Northbourne Precinct Heritage Tour | A Walking Tour Thursday

About

The Northbourne Avenue flats are a piece of Canberra design history hiding in plain sight. Built in the 1950s and 1960s as elegant, low-rise public housing along the capital's ceremonial entrance, the flats embodied a postwar belief that good design and quality housing were a public right. Decades later, much of the original stock has been demolished but a significant remnant has been retained, renovated and reimagined for contemporary living by Canberra based developers Art Group.

Join The Fix It Chicks, architect Jenny Edwards and broadcaster Lish Fejer, alongside architect Marcus Graham from Stewart Architecture and Gabe Szivek from Art Group for an evening walking tour exploring how these mid-century flats have been retrofitted for the next generation. The tour includes access inside one of the retrofitted maisonettes, offering a rare look at how careful design has brough new life to a heritage building without losing its mid-century character.

The tour asks what we can learn from buildings that were almost lost: what good retrofit looks like, why retaining existing housing is one of the most powerful climate decisions a city can make, and how design dissents against the default of demolition. With Jenny's eye and Lish's curiosity for how things work, expect sharp observations, plenty of laughs and a fresh way of seeing buildings most Canberrans drive past without a second glance.