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LESS IS MORE

Transformative Change at
Murundaka Cohousing

Words by Jana Perković
photos by Jasmine Fisher

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LIVING NOT DECORATING

Alternative ways of
living with artist Satoshi Murakami

WORDS BY GRACE LOVELL AND YOSHI TSUJIMURA

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EARS


Ears #41: Message to My Girl

MADELINE ELLERM IN CONVERSATION WITH ESTHER EDQUIST

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ASSEMBLAGE

Gamifying
urban design with Block by Block

Words by Robert Snelling

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Living Not Decorating

Artist Ruth Buchanan on living life
collectively at R50

WORDS BY SOPHIE RZEPECKY

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BLUEPRINT CITY

Sign of the Times: Melbourne’s Industrial
Skyline

WORDS BY SAM HOLLERAN
PHOTOS BY TOM ROSS

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1 6

Resilient communities in homes built to last

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Latest Articles

Perspectives

Max Delany: From Resilience to Sustainability

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have exasperated underlying structural conditions and inequalities we face as a society. Here in Australia, an underfunded art world is struggling to stay afloat. What do contemporary arts organisations and institutions look like in a post-pandemic world, and how can their financial models become more sustainable? Artistic Director and […]

Home Made

Social Food Project: Zero Waste Beetroot Risotto

Whether he’s cooking with insects as an alternative protein source, or saving natives by eating invasive species, Ben McMenamin has been using food to start crucial conversations for years. As the founder of the Social Food Project, Ben loves to craft inventive and delicious recipes that help us eat our way to a sustainable future. […]

Assemblage

Christopher Hawthorne: The ‘Third’ Los Angeles

Chicago has the Chicago Architecture Center, New York has the Municipal Art Society, and Melbourne has countless public and non-profit institutions such as Open House, MPavilion and the National Gallery of Victoria to raise awareness and public literacy around design in our built environment. However, says Christopher Hawthorne, “There is no city that needs that […]

Home Made

Mabu Mabu: Semur Chicken

Mabu Mabu is a Torres Strait Islander owned and run café, catering and food business with an emphasis on using fresh, seasonal and native ingredients to create beautiful dishes that bring people together. Nornie Bero is the head chef and business owner. A Meriam woman of the Komet Tribe, Bero is originally from Mer Island in the Torres Strait, and […]

Assemblage

Ex-Embassy

In August 2018, the former Australian embassy to East Germany in Berlin’s northeast suburb of Pankow hosted Ex-Embassy, an exhibition of six artworks and five texts, and an open research archive. Instigated and hosted by the artist Sonja Hornung, and researched and assembled with writer and artist Rachel O’Reilly as curatorial advisor, it included the […]

Stories

Latest Happenings

Happenings

Dark Talk Time

When: 13 August – 27 September
Where: Online
How much: $10, but if this is a barrier, the cost will be waived.
More info: Dark Talk Time website

Dark Talk Time connects pairs of strangers for hosted phone conversations. Sitting in the dark on the phone, you share a conversation with a stranger.

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Happenings

The Royal Children’s Hospital: Our Places / Our Spaces

When: 11 August – 31 October
Where: Online
How much: Free!
More info: The Royal Children’s Hospital Archives and Collections website

RCH’s online exhibition titled Our Places / Our Spaces is an exploration into the 150-year history of the RCH campuses.

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Happenings

A new pathway to home ownership

Register for our next Assemble Model community

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Issue 12 — Out Now

#12: (Future) Legacies

In Print

#12: (Future) Legacies

AP #12: (Future) Legacies explores past and future legacies: from Glenn Murcutt’s sustainable architecture to German housing co-operatives, and from the world’s most beautiful playgrounds to Australia’s last cassette tape-maker. Buildings are the most durable art. But how will the next generation judge what we build today?

Practical Matter

Play Matters: The Style and Substance of the Berlin Spielplatz

Germany has some of the world's most exciting playgrounds, thanks to a combination of social values and wise design regulations. On her sojourn in Berlin, planning lawyer Mitra Anderson-Oliver gets to explore (mit kind!) this essential infrastructure of childhood.

Assemblage

Glenn Murcutt: Touching the Earth Lightly

Australia's only Pritzker Prize winner is also the award's most unlikely recipient: Glenn Murcutt AO prefers to work alone, and has never built a single structure outside Australia. This choice reflects his dedication to working with the nuances of the local climate and natural conditions. As Glenn's MPavilion opens in Melbourne's Botanical Gardens, AP editor Jana Perković sits down to chat with Australia's most environmentally conscious architect about past and future legacies.

Blueprint City

Lived Solidarity: Housing Co-operatives

Housing co-operatives offer a way to pursue quality of life at an affordable price: even the United Nations considers them a necessary approach to address global housing challenges. But what is a housing co-operative? Manuel Lutz tells us how co-operatives came to exist in the German-speaking Europe, how they operate in contemporary world, and what lessons they can offer us.

Editorial

(Future) Legacies

100 years of Bauhaus; the 50th anniversary of Glenn Murcutt’s practice; School Strikes for Climate. It has been a year of major anniversaries and reckonings. AP editor Jana Perković reflects on our past and future legacies. It was impossible to walk out of the train station. The crowd was so thick that it created a […]

This Vertical Life

122 Roseneath St: Starting with Community – Part I

122 Roseneath St was completed in 2018 by Fieldwork Architects: the first building developed by Assemble, serving as a testing grounds for the company's ethos and philosophy. Introducing the first of our two-part special on the small footprint project close to our hearts, this week we visit one of the architects on the project, who now lives on this address.

This Vertical Life

122 Roseneath St: Starting with Community – Part II

In the second part of our special article on a small footprint project with a big community, we visit two households that now call 122 Roseneath St home.

Assemblage

Mona: Skin in the Game

Mona has captured the hearts of many – financial freedom, combined with a willingness to take risks, has made this museum a genuinely experimental project, rejecting the unadventurous and embracing the new. Emma McRae delves into the museum’s history and how it has transformed the way Tasmanians, and Australians, view the island state. “When David […]

Editorial

Living Closer Together Symposium 2019: (Future) Legacies

What can we do about the climate crisis? What is ‘smart’ about ‘smart cities’? How do we build housing both affordable and beautiful? And what is the legacy we are leaving to the future generations? Following the release of Assemble Papers’s latest print edition (#12: (Future) Legacies – available all summer long at MPavilion), we […]

Back to the Future

Dex Audio

The offices and sound studios of Dex Audio look out over Macaulay Road in Kensington. I’m talking with co-founder Greg Williams, and he gestures at the footpath out the window where an impromptu crowd would gather to watch the ‘gig’ on the odd Saturday afternoon back in the 1990s. When Dex Audio was commissioned to produce an outdoor sound system, the audio engineers would have to test the rig in open space –­ so they would pull up the roller door and blast music out to the street.

Assemblage

Mabel O. Wilson: History is Invented

There are few people working on questions of race and the built environment – Mabel O. Wilson is at the forefront of this topic. She’s a Professor of Architecture at Columbia University and Associate Director at the Institute for Research in African American Studies. Nina Tory-Henderson sat down in conversation with Mabel, after her presentation at […]

Assemblage

Adrian Lahoud: The Legacy of Empire

Adrian Lahoud’s practice interrogates the intersection of architecture, climate change and colonisation. His curatorial strategy for Sharjah Architecture Triennial, ‘The Rights of Future Generations’, is the culmination of decades of research into the spatial consequences of conflict. Lauren Crockett sat down in conversation with Adrian, after his presentation at the Living Cities Forum in 2019.

Assemblage

Refuge: When Art Meets Emergency

Protection from natural or human-made disasters in cities is often a top down affair, organised by federal or state government. What if communities were empowered to react with creative solutions in the face of catastrophe? Georgia Symons walks us through the interdisciplinary project Refuge at Arts House in Melbourne to discover what happens when art […]

Assemblage

Rachaporn Choochuey: The Art of Living Lightly

Understanding how people live is at the core of design director Rachaporn Choochuey’s practice. She’s the co-founder of Bangkok-based architecture studio all(zone), known for their playful projects which utilise reuse and recycling, while employing local materials and building techniques in innovative ways. Emma McRae sat down in conversation with Rachaporn, after her presentation at the […]

Assemblage

Ex-Embassy

In August 2018, the former Australian embassy to East Germany in Berlin’s northeast suburb of Pankow hosted Ex-Embassy, an exhibition of six artworks and five texts, and an open research archive. Instigated and hosted by the artist Sonja Hornung, and researched and assembled with writer and artist Rachel O’Reilly as curatorial advisor, it included the […]

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