With July behind us, let’s take a look at the top 10 stories covered throughout the month. Click on the title to read the full story, and let us know which ones were your favourites – or what else we should have covered.

1. Troppo Architects’ prefab pods will “revolutionise” the market, says AIA jury

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Three prefabricated pods in South Australia (SA) have won high praise from judges at the 2018 Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) South Australian Architecture Awards. Named trop_pods @ robe, the project by Troppo Architects took out the event’s top Sustainable Architecture prize, while setting new benchmarks for prefab.

2. Elwood House: “A fundamental shift in apartment typology planning”

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Each of the apartments is unique, designed as individual houses for local owner-occupiers looking to downsize into a more compact residence. This approach represents a fundamental shift in apartment typology planning, with each dwelling a bespoke solution as opposed to the streamlined uniformity typical to multi-residential developments.

3. Stunning Melbourne home is a celebration of brick and timber

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While considering the client’s brief of a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house, our design managed to reduce the overall footprint of the house and provide generous flowing living spaces with deep connection to the natural suburban landscape and the heritage of the existing house.

4. Landscape design enhances the architecture of an impressive Melbourne home

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Ian Barker Gardens was asked to design and construct a garden and entertaining area surrounding an impressive property. The landscape designers felt it was important that the garden not only complement the style of the home but also enhance the architecture. 

5. Sustainable modular extension makes room for a growing family

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Tucked neatly behind a weatherboard house in Melbourne’s leafy north-east sits a two-storey modular extension that is bold yet refined, and has transformed the way the clients live.

6. Designing a fire-proof family home in the Macedon Ranges

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This project is a stunning response to a BAL-40 bushland site, with the home sitting high along the side of Mount Macedon.

7. Study shows how air conditioning is quite literally, killing us

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A new study from the US now reveals that the higher use of air conditioning is increasing air pollution, compromising air quality, damaging human health and even causing deaths.

8. Bringing light, life and contemporary design to a Queenslander cottage

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The original home sits prominently at the street edge of a steeply sloping site, overlooked by neighbours. The quest was to extend the home to provide new living and communal spaces and a master bedroom zone, while capturing a sense of serene privacy and retreat. 

9. From the city to the beach: Australia’s newest surf club building

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This project is a rare look at a new surf club building – with Kurrawa Surf Life Saving Club being one of the first new Australian surf clubs to be built in decades. 

10. Yarra Glen concrete bunker a place for refuge and worship

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After Black Saturday devastated the Yarra Valley in 2009, Cistercian monastery Tarrawarra Abbey decided to build a mixed-use concrete bunker that could serve as a place of refuge in the event of fire.