Stories | Assemble Papers

Eyes

Russia: The Long Way Back

This summer, architect Vlad Doudakliev shipped his car to Vladivostok, from where he travelled overland across Russia with his dad, all the way to his native Bulgaria. In this special two-part travelogue for Assemble Papers, Vlad takes us through the vast, diverse landscapes of the largest country in the world.

Eyes

Brooke Holm: Sand Sea

Photographer Brooke Holm shot her new series of works in the Namib Sand Sea, the oldest desert in the world. Seemingly never-ending sand dunes stretch for over 3 million hectares in this UNESCO World Heritage Site, a unique ecosystem that survives mostly on condensation from the fog that rolls in off the coastline every morning. Namibia is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, and the first write climate change policies into their constitution.

Assemblage

Future Method: Land, Treaty, Property

Future Method Studio work across architecture, installation and speculative projects. Led by architecture practitioners and pedagogues Joel Sherwood-Spring and Genevieve Murray, Future Method is a unique practice in the Australian architecture landscape to put participation and decolonisation at the heart of their agenda.

Perspectives

Ruhrtriennale 2018: A Spatial Artistic Revolution

Ruhrtriennale is a festival of art nested within architecture. Taking place in some of the world's most imposing industrial ruins, it has pioneered an innovative approach to protecting industrial buildings and highlighting their cultural legacy. Manuel Zabel went to the Ruhr to see for himself.

Perspectives

A Bubble to Call Your Own: Home Futures

Every year. IKEA publishes a report on its research into how we live: our homes, after all, are a reflection of our lives. Just as our ideas of home are changing at an unprecedented pace - courtesy of WeLive, build-to-rent and co-living experiments - a lively exhibition at London's Design Museum looks at what the future of home looked like in the past decades. Alexis Kalagas muses on home utopias and dystopias.

Assemblage

Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA: The Artificial Belongs to Nature

Based in Tokyo, SAANA is a multi award-winning architecture practice, renowned for designs that are simple, yet exude a profound sense of purpose. In 2010, architect Keith Little took a highly coveted intern position at SAANA, where he learnt about the philosophy that shapes Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa's practice. Now, he returns to a dialogue with his former mentor.

Practical Matter

Redesigning the Housing Market

Is housing really best left to market alone? Turns out there are many models for financing housing. Urban designer Andy Fergus shares his research into alternative housing models, from for-profit to non-profit. Choose your own adventure!

Assemblage

Assemble: A Contradictory Space

The British architectural collective Assemble (no relation) was founded in 2010, at the height of the Global Financial Crisis, to explore other ways of doing architecture. Today, they are a force to be reckoned with, reforming both the built environment and the art world. Cat McGauran caught up with Jane Hall and Audrey Thomas-Hayes from the Turner Prize-winning collective.

Blueprint City

Playable Cities: Hilary O’Shaughnessy

Cities around the world are rapidly growing a new layer of digital infrastructure. But who, outside of the few data engineers, knows what information is being collected and to what purpose? This is something Hilary O'Shaughnessy wants to change. Her project Playable Cities aims to restore agency and creativity to the 'smart city' - and includes dancing under street lights.

Blueprint City

How Finland is Ending Homelessness: Juha Kaakinen

In the 1980s, Finland's homeless rates were equivalent to Australia's today: 0.4%. Today, homelessness is all but eradicated, thanks to an innovative approach called 'Housing First'. Juha Kaakinen, CEO of Y-Foundation, Finland's largest non-profit housing provider, explains to Cat McGauran how the Finnish approach arose from the belief that 'everybody should be cared for'.

Perspectives

Ugly-beautiful Australia: Eugenia Lim

“There can be few other nations less certain than Australia as to what they are and where they are,” wrote Robin Boyd in The Australian Ugliness (1960), his examination of the national aesthetics. In 2018, artist and Assemble Papers founding editor Eugenia Lim contemporised the book's provocations in a video installation that will soon travel to Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) for The National 2019. Here, Lim reflects on the book's enduring themes - and how our relationship to architecture is as personal as it is political.

Eyes

The Architecture of Least Resistance

Photographer Tom Ross has a keen eye for capturing architecture and its atmospheres. He's noticed Geelong, his former stomping ground, transform into Australia’s fastest-growing regional centre. Urbanisation has hit the Surf Coast, bringing a property and population boom and growing inequity. He reflects on the changing corridor between Melbourne and Geelong: the urban, suburban and peri-urban.

