Figure 1: DeFlatKleiburg Renovation. DeFlatKleiburg housing estate renovation in Amsterdam (1966-2016), showing transformation rather than demolition approaches to social housing.
On Crisis
It is widely acknowledged that Australia, similar to many countries in both the Global North and Global South, is currently witnessing an acute 'housing crisis'. However, the crisis in Australia has been building to a cataclysmic-like pressure point for the better part of two decades, arguably under the successive neglect of governments. As of July 2023, the situation seems dire; the national vacancy rate is 0.9%. The demand for affordable, accessible housing far outstrips supply in our capital cities and regions, and the twin spectres of inflation and stagnant wage growth further induce housing stress on all tenure groups.
Australian housing prices are both overvalued and unaffordable. The ratio of house prices to incomes and rents in Australia is at the highest in OECD countries since 2003. By late 2021, Australia's median national house price to income ratio had ballooned to 12.1, compared to 5.1 in the UK and 5.0 in the US. This is despite both comparable Anglocentric countries suffering their unique housing crises. As many argue, an inability to access secure affordable housing is the main driver for inequality in Australia. At the same time, as the crisis worsens, the most significant intergenerational wealth transfer in the country's history shows signs of cementing a two-tier class-based status quo between those who can and cannot access housing.
Australia's relationship with housing since colonisation has been deeply problematic. Longstanding colonial practices premised on terra nullius not only continually reject Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples epistemological perspective but actively engage in systematic erasure, displacement and dispossession of sovereign First Peoples' rights and connection to Country. By extension, the cadastral property system as a colonial invention has been the dominant tool by which the colonisation of Australia has been enacted, coupled with repeated ongoing violent enforcement of hegemonic power. Fundamentally, how property is framed as part of the settler myth-making of 'Australia' continues to reject ancient and enduring pre-settler systems of law and further disenfranchises First Peoples.
It is a lamentable case in point that concerning the housing crisis, a 2022 AHURI report into Indigenous homelessness found the Indigenous homelessness rate is ten times that of non-Indigenous people, with one in 28 Indigenous people homeless at the time of the 2016 census. Furthermore, the report found that "a continuity of dispossession, racism, profound economic disadvantage and cultural oppression shapes the lived experience of many Indigenous Australians today". The 2021 Census found that 1 in 5 of those experiencing homelessness were Indigenous. Indigenous housing is a crisis-within-a-crisis and a long-existent symptom of the wider neo-colonialist housing policy setting we find in Australia.
Figure 2: Feeding The Moloch illustration. Contemporary architectural illustration depicting the speculative nature of Australia's housing crisis, showing the metaphorical consumption of public housing by market forces.
Dismantling Public Housing Renewal
Decades of overtly neoliberal sympathetic and populist vote-buying public policy have created the perfect storm in the form of a perpetually propped-up speculative housing bubble. In what we might consider civil society, long gone are the utopian Menzies-era ideals of housing for all as espoused by the embedded liberalism of the Keynesian post-war period. Construction of new public housing dwellings is currently at its lowest rate in over 40 years. Existing public housing stock is chronically underfunded and endures an ongoing excruciating demise.
In the Australian context, the legacy of 'The Pruitt-Igoe Myth' continues to reverberate in policy-making echo chambers. At the same time, there are concerted and ongoing efforts by state governments to shed direct responsibility for public housing through privatisation and aggressive asset transfers under the guise of 'public housing urban renewal' programs. Championed by advocacy coalitions comprising (but not limited to) state governments, private developers and more recently, not-for-profit Community Housing Providers (CHPs).
In Victoria, renewal programs such as the Public Housing Renewal Program (PHRP), in particular, have been criticised as fundamentally flawed for several reasons. Examples including a project brief that is premised on the paternalistic presumption of the benefits of 'social mix'. Colloquially referred to in the property industry as the 'salt and pepper' approach to social housing. The non-evidence-supported strategy of co-locating social housing tenants with their 'better off' private market renter/owners aims to achieve social capital transfer and foster a 'community' amongst different socio-economic demographics.
Critically, we must analyse 'social mix' agendas against the problematic yet dominant historical backdrop of Antipodean assimilation and forced Anglo-Saxon homogeneity. Regarding functionality and programme, despite PHRP projects seeking to 'renew' public housing stocks, there is a lack of demonstrated significant improvements to housing stocks. For example, the Victorian 'Big Build' housing projects that fall under the PHRP program generally mandate a minimum 10% increase in social dwelling numbers yet result in an overall reduction in the total number of beds per dwelling compared to existing demolished project stock.
Figure 3: Lacaton & Vassal Transformation. Lacaton & Vassal's Grand Parc Estate transformation in Bordeaux, demonstrating renovation over demolition for social housing.
