Melbourne’s CBD is home to many people who are homeless, yet within the city sit abandoned buildings. A Second Chance Project aims to connect people in need of housing with structures in need of occupants. So how to design sensitive, appropriate respite accommodation, using disused and derelict buildings as a potential site in times of a pandemic? By creating spaces that are otherworldly. That inspire wonderment. That light the heart and mind with aspirations for a better life, greater confidence, and new and positive ways of thinking.

A Second Chance Project is an exhibition held between five closely situated sites in Melbourne’s CBD from March 17-18 at:

• Kit Espresso, Royal Arcade, Shop 48/148 Elizabeth St;
• Cafe l’incontro, 133 Swanston St;
• Waffle On Shop 9 Degraves St;
• Federation Square;
• and Kiosk Corner, the fruit stand on the corner of Elizabeth and Bourke St, from March 17-20.

Each location will feature a QR Code that can be scanned by passers-by, allowing access to the design responses from A Second Chance Project: Additions & Alterations to an Existing Folly – all while asking the viewer to consider what the concept of home means to them.

Talk
Accompanying the exhibition is a forum held on Friday March 18 from 10.30am – 12.15pm at the Swinburne Hawthorn Campus at 427-451 Burwood Road in the foyer of ATC103. The forum will discuss the housing situation faced by homeless people in Melbourne and share the different perspectives of its speakers, including:

• Aaron Wood (AM Former Deputy Lord Mayor City of Melbourne),
• Allen Kong (Director & Principal of Allen Kong Architects);
• Major Brendan Nottle (Salvation Army);
• Kathleen Estoesta (Swinburne).