Street Level Australia

Support Street Level! Help us build a legacy of beautiful places in Australia. We are 100% volunteer led and run and donations help us fund our operating costs: checkout.square.site/merchant/MLJJ1…

Thank you to everyone who attended our inaugural Street Level Speaker's Corner in Sydney last Thursday! Brilliant array of speakers with serious insight in their disciplines! Full speaker list on our Instagram! Stay tuned for the next Speaker's Corner and other events from us!🏛️

Our very own Zachary Pavlou (Melbourne Chapter) has been featured in an article about beauty! Read it here: thebiophilicblueprint.com/living-archive…

Announcing our first round of speakers for next week's Speaker's Corner in Sydney! Don't miss out! eventbrite.com.au/e/198416707714…

Join us if you’re in Sydney for our first Street Level event for 2026! eventbrite.com.au/e/street-level…

We are looking forward to our next Speakers Forum event with Milly Main from @streetlevelaus If you're coming, and would like to join us for a meal, please be sure to book by tomorrow, 16 July via this link: brushfire.com/dawsonsociety/…

Join us in Perth for this event!

Beauty is the antidote to NIMBYism. Street votes would empower local communities to reject ugly modernism, and instead choose gentle density in human proportions with details that are restful to the eye and have served us well for centuries. #nswpol @streetlevelaus

Great to have people in public leadership in Australia supporting the movement for a beautiful built environment! Thanks Chris.

Join us in Sydney for an evening seminar presented by traditional timber frame carpenter Jex Pablo on Traditional Timber Framing and L’Art du Trait. Friday 24th of May at 6 pm. eventbrite.com.au/e/sydney-chapt…

@DavidSchaengold Oh and of course @Build_Culture

@DavidSchaengold If you want a boost of optimism look at the work of La Table Ronde and the other INTBAU summer schools around the world. A drop in the pond perhaps but the point is, someone is doing something

Perhaps if you argue for more handicraft you’re in a different paradigm that has no equivalent of our understanding optimisation. Our modern utilitarian notions are repugnant in a, say, Aristotelian framework. I think this is the disconnect. The tech and optimisation arguments are misinformed and posited by what C.S. Lewis called ‘men without chests’. We’re unformed idiots who think we’re smart. The worst kind of idiot. @RealFinishes

@aesthetic_city @RealFinishes @Monumental_Labs If you argue for more handicraft, you argue against economic growth and for other values - optimizing for well-being, optimizing the lifespan spent at good health, for example. Which are non-growth targets - you can reach a certain level but no more.

On the surface this is a rebuttal to a specific podcast interview promoting A.I. and Robotics for monumental stone carving but really it's a larger critique of the monumental mistakes that our generation is consciously making and can't seem to escape: realfinishes.blogspot.com/2023/12/monume…

We are fundraising to help us cover the costs of our upcoming Urban Architecture Studio! You can make a donation here, which is tax-deductible if you live in Australia: artists.australianculturalfund.org.au/s/project/a2EM…

Announcing the Perth Urban Architecture studio! If you are an Australian architecture student or practicing architect curious about beauty-centric architecture, we encourage you to participate in January. Like many cities with car-centric planning systems, Perth is experiencing a ‘missing middle’ challenge, with a lack of beautiful newly built medium-density homes. Planning restrictions and economic challenges to quality building have prevented us from building quality ‘gentle density’ at scale. The Urban Architecture Studio is a practical ⁠— but aspirational ⁠— volunteer-led project based on our Street Level and GROTTO Studio’s belief that beauty makes density not just tolerable, but desirable. This seven-day studio is open to all around Australia. Find out more and apply here: streetlevelaustralia.org/urbanarchitect…

@SydneyYIMBY A matter of perspective, perhaps.

Catherine also speaking to the wrong motion, about the masterplan. Says council is still not listening. Supports Clr Jamieson’s motion (option 2A, no more than four) but that it doesn’t go far enough. “The Ellen Subway development now looms over our suburb”

We’ll be livetweeting the Georges River Council meeting on #mortdalemasterplan from 7pm tonight. You can read more about the proposals here: sydney.yimby.au/blog/mortdale-…

@SydneyYIMBY Good to see you there @SydneyYIMBY - similarly advocating for good outcomes for our communities. Our full submission via this link on the role of beauty to generate social license and community trust: acrobat.adobe.com/link/track?uri…

Now we have another speaker Shaun on Mortdale town centre from @streetlevelaus. Says the masterplan is too vague and needs a “firmer commitment to preserving beauty in Mortdale”. Would urge council to enforce traditional Mortdale specific design.

An intimate little street in East Perth leading down to the river. We don't talk about the positive impact of the 1990s new urbanism movement on Perth ⁠— it seems to have been memory-holed in favour of large high rises in big parks. The irony is that the density is often similar. This should be the basis of urban design curriculums and held up as the prime example of urban-design excellence in Perth. Buildings come down (especially the ones we build now), streets are usually here to stay. Who wishes they’d bought into East Perth in the nineties?

@ClaudMcDonnell So true! Have you seen this one? youtube.com/watch?v=wrnAsM…

After living in Europe, I came back to Sydney loving our city but also feeling like we were missing out on low-impact living and vibrant neighbourhood communities. With a little more courage and a little kinder regulation, we could achieve this!

The #DesignDisconnect Create art (& buildings) for love not for praise …

Our laws and standards make the beautiful street on the left illegal to build today, and the sad place on the right the default. In no rational world should this be the case. There's much good work being done to improve our status quo, but we have so much more to do!