Perspectives

A Saturday spent at Women Design

To commemorate 100 years of women's vote in Britain, a two-day symposium on women in design took place at Design Museum, promising to explore historical injustices, and analyse contemporary design culture. Kate Riggs was in attendance.

Blueprint City

Amsterdam Social Housing: A Primer

The residential variety across Amsterdam city is stunning. Some rents are high, but many more are controlled, kept affordable by non-profit associations that deliver the bulk of housing in the Netherlands. From the expressive brickwork of early 20th-century workers’ dwellings to a new generation of refugee-inclusive youth housing, Amelyn Ng explores the system of affordable housing allocation in Amsterdam.

Ears

AP x Liquid Architecture: Lilly Kane

Ritual Community Music is a year-long program of music experiences curated around the age-long association that music has to ritual, and ritual has to community. To bring the summer closer, and to close the year, local legends of experimental music Liquid Architecture bring us a mix by Lilly Kane which explores what a transnational community sounds like. Mat Spisbah, the program curator, introduces the last event of the year, a night of experimental rave on 8th December at Howler.

Living not Decorating

Nomadic Life: Danielle de Picciotto & Alexander Hacke

Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke, who perform as hackedepicciotto, are legends of Berlin's independent music scene. They share their experiences, and what they have learnt from living on the road with Cat McGauran.

This Vertical Life

Unfolding Pavilion

Many people don't know that there is social housing throughout Venice: in the 1970s, the city embarked on an ambitious process of commissioning architecturally significant public housing projects that artfully blend into the city's medieval urban fabric. Possibly the best of them is Gino Valle's project in Giudecca, which featured in Unfolding Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture. Jana Perković spoke to the curators about why social housing still matters.

Eyes

Remembering That Things Will Change: Warren Kirk

Affectionately known as the 'Westographer', Warren Kirk has spent decades capturing images of old Australian suburbia, the people and architecture. His photographs bring to the fore a hidden beauty, celebrating the regular, the vernacular, and the humble. Warren's latest book Suburbia ventures further to include suburbs like Carnegie, Murrumbeena, Dandenong and Clifton Hill. We bring you a selection of photos from Suburbia, with an essay by author and actor William McInnes.

Environment

Venice: Resisting Resilience

Some of the highest storms have lately afflicted Venice. Volume editor and architect Francesco Degl’Innocenti reflects on the history of the lagoon, where the concept of dynamic equilibrium has been the cornerstone for the evolution of nature and architecture.

Perspectives

Robin Hood Gardens

One of the more controversial displays at the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture was V&A Museum's decision to display a salvaged piece of the facade of the Robin Hood Gardens estate, rescued from demolition that started earlier in the year. UK-based architecture writer Owen Hatherley recounts the history of the building and the battle for its preservation. Is there a better way to engage with the historical legacy of public housing?

Environment

Heirloom Seed Hero

Clive Blazey and his wife Penny were early leaders in protecting heirloom seed varieties from extinction. His story features in The Planthunter: Truth, Beauty, Chaos and Plants by Georgina Reid with photography by Daniel Shipp.

Blueprint City

Saskia Sassen: The Limits of the Material

Prof Saskia Sassen spent her career researching the processes underpinning globalisation. Her early work described the rise of the new class of high-paid consultants, concentrating in a few 'global cities' and displacing ordinary families. Lately, she has turned her attention to the global housing boom. How have buildings become a speculative asset class? In conversation with Jana Perković, she explains what has happened since the Global Financial Crisis.

Editorial

Living Closer Together Symposium: A Summary

On one of the coldest spring mornings this year, dozens of Melburnians hauled themselves out of bed to come and listen to a series of panel discussions on how we can create cities that, quite simply, work better for everyone. For those who couldn’t attend The Living Closer Together Symposium, here’s a short recap of the ideas explored across the four panels.

Blueprint City

The Great Disruption: Proptech & ‘Generation Rent’

Move over, Airbnb: here comes 'proptech'. The new generation of apps goes beyond the dubiously-named 'sharing economy' to affect real estate in far more complex ways, from virtual bond deposits to micro-investing. Alexis Kalagas reports from London, where proptech is booming - together with the property market.