Alternative Housing Ideas Challenge - shortlist announced.

AHA! Alternative Homes Agency proposed by Architects for Peace

We’d like to congratulate the seven short-listed entries for the City of Sydney’s alternative housing ideas challenge, announced mid-June. These entrants will now have until November this year to develop their proposals further, and present them for public consultation.

https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/vision/planning-for-2050/alternative-housing

The competition attracted over 230 entries, among them a proposal on behalf of Architects for Peace, developed by Megan Spoor, Eva Rodriguez Riestra, Nicole Mechkaroff and Eleanor Chapman.

Although globally many kinds of housing models exist, in Australia, reliance on a very limited range of housing tenure options not only keeps housing costs high, but also excludes other kinds of housing possibilities from the public imagination. Our proposal seeks to disrupt a deeply-rooted reliance on the private market by opening up the public imagination to other ways of living together – and practical means to realise them. 

We propose to establish an information agency to foster awareness of alternative housing models, as well as support development and implementation of self-organised housing initiatives. Our proposed Alternative Homes Agency (AHA!) challenges the dominant acceptance of the private housing market by filling a crucial gap in community knowledge and skills - a gap that prevents the imagining of alternatives. AHA! will work alongside government service providers and NGOs to:

• Raise awareness among home-seekers of the diversity of possible communal housing models beyond private renting or ownership.
• Map and create a register of existing vacant and under-utilised properties.
• Educate home-seekers in the skills and knowledge needed to initiate a self-organised housing project.
• Connect independent home-seekers from a range of backgrounds with Community Housing Providers, with a view to realising joint projects.

View our proposal in detail here

We’re grateful to the City of Sydney for leading a much-needed public discussion of housing alternatives, and for the internal discussion it’s sparked within our team recently! Architects for Peace is committed to standing up for decent affordable housing for all.

If you are interested in getting involved with related A4P activities, please contact us at team@architectsforpeace.org.