Contemporary States of Speculation
The state itself, as the principal actor in the housing space, has more incentive to maintain political and economic order than try to solve the ongoing crisis, evidenced most recently by the lack of substantive policy in the recent 2023-2024 Federal and Victorian State budgets. Despite the historical performance of the initial Commonwealth-State Housing Agreements (CSHA), consider, for example, that the first 10-year CSHA was able to build nearly 100,000 public housing dwellings between 1945-1955 alone. There seems little appetite to revive the commonwealth's role in affordable housing delivery.
The only signature federal policy is the nebulous $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) with the somewhat opaque goal to "fund acute housing needs on an ongoing basis" and build 30,000 new social and affordable housing in its first five years, albeit with the caveat that expenditure is dependent on the fund itself making returns, essentially taking a wager on the ASX and continued economic growth. Even at the level of federal public policy, actions seem entirely couched in the notion of Australia as the 'lucky country', despite the housing crisis in Australia as an exemplar of free market failure in providing a basic necessity; the human right to adequate housing.
With recent discussion of the housing crisis showing no sign of exiting the news cycle, National Cabinet has agreed to boost the 2022 National Housing Accord target from 1 to 1.2 million new homes for the period 2024-2029. At the same time, National Cabinet has flagged a 'National Planning Reform Blueprint', targeting what it sees as dysfunction in local and state planning policies. When the political messaging of a complex issue is simplified to 'insufficient supply' and 'bureaucratic red tape', panacea solutions seem to have rational appeal, yet only time will tell how this will be achieved without a tangible and nuanced delivery pathway.
The resulting instability of a developed economy continually relying so heavily on its property sector creates a situation where speculative property ownership (thinly masked under the auspices of "the great Australian dream") creates a "too big to fail" relationship between homeowners, financial institutes and elected governments. This is even though homeownership rates are in decline, having peaked between the 1940s-70s and having slumped to 67.1% in recent years.
We see the ongoing demonisation of other tenure models such as private renting or social renting in lieu of the lavishly praised 'home owner', here 'Howards Battlers' are lionised whilst those who find themselves long-term renters (regardless of demographic) are considered abject failures, those trying to access social housing; particularly public housing are stigmatised as 'less than'. The 'Hegemony of tenure' prioritises homeowners in policy-making, portraying home ownership as moralistically superior and housing as a speculative asset rather than a basic human need or infrastructure. This tenure hierarchy reflects broader ideological assumptions about individual responsibility and moral worth embedded in housing policy.
In contrast, it would be helpful to consider the different perceptions of Viennese housing policy. In the Austrian context, 40% of houses are of rental tenure. In what has come to be labelled the 'affordable housing Mecca' of Vienna, this number rises to an incredible 80% of dwellings in rental tenure. This is backed not just by one of the world's largest public (and affordability-regulated) rental housing systems but a local policy and media setting where the rights of rental tenure are at the forefront of political debate and enshrined in law.
The vast majority of Australians (even long term-renters) have been coaxed to view housing as a speculative asset (a non-productive one at that) rather than to conceptualise housing as a fundamental right for all. Richard Denniss, economist and director of The Australia Institute, applies the useful metaphor of the current housing crisis as a kind of 'Kabuki Theatre', in particular reference to the recent push in Governmental language for 'making housing affordable'. It may seem reductionist, but the fundamental core issue in the Australian housing crisis is not a total lack of supply; instead, house prices are simply too high. If public policy isn't making prices fall, then those policies can't make things more affordable.
Property ownership here, particularly in our charged media landscape, is not framed as 'building a home' as much as a rush to 'get on the property ladder' that paradoxically only lets you ascend the rungs, less the whole house of cards comes crashing down. Here to quote researcher Chris Martin of UNSW's City Futures Research Centre, the property investor is cast as the self-made 'clever Odysseus' who achieves self-realisation and 'financial freedom' by harnessing the transformative leverage of property ownership. The hegemony of this discourse cannot be dissuaded. It permeates throughout any housing conversation.
The culture of home ownership in Australia is both manufactured and politically expedient. To malaprop an idiom, the best time to buy a home was thirty years ago. The next best time is today. For many, the family home (safely not included in current aged pension asset tests) is considered the quintessential Australian retirement nest egg. When the time comes to leave this mortal coil, this asset class becomes the primary driver of the intergenerational transfer of wealth.
The Speculative and/or Ethical Architect
There is a secondary ethical crisis for architects and other design professionals involved directly in providing housing (affordable, social, speculative or other). Are our professional and personal actions directly contributing to and exacerbating the crisis? Manfredo Tafuri's comments related to the Progetto di crisis seem relevant once more:
"Utopias don't exist anymore. Engaged architecture, which I tried to make politically and socially involved, is over. Now the only thing one can do is empty architecture. Today, architects are forced into either being a star or being a nobody. For me, this isn't really the 'failure of modern architecture'; instead, we have to look to what architects could do when certain things weren't possible and when they were."
, Manfredo Tafuri
Indeed, it isn't good enough to merely greenwash our latest architectural projects in a vain attempt to win accolades whilst ignoring the underlying instrumentalism of our professions to capitalism's corrosive social effects. Suppose architecture has completely surrendered itself to the post-political, as some have argued, might there be any minor redemption arc for the discipline, particularly in the Australian context and in light of the ever-worsening crisis?
Arguably, Australia (and Victoria in particular) indeed has a rich legacy of architects attempting to 'make political' issues relating to housing, be it Robin Boyd's twin aesthetic/Australian ethos critique of the banalities of suburbia in The Great Australian Ugliness (1960) or his work with the Small Homes Service (1947-1953), which sought to advocate for the common good through the delivery of modest, environmentally sensitive, affordable and accessible home designs. Another example would be prolific Architectural historian Miles Lewis' prominent advocacy role concerning the Carlton Urban Renewal Scheme (1972) and ongoing participation with other so-called 'trendies' in community opposition to inner and middle suburban development they deemed contextually destructive.
Figure 4: St Georges Road Infill Housing. Gregory Burgess, St Georges Road Infill Housing - contextually sensitive public housing development in North Fitzroy.
We should reflect on Architect John Devenish's experimentative work heading the Victorian Ministry of Housing infill housing program (1982-1985), which sought to purchase existing housing stock and, through local architectural practices, restore them in an urban contextually sensitive manner, directly attempting to address the bubbling social stigma attached to social housing and public housing bodies. Even if this was tied directly to the Ministry's institutional renewal and repositioning of Public Housing as a temporary stepping stone to home ownership, an approach reflecting broader neoliberal shifts in housing policy that began to frame public housing as transitional rather than permanent tenure, an essential talking point to the eventual dismantling of public housing. The program's distinctly postmodern approach is directly inspired by the successful efforts of the Berlin Internationale Bauausstellung IBA (1979-1989).
In more recent years, we've seen the Office of the Victorian Government Architect (OVGA) run a series of design competitions and pilot projects (Living Places, Habitat 21 and Future Homes) seeking to present alternative housing strategies and provide a platform for professional discourse in light of the ongoing broader housing market failure.
Finally, there is OFFICE, a not-for-profit design and research practice that proposed an alternative 'Retain, Repair, Reinvest' model for the Ascot Vale Estate and Barak Beacon Estate. The latter now sadly demolished under the previously discussed State governments Public Housing Renewal Program (PHRP) despite public protest and occupation of the site reminiscent of the 2016 Bendigo Street housing dispute.
The examples given here are few, but there are many more historical examples of practising architects utilising their knowledge, skills and networks to facilitate positive change in the face of the emerging housing crisis. The solutions to the housing crisis itself are not unknown. Particularly in the last decade or so, there has been an extensive academic focus on the emergence of the nature of the crisis and pathways toward fundamental change. The potential for this plethora of earnest and, importantly, evidence-based policy reforms is stymied by a lack of political will.
A Path Forward
Despite repeated calls for reform by policy advocates, little has been done to unwind the overheated speculative nature of Australia's institutionalised housing sector. There seems to be a dwindling of architectural conviction in confronting the speculation fueling the housing crisis in recent years, both in action and advocacy discourse. Could this reflect the privileged position of the Australian architectural industry's dominant voices? This question raises important concerns about the profession's complicity in systems that benefit established practitioners while excluding others. For many industry luminaries, the conditions behind Australia's housing crisis have benefited them, as they have turned their architectural savvy and social capital into capital accumulation and, by extension, increased wealth and clout.
If architecture itself is indeed post-political, as some suggest, then does that reduce the profession's force majeure role to merely myopic aesthetic criticism? Architecture as a profession has a long tradition of identifying with our patron clients while distancing ourselves from those that cannot afford that same patronage, not to mention a torrid institutionalised legacy of exploitation within practice and the academy. In this respect, the architect's often classist position is not beyond scrutiny or reproach in the context of the ongoing and intensifying housing crisis.
Is the limit of our civic engagement that we might sometimes seek to design a seemingly 'democratic' institution or public building, putting the literal facade of civility on chimaera-like neo-colonial institutions operating in previously discussed contested settler spaces? Is the future of architecture as a profession in regard to the Australian housing crisis just the ongoing proliferation of Tafuri's 'empty architecture', or can we find a way back to contributing to that quasi-utopian ideal of politically and socially 'engaged' architecture that supplants the current 'Kabuki Theatre' of crisis?
The housing crisis in Australia represents both a policy failure and a moral crisis that demands urgent response from all sectors of society, including the architectural profession. The path forward requires not just technical solutions but fundamental shifts in how we conceptualise housing, tenure, and the role of the state in providing this basic human need.