The Victorian Housing Minister, Richard Wynne, yesterday announced competitions to tart up the Footscray commission flats and design new low-to-medium density public housing in Dandenong. The Footscray competition is called Tower Turnaround and the Dandenong competition is called Living Places. They’re approved by the RAIA and the total prize pool is $135 000. Though it isn’t really prize money when you have to work for it, it’s remuneration.
There seems to be a lot of consternation about the ugliness of the towers, people invariably want to knock them down, but even though I don’t disagree about the ugliness, I’m really glad that the Vic Government is going to renovate them instead. Simply because you can house so many people in those tower blocks, and ugly shelter is much better than no shelter. I’m glad too that they’re building more public housing, because everyone is aware of the expense of buying a house, but there are plenty of people who don’t even have the money to rent because rents have gone up so much.
Posted by ari 
