SA Housing Round Table – a recap
On Thursday 13 February 2025, the ACA SA held a round table discussion on the critical and current topic of our national housing shortage. Special guests were invited to provide a 10-minute presentation each prior to a facilitated discussion of key themes, opportunities and challenges.
The invited guests included Hon Nick Champion MP, Minister for Planning; UniSA Associate Professor Damian Madigan; and Junction CEO, Maria Palumbo.
With government, social housing and academic research all represented, several interesting topics rose to the surface:
- Overall planning policy and the government’s current housing road map changes
- Levers to manage and improve the provision of key infrastructure services, both for greenfield provision and for infill flexibility
- The opportunities for alternate forms of living to contribute to housing provision and maintenance of character
- The importance of place management and maintenance and the custodial role that Built-to-Rent (BTR( investment brings to maintaining quality offerings
- The nuances of balancing construction cost and affordability with sustainability both environmental and social
The room was well engaged with a topic that touches everyone and offers a key role for the expert contribution of architects. Indeed, the minister left the room with a challenge to the profession to furnish him with a blueprint for best practice social housing design – perhaps challenge accepted.
Two attendees made the following observations.
“Damian Madigan discussed the new Future Living Code Amendment, developed in response to the trend towards lower house occupancy numbers and changing occupancy age and mix in Adelaide’s housing. The new Code Amendment is being trialled in six Councils and considers co-located housing models in established suburbs. It is understood that these projects would generally be of a small-medium scale; however, the potentially complex and bespoke nature of these types of developments provides great architect-led design opportunities, and further opportunity for architects to demonstrate their ability to lead innovative social and community change through design.” – Tom Vinall, JPE Design Studio
“A fascinating discussion about an urgent topic. It was intriguing to debate the need for both physical outcomes and perhaps some social engineering, along with the challenge of balancing expectation versus necessity. The three different speakers gave lively and interesting points of view to the range of hurdles to be faced and possible solutions to be tackled. I’m sure it’s not the last conversation we’ll have on this vital subject.” — Simon Frost, Greenway Architects
Architecture: Studio Nine Architects
Photography: David Sievers