Radio National Presents

What if the future of home isn't about ownership — but about connection? In this final episode, Anthony Burke re-imagines the Australian Dream through the most powerful ideas from the series. Could we trade fences for friendships, and privacy for participation? What would it mean to design homes that prioritise community, care, and belonging?

We explore a new vision of home — not just where we live, but how we live together.

Guests in this episode:

• Richard and Jan Gould - Founders, Blue Sky House (low-cost housing initiative)
• Susan Boden - Co-founder, Eden Tiny House Project; Landscape Architect & Mental Health Case Manager
• Sacha Coles -Global Design Director, ASPECT Studios
• Hugh MacKay - Social Psychologist and Author, The Way We Are, Lessons from a lifetime of listening
• Patrick Eigsvogel - Small home builder
• Elizabeth Mossop - Academic Director, Living Lab Northern Rivers

Production assistance this week by Sarah Mashman

Around the globe, architects and designers are reimagining housing with bold, inventive solutions - from sprawling multi use compounds in Indonesia to compact cooperative models in Europe. 

These global experiments offer fresh perspectives on affordability, sustainability and community. But could they work in Australia? In this episode, we explore what local housing can learn from international innovations - and how these ideas might be adapted to fit our unique social and environmental context.

Guests in this episode:

• RealRich Sarjeif - Architect, RAW Architecture (Jakarta)
• Penelope Dean - Professor, School of Architecture, University of Illinois Chicago.
• Gerard Reinmuth -  Director, Terroir Architecture; Professor of Practice, School of Architecture, UTS
• Marisa Jahn - Director of Integrated Design, The New School; Collaborating Artist, Carehaus
• Anne Romme -  Associate Professor, Institute of Architecture and Culture, Royal Danish Academy.

Production assistance this week by Rachael Bongiorno and thanks to Anthony’s ABC International Culture By Design program for supplying additional audio.

We all know that house prices have gone through the roof, but what’s driving them, and what can actually be done?

In this episode, we dig into the money behind the housing crisis, from tax policy and global market shifts to government targets and the growing role of intergenerational wealth.

We explore how renters and homeowners alike are feeling the squeeze, and ask what kind of radical policy — and cultural — change it will take to make housing more equitable for all Australians. Because this isn’t just an economic problem. It’s a social one. And it’s going to take more than creativity to fix it.

Guests in this episode:

• Alan Kholer, ABC financial journalist and author of the Quarterly Essay- The Great Divide: Australia's Housing Mess and How to Fix it
• Brendan Coates, Housing and Economic Security Program Director at Grattan Institute
• Kate Browne, Head of Research and Insights at Compare Club, a financial comparison service
• Damian Madigan, Associate Professor at the University of South Australia, architect and urban infill housing researcher.  
• David, Social housing client                                                                            
• Kait, House hunter from Brisbane

Production assistance this week by Rachael Bongiorno

What if Australia’s housing crisis wasn’t just a problem — but a chance to build something better? Australia’s homes are doing more than sheltering families — they’re accommodating multigenerational households, solo dwellers, single parents, and shared living arrangements.

But is our housing stock too rigid to reflect this diversity? Is it failing behind the way we actually live?

In this episode, we meet the architects and designers reimagining the Australian home for today. As external pressures - from climate to cost - reshape our lives, they’re responding with ideas that prioritise flexibility, wellbeing, sustainability, and social connection.

Hosted by Professor of Architecture Anthony Burke, this series asks: can we reimagine the Dream? 

For more conversations about design with Anthony Burke & friends, head to  Lifestyle on ABC iView

Production assistance this week by Rachael Bongiorno and Regina Botros

Guests in this episode

• Dr Edgar Liu, Arts, Design & Architecture at the City Futures Research Centre at UNSW 
• Savannah Fishel, Senior Innovation Consultant and Service Designer and Churchill Fellow
• Craig Allchin, Urban Designer with 6 Degrees
• Jeremy McLeod, Founding Director and Architect at Breathe Architecture
• Matilda Leake, Associate Director and Design Architect at Bates Smart 
• Marisa and Rose - living together in multigenerational housing in Melbourne
• Leah and Lou - living together with Leah's parents in Sydney

We look at how Australians have lived together in the past — and what those lessons might offer us today.

