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Tone Wheeler

Tone Wheeler

Tone Wheeler is president of the Australian Architecture Association and the design director of environa studio, which specialises in social and sustainable architecture.

The future of the Bondi footbridge remains in limbo.

Why demolishing the Bondi footbridge would be a mistake

Physical removal of a part of what makes Bondi the place it is only plays into the hands of the killers, forcing us to transform our world in memory of them.

  • Tone Wheeler

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A treasure in waiting: the long neglected Circular Quay.

The Quay to our glittering city? No, it’s a circular political graveyard

There have long been worthy visions for Circular Quay and its decrepit wharves. Their time has come.

  • Tone Wheeler
Illustration of Woollahra station. The line was constructed in the 1960s, but the original station plan was abandoned due to its cost and community concern.

Woollahra NIMBYs will wail, but this station plan ticks every box for good planning

Woollahra station could become a pearl in a string of eastern suburbs transport oriented development stops, but only if sanity prevails and NIMBYs are stared down.

  • Tone Wheeler
The edge of development suburbia: Marsden Park is in the Blacktown local government area, one of the regions with the greatest improvement in tree canopy.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the burbs are our great green hope

Through a combination of technology and design, suburbia could in fact be the most sustainable form of urban living.

  • Tone Wheeler
Property baron

Why the cookie-cutter can’t solve Sydney’s housing crisis

Creating templated homes will degrade the suburbs further and leave councils and communities furious.

  • Tone Wheeler
In an undated photo provided by the manufacturer, a Connect Homes prefab unit in Orinda, Calif. Less than 3 percent of housing starts in the United States in 2016 were some sort of prefab, but if ever there was a time and place for prefab to flaunt its virtues, it is now, after the fires in Northern California. (Connect Homes via The New York Times) -- NO SALES; FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY WITH NYT STORY SLUGGED DESIGN-PREFAB-HOUSING FOR MARCH. 8, 2018. ALL OTHER USE PROHIBITED. -- .

Prefab or pre-drab? The pros and cons of factory-made houses

If a factory-made house or apartment is better in so many ways than traditional building on muddy sites with variable weather, why the low take-up?

  • Tone Wheeler
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Housing of the future on Parramatta Road? Count the hurdles.

Nice idea, Albo, but populating Parramatta Road will be a nightmare

Take it from one who’s tried: getting approval to build shop-top housing on this busy road is a costly process, frustrated at almost every turn.

  • Tone Wheeler
Anthony Albanese (left) and Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather have clashed repeatedly in parliament over housing policy.

The Greens could seize control on housing, and the PM didn’t see it coming

Australia is now less binary, more ternary, which bodes ill for our political duopoly if they continue to get it wrong on housing.

  • Tone Wheeler
The Sirius building.

The PM grew up in social housing. His future fund won’t help those still there

Based on what it has proposed to date, it seems social housing is not a priority for the federal Labor Party.

  • Tone Wheeler
Cheaper housing in outer suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane saw first home buyers move in their thousands between 2019 and 2022.

Melbourne’s density is lower than Los Angeles’ – we must halt the fringe creep

A new report offers welcome solutions to Melbourne’s housing crisis, but it focuses on housing families when our demographics have changed dramatically.

  • Tone Wheeler