Award of Merit:

Monash Urban Lab for RetroFit Kit

ADVOCACY THROUGH DESIGN
Monash Urban Lab distinguishes itself through its unique integration of practice-based design and urban planning research. The lab combines multi-scalar architectural design investigations with policy studies focused on transitioning to sustainable and equitable communities. It draws on its strengths across MADA with external partners to support and advocate for applied research solutions to human challenges facing cities and towns. 

CONTRIBUTION TO COMMUNITY
Urban Lab projects sit under interlinked themes, such as compact, ecological and inclusive. Projects focus on intensive, quality, human-centred and holistic development models for regeneration within established urban areas. Aiming to provide equitable living choices for all, key research areas include design for people with disability and ageing populations, affordable and adaptable medium-density infill development, and sustainable urban design and community infrastructure provision. 

HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN
Urban Lab’s design strategies are developed through applied projects that offer both flexibility and specificity in relation to user’s needs. We study how people occupy and use space, and design adjustments and improvements to that space to make it more human centred. Such good design is a synthesis of complex individual parts and works on multiple levels to enrich people’s everyday lives. 

EDUCATION AND THE PROFESSION
Urban Lab implements collaborative practice-based design research that brings together acclaimed design practitioners, topic experts, educators and students to tackle challenges in social, economic, cultural and community contexts. This model of applied research enables ongoing professional development and supports the education of the future generation of design professionals. The integration of research, teaching, advocacy and design application is a powerful framework for inclusive and impactful design practice. 

COLLABORATIONS
Urban Lab includes academic researchers and graduate students from architecture, urban planning and urban design. The team works with state governments and government agencies, built environment professionals and organisations, communities of interest, and researchers and academics from multiple disciplines within Monash and other universities. 

RETROFIT KIT
RetroFit kit exemplifies the Urban Lab applied research approach and working model. A collaboration between Urban Lab and the Australian Human Rights Commission Disability Discrimination Commissioner Dr Ben Gauntlett, the project advocates for better quality, dignified and inclusive homes though design enabled strategies. Led by the Urban lab, the multidisciplinary team includes researchers and educators from the department of design and the Futures Buildings Initiative Research Lab. RetroFit Kit is concerned with the design challenge of how to increase the supply of accessible and adaptable housing.

About the Project

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
RetroFit Kit demonstrates how common housing types could be systematically modified to achieve accessible home environments for people with disability, their families, carers and future residents through strategic design approaches. 

CONSIDERATIONS: ETHICAL DESIGN, WELLBEING, DESIGNING FOR DIVERSITY, REGENERATIVE DESIGN
In Australia there are 4.4 million people with disability, 96% of whom live in housing that is not accessible and may not be suited to their particular circumstances or needs. Accessible homes would be an advantage for many others in the community including seniors, intergenerational households and young families. Yet the availability of inclusive housing remains a significant challenge, with the vast majority of existing homes failing to meet minimum accessibility. The absence of structured solutions that address the complexities of working with existing built fabric, coupled with a lack of access to design professionals, results in adaptations for accessibility that are typically one-off, clinical in appearance and seen to devalue existing dwellings. Our goal was to address this problem through advocacy. 

GOAL
To do so we asked: what if we leverage design knowledge and strategies to remake homes better environments for everyone? What if we leverage small but systematic changes to homes for large-scale impact? These goals were are explored through a series of design principles, strategies and elements that combine as a toolkit for accessible conversions. 

APPROACH AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Our approach was informed by practice-led, research focused on integrated design strategies for improved accessibility and adaptability. Working in research-led education units, we took a typological approach to the problem and focused on common building types across Melbourne’s suburbs that are representative of the city’s development – 1950/60s freestanding houses, 1960/70s walk-up flats, 1980s/onwards town and row houses, 2000s/onwards garage houses. We considered the design implications of accessibility codes in terms aligned with positive spatial attributes: seamlessness, generosity, performance, sociability, flexibility, diversity, dignity and safety. With these in mind, we interrogated typological commonalities as the basis for systematic change. Through iterative design exploration and case study design from the scale of the dwelling – e.g. garage house – to the components – e.g. garage door – we explored how standard buildings and their parts could be converted to create better quality and more inclusive environments. Considered across the diversity of the housing types, components and elements, we compiled a kit of architectural strategies that could combine generic and scale reconfiguration with user input and choice. This was communicated through a public exhibition and associated publications.

Category: Place

Designers and Project Team:
External Collaborator: Dr Ben Gauntlett, Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission
Project Lead (research design, exhibition design and curation): Nigel Bertram, Maryam Gusheh, Catherine Murphy
Graphic Design Lead (print and exhibition): Warren Taylor
Industrial Design Lead (rail and light elements): Tahl Swieca, Rowan Page
Urban Mapping Lead: Tom Morgan
Contributing Monash Architecture Students: Olivia Basile, Ashleigh Carp, Edward Chan, Chee-Song Chuah, Alexandria van Domburgh, Sylvanna Dong, Georgius Hindarko, Amanda Jap, Cheng Lee*, Cyndy Li, Ca Kheng Lot, Annabelle Low, Georgia Rose, Scott Rowe, Taylar Stanton, John Tsitouridis, Lenore Whiteside
Contributing Monash Industrial Design Students: Kat Craine, Jules Kabore, Jo Hutchinson, Walt Liu, Qiuyi Peng
Urban Mapping: Mark Romei, Alexa Gower, Liam Ware
Australian Human Rights Commission: Afton Fife, Clare Lawrence, Lisa Le Van