RECIPROCITY

The title, Reciprocity, is chosen as an attempt to capture the essence of continuity through forming unity among disjointed events, objects, movements & individual states. When the equilibrium between passive & active, static & dynamic is created, the relationship between strikingly different components becomes interchangeable. Harmony & connectivity can therefore be constructed through balancing conflict initiated by isolation, discontinuation & variance. A beast that aims to tackle the affordability of housing in Newcastle in the overall lack of affordable housing seen in Australia.

Housing up to three thousand people, Reciprocity seeks to engage a new urban condition within the existing BHP administration site & infrastructure. Tectonically & conceptually, the scheme aims to reconcile an inability to maintain rental security in an unstable housing climate, foster cultural identity awareness through communication & incentivise skill development for those seeking employment. An architecture that does more than just house People.

Brief

Released by the NSW Government, architectural practices are to consider the role architecture plays in shaping the urbanisation process of NSW. More specifically the NSW Government’s Greater Newcastle Metropolitan Plan predicts that an increase of up to 30,000 residents will be introduced into the Newcastle area by the year 2036.1 But the city can only expand so much with urbanisation on the rise. This paired with a significant increase in housing prices & interest rates means that new housing methods are required to meet the demands. Reciprocity looks towards Europe, where new models of housing are emerging to combat the problems Newcastle faces. A co-operative based model has been developed into the fabric of Reciprocity, seeking to be situated within the norms of Newcastle. However, aims to break away to create connecting living where all levels of income earners can achieve residency.

Reciprocity is a housing model accommodating a population of 3,000 residents across the ground of the old BHP Steelworks site in Mayfield East. Pushing the boundary & height limit of the site, Reciprocity provides so much more than just a home for residents. Containing commercial hubs, entertainment centres as well as the remediation & recycling of capped land & stormwater. In addition to the new dwelling towers, the scheme repurposes heritage-listed buildings on the site, converting them into both commercial & residential use, upholding BHP history upon the site.

Design Matrix

Six concept elements fulfil the backbone of the scheme within a design matrix. These collaborative elements are derived from both theoretical principles as well as both built & purposed works. The design matrix is a list combination of words that have been developed from each principle with a deeper understanding of what each stands for & our outtakes.

The design matrix will be used to shape future design decisions, underpinned by the research that has been conducted. As a result, these key concepts have will form the basis of our design proposal, Reciprocity. They also act as the basis of critique against the current housing markets, standards of living, tenure & finan-

Agnoism

Agonism prescribes its political function to a division [of any nature] which cannot be overcome; and can only be institutionalised in different ways to construct new hegemonies. In essence, institutions that govern the architect’s agency for meaningful change. When put into context, social housing must be manipulated to provide space for social growth between those within the program.2

Driven by its physical practice, the technical definition of the German concept Existenzminimum, in terms of dwelling, categories the minimally-acceptable floorspace, density, fresh air, access to green space, access to transit, & other such resident issues that a dweller needs to function. Existenzminium looks at reduction but as expressed, not only the reduction of space but can indirectly affect the cost of living & improve lifestyle. Developed in 1920s German, the concept tackled afforable housing, a problem still relevent today.3

Post-work

Post-work criticises how the physical & mental barrier between work & leisure has been de-constructed over time in an environment with a command structure. The lack of division between work & leisure disrupts what is fundamentally binary. A redefining of leisure is required so people’s identities are not so tied to what they do for work. It is thus essential to redirect our values towards an inclusive realm of productivity & leisure. To reinvent a time to leisure.4

Diagoon House

Diagoon Houses by Herman Hertzberger plays with polyvalence as an answer to Existenzminimum. The basic idea of the ‘Diagoon’ houses is to conceive the house as one vertically as well as horizontally articulated space next to a central living area. Accommodating a variety of individual needs fosters inbuilt suitability. The semi-finished products are implemented to give dwellers more influence over the design of their spaces, reducing the initial cost of the structure while providing greater individual programming for residents.5

The Ingot

In the case of Jack Self’s “The Ingot”, the project re-stitches the fundamental incentive of making a return on an investment through development is reconciled with the needs of the working class. Agonism takes its roots in architecture by challenging those institutions that control the resources necessary to advance the standards of social housing. Whether they may be in the fabric of the architecture programmatically of the financial model that controls the scheme.6

Park City

Park City by Dogma is a strategic urban planning idea that reworks the original framework of an urban town, creating a more connected & dense community. Through a series of steps, Dogma condenses the urban framework of an existing city through partial demolition, connecting existing frameworks & providing common communal area that eliminates levels of private living. Thus, spatially, Dogma is ultimately creating a more breathable, elaborative & connective living space interrating all elements of living.7

Heritage

With the coal industry starting to dwindle in Newcastle, with mines opening out west towards Maitland, a new industry started to move in. The Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP,) a large company at the time, was known for their silver mining. Between 1880 to 1900, BHP became very wealthy. So wealthy that they were not only mining silver but also started to buy assets such as land & other operating mines to expand their portfolio. Mines such as those mining iron ore. In the late 1800s, BHP became the richest company in Australia. Their iron mines were used as a flux to purify their silver, but in 1898 the new director of mining noticed both the quality & purity of the iron ore itself being extracted from their Southern Australia mines. The two components needed to make steel are iron ore & coal, two of which BHP owned & had access to. With the land owned & the coal already there, BHP started to transport iron to the future Newcastle Steelworks. The site was a swamp, a very difficult site to build upon. With its high water table, the site was dredged, & raised by 12 feet before the construction of the Steelworks started. Production started after its completion & its first product rolled off the lines in 1916. World War I hit & the company more to make steel for the war effort, & once again the company became incredibly wealthy. Eventually moving its offices from Broken Hill to Newcastle.8 After its closure in 1999, as the world turned to more efficient factories producing high quantities of steel, the site located in Mayfield East has been unused. It soil has been capped from the toxic soil acidity & left baron. Ready to be sold to a company for use once again.

Shadow Study

- Exposed flat site sitting on the edge of the Hunter River

- Slight slope running from West to East

- Flood-prone area

- The site has been slightly capped (1m), the further Steelworks site has approximately 1-3 metres of soil capping

- Roads run along all sides of the site’s boundary. With the major of traffic on the West and Southern boundaries.

- A large quantity of vegetation lines the western boundary. The site is largely covered by grass

- The rest of the site is predominantly bitumen when grass & vegetation is not found

- Two buildings identified as useless, not needed. A further five buildings are seen as both useful & heritage listed

People

In 2016, the population of Newcastle was 152,948 people, with a median age of thirty-seven years old.9 The release of the NSW Government’s Greater Newcastle Metropolitan Plan (GNMP) in 2018, predicted an increase of up to 30,000 residents will be introduced into the Newcastle area by the year 2036. With the average household consisting of 2.4 people, the area, therefore, requires approximately 12,500 new dwellings. The GNMP is looking at providing housing that holds a greater purpose. Using new & modern housing models designed for specific demographics with certain objectives like “providing opportunities for new housing for workers & students.”10

Reciprocity aims to accommodate the needs of Newcastle, especially those in need of affordable housing during a time of increasing housing prices & rental stress. Statistics provided by Housing Affordability in Australia: Tackling A Wicked Problem will be the basis of the demographic upon which Reciprocity is designed.11 Housing stress will be considered the main factor that will be closely controlled while determining the demographic of the scheme.

Housing Stress

“Housing stress, including both mortgage & rental stress, has increased dramatically from 20-54% for low-income renters.”12 Housing stress is experienced when dwellers are paying more than 30% of their income towards rent. For affordable housing to occur, residents must be paying 30% or less of their income towards the residents in which they live. This number is what Reciprocity aims to match by building both a strong financial base as well as an architectural program that ensures that the housing within the city is both affordable & economically resilient.

The scheme will target those most in need of affordable housing first before filling spaces around these groups with those well-off to build the economically resilient scheme. The scheme requires a mixture of both to run efficiently to escape failure. The groups that have been identified as those most in need are either in severe to extreme housing stress paying up to 63% of their income. Double the amount of affordability.

Singles Couples

Four person Families

Five person Families

Five person

Co-house

Rooms Schedule

After consideration of both the population of Newcastle as well as statistics by the Australia Bureau of Statistics & Housing Affordability in Australia: Tackling A Wicked Problem, the following resident ratio’s have been established. Mixing a large portion of housing stress participants with families with & without children to mirror Newcastle’s population data to achieve stability, we establish a model cluster of 50 people. A diverse cluster upon which will be multiple to achieve the desired 3000 residents goal.

When looking at the resident ratios we see a high percentage of singles that make up a bulk of the cluster. This is because those in high housing stress are predominately single like those on benefits or job seeking. Allocating a large portion of dwellings to these groups. Reciprocity also seeks to accommodate the GNMP requirement of housing more students. This will be achieved with the introduction of one five-person co-housing per cluster.