Philip Thalis
@PhilipThalis
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Architect, urbanist, public advocate. Principal @HillThalisAUP co author #PublicSydney . Prof Practice UNSW. ex Indep’t Sydney Councillor. AIA 2024 Gold Medalist
Joined July 2016
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Hey
@WaverleyCouncil
, how come a large area of Bondi Beach adjacent the flags is roped off & leased out for a private function??
City beaches are the most quintessential & egalitarian public spaces - NOT FOR RENT.
Risks being thin end of wedge
#publicsydney
not
#privatisedsydney
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My poor mum - 101 & counting - has come down with COVID.
Born during the last pandemic, survived Depressions, wars migration, 3 sons…
At home with capable grand daughter .. & pets
Fingers crossed 🤞
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Australia; the land of perennial missed opportunities…
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Oh
#insiders
, after a week of revelations of Dutton’s multiple & abject failures as Immigration Minister & more (moral, procedural & $), Speers starts straight off with a few refugees landed in the Kimberley’s, & plays Dutton on sanctimonious full attack
Sack Skynews Speers!
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Vale mum
What a remarkable life you have had, full of adversity, determination, achievement & dedication.
A personal journey through so many of the defining passages of C20th
Born Paris September 1920
Died Sydney June 2022
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In a country often afflicted by drought, we call it ‘stormwater’ & happily let it flow down our drains & gutters & out to sea.
So thoughtless, so profligate.
Instead we should be capturing it, recycling it in every way that we can.
Water our most precious resource-let’s save it
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Amazing scenes on the huge
#VoteYes2023
walk to Victoria Park.
Cleveland St has never looked better, filled with people walks& voting for a better, fairer Australia!
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Not in habit of watching
#qanda
(particularly with toady Libs), but
@BehrouzBoochani
points the finger - $40bill squandered on torturing innocent refugees - $ which could have been invested in better housing projects, with huge increase in public & affordable housing
Fail
#auspol
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Excellent to see
@ABCmediawatch
unmask the gutter campaign to scuttle Qld’s worthy land tax on investment properties owned by inter-staters.
Why did
@Dom_Perrottet
sabotage this?
& huge media campaign by AFR & Murdoch exposed, fuelled by the loud usual property self-interests
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Why don’t we plant more fruit trees, especially citrus as street trees?
Especially under those dreaded overhead wires that so blight our streets.
Rosebery shows how to do it!
#publicsydney
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Serious question - After they loose the upcoming election, is there anyone in the Fed Libs to lead them who could actually restore their credibility?
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Excellent to see
@abc730
coverage of massive sell off of Waterloo public housing estate.
This gross privatisation will brutalise a vulnerable community, while all that demolition (with its loss of carbon & trees) will hardly increase desperately-needed public housing.🧵
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Here’s Australia’s COVID problem in a nutshell;
Yesterday in Sydney 76 000 people made the effort to get tested…yet only 13 131 vaccines administered. A similar pattern across weeks shows that people are prepared to do right thing… but where are our vaccines PM?
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Only question here in article by Emeritus Prof Ian Lowe
@SatPaper
is…
How did they keep it to 1 page?
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Treatment of
@SenatorPayman
by
@albo
is truely shameful & an indictment of lame BOA politicians.
Why doesn’t ALP allow conscience votes - even LNP do that, & you all rightly praise
@BridgetArcherMP
when she did.
Our politics would be much better with more integrity & independence
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Flying visit to some of Sydney grand new Metro Stations, which opened today!
Such significant additions to
#publicsydney
, rightly at a metropolitan scale, built for the century to come!
Firstly take the escalator down to Gadigal Station, via fabulous new mural! 🧵
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Here’s another dimension of the housing crisis - block of 6 formerly more affordable apartments in Glebe - residents evicted & turned over to short stay accommodation.
The monetisation of housing, again a policy vacuum in Aust cities, more rental crisis, whereas OS cities act
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On Bridge St to see the unveiled former Department of Education, so sold off by that Privateer Perrotet as a hotel.
Extremely unimpressive addition to sandstone base, trivial ins & outs, no scale or dialogue between old & new
Was
#publicsydney
Now
#privatisedsydney
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@BrentToderian
Why isn’t the case of Finland’s actual solution to homelessness being discussed, as opposed to all the hot air & weak proposals on housing recently.
