What is the role of research in identifying and addressing critical issues in housing? How do the complex interactions of culture and housing affect the provision of adequate housing? How can the United Nations Right to Adequate Housing be used as a framework for understanding and action?
Sarah Lynn Rees yarns with Carroll Go-Sam and Kelly Greenop about their important report on housing, energy and town design in Gununa, Mornington Island – and how it is catalysing change.
Housing doesn’t just need to exist. It needs to be good.
Gununa Futures report
The residents of Gununa, the main urban centre on Mornington Island, Queensland, experience housing inadequacy stemming from a mix of interrelated challenges – crowded dwellings, a lack of congruence between housing design, culture and place identity, and a lack of control over living conditions.
Researchers from the School of Architecture at the University of Queensland – Kali Marnane, Carroll Go-Sam, Kelly Greenop, Maram Shaweesh, Tony Heynan and Mark Jones, working closely with Mornington Shire Council and community collaborators – have undertaken a comprehensive study, grounded in surveys, activities and discussions with the people of Gununa, including children and young people.
Grounded in the United Nations Right to Adequate Housing criteria, the report presents findings under ten themes identified through interviews and activities with children, and five additional themes identified through an energy survey. The report concludes with Design Response Recommendations, which focus on how to better design housing for Gununa community needs – recommendations that are already being put to work by Mornington Shire Council
Join Sarah as she yarns with Carroll Go-Sam and Kelly Greenop about the research and methodology, the impact so far and the potential for the future.
