News from the front desk: Welcome back! The year is still too fresh and unsteady on its feet for us to predict how it will bend and what shape it will grow into. So, let’s take full advantage and slap down some blueprints right up front. See if we can seize the agenda and channel the trajectory.
As a publication focused on ways to create a more ...
Spinifex is an opinion column. If you would like to contribute, contact us to ask for a detailed brief.
Australia is running an opportunity deficit in its biggest cities. Housing, congestion and service pressures are eroding the everyday “deal” in Sydney and Melbourne. The question is no longer whether people and investment will look elsewhere, but ...
In the closing weeks of last year, we interviewed Parnell Palme McGuinness. It’s not an obvious choice for us. As a former consultant for the Liberal Party and conservative-leaning columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, McGuinness jokes she’s the “diversity hire” for those left-ish leaning papers. These days, she’s also a senior fellow at ...
Erratic and short-sighted planning policies are not solving the affordability problem that is keeping the poor, the vulnerable and even people on average incomes out of housing in areas they would like to live. Instead, these policies may be driving Australia toward a divided and bitter society in the manner of Trump’s America. A society where people ...
Queensland is taking an axe to windfarms and looks to more cuts; home batteries’ breakthrough
Sign up for our free newsletter.
This story was off the charts in terms of hits. Queensland Premier David Crisafulli, who won the election at the end of 2024 said he wanted the industry to keep burning coal. The story broke in May this ...
For our third Emerald Green awards The Fifth Estate has chosen to honour five people who were key to our hugely successful seven part events program this year and who cast their influence well beyond to the broader industry.
These awards are an informal program that we do completely in house, from a personal and impressionistic ...
A new draft plan for Greater Sydney, The Sydney Plan (the plan), has been released for comment. Having led the preparation of the current plan, A Metropolis of Three Cities and the previous plan, A Plan for Growing Sydney, I was naturally keen to see the outcome. My initial reflections focus on:
Spinifex is an opinion column. If you would like to ...
Anthony Burke ( AB ): The usual architect’s origin story is of always wanting to be an architect. But you wanted to be a photographer…why? What drove you towards architecture?
Ed Lippmann ( EL ) My father had a keen interest in architecture and was a big influence on me. I remember the construction of our house at Rose Bay when I was a boy. I used ...
There’s a reason we’re focused on the built environment/property/real estate – whatever you want to call the buildings we live, work, and play in.
This sector rules the roost in our lives. Where we live and spend our time has a vast impact on our quality of life, much of our economic prospects, plus physical and mental health outcomes.
Sign ...
Queensland resource recovery group BMI Group has snapped up the assets of the failed Rino Recycling business, in which the Clean Energy Finance Corporation invested about $70 million and ended up with an exposure of about $100 million of taxpayer funds.
Rino, based at Eagle Farm Road at Pinkenba, about 10 kilometres east of Brisbane, collapsed after ...
COMMENT: We wish the rest of the built environment was as infinitely regenerating as the moves to cut and curb the National Construction Code seem to be.
At the last federal election, then Opposition Leader Peter Dutton threatened to freeze the periodic improvements to the code for 10 years, inspired no doubt by the South Australian government that ...
Building surveyors and certifiers want a national registration and licensing system to ensure that buildings meet consistent professional standards because “we cannot continue relying on a patchwork of state-based rules and assume that quality will somehow rise to the surface”.
Across Australia, poor construction is putting residents and buildings at ...
News from the front desk: Welcome back! The year is still too fresh and unsteady on its feet for us to predict how it will bend and what shape it will grow into. So, let’s take full advantage and slap down some blueprints right up front. See if we can seize the agenda and channel the trajectory.
As a publication focused on ways to create a more ...
Spinifex is an opinion column. If you would like to contribute, contact us to ask for a detailed brief.
Australia is running an opportunity deficit in its biggest cities. Housing, congestion and service pressures are eroding the everyday “deal” in Sydney and Melbourne. The question is no longer whether people and investment will look elsewhere, but ...
In the closing weeks of last year, we interviewed Parnell Palme McGuinness. It’s not an obvious choice for us. As a former consultant for the Liberal Party and conservative-leaning columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, McGuinness jokes she’s the “diversity hire” for those left-ish leaning papers. These days, she’s also a senior fellow at ...
Erratic and short-sighted planning policies are not solving the affordability problem that is keeping the poor, the vulnerable and even people on average incomes out of housing in areas they would like to live. Instead, these policies may be driving Australia toward a divided and bitter society in the manner of Trump’s America. A society where people ...
Queensland is taking an axe to windfarms and looks to more cuts; home batteries’ breakthrough
Sign up for our free newsletter.
This story was off the charts in terms of hits. Queensland Premier David Crisafulli, who won the election at the end of 2024 said he wanted the industry to keep burning coal. The story broke in May this ...
For our third Emerald Green awards The Fifth Estate has chosen to honour five people who were key to our hugely successful seven part events program this year and who cast their influence well beyond to the broader industry.
These awards are an informal program that we do completely in house, from a personal and impressionistic ...
A new draft plan for Greater Sydney, The Sydney Plan (the plan), has been released for comment. Having led the preparation of the current plan, A Metropolis of Three Cities and the previous plan, A Plan for Growing Sydney, I was naturally keen to see the outcome. My initial reflections focus on:
Spinifex is an opinion column. If you would like to ...
Anthony Burke ( AB ): The usual architect’s origin story is of always wanting to be an architect. But you wanted to be a photographer…why? What drove you towards architecture?
Ed Lippmann ( EL ) My father had a keen interest in architecture and was a big influence on me. I remember the construction of our house at Rose Bay when I was a boy. I used ...
There’s a reason we’re focused on the built environment/property/real estate – whatever you want to call the buildings we live, work, and play in.
This sector rules the roost in our lives. Where we live and spend our time has a vast impact on our quality of life, much of our economic prospects, plus physical and mental health outcomes.
Sign ...
Queensland resource recovery group BMI Group has snapped up the assets of the failed Rino Recycling business, in which the Clean Energy Finance Corporation invested about $70 million and ended up with an exposure of about $100 million of taxpayer funds.
Rino, based at Eagle Farm Road at Pinkenba, about 10 kilometres east of Brisbane, collapsed after ...
COMMENT: We wish the rest of the built environment was as infinitely regenerating as the moves to cut and curb the National Construction Code seem to be.
At the last federal election, then Opposition Leader Peter Dutton threatened to freeze the periodic improvements to the code for 10 years, inspired no doubt by the South Australian government that ...
Building surveyors and certifiers want a national registration and licensing system to ensure that buildings meet consistent professional standards because “we cannot continue relying on a patchwork of state-based rules and assume that quality will somehow rise to the surface”.
Across Australia, poor construction is putting residents and buildings at ...