Direct investment in housing for the most needed is so what we need - at a fraction of costs of other wasteful proposals
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Thanks to all the many well-wishers who sent Twitter messages for my mum to recover from COVID.
Well after the isolation periods we could finally visit, & can report that this 101 year old is right back in the swing of things!
Thank you all
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Here is a thread of Barangaroo Central’s many failings & reasons why it should be refused by NSW Planning & Planning Minister.
This is public land, yet there have been 4 years of secretive negotiations to create this travesty.
Please make submissions opposing this by Monday! 🧵
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Micro-urbanism
The tiny streets, blocks & houses of ‘Paddinghurst’ in inner city Sydney, breaking all those rules…
- big trees in little streets
- tiny lots (under 100m2)
- overhanging balconies
- guérilla gardening
- bins, pots, bikes all out
Oh… & no cars
#publicsydney
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@PeterCronau
This bias has been very apparent, in addition to far too many MSM/ Murdoch hacks as dull guests.
The vibrant independent media sector, with its exclusive stories & bright reporters & commentators, almost totally excluded by such narrow coverage.
Not good enough
@InsidersABC
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Ok, so let’s comparé today’s
@smh
&
@SatPaper
coverage of
#RobodebtRC
..
Sat Paper front page + double page article by
@SquigglyRick
…
SMH tiny anaemic article on P21
@ABCmediawatch
- plenty to discuss here on MSM censorship!
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Are these the best, the greenest new streets in urban Australia?Victoria Park’s in Sydney’s Green Square have;
- 4 or 5 rows of eucalypts, middle 2 in median swale which collects & treats runoff
- broad footpaths
- shade
- area has new parks & high density housing
20 years old
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Too many tree haters in Australia, bulldozing our bush or poisoning mature trees. Especially magnificent & endemic Port Jackson Figs beside the harbour.
Fines for such criminal acts must be hugely increased…whereas we fine & jail environmental protestors
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We are a wealthy country, so obsessed with real estate, yet with such a mediocre general standard of housing - poor in design, affordability, environment & design.
How have we made our housing to expensive to buy, rent or build?
So need major reforms at all levels of Govt
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Bye
#insiders
.. lost me again
Starting off with more blah blah on the minimal, future superannuation adjustment .. rather than national debt, a fairer tax system.. or
#RobodebtRC
Come on
@ABC
you have to be better than this
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My mother, on the verge of turning 100, received the standard congratulatory letter from PM’s office.
“I couldn’t care less” she retorted, both a statement about old age & disdain for the performance of our current Prime Minister...
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Morrison asks; how good is Australia? How good is Queensland?
Has much changed since Donald Horne cuttingly wrote The Lucky Country back in 1963? A country happy to be governed by second rate people?
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Spoke to both ABC & Channel 7 News today about the gross overdevelopment proposed for Fish Markets site on Pyrmont waterfront.
Why does NSW Govt think that all publicly owned sites, especially harbour front ones, should be made available for such exploitation?
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This memorable exchange is absolutely worth playing again.
If only Turnbull had been so frank & fearless, so courageous, as PM!
Malcolm Turnbull calling out
#MurdochGutterMedia
on falsehoods about
#TheVoice
isn’t the 1st time the former PM rattled their feathers. Here he is on
#QandA
in 2020 frying NewsCorp’s Paul Kelly on Climate.
Kelly “How dare you…lecture me”
Turnbull “I am lecturing you, yep!”🔥
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My perspective on many failings of Barangaroo, & lessons we have to learn to never again repeat such an urban travesty.
Instead of public benefit, B’roo totems of greed
Looking at their comments yesterday, bevy of ex-politicians clearly have no (good) idea
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This is shameful sale by
@GladysB
&co of all of Millers Pt public housing-@ $1bill windfall.
For over 100 years this excellent public housing built & maintained by successive NSW Govts-through wars & depressions.
Need to keep Sydney fair & equitable, with good housing for all
Public housing now rented to Airbnb and sold to the wealthy elite wanting inner city convenience
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@Peter_Fitz
This stadium completely wrong thing to do, Hobart.
-placement wrong, cuts off Queens Pk & dominates Sullivans Cove
-cost exorbitant, esp relative to capacity
-need - v hard to justify
Yet more public $ propping up whims of Big Sport - ugly, gambling-obsessed, corporates.
