Alternative housing ideas challenge

Seven proposals have been shortlisted in the Alternative Housing Ideas Challenge.

Sydney 2050 Affordable housing Architecture

Project Status: In progress

Stage 2 – proposal development will run from 19 June to 15 November 2019.

Stage 3 – the public display of the proposals is postponed until late 2020.

Linda Fiskus

Procurement Specialist - Queries regarding the online form

: [email protected]

What we’re doing

Seven proposals have been shortlisted in the Alternative Housing Ideas Challenge.

An independent jury selected the entries for new housing models to increase alternative and affordable housing supply across our city and reduce housing stress.

The shortlisted entries were whittled down from more than 230 as part of the international challenge, which invited housing ideas in the areas of financing, design, building, ownership and management.

The City anticipates the successful chosen projects will provide learnings for future initiatives.

The community will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the shortlisted concepts as part of the City’s consultation to shape Sydney 2050.

Shortlisted proposals

Smart Home Sydney proposes housing that monitors the health of ageing residents with floor sensors to detect falls and alert health services.

Smart city principles like super high-speed internet would allow for service optimisation through data collection and analysis.

Data collection and analysis would allow greater service for residents.

While devices connected to high-speed internet are critical to the proposal, social connections are primary to health and wellbeing.

Affordable housing options in urban neighbourhoods can provide all the amenities, transit and services that allow one to thrive at all stages of life.

About the team

Joe Colistra and Nilou Vakil are principal architects with the American firm in situ Design.

They specialise in housing design, interiors and urban design.

Both teach in the School of Architecture and Design at the University of Kansas.

Joe is also the director of the university’s Institute for Smart Cities, which researches the impact of high-speed connectivity on our buildings and environments.
The Equity Housing Model aims to provide truly affordable housing for moderate to low-income earners.

The proposal allows a mix of lifetime leases, affordable and social housing in a flexible rental model.

It would also provide a pathway for permanent housing and an end to paying long-term rent.

Its focus is to deliver affordable, high quality and permanent housing for more people in need to relieve them from the stress of renting long-term, and provide a home for them to build a family and grow old in.

About the team

The Equity Housing Model is proposed by Eddie Ma of Vigilanti.

The group was founded by Eddie and Linseen Lee, architectural professionals with a passion for social justice.

Its mission is to use architecture to help solve social issues affecting the communities in our cities.

Work includes helping solve the affordable housing problem, community consultation and addressing domestic violence, with a vision for greater reach in the future.
Housing and equity are not design issues – they’re land issues.

Addressing the impact of land cost inflation on affordability is core to unlocking an equitable future for Sydney.

This proposal considers a Sydney-wide community land trust policy that will provide equitable and innovative development models that may be scaled.

Community land trusts are not-for-profit, community-based organisations designed to ensure permanent housing affordability through community stewardship of the land.

Community land trusts have been successful for over 50 years in North America and Europe to support community-led alternative housing models from below-market rental through to affordable homeownership.

About the team

Dr Louise Crabtree is a senior research fellow in the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University.

Louise is the leading academic authority on permanently affordable homeownership in Australia and leads research teams in extensive partnership with government, housing, corporate, and community agencies.

Jason Twill is the director of Urban Apostles, which is a boutique property and consulting business specialising in regenerative development and alternative housing models for cities.

A 20-year veteran of creative urban development, Jason’s work focuses on the intersection of the sharing economy and the art of city-making.
Thousands of buildings across our cities stand vacant. These buildings often sit idle pending the outcome of a lengthy and arduous redevelopment process.

With the goodwill, kindness and generosity that exists within the property sector and business in general, some of these buildings can be repurposed for minimal cost.

These buildings can be used as crisis or transitional accommodation for people in the short or medium term.

The creation of pop-up shelters isn’t a long-term solution but addresses a definite need within cities.

About the team

Robert Pradolin is a founding board member of Housing All Australians, a private sector for purpose organisation (not-for-profit) that believes it’s in Australia’s long-term economic interest to provide housing for all its people, rich or poor.

It was established to facilitate a private-sector voice and solutions to reposition the discussion through a commercial lens.

It advocates that housing for all Australians is a fundamental economic infrastructure for a country, just like roads, schools and hospitals.

There’s significant economic payback for a society preventing the unintended long-term consequences arising from the lack of affordable, social and public housing.
The Rightsize Service is a proposal that aims to address the increasing problem of substandard housing development through DIY development.

Part design-led approach, part finance and management model, home-owners are motivated to create new dwellings within existing houses.

The service would be supported by development advice and new loan and property management approaches.

The proposal leverages the potential of domestic space, the DIY ambition of homeowners and the regulatory potential of community housing providers to lift the affordability, quality and diversity of housing in the City of Sydney local area.

About the team

The Rightsize team is a collaboration of built environment professionals with a growing track record of real-world solutions for the densification and diversification of housing in established communities.

Dr Alysia Bennett is a lecturer at Monash University, a former architectural researcher in the Tasmanian Government’s Office of the State Architect and is affiliated with Cumulus Studio.

Dr Damian Madigan is a senior lecturer at the University of South Australia, registered architect and member of the South Australian State Government’s Design Review Panel.

Dr Dana Cuff is a professor of architecture and urban design at the University of California Los Angeles, adjunct professor at Monash University and founder of UCLA cityLAB.
In Zurich, 20% of all housing is provided and managed by housing cooperatives.

This creates a third way between market housing and social housing, and between ownership and renting.

Adapting this not-for-profit build-to-rent approach in a Sydney context would increase affordable housing supply and make long-term renting a viable option.

It would also give back to the city in the form of shared amenity and an ecology of supporting creative uses, with the aim of helping the City of Sydney achieve its target of 7.5% affordable rental housing by 2030.

About the team

Alexis Kalagas, Andy Fergus and Katherine Sundermann individually and collectively have been researching alternative models of housing delivery for nearly 10 years.

Alexis works at the intersection of urban strategy and design at Urban-Think Tank, ETH Zurich and as a Harvard Graduate School of Design Richard Rogers Fellow.

Andy is an urban designer at the City of Melbourne, co-director at Melbourne Architours, and an urban design adviser to Nightingale Housing.

Katherine is an associate director at MGS Architects, leading strategies and frameworks for creative precincts and new neighbourhoods.

Andy and Katherine teach architecture and urban design at the Melbourne School of Design.
The term housing can be traced back to medieval Latin, meaning protective covering and suggesting the importance of the close-fitting relationship between people, housing and place.

This relationship has held through time, as it should today.

The Pixel Pilot proposes pixels – 16 square metre units comprising a single private room and bathroom – around generous communal living spaces to create a sense of community.

The model provides better use of space, long-term returns to landowners and greater quality and sustainable buildings.

About the team

A collaboration between panovscott Architects and Alexander Symes Architect.

Anita Panov and Andrew Scott founded panovscott Architects in 2012 to make propositions in architecture, landscape and urban design.

They received the NSW Emerging Architect Prize in 2016 and the practice’s projects have been recognised for design excellence in numerous forums.

Alexander Symes formed ASA in 2014 and has since delivered a number of award-winning projects for Austinmer beach house, butterfly house and L-house, and was awarded 2016 Sustainability Awards Best Newcomer.

Reimagining how we live

As part of the Sydney Architecture Festival, the 7 shortlisted teams gave us insight into the ideas and the inspiration behind their work. The presentations were followed by a panel discussion of experts considering what the future of housing could look like.

The presenters provided innovative models that would increase alternative and affordable housing supply across the city. These models included financing, design, building, ownership and management, and are expected to provide the City with lessons for future projects.

A panel discussion of experts then considered what the future of housing could look like.

Download the proposals

Sydney Smart HomePDF · 4.73 MB · Last modified 17 August 2020

Equity Housing ModelPDF · 238.06 KB · Last modified 17 August 2020

Metropolitan Land Trust PolicyPDF · 194.38 KB · Last modified 17 August 2020

Pop-Up SheltersPDF · 516.7 KB · Last modified 17 August 2020

The Rightsize ServicePDF · 681.77 KB · Last modified 17 August 2020

The Third WayPDF · 427.67 KB · Last modified 17 August 2020

Pixel PilotPDF · 671.95 KB · Last modified 17 August 2020

Sydney Your Say

Advisory panelsCommunity panel

Governance & decision-makingCommunity engagement

Alternative housing ideas challenge

Project Status: In progress

Linda Fiskus

What we’re doing

Shortlisted proposals

Sydney Smart Home

About the team

Equity Housing Model

About the team

Metropolitan Land Trust Policy

About the team

Pop-Up Shelters

About the team

The Rightsize Service

About the team

The Third Way

About the team

Pixel Pilot

About the team

Reimagining how we live

Introduction: Councillor Professor Philip Thalis

Welcome: Lord Mayor Clover Moore

The Right Size Service

Sydney Smart Home

Metropolitan Land Trust Policy

The Third Way

Pixel Pilot

Equity Housing Model

Pop-Up Shelters

Panel Discussion - Future Housing: Next steps, where to from here

Councillor Professor Philip Thalis - Closing remarks

Download the proposals