Stories | Assemble Papers- Part 2

Less is More

The Fuggerei: 500 Years and Counting

Adequate and affordable housing is crucial to human dignity and a sense of belonging. The Fuggerei, the oldest private social housing complex in Europe, aims to provide homes to vulnerable people in the city of Augsburg, Germany. Katharina Prugger and Henry Trumble, investigate the Fuggerei today, as it continues to operate on the same model as […]

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 […]

Living not Decorating

Stanislava Pinchuk: An Art-Filled Stable in Carlton

Artist, Stanislava Pinchuk (Miso), while in Melbourne, lives in an art-filled, heritage horse and coach stable in Carlton, just north of the city. Her apartment is one in a cluster of five, arranged around a central bluestone courtyard. Upon arrival, the open-air courtyard with a central stair, this arrangement of buildings gives the sense of […]

Blueprint City

Living Labs for Housing: Co-operatives Reinvented

Housing co-operatives can produce high-quality housing at affordable rents. Previously, Manuel Lutz introduced us to three contemporary housing co-operatives in Germany and Switzerland and their decision-making processes, based on solidarity and ‘self help’. Scrutinizing these projects further, today he looks at the finance that makes it possible to scale up. Mixed financing: equity capital and […]

Home Made

Chilaquiles: the proper Mexican ‘nachos’

Gerardo Lopez and Diana Hull started La Tortilleria in 2013 from a mutual desire to share traditional Mexican food, and Mexico’s rich culture, with Australia. In the early days, real Mexican food wasn’t well known in Melbourne, people were just starting to explore the cuisine, which at the time was largely misrepresented by hard-shell tacos […]

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

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 […]

Ears

Ears #39: Mix by Laura Jean

For the 2020 season of our much loved EARS mixtape series, Assemble Papers is partnering up with Hope St Radio to bring you a year of good tunes and good times. In a world of hashtags and algorithms, and in a culture which thrives on passivity, radio as a voice is more important than ever. […]

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.

Eyes

Summer Postcards: An Ode to the Ocean

From the Wet Tropics to Byron Bay, Cristina Guerrero takes us on a journey of lonely beaches and hidden beauty – an ode to the ocean and our connection to nature. At a time when climate change is at the forefront of our minds, Cristina’s photographs are a reminder to protect and preserve our planet […]

Assemblage

Šejla Kamerić: Art is Resistance

Šejla Kamerić’s artistic practice is bold, political and deeply personal. She questions humanity's destructive behaviour and sees art as an act of resistance.

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 […]

Blueprint City

Firminy: a Corbusian Commune

Among his last-conceived projects, Le Corbusier finally realised his vision for a new urban fabric in France. An old mining quarry became a platform for a modernist utopia of communal living. Writer Linsey Rendell visited the heritage-listed commune.

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 […]

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.

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.

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 […]

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.

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.

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.

Environment

Catherine Mosbach: Temporal Landscapes

Catherine Mosbach’s career has followed an unconventional trajectory, her portfolio of work emphasising the imaginary and designed with future generations in mind. Earlier this year at the Living Cities Forum, architect and urban designer Elliet Spring sat down in conversation with the renowned landscape architect. Landscape architect Catherine Mosbach is jetlagged when we meet in […]

Environment

Expecting the Unexpected

As global warming causes our planet to heat up, weather disasters are becoming increasingly common. Jeff McAllister, a chemical engineer at Arup’s Research, Foresight and Innovation team, investigates how we can use technology to create a built environment capable of responding to outside forces.

Living not Decorating

Yandell and Lauren: Creating Community

Artist’s Yandell Walton and Lauren Dunn live in an art-filled warehouse in Collingwood with their two whippets, Sanchez and Desi. Emma McRae speaks with them about how Collingwood has changed over the years and how they managed to transform an empty warehouse space, into a plant-filled sanctuary for a community of artists.

Practical Matter

The Rooftop Energy Revolution

According to the United Nations, the global community has until 2030 to change its behaviour before we lock in a disastrous level of warming. This begs the question: why aren’t we using the vast amounts of renewable energy available to us? Ryan Alexander investigates the green energy movement in Australia and how households can effect change.