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The ‘Designing Australia’s Public Housing’ exhibition aims to stimulate discussion and debate in the Australian design and housing policy communities about the value of good design in housing provision and the broader opportunities that design thinking and government participation can bring to our current housing challenge. It seeks to elevate the importance of architectural design and quality place making in Australian government housing policy and investment.

Initial seed funding for this project came through the Austrian Embassy in Canberra. The City of Vienna and its housing agency, Wiener Wohnen, is recognised globally as a leader in the provision of high-quality social rental housing. Following direct engagement with the City of Vienna and participation in the international housing exposition, IBA_Wien: New Social Housing, ���������brought out to Australia the exhibition ‘The Vienna Model 2’, mounting it at both the National Housing Conference and the Australian Homeless Conference in March and August 2022 respectively. This exhibition showcases 100 years of public housing in Vienna and recent developments. A senior Viennese official also spoke at the National Housing Conference plenary about new directions in public housing design and retrofit that the city is taking to address climate change. 

The intention was to develop a companion exhibition about Australian social housing in the next phase. This has been enabled by a Design Strategy Grant from the Alastair Swayn Foundation. Developing the exhibition has involved a multifaceted and collaborative approach with three components. Firstly, historical research of public housing across Australia to document and analyse Australia’s legacy. Secondly, a public exhibition and government stakeholder workshop series to build knowledge about this legacy and to identify future opportunities for innovation and market leadership through public investment in housing and, lastly, a publication that curates the exhibition material alongside a series of essays informed by further research and the collaborative knowledge building that occurred in the workshops.

For the exhibition historical content, the researchers began by scoping a broad overview for each state that chronicled the approach to public housing and identified key projects that were built. This research builds upon two scoping essays; one by Alves (2022) that developed the thesis informing this study, with reference to social housing provision in Victoria, and another by Thalis (2023), that examines the design legacy of public housing in NSW. The researchers interviewed design professionals, government officials and academics, examined original source materials, and reviewed the literature on public housing design and provision in each state and territory.

From this overview list, further research was conducted on projects that indicated innovation in one of the three identified thematic areas or that had received acclaim for design excellence by the professional design sector. The aim of the exhibition was not to create an exhaustive list of public housing projects in Australia. Instead, projects were selected for inclusion if they manifested new ideas or exemplified the housing innovations that were occurring internationally and around the country at the time of their completion.

Selected projects were analysed relative to the policy and market contexts of the time, to identify ways in which the project was leading and introducing new ideas into the private housing market. This research was informed by archival and historical analysis. Documents examined included: state public housing annual reports from the relevant period, statements of significance produced by Heritage planning, architectural reviews, archived images, marketing brochures, and contemporary newspaper articles and media reports. Where possible, researchers visited the selected buildings and projects themselves. 

The exhibition content was first displayed at the Australian Homelessness Conference, convened by ���������and hosted by the South Australian government in Adelaide in August 2024 and attended by over 800 delegates. AHURI’s national reach and established connections with housing professionals, universities and governments in all Australian states and territories meant this exhibition was seen by a broad audience at the conference. An online version of the exhibition is hosted on the ���������website and received 2,086 views between  1 August 2024 and 13 February 2025. Social media coverage was also extensive by both ���������and conference delegates.

The national reach of the exhibition was complemented by the opportunity for local dialogue and knowledge building through hosting the exhibition and workshop series in several locations. Workshops brought together local housing policy and design communities and provided a platform to discuss ideas and experiences. Two workshops were held during 2024, in Adelaide and Melbourne. These semistructured workshops discussed where historical lessons learnt could be utilised in contemporary provision of social housing, the role of government today in leading market innovation and where further research is required to support innovation occurring. These workshops informed the future focused discussion in the project and tailored the historical content to the contemporary provision of social housing.  

Finally, this collaborative knowledge and exhibition content is curated into this publication. Essays, informed by knowledge built in the workshops and further research, situates the exhibition material in the corresponding policy context. The publication highlights common themes across locations, plus points of differences that are unique and important to each. The publication concludes with a collection of lessons learnt to inform contemporary social housing provision.