Tone Wheeler
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Tone on Tuesday 209: Homes won’t solve homelessness.
In addition to the $9.3bn in last week’s federal budget for social housing (discussed in ToT 208 last week), there’s ano...
Tone on Tuesday 208: Good social housing delivered, dispersed, diverse, indistinguishable & durable
The Federal Government announced expenditure of $9.3bn for social housing in this year's budget. Bickering over whether ...
Tone on Tuesday: Seeking sustainable suburbia 1: The power of solar
Suburbia is the least sustainable form of urban living. Houses spread out at such low densities that too much land, too ...
Design Notes: Ideas, issues and idiocies from the last fortnight
The most recent upgrade to the NCC / BCA included requirements for houses and apartments to meet higher thermal comfort ...
Tone on Tuesday: Electrification - cute electrics or electrocution?
We’re being urged to go all-electric. Saul Griffith in The Big Switch, and the website Rewiring Australia, argue that we...
Tone on Tuesday asks: What’s up with Palm Beach?
Sydney’s architects and planners have been bemused by a controversy over noise complaints made by residents of the far n...
Design notes for early April 2024, by Tone on Tuesday
Ideas and issues on design process, design policy, design and politics.
Tone Wheeler asks: Is it prefab or pre-drab – the dilemma of factory-made houses
Modular or prefab housing is the latest thought bubble from the Federal Government to help solve the current housing cri...
Design notes for week 13/2024 from Tone on Tuesday
A column about design process, design policy, design and politics.
Design notes for week 12/2024 from Tone on Tuesday
A column about design process, design policy, design and politics.
Design notes for week 11/2024 from Tone on Tuesday
A column about design process, design policy, design and politics.
Design notes for week 10/2024 from Tone on Tuesday
A column about design process, design policy, design and politics.
Design notes for week 9/2024 from Tone on Tuesday
A column about design process, design policy, design and politics.
Design notes for week 8/2024 from Tone on Tuesday
A column about design process, design policy and design and politics.
Design notes for week 7/2024 from Tone on Tuesday
A column about design process, design policy and design and politics.
Design notes for week 6/2024 from Tone on Tuesday
Welcome back to Design Notes by Tone On Tuesday, a column about design process, design policy and design and politics. T...
Design notes for week 51/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
The last Design Notes / Tone on Tuesday for the year is a chance to say goodbye for the year, and to some of the signifi...
Design notes for week 50/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
The hero shot is the bane of good architecture. Form follows photos. It's a manifestation of container over contained: t...
Design notes for week 49/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
Last week I wrote in praise of the Canberra College of Advanced Education School of Environmental Design (CCAE SED), tur...
Design notes for week 48/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
50 years ago, our most innovative design school was founded. The School of Environmental Design at the then Canberra Col...
Design notes for week 47/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
Not many will know that this month's popularly attended Sustainability Summit was the seventeenth in a row, or that the ...
Design notes for week 46/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
Last week's Design Notes looked at Los Angeles. Established in just 50 years from 1920s to the 1970s, it then appeared t...
Design notes for week 45/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
50 years ago, in the ‘year out’ between architecture degrees, most of my cohort went overland to London, following a pat...
Design notes for week 44/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
Costs and quality in construction are under the spotlight. 2213 building companies declared bankruptcy in the last finan...
Design notes for week 43/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
The Sydney Opera House turned 50 this week. All manner of media carried copious copy with the usual suspects: Utzon’s tu...
Design notes for week 42/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
There are two ways to look at indigenous affairs: what white society should do to help our indigenous; and how our indig...
Design notes for week 40/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
“The future is not what it used to be: We were promised jetpacks and instead received e-bikes.” Jack Murphy in the Arch...
Design notes for week 39/2023 from Tone on Tuesday
“If you don't know, vote no”. Stupid bogan slogan. Reply? “If you don't know, find out”. Not just about the referendum, ...
Design notes for this week from Tone on Tuesday
We have a housing crisis, and we need solutions to the shortage of houses now, not in two-or ten-years’ time when the HA...
Design notes for week 36 of 2023
I've written 200 columns of criticism and commentary in the last three years, 175 longer pieces on Tuesdays and 25 colle...
AIA sustainability awards: A poor process leads to great outcomes
Last week’s ToT criticised the poor process undertaken by the AIA NSW Chapter in running the Sustainable Architecture Aw...
Week 34/23: A line in the sand / Cities within cities / Six rules for social housing / Bookends: Eighties solar / Signs off: Failingwater
Two controversies collided this week. The Line city project in Neom parted ways with David Adjaye (reported this week in...