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Barangaroo as it could have/should have been.
Our 2006 competition winning scheme (
@hillthalisaup
,
#jilalandscape
@BTBArchitecture
);
11 ha (1/2 site as per brief) of continuous inalienable public parkland edged by a public street
No thrusting casino tower hogging foreshore...
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Going.. going .. thankfully soon gone.
Last chance for cartoonists like
@moir_alan
to take down the unrepentant Morrison
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Let’s follow Paris, which now has 25% public & affordable housing, up from 13% in late 90’s.
“Those who produce the riches of the city have the right to live in it”.
Even bakers get a mention as essential workers!
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Macleay St in Kings Cross in mid 60’s.
Found this family photo of my brother & I with our maternal grandmother, who lived upstairs on Macleay St.
So urbane & cosmopolitan then, in contrast to the rest of the continent …
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Look at clusterbomb of shocking overdevelopment, all on public land, all courtesy of
@Dom_Perrottet
& co.
Barangaroo, Darling Harbour, Blackwattle Bay, Central Station & now Nth Eveleigh.
@ChrisMinnsMP
-high time you spoke up & offered us a better city, based on public interest
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A different perspectives on housing policy - the case of Vienna.
Extract from
#newyorktimes
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Puzzled that a city with all the sophistication of the Hoddle Grid could produce such a dystopia just across the Yarra in Southbank - how did that happen?
Extreme density overlaid on a very poor public space structure - bad plan, way too many cars, no parks, minimal transport 🧵
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Why doesn’t Sydney have more grandly planted major boulevards as memorable as the magnificent The Grand Parade along the Sans Souci waterfront to Botany Bay?
For kms mature Norfolk Is pines, with the continuous & popular park/promenade beside to Bay
#publicsydney
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The recovery from lockdown now confirmed - Surry Hill’s iconic
#hotelHollwood
reopening in the post Doris & Mark era with proud new owners at 3pm today!!
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@julia_zemiro
Sorry it’s compulsory viewing to see absolute lack of talent, charisma & ethics of almost every member of LNP interviewed.
A few were honest enough to say how awful it was, but in others duplicity, dishonesty & misogyny ruled.
And what’s changed with Dutton now leader?
Watch it!
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Essential viewing from
@TheAusInstitute
Plug this tax & royalties rort right now
@AlboMP
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So NSW remembers, privateer Perrotet long held his ideological obsession with selling off public assets - here his sell off of the precious
#Sydneysandstones
on Bridge St - too good to be retained in public ownership, despite their obvious heritage value & strategic opportunities
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Yet again
@4corners
uncovering more environmental exploitation by a complicit & compliant Aust Govts - here Northern Territory Govt bending over to allow wide land clearing & draining cotton farming.
Let’s kick out such BAU government for mates - vote Independents & progressives
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Mostly well up to 98, but failing eyesight, hearing & mobility restrict her, but her memory ðical worldview as sharp as ever. Huge support, reciprocated, for 4 grandkids Various medical crises, survives COVID, in good form for her 99th & 100th birthday parties.
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Density with amenity means putting higher numbers of residents in best of environments -such as facing parks/public spaces.
Here our project to replace 100 houses with 600-840 park-front apartments.
@ 6 storeys, levy to improve street & park - drop wires,cycles, calm traffic 1/2
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Looking up, along George St.
This building is a rarity in Sydney, as in its form it occupies & preserves the original narrow terrace house lots that once lined Sydney streets, while its height is limited by the 150ft (47m) height limit in place between 1912 - 1960.
Great detail
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Spotted parked out in the wild in Surry Hills - a Riley Elf! Mk1! (Never heard of them before)
Look at that mint condition venetian in rear window
Sort of like a Mini crossed with a Rover ...
Obviously a well-oiled obsession..
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Superb special on
@ABCTV
, starting with
#BrucePascoe
& his revelatory book
#darkemu
, openly canvassing a wide range of views, discussing issues of connection to & cultivation of the land, beautifully shot & explained.
Please make time to watch it!
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Geoffrey Robertson nails it yet again;
“If the référendum is lost, all Australians will be losers..
What other country would frame its opposition to constitutional change with a heartfelt appeal to cluelessness: ‘if you don’t know vote no’
So
#VoteYes2023
!
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Narrabunda flats, a 1952 public housing block that continues to sit unobtrusively amongst the terraces & shops on Glebe Pt Rd.
