Housing crisis considered in Sydney

Australia is currently in the midst of a public housing crisis. Not only is there not enough housing available for disadvantaged citizens but housing projects are often poorly maintained, leading to energy inefficiency and safety issues. In Melbourne, security guards at some of the city’s most dangerous public housing estates have threatened to strike, while in the ACT, housing laws proposed by the Greens have been slammed for costing millions to implement.

At the end of September former Federal Housing Department Secretary Jeff Harmer was appointed to lead an expert panel charged with fixing the country’s inadequate social housing system.

In this country, close to half a million low income families are said to be in ‘housing stress’, with a housing stock deficit estimated to be in excess of 180,000, with a predicted rise to over 350,000 in the next seven years.

It’s certainly not an issue to affect Australia alone. Access to affordable, quality public housing is a concern for cities across the globe. An ever-growing urban population is flooding into cities worldwide, leaving the United Nations to estimate that 500 million people live without appropriate housing.

The Sydney Architecture Festival is looking at ways to improve the social housing situation in the future in the event, Affordable Housing – The Way to the Future. Specialists from a variety of backgrounds will discuss the situation and bring vast experience from the regulatory, finance, delivery and operational perspectives. The current state will be examined while potential scenarios to a more affordable housing future will be investigated.

Questions posed at the event will include: what is done today and what has to be done in the future to ease the crisis? What are private, government and not-for-profit sectors doing? And what is the potential for Australia to become the leader in this global crisis? These considerations will be responded to by Dr Owen Donald, Chair, National Housing Supply Council and Andrew McAnulty, CEO Mission Australia Housing, among others.

Sustainable Housing will also be covered in a discussion with architects Adrian Ball and Anthony Nolan.

Occasionally, public housing can be extremely successful, not just in a social sense but in their aesthetic presentation. Coming to prominence during the 1930s when there was a high demand for affordable living, social housing has often been closely linked with modernism. Architects of the style know as Classical Modernism responded to the lack of housing after the First World War creating modern, affordable flats with kitchens, bathrooms and balconies that provided light, air and sun instead of houses with backyards or side wings.

In Germany, the Berlin Housing Estates (1913-1934) stood out for their good state of preservation, leading to their inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The high-quality architecture, the language of the shapes, floor plans of the flats and urban design of the estates became a role model for architects throughout the rest of the 20th Century.

They will be the subject of an exhibition by Winfried Brenne Architects, presented by the Goethe-Institut as part of the 2011 Sydney Architecture Festival.

Check out the video below to see how architects are thinking outside the box when wanting to create a low cost, sustainable housing options