Another Home

Francesco Stassi & Mark Casey-Losewitz

Studio Description

Another Home investigates the critical intersection of housing, environmental sustainability and social responsibility in a rapidly changing world. Reflecting on the Australia decarbonization roadmap and the increasing need for new housing within Melbourne, students will be challenged to rethink a cluster of dwellings and a shared community facility, designed around the needs of a specific user group-through the lens of carbon conscious design, spatial adaptability and material responsibility.

We will work on a real site sitting within a masterplan currently in development by Breathe Architecture, one of Australia’s leading practices in sustainable housing.

The Studio asks how new housing can adapt to accommodate new emerging ways of living, responding to environmental and economic constraints while still delivering comfort, dignity and connection. Equitable and accessible design will sit at the core of investigation, framing a diverse range of users. You will also be given the opportunity to engage with key themes such as material reuse, modular construction, spatial flexibility and future living typologies, guided by research and analysis.

Studio Outcomes

In this studio, you will develop a design proposal for a housing project that responds sensitively to the evolving urban conditions of its neighborhood and context. Your work should show a clear understanding of both contemporary and future ways of living, and critically reflect on how the housing sector, and the construction industry more broadly, must evolve in response to climate change.

You will be expected to demonstrate systemic thinking; how choices made at the scale of the building component or material unit, can impact supply chains, communities and the environment.

The studio will be a collaborative environment, and you will be given the opportunity to engage with practitioners, material suppliers and builders – developing your projects with layers of thinking. In addition, your iterative design process will be supported by analysis, hands on experimentation, and regular feedback.

Final outputs within the studio will include compelling visual documentation, detailed sectional models, accompanied by a clear evaluation of the project’s whole life carbon impact.

Studio Leader

Francesco Stassi is an Italian architect with more than ten years of professional experience in socially engaged architecture in East Africa. He moved to Rwanda in 2013 to work at ASA Studio, short for Active Social Architecture (www.activesocialarchitecture.com), which he currently owns and manages. ASA believes in architecture and design as tools to improve people's livelihoods and empower communities. His professional portfolio includes more than 100 built projects, from high-end residential and hospitality projects in urban areas to education, sanitation, and health facilities in remote villages and refugee camps in East Africa. He has an extensive experience in participatory approach and community engagement activities, and his research interests focus on appropriate technologies, cost-efficiency and environmental-responsive design. He is an Education Fellow / Creative Practitioner at the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. He has taught Design Studio E and several UG design studios and several UG design studios for the past 2 years.

Mark Casey-Losewitz is currently employed as a Registered Project Architect at EBD Architects, which specialises in an evidence-based design approaches to create informed design outcomes that can adapt to a client's evolving needs, primarily focusing on Community, Health and Residential projects. One of these recently completed projects won the Regional Prize at the Victorian Architecture Awards 2026. He is also employed at the University of Melbourne as an Educational Fellow, and has been a Co-Subject Coordinator of Undergraduate Design Studio Gamma for the past two years. He remains passionate about the importance of designing inclusive architecture, and has a focus on design for disability.

Readings & References

• Building Materials and the Climate: Constructing a New Future – UNEP (2023)
• Breathe Architecture sustainability guides
• Australia reduction roadmap
• Other resources to be provided by studio leaders

Off Campus Activities
Guided tour of the Melbourne  Materials Library, at Sanders Place in Richmond
Date TBC

Schedule:
Tuesday  9am - 12pm
(30 minute break) 
Tuesday 12.30pm - 3.30pm

Contact Handbook