Rent

Notions of ‘community’ pervade discussions of contemporary housing alternatives in an Australian context. It is not an understatement to suggest that the ways in which ‘community’ manifests in design propositions is the chosen point of distinction - more remarkable than structure, than tenure, than funding approach.

The presence of ‘community’ is used by designers as both a value-add for emerging apartment models, as well as a way of excusing and explaining a reduction in traditionally understood spaces and resources within the home - kitchens, workspaces, and other private infrastructures. More problematically, it can be used to support new kinds of housing tenure through the prioritisation of ‘communal’ over private space - the reduction of traditional dwellings to their minimum constituents with the promise of a new layer of shared, common, or communal spaces.

Again - these approaches pose incredible design problems. What is meant by community? Who constitutes and coheres this community? Whose values are present - and crucially, are these made present in space, infrastructure, or the material of the room, building, or city?

If we engage with this term we need accurate terms of reference.

This studio explores and interrogates the ways in which ‘community’ infrastructures are conceived of, and deployed, in shared spaces across buildings and the city - and studio projects propose tools that can better respond to and design for these kinds of spaces in the future.

Studio Leaders: Tom Morgan