Award of Merit:

Studio Nine Architects for The Calyx Project by Forage Built

Studio Nine Architects believe in creating meaningful human experiences. Pursuing change and driving progress, our studio values collaborations and partnerships that use our craft to increase the impact designers can have. The studio actively seeks out industry involvement and collaborations. S9 strives to design with substance, providing meaningful change and diversifying our offering to do work that is less transactional and more transformational. 

Disrupting a stagnated industry, S9 has designed a series of new architectural wall cladding profiles, aptly named NINELINE. Born out of a mixture of curiosity and frustration with limited material options available, the innovative series offers 7 new facade options, in distinctive shapes, forms and depths never seen before on the market. Two years in the making, the series has been developed, tested and design protected by the partnership, and will be commercialised and available for specification both externally and internally by Architects and Designers this year. A collaboration designed for all rather than a product designed in isolation for a specific project. 

Continuing to challenge the status quo, S9 have partnered with XFrame, a modern light-weight timber frame construction system that achieves circularity. Using 30% less material than standard timber wall framing, XFrame is carbon negative, rapidly recoverable and manufactured from sustainable sourced (FSC certified) structural engineered timber. The product is a series of modular parts that are designed to clip together without the need for nails, screws or adhesives as a load bearing wall, floor and roof framing system. S9 have produced design tools available for industry use, creating a suite of Revit 3D modelling families that enables users to incorporate the system into their designs. 

Utilising XFrame, S9 have designed a series of five high-quality, customisable spaces ideally suites for tourist accommodation or an addition to your backyard. Assembly Three is the next generation of modular, prefabricated architecturally designed spaces born as a response to a post-covid world. The point of difference comes down to their construction with XFrame enabling the products to not be constrained by logistics, opening up hard to reach, off-grid locations that traditionally haven’t been suitable for development. 

Committed to impacting and supporting social issues, S9 are major sponsors of Forage Built and The Calyx Project, entered into this awards program. S9 staff are also active volunteers to the Forage Built movement helping to activate the pod during community fundraising events.

About the Project

The Calyx Project by Forage Built aims to break the cycle of homelessness, providing meaningful change through an innovative transitional housing solution with a community focus. Engaged by social enterprise Forage Built as major in-kind sponsors, Studio Nine Architects have designed a sustainable housing solution which responds to the current shortage of housing for people experiencing homelessness. The solution begins with a 16sqm, safe, affordable, transportable, energy efficient and eco-friendly dwelling — a dignified place to call home. 

The evidence-based design underwent a rigorous and collaborative consultation and testing process to ensure a successful outcome for the end users, truly understanding how they would best use the space and interact within a village setting. 

As a sister company to Forage Supply Co, it was important for Forage Built to encapsulate the company vision — ‘smallest impact on the environment, biggest impact on the community’. The considered design benefits the environment through its transportable design, prefabricated construction, and use of recycled, cost effective, robust and high performing material. Importantly, the first 5 pods in the initial pilot village will also be carbon neutral (in construction). 

The single-occupant homes are designed to be built within larger villages to foster community. A village intends to include 4+ pods and a 24 hour onsite case worker, with a larger central pod for communal amenities, space for events and skill-based workshops. 

The village concept is targeted towards activating under-utilised CBD sites, such as dormant carparks or vacant lots awaiting development on a medium-term ground lease arrangement, with their modular designs allowing for relocation to the next available site when required. 

Villages will allow residents to safely connect and access services to transition back into permanent housing and the workforce — with the goal to break the current cycle of returning clients and reliance on the social housing and homelessness services systems. 

In-kind donations, financial contributions and strategic partnerships have been crucial, resulting in the construction of the prototype pod — a key milestone to the project. The physical built form has been a vehicle for ongoing fundraising and awareness campaigns, community partnerships and displays, endorsement from industry bodies and key entities, and capital raising programmes. 

A movement, rather than a singular project, The Calyx Project is a replicable solution addressing the ongoing social issue of homelessness. The project has succeeded in raising awareness and funds, demonstrating how people can get behind a cause that has a tangible purpose.

Category: Place

Designer: Andrew Steele, Design Architect / Lead Designer