From the tightly packed worker’s cottages of the early 1900s, where strong community bonds helped people get by, to the bold experiments in communal and cooperative living during the 1970s, Australians have long found creative ways to share space.

Now, as the housing crisis deepens, one State Government (NSW) is reviving the idea of the housing pattern book — a fast-track design initiative that encourages density, sustainability, and smarter living.

But are Australians ready to embrace the idea of “home” not as a private fortress, but where shared space and personal privacy coexist?

Hosted by Professor of Architecture Anthony Burke, this series asks: can we reimagine the Dream? 

For more conversations about design with Anthony Burke & friends, head to  Lifestyle on ABC iView

Production assistance this week by Rachael Bongiorno.

Guests in this episode

• Janet McCalman, Emeritus Professor at Melbourne University and author of Struggletown Public and Private Life in Richmond 1900- 1965 
• Abbie Galvin, NSW Government Architect
• Lee Stickells,  Associate Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Sydney
• Peter Cock, Co-founder of Moora Moora Cooperative in the Dandenong Ranges, Melbourne.
• Chelsea McNabb, Resident at Moora Moora Cooperative
• Izzy Kane, Resident at Moora Moora Cooperative

What if Australia’s housing crisis wasn’t just a problem — but a chance to build something better? In the Home Front, we unpack the historical, cultural, and political forces that shaped our national obsession with home ownership. 

From post-war prosperity to suburban ideals, we explore how the dream took root.

Hosted by Professor of Architecture (UTS) Anthony Burke, this series asks: can we reimagine the Dream? 

For more conversations about design with Anthony Burke & friends, head to  Lifestyle on ABC iView

Production assistance this week by Rachael Bongiorno.

Guests in this episode:  

• Dr Rebecca Huntly, writer and social analyst and  Director of Research at the agency 89DegreesEast. 
• Dr Tom Alves, Head of Development at Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), 
• Tim Ross, comedian, broadcaster, architecture & design commentator, and curator of the  State Library of NSW exhibition The Australian Dream? 

Australia's housing crisis is pushing more people to the edge — but could better design help turn things around? In The Home Front, design expert Anthony Burke explores how we got here, why the Great Australian Dream is failing so many, and what a better future could look like — for all of us.

For Science Friction, it's Brain Rot — a new series about the science of being chronically online and what it’s doing to our brains.

What's really going on with our attention spans? Is data-dumping your entire life into ChatGPT helpful? And what's it like to be in love ... with an AI?

National technology reporter Ange Lavoipierre tackles the wildest ways people are using tech and the big questions about our own use. Episode 1 is out Wednesday 4 June.

The bit players, the unexpected twists, the turning point you missed. Join Walkley award-winner Marc Fennell as he uncovers the incredible moments that changed the course of history in the podcast No One Saw It Coming.

Find it on the ABC listen app

She told women they'd been objectified, stereotyped, sold a middle-class myth of romance and marriage and that another, better, life could be had. The Female Eunuch by the Australian feminist Germaine Greer was published in 1970 and became a blockbuster feminist text. 

Greer's defiant and controversial thinking reframed relationships between women and men, but 55 years on, how does it speak to present day feminist thinking?

This is the final in our series The Books That Changed Us, about influential books of the 20th century.

Guests:Michelle Arrow — Professor, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University. Author of a number of books including The Seventies: The Personal, The Political and the Making of Modern Australia. 

Anthea Taylor — Associate Professor Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney. Her forthcoming book is Germaine Greer, Celebrity Feminism and the Archive. 

Kathy Lette — Australian born, England based author of many novels including Puberty Blues which she wrote at 17 in 1979. Her latest novel is The Revenge Club.