When NSW Housing Commission used high-calibre architects like émigré Oser to design
#sydneyapartmentbuildings
.
Let’s do that once again pl
@RoseBJackson
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Exploring the vast new halls of new concourse under Central Station, welcome expansion of
#publicsydney
They have such a great scale & grandeur, designed to accommodate the commuter crowds that will come when metro opens.
Miraculously constructed under operating platforms 🧵
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Some 1970’s suburban palazzo style in South Maroubra, no doubt courtesy of hard-working migrants who did well & wanted to show off.
Quite a few out-there elements not to be found in any architectural magazines of the period.
This one in Broome St, but plenty more up in Sth Coogee
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Not just jacaranda season, here dazzling red of Illawarra Flame Tree seen against vivid green of a Golden Robinia
#sydneystreettrees
#publicsydney
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Circular Quay Station - is there a more dramatically sited urban railway station in any city?
Always a thrill to catch the train there
#publicsydney
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Look at this fantastic urban housing in Vietnam by architect Vo Trong Nghĩa.
Tall, porous, green & flexible - where in Sydney/other Aust cities would such a fantastic type be permitted?
This is where we need to open up our overly conservative planning rules to allow this
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@martinrev21
A critical issue, too often passed over in what passes for economic commentary here, is that cost of housing - buying or renting - so dominates people’s lives that they’re stymied in so many other, more public, ethical & meaningful life pursuits.
A society ensnared by real estate
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Wrong answer!
Notorious new seawall at Collaroy Beach entrenches private property over public beaches & ecological inevitability.
We must start planning for managed retreat;
- no new approvals/extensions/subdivisions in such locations
- targeted resumptions & partial buybacks
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Excellent analysis on
@abc730
on today’s welcome renewed funding for our national cultural institutions in Canberra.
& too right to put $500mill funding in context of Morrison’s obscene over spend at Aust War Memorial, while they deliberately ran down funding on all the others
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Never cease to marvel at crossing the stupendous Sydney Harbour Bridge!
Symphony of structure - massiveness & slenderness, huge scale & delicate detail.
Arches within arches, always amazing.
Never videoed it before
Never take the tunnel..
#publicsydney
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Welcome Clover!
Sydney’s Lord Mayor
@CloverMoore
elected again!
Democracy wins, & our city overwhelmingly votes to continue to be independent, progressive & representative of community aspirations.
👏👏👏🥳🎈🥳🎉🚴♀️🏃♀️🌲🌳
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@PMalinauskasMP
Victoria should do this next - reverse Kennett’s rampage of privatisation.
& Minns must do the same in NSW, starting with bus services, but so much more Perrotet-driven privatisation to reverse.
Grea if Labor get this
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ACT is a city with effectively a State Govt. imagine if all our State Govts were this effective!
100%
#renewable
ASAP must be the goal - forget coal, leave it in the ground (& bury this Fed Govt too)
create a new green economy
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Look at this new tower block on giant intersection in Kingsford.
All glass facing NE & West.
Dismal awning windows with 125mm restricters. All open as must be so hot inside, but dismal performance. Building will be uninhabitable without AC, or in blackout.
Prob crammed students
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Central Station over development-my review.
Its inevitable & desirable to connect city over & across void of Central’s rail corridor, however Govt plan is seriously flawed & should be rejected. No urgency-such a major plan must be of highest urban quality-get it right, or wait 🧵
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A dismal day Australia.
Denying the Uluṟu Statement from the Heart a travesty, a tragedy.
Ask yourselves- why wasn’t this a resounding YES?
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@abc730
@HonTonyAbbott
The only point of putting Abbott on is to remind everyone what a poor decision people made in voting him in in 2013.
Led to a tragic lost decade of Aust politics, disastrous climate wrecking action, dismal ethics & governance, zero forward thinking, relentless negativity…
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A welcome architecture of understatement; quietly, skilfully situated on the corner of Bridge & Young Streets in the city.
Small footprint, subtle curved negotiation of the corners, in excellent condition due to the craft of its design & construction.
#urbanarchitecture
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Why privatisation of public services & public projects is so bad - the public gets it, what’s wrong with the political classes?
Why so easily led by corporate self-interests?
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This spaghetti is actually called Ropes Crossing in Western Sydney - basically a maze of driveways to min garbage truck codes, with jambed-in houses & seniors housing.
Almost no outdoor or landscaped space at all.
The reality of so many new Australian suburbs is
#densitydonebadly
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Happy birthday to my mum!
101 & still full life, opinions, reminiscences & history lived over the last century.
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The madness of continuing sprawl - here the inexorable spread west across farmland, seen from take off from Melbourne.
We are we so tied to exploitation of land, whether through mining or real estate?
We so need to change
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At the rally for Palestine in the State Library Square in Melbourne.
Public space rightly the theatre for dissent
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50 years ago this week
@cityofsydney
ran a trial closure of Martin Place to Traffic, opening a new era of pedestrianisation of public space in Sydney.
We’ve never looked back, & now we’re looking forward-to whole of George St
A great
#publicsydney
story- for a better city
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The Paris Olympics has once again shown Australia’s prowess in world sport.
Imagine if we devoted the same attention, resources & passion for other areas of life; environment & energy, reconciliation, social policy, equitable housing, better cities & transport…
Must do better!
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Starting an occasional series on density, featuring analysis of some of our 100-odd apartment buildings & urban housing projects.
Too little objective info on how to measure density
Starting with our conversion of a 1950’s factory building on an 82m2 site in Surry Hills 🧵
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The rise of the bad headline - should read;
To left - Court upholds our Rights to Peaceful Protest, as Draconian Fines illegal
To right - Aust finally votes in UN to stop Israeli Massacres in Gaza
That’s better
#smh
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Architect Roy Ground serene row of modern terrace houses in Forrest, Canberra, c1960.
Double height living rooms opening to walled courtyard gardens, robust concrete block party walls, vine covered internal elevation.
An enduring model of type of housing we need so much more of!
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Big green wall, Darlinghurst.
No tricks, just growing 7 storeys out of the ground on a south facade
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Thank you
@SatPaper
for calling out this disgraceful behavior by our National Archives of Aust head-the duplicitous, grandstanding DG Fricker.
Why/how did he authorise wasting $2mill to embargo the legitimate release of Kerr/Palace letters?
Bravo
@palaceletters
for outing truth
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Why do our footpaths need to be such obstacle courses? Accumulate the thoughtless detritus of every traffic engineer & ‘service provider’.
Such myopic practices so degrades our public environment, & imagine being vision impaired?
Not good enough
#publicsydney
@walksydney1
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Why don’t/ can’t we do this in Aust? At scale to help ease our housing crisis?
42 social housing dwellings by Spanish architects Péris & Toral in Son Servera.
All built in stone!
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Outstanding
#mediawatch
coverage on the ethics & complexities of reporting on the Israeli/Palestinian war…
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Sydney on the move 1928;
Hyde Park re-levelled & replanned after city circle railway construction, trees & Archibald Fountain still to come
Harbour Bridge construction proceeding, as is Martin Pl extension.
Walsh Bay/Millers Pt wharves complete
#publicsydney
on the make
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#nemesis
- so glad to see back of Morrison - that bellicose buffoon, who did so much damage to our country, to fan corruption & dissemble any semblance of good Govt & accountability.
That smirk, the odious self-agrandissement, the cretinous allies…
& some still in Parliament
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Reminder that Sydney was a great Public Transport city;
1. to 1950, 205 train stations serving population of 1.69mill over urban area of 800km2. Plus 350km tram system, multiple interchanges, myriad stops.
Sydney owes its form & functioning to Govt foresight & $ in this period🧵
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Nightingale Village in Melbourne - a cluster of small footprint apartment buildings on former industrial land beside railway 6kms from city centre -has just deservedly won a bevy of architecture awards.
Yet this model cooperative housing not in Sydney-land price.
Economists? fix?
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Mark of success!
Anzac Parade light rail packed from UNSW to Central.
But so packed that passengers not able to get on at any stop in between.
Need more services at shorter headways!
& an extra line along Todman Ave thru Green Sq to increases services & access to heavy rail
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Is there a greedier developer than Triguboff, Aust’s most entitled billionaire?
“Meriton is trying to build up to 1,600 units on land it purchased for nearly $250 mill, which will require special approval because it is about 6 times more than what is currently permitted…
"This isn't anti-development, this is about the right development in the right place," member of Save Little Bay Jansen Stewart said. This ABC story about crooked Harry has been a long time coming.
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