Retrofit, rethink, renew: a new agenda for housing in Australia
Renewing our built environment is one of the most complex challenges facing Australian cities today. But complexity isn’t an excuse to delay — it’s a call to act.
At COX, alongside our research and industry partners, we believe that transforming ageing housing is not only essential to addressing our housing crisis, but a crucial opportunity to design better futures.
Held as a co-located event of the 2025 Australian Architecture Conference, the RENEW Symposium brought this mission into sharp focus. Hosted at our studio and led by The University of Sydney, RENEW convened a practical mix of local and international experts across academia, policy, architecture, construction and finance.
Collaboration may not be the whole solution — but it’s a vital part of getting there – and symposiums like RENEW provide rare and essential forums for researchers, practitioners and policymakers to share insights, test ideas and work toward tangible solutions. In this case, the symposium supported the ongoing ARC project A Co-Design Guide for Transforming Ageing Apartment Buildings — a practical, evidence-based toolkit designed to help navigate the regulatory, technical and social barriers that so often stall sustainable retrofits.
The discussions made one thing clear: how we renew our cities matters just as much as how we build them. Ageing apartment buildings represent a vast and often overlooked opportunity — not just for climate-resilient housing, but for community renewal, social equity and the preservation of urban identity.
One guiding insight — that housing renewal is not just about buildings, but people and futures — was brought to life through real-world case studies, policy dialogue and collaborative problem-solving. Global examples reinforced the need for integrated approaches across governance, finance, ownership and design — underlining that no single discipline can drive systemic change in isolation.
Energy-efficient retrofits were highlighted as a key enabler of the green transition. But beyond carbon metrics, the RENEW project reminded us that renewal is also a cultural, economic and ethical act. While demolition may seem simpler, it too often comes at the cost of community continuity and the erasure of layered histories. Renewal, when done well, offers a more inclusive and sustainable alternative.
At COX, we are proud to be a founding partner on this project — contributing to research, interviews, workshops and case study testing. This collaboration exemplifies the power of industry–academic partnerships to shift systems and translate research into action.
The work is far from over. As more professionals, communities and policymakers engage with the Guide and its findings, we move closer to making sustainable housing renewal a mainstream — and meaningful — reality.
The RENEW Symposium was hosted at COX and led by the University of Sydney, with support from the Australian Research Council, UNSW’s City Futures Research Centre, the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, the Office of the NSW Building Commissioner and Strata Community Association NSW.