In times of explosive metropolitan growth and inflationary investment, Building Mixity! challenges the status quo of expansive and unequal urban development in Melbourne, Australia. The idiosyncratic and often forgotten post-industrial precinct of inner-city Cremorne serves as a blueprint for a new vision and an alternative approach to robust and productive city-making. Building Mixity! uniquely examines the potentials of combining adaptive re-use tactics with new densities as a holistic and tangible urban transformation strategy for professionals, academics and contributors to urban discourse. Especially relevant is its reflection upon the effects of rapid growth on urban development within the Asian-Pacific context. Building on the existing rich atmospheres and assets of the place, strategies and practical steps to cultivate mixity are discussed from a design perspective, alongside contributions from economic, historic, legal, and social angles. How can designers, planners and crucial decision-makers sustain and further encourage mixity in a critical stage of extreme investment pressure: not only fostering the coexistence of different building types, eras and character, but also enhancing the variety of public spaces and the diversity of inhabitants, activities and economies, programs and architectures? Building Mixity! collects and combines mutually-informing research strategies: Design approaches are interspersed with historical investigations, discussion of community engagement and self-conducted interviews, critiquing Melbourne's current urban climate and development as part of a post-Global Financial Crisis phenomenon.
Maud Cassaignau is an urban designer, architect and academic. She grew up in France and Luxembourg and studied architecture at the ETH Zurich and Columbia University. After graduating from the ETH Zurich, she worked for renowned practices in New York City, Paris and Zurich on a variety of competitions and built projects. In 2005 she co-founded the architecture and urban design practice XPACE with Markus Jung. Through her work, she has overseen the completion of housing and adaptive reuse projects, and worked on prize-winning urban designs. In 2011 XPACE relocated to Melbourne, Australia, where it continued working on a wide range of projects. Maud's practice and research explores processes of urban transformation, incorporating resources as drivers for sustainable growth. It evolves around the interaction of design, place and context, aiming at finding socially, historically and environmentally responsive design solutions. In parallel to practising, Maud has more than 15 years of in
Markus Jung is a Melbourne-based urban designer, architect and academic who grew up in Italy where his passion for cities was born. After graduating at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, he worked for leading practices in the UK and Switzerland on transportation, mixed-use redevelopments and urbanism projects. In 2005 he, together with Maud Cassaignau, co-founded the architecture and urban design practice XPACE. Its work focuses on urban diversity, social and environmental responsiveness, and has been widely published internationally. In parallel to practising, Markus has taught widely: at the ETH Zurich from 2004 to 2010, as a visiting professor at Southwest Jiaotong University Chengdu in 2016, and from 2011 at Monash University. His practice-led design-research explores strategies of metropolitan transformation, incorporating resources and the existing built and social fabrics as drivers for resilient growth. Markus investigates hi-density housing types as important
Mathew Xue is an independent writer, researcher, graphic designer and publisher. He was born in Beijing and raised in Melbourne, where he studied architecture at Monash University. Since 2013, Matthew has been collaborating with Markus Jung and Maud Cassaignau, specialising in the research of urban transformation and underutilised space. He has worked with practices in China and Germany, focusing on strategic urban development and mixed-use design. His work has been featured and presented in publications around the world.
