Retain, Repair, Reinvest: Volume 1 — Ascot Vale Estate makes the environmental, social, and economic case against demolishing Melbourne's public housing, beginning with Ascot Vale Estate and the 10,000 residents facing displacement across the city's 44 high-rise towers.
About This Book
With Melbourne's entire stock of high-rise public housing earmarked for demolition, the stakes of this publication are immediate. Rather than abstract policy debate, this book places residents at its centre — their voices gathered through interviews, their homes documented in photographs by architectural photographer Ben Hosking. Commissioned essays and interviews with academics, an architect, and an economist build the broader argument: that the public housing we already have represents an asset worth investing in, not a liability to be cleared. It is the first in a three-part series produced by OFFICE, a not-for-profit architecture and design firm, expanding on their Retain, Repair, Reinvest feasibility and design proposal for the estate.
Key Features
- 120 pages of resident interviews, commissioned essays, and documentary photography of Ascot Vale Estate
- Photography by architectural photographer Ben Hosking
- Contributions from academics, an architect, and an economist on the value of public housing
- Published by OFFICE
What You'll Discover
- The environmental cost of demolishing existing public housing stock versus retrofitting and reinvesting in place
- First-hand resident perspectives on life at Ascot Vale Estate, gathered through direct interviews
- An economic and social framework for understanding public housing as infrastructure worth preserving
- OFFICE's Retain, Repair, Reinvest design and feasibility proposal as an alternative model to demolition
About the Author
[Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 120
- Dimensions: 20 x 26 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780648770268
- Publisher: OFFICE
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects, urban designers, housing policy researchers, and anyone engaged with questions of social infrastructure, adaptive reuse, and the future of public housing in Australian cities.