As Parlour celebrates ten years of advocacy in the architectural profession (happy birthday, Parlour!), we reflect on our recent experience of guest hosting their Instagram account.
In May, Renew spent a week presenting Parlour’s twenty-two thousand followers with a series of provocations. We aimed to identify, understand and interrogate some of the profession’s beliefs around renovation, ageing buildings, risk, demolition and design by committee.
So. What did we hear?
There was overwhelming support from many architects and apartment residents alike for research into the retention and redesign of ageing apartment buildings and a desire to learn more.
Many architects enthusiastically staked a claim for their profession on who is the best-placed to lead the charge. However, there was substantial support for building designers and other building performance experts who are widely respected for their expertise in this space in Europe, South Africa and the Middle East.
Some shared their own experiences as architects, strata committee members and owners of apartment transformation in Australia. They noted the complexity of the exercise, particularly with stakeholder negotiation, but reflected that they would like to do more redesign work, and some even specialise in it.
A few practitioners noted that complexities also arose around the misalignment of current Building Code requirements and major upgrade projects and that reducing these hurdles may increase uptake. We also heard suggestions of replicating the tax deduction upgrade schemes in Europe and using the narrative of carbon savings to incentivise uptake.
We are grateful for and energised by the dozens of comments and messages of support received during our week as guest hosts. We’re looking forward to further engaging with architects and the Parlour audience over the coming months to develop our conceptual and practical frameworks for reframing and retaining these social, economic and environmental assets.
Please click here to view the Instagram Parlour Hosting posts.