whatever you do don’t ask their age

this. also for all of the land wasted on feeding beef we could have vast forests that feed infilling cities with mass timber midrises and addressing both housing and climate crises

Great blog post by David Baker Architects' Bryan Alcorn and Carley Leckie on their award winning Steplight design for the national Single Stair Design competition. www.dbarchitect.com/blogs/buildi...

After the storm passes, a great time for safe streets advocates to look for the "sneckdowns" and share them with your local elected officials. What are we talking about? nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/01/23/s...

This is a beautiful design for affordable courtyard housing in London Note how the external walls are curved to retain the mature trees around the site By Stephen Taylor Architects

How to really make our housing more affordable - reform tax & lending rules! Strong evidence-based article by Prof Alan Morris on what has worked in our recent past, in contrast to policy vacuum since. Hint; tight investor rules! thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spin...

Brilliant to see the BBC picking up Ranald Lawrence and Dean Hawkes' fabulously interesting and important #environmentalhumanities work on #HardwickHall. They measured solar gain to understand Elizabethan comfort tech. The original articles are hugely worth reading too. www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Nipaluna (Hobart) by night.

Great to challenge the stifling orthodoxy of apartment planning & how we could live. Kitchen & table in the best place in the plan, able to selectively open to either or both orientations. Summer & winter due to generous windows & external blinds #architectureofhousing

Problems of modern brickwork, exposed in this ordinary construction. All the signs of lack of care; -misaligned bricks -clumsily expressed flashings -uncoordinated slab edges on face -wrong vents Should have looked like an old warehouse building… compromised #sydneyapartmentbuilding

Chippendale in inner Sydney The tight grid of streets lined with various warehouses, terrace houses & apartments #publicsydney

Plan your city for people, and you get people. Sydney pedestrianised George Street, controversially replacing lanes of traffic with a Light Rail line in 2019. The city has never looked back.

Meanwhile, 50m away on the lane corner, the contemporary version deformed by planning,s obsession with mansards, dormer windows & the outdated pretence of 1 storey… Just build 2 storeys!

Friendly reminder that you don't need generative AI to make your point!

Incredibly sad to see we have lost Professor Emma Johnston. She loved, and fought for, the marine environment, women in STEM, climate action and social purpose at universities. I knew her from her work at Sydney University where all of this was on display. Too soon. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...

oooh can we implement resident parking fees tied to weight like zuerich?

There’s twice as many utes as tradies in Australia. We need remove the luxury car tax exemption which incentivises people to buy megautes instead of safer, cleaner smaller cars and SUVs.

Grand #sydneysemis with a split/shared central tower. Not many of this scale & character Bondi Rd opposite Waverley Park

Took mum to the Japanese gardens at Auburn for a picnic for her birthday. I hope she enjoyed it.

The proponents of these ideas don’t like to be pinned down to any kind of detail, but it seems that if a landowner is not allowed to build what they want on their land - whatever the use, or size, or ecological condition - then it’s considered a planning restriction that is an unreasonable cost.

As urbanisation accelerates, cities are grappling with unprecedented pressures—from chronic housing shortages to streets overwhelmed by cars. In response, a small but growing group of leaders is matching the scale of the challenge—steering toward a more prosperous, resilient and sustainable future.🧵

Wishing everyone a happy festive season from all at @hillthalisaup, wherever you are! The green & red at our Campbelltown convertible car park Photo @brettboardmanphotography

Tree vs rock Tree hanging on for dear life

These holidays, take the challenge & piece together the #publicsysdneypuzzle! Navigate the city’s public places, the harbour front, the parks & squares, all the public buildings from the Opera House to Central Station & beyond. Available from #Urobooksellers & #kinokuniya @hillthalisaup.bsky.social

Try making the Sydney Opera House in 6 east pieces these holidays in our #publicsysdneypuzzle! Navigate Sydney’s public places, the harbour front, parks & squares, all our public buildings Find it #Urobooksellers & #kinokuniya & direct from @hillthalisaup.bsky.social

Percentage of *social housing* in 🇦🇺Australia is 4.1%. Down from 4.7% in 2013. How do we rank against other western democracies? 🔹Austria - 24% 🔹Netherlands 30% 🔹Denmark 20% 🔹United Kingdom 17% 🇫🇷 25% of all residences in Paris are public housing. #auspol

The fine pair of new buildings with arcades between Clarence & King Sts in central Sydney. Robust brick facades relating to neighbours, perforated with tall arcades, lanes & courts, toplit & animated by artwork & shops. Bravo Architectus, Koichi Takada & @cityofsydney.bsky.social #urbanarchitecture

Unbuilt project for a series of courtyard houses - a rare but needed type in Aust #courtyardhouses; compact, efficient, private, open to landscape, light & air - perfect for our climate, appropriate density. This one of so many approved housing projects not being built… #architectureofhousing

One of the many reasons AI can't produce good writing is it can't hate its own writing. It can't think to itself "Maybe I'm illiterate" during the writing process. And that's essential

Overtime to call a halt to Minns Govt HDA planning uplift - it’s developers’ bingo. It’s the antithesis of real planning, an open invitation to corruption (as advised by ICAC), opaque & inequitable, & plainly putting unreasonable pressures on under-resourced DPHI www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw...

We have a real problem in Australia where our environmental standards allow worst practice at both extremes of housing spectrum; Sprawl; cramped, black roofed, poor materials, no landscape Towers; all tinted glass that cut out all winter sun while futile in summer, pathetic ‘windows’ Reform needed!

Fake eyelashes planted on a #sydneyterracehouse !!

The muscular warehouse buildings on the western side of the city centre give so much material character & urban scale to these Sydney streets. This one in York St near King has a particularly robust form, with massively scaled elements including an altered trachyte base. #sydneyarchitecture

Don’t forget, for many years #Uber insisted loudly that it would reduce traffic in cities. Instead, Uber drivers cruise without passengers 40% of the time. Uber and Lyft no longer claim they reduce traffic. They now admit they increase congestion. So much for “making cities better…” Via @wsj.com

Climate change& the planetary crisis are largely driven by urbanisation& urban lifestyles. At the same time, their consequences are felt most acutely in cities—especially by the urban poor. This places cities at the centre of climate action& adaptation. @mayors4climate.bsky.social play a key role.

Sydney building hoarding 2025…

I almost never post links to my writing…feeling it is quite a gauche practice - but I’m posting this today, because of how much I enjoyed thinking about this building when I was fortunate enough to write about it. It is rare to have works with this density of intent to consider…

You know in dreams you sometimes return to the same place, a kind of city that's an amalgam of real experienced places. Last night in my sleep I visited one I'm familiar with, I know my way around but a bar I like to visit had closed down & become a luxury flat. My dreams are becoming gentrified.

An exemplar of the #architectureofhousing; Candalepas architects design in President Ave Sutherland. Great 6 storey scale, urbane, strong & durable material character, generous balconies with deep shade. This is the west facade - external shading & balconies - no exposed glass visible.

Emil Otto Hoppé. The Canal. Manchester. 1925.

Newcastle Port now closed to coal ships! Wish we had drone footage of 5 Nannas in a tinny breaching 100m exclusion zone in an ‘exciting back &forth with police boats’. (Observers report). No arrests. Harbour authorities closed the port to coal ships. @risingtideaus.bsky.social

The Sydney Opera House in 6 easy pieces! Discover the city as you have never seen it - get your #publicsydneypuzzle for this holiday season at #Uro Bookshops, #kinokuniya or on line

So this happened in Oslo yesterday. Four articulated buses got stuck in a roundabout.

Big Oil raked in record-breaking profits. The companies that caused the climate crisis are getting rich as they fuel the fire. @ExxonMobil: $55.7 billion @Shell: $39.87 billion @Chevron: $35.5 billion @BP_plc: $27.7 billion No time to wait. #ActOnClimate #panelsnotpipelines #cdnpoli

Combining public transport with active transport makes for a healthy city full of healthier citizens!

Today is World Sustainable Transport Day! Public transport can help reduce emissions, noise pollution, air pollution, and more. And the more the service is upgraded, the more people will use it.🚉🚌🚋🚆

Mid rise apartment pattern release entirely illustrated by renders instead of architectural plans in a press release on an architectural website. And we wonder why architects are typecast as cosmetic curators rather than as fundamental to housing liveability and performance…🤯

Must read article by @emfarrelly.bsky.social on the outrageous, undemocratic recent changes to NSW Planning Act. Premier Minns in pocket of the worst urgera & profiteers, environmental vandals & developers. This analysis ignored by MSM, sucked in by press release architectureau.com/articles/pro...

The lower of the interior streets of majestic Jones Bay Wharf in Pyrmont, with its dramatic toplights & open vistas to the harbour. Built by the engineers of the #Sydneyharbourtrust c1920 under Chief Engineer #hdwalsh, it was the last of the great finger wharves they built. #publicsydney

AI perfectly manufactured for real estate rubbish…