Cities are shaped not only by buildings but by the voices they privilege and those they silence. Subaltern Sydney reimagines architecture as a tool of quiet resistance, reclaiming public space to amplify excluded voices and reassert agency within the urban fabric. Grounded in ideas of spatial justice, the project asks how design can counter policies, planning systems, and symbolic gestures that have