Talking Architecture & Design Podcast (Episode 204) - Tara Veldman from BLP on the future of health infrastructure & designing for collective wellbeing Listen Now
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    Feature Articles

    Grand designs? Why many Australian architects say their career makes them unhappy
    Grand designs? Why many Australian architects say their career makes them unhappy

    For years there have been suggestions of widespread poor wellbeing among architects. In many ways this is not surprising. It’s well established the profession has a culture of long hours and (often unpaid) overtime, relentless and pressured deadlines, high responsibility and liability and surprisingly low starting pay, even after five years of university education.


    Making merry: How we brought Melbourne’s Merri Creek back from pollution, neglect and weeds
    Making merry: How we brought Melbourne’s Merri Creek back from pollution, neglect and weeds

    I met with a friend for a walk beside Merri Creek, in inner Melbourne. She had lived in the area for a few years, and as we walked beside the creek, past trees, native grasses, a small wetland echoing with frog calls, I talked about how it had looked before we started the site’s restoration around 25 years ago. She stopped in her tracks, astonished. “But I thought it had always been like this!”


    Hundreds of cities have achieved zero road deaths in a year. Here’s how they did it
    Hundreds of cities have achieved zero road deaths in a year. Here’s how they did it

    It’s National Road Safety Week and it comes on the back of a year in which 1,286 people died on Australian roads. The rising road toll – up 8.2% for the year to March – included 62 children. Tragically, road deaths remain the number one killer of children in Australia.


    Becoming a landlord while still renting? ‘Rentvesting’ promises a foot on the property ladder, but watch your step
    Becoming a landlord while still renting? ‘Rentvesting’ promises a foot on the property ladder, but watch your step

    As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, “rentvesting” is being touted as a lifesaver.


    Electric vehicles will start to cut emissions and improve air quality in our cities – but only once they’re common
    Electric vehicles will start to cut emissions and improve air quality in our cities – but only once they’re common

    Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport.


    Our tall, wet forests were not open and park-like when colonists arrived – and we shouldn’t be burning them
    Our tall, wet forests were not open and park-like when colonists arrived – and we shouldn’t be burning them

    Some reports and popular books, such as Bill Gammage’s Biggest Estate on Earth, have argued that extensive areas of Australia’s forests were kept open through frequent burning by First Nations people.


    What do we lose when our old suburbs disappear?
    What do we lose when our old suburbs disappear?

    I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, double-storey brick homes with Greek columns that aspirational migrants built in the 1970s and half-crumbling, Federation-era mansions once occupied by people whose names still appear in history textbooks.


    Many Australians face losing their homes right now. Here’s how the government should help
    Many Australians face losing their homes right now. Here’s how the government should help

    An important principle was invoked by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in defence of the government’s Future Made in Australia industry policy announcement.


    Gone in a puff of smoke: 52,000 sq km of ‘long unburnt’ Australian habitat has vanished in 40 years
    Gone in a puff of smoke: 52,000 sq km of ‘long unburnt’ Australian habitat has vanished in 40 years

    Landscapes that have escaped fire for decades or centuries tend to harbour vital structures for wildlife, such as tree hollows and large logs. But these “long unburnt” habitats can be eliminated by a single blaze.


    Why research cuts at a South Australian institution have scientists up in arms
    Why research cuts at a South Australian institution have scientists up in arms

    In February, the South Australian Museum “re-imagined” itself. In the face of rising costs and inadequate government funds, CEO David Gaimster, who took the reins last June, declared the museum is “not a university”, and will gut its research capabilities, starting this July.


    Australia’s long-sought stronger environmental laws just got indefinitely deferred. It’s back to business as usual
    Australia’s long-sought stronger environmental laws just got indefinitely deferred. It’s back to business as usual

    We’ve long known Australia’s main environmental protection laws aren’t doing their job, and we know Australians want better laws. Labor was elected promising to fix them.


    Intense rain and flash floods have increased inland in eastern Australia
    Intense rain and flash floods have increased inland in eastern Australia

    Before climate change really got going, eastern Australia’s flash floods tended to concentrate on our coastal regions, east of the Great Dividing Range.


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