The culture of living closer together

in Print

#11: Transitions

Print issue #11 of Assemble Papers, ‘Transitions’, looks at necessary change awaiting our cities. From decolonising architecture in South Africa, to gentrification-proofing neighbourhoods in the Netherlands, to designing schools that foster creativity – now is the time to dream a little bigger.

Blueprint City

Nurturing Collective Creativity: Naomi Milgrom

Melbourne may be Australia's arts capital, but Naomi Milgrom is now pushing it to the forefront of Australia’s design conversation. Jana Perković speaks to the woman behind MPavilion and Living Cities Forum about the importance of dialogue and disagreement.

Blueprint City

Redesigning Renting: Housing as a Service

Sharing economy increasingly means that we subscribe to a service (transport, music, even clothes and cars) instead of buying the thing. But how does this work with housing? Alexis Kalagas continues his research into start-ups that are redesigning renting.

Editorial

AP print issue #11: Transitions

As the eleventh print issue of Assemble Papers is about to land in Melbourne (and then travel beyond), editorial team Jana Perković and Cat McGauran explain some of the thinking behind the edition's theme. We live in a time that demands necessary change: but how do we face this urgency with a spirit of community and altruism?

Assemblage

Yandell Walton: Social Change, Small and Large

Yandell Walton is alarmed by climate change. Emma McRae speaks to the Melbourne projection artist whose ephemeral installations probe the impermanence at the very heart of existence.

Environment

Greening NYC: Piet Oudolf’s New Perennialism

Architect Elliet Spring lived in New York for most of her twenties. On her recent return, she was greeted by a different city: no longer so much a concrete jungle, but a city layered with rich, generous vegetation - from the High Line to The Battery. The turn has been in no small measure the influence of one person, Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf. Here, Elliet looks at Piet's seasonally sensitive, emotionally rich approach to planting, which has spanned a movement: New Perennialism.

Blueprint City

Holzmarkt: How ‘Business Hippies’ Reinvented Berlin

The development of Holzmarkt has shown that Berlin is capable of both imagining and creating places of social cooperation. Once organisers of illegal raves, a group of friends are now building a whole new district; and with it, reimagining the city's future.

Blueprint City

Sarajevo: In Times of Now

Twenty years after the war, Sarajevo is becoming a city of peace. A generation of young creatives, entrepreneurs and artists is bringing in an optimism and an international outlook. Long enchanted by this city, Melbourne writer Ennis Ćehić has returned to the capital of his native country to find the Sarajevo of now.

Eyes

Borders

Artist Stanislava Pinchuk (also known as Miso) maps war and conflict zones in the most delicate ways - recreating their changing topographies as pinpoints on paper. But conveying the devastation of the Calais refugee encampment has led to an unusual choice of material: terrazzo.

This Vertical Life

Six-pack Living: Type Street Apartment

The six-pack is the unsung hero of Australia’s vernacular architecture. Their sweep through the inner suburbs in the 1970s left a significant mark on the urban landscape. Though often reviled, we at Assemble Papers love them for their solid build and functional design. Jack Chen has carefully renovated a 33 sqm apartment in a modest walk-up block in Richmond, showing what a six-pack flat can do.

Environment

The Outer and Inner Landscapes

For the last four years, photographer and dancer Gregory Lorenzutti has been living in Fawkner, a northern suburb of Melbourne that was cattle country right until the 1940s. In the postwar area, the suburb was subdivided for housing for returning servicemen, but most of the houses in the area were built in the period 1950-1970, as detached brick homes for Ford factory workers. After a heartbreak, Greg moved into one of the original Ford houses with a garden, and has given it a new life.

Assemblage

Mary Featherston: The Slow Evolution of School

The design of our schools still reflects a belief in a hierarchical society: teachers up the front, students sitting passively. Designer Mary Featherston has been researching and developing learning environments for more than 40 years. She tells AP assistant editor Cat McGauran that young people deserve more from the education system.

Assemblage

Lesley Lokko: Decolonising Architecture

Just over 2000 years ago, Pliny the Elder uttered: “Ex Africa semper aliquid novi” (“Out of Africa there is always something new”). No-one is perhaps better equipped to discuss this idea than Professor Lesley Lokko. Currently Head of the Graduate School of Architecture (GSA) at the University of Johannesburg, Lesley’s perspective is at once critical and confident, exuding the optimism found in the latent potential of her students, yet acutely aware of the varied challenges they face beyond the safe space of her classrooms. Danielle Mileo caught up with Lesley after her lecture ‘What Pliny Said’ at the World Architecture Festival in Amsterdam late last year, to discuss the challenges around decolonisation and pedagogy in architectural education on the African continent.

Perspectives

Disability Design: Who has access to the city?

Disability is not a personal problem, but a socio-political question: a question of who is included, and who is excluded from our cities. Writer, educator and activist Jax Jacki Brown unpacks the shortcomings in disability design as they traverse Melbourne in search of an accessible tram stop.