the rural fringe in its design for a new school, while Lyons creates a generous new community hub that expresses the rich diversity of its outer suburban location. In Sydney, Hassell’s new train link provides critical public infrastructure to an underserved area to the city’s north-west. And finally, Alan Pert revisits a 1970s Merchant
Builders project that, even today, offers a valuable example of how meaningful shared spaces can be built within a suburban development.
Alongside these project reviews, we have collected a series of diverse perspectives on how we might address the challenges and opportunities presented by our suburbs. Notably, Dan Hill explains that the dispersion of our cities has less to do with the pandemic than with underlying shifts in technology, environment and culture. He also argues for a finer balance between nature and humans in the suburbs, supported by landscape architect Kaylie Salvatori in her article that explores the need to work with Country instead of against it. The Architecture Australia editorial team would like to thank Rory and all the contributors for their passionate responses to the themes and the projects reviewed. As Mary Featherston says,
“Let’s strike while the iron’s hot, before we forget what we’ve lived through” (page 91).
A final note about the A. S. Hook Address that appears, belatedly, at the back of this issue. John Wardle’s 2020
Gold Medal tour was delayed by COVID restrictions but, happily, John was eventually able to deliver his address in person across the country. His presentation was extremely well received everywhere and we are pleased to publish an abridged version here. We look forward to Don Watson’s
2021 Gold Medal tour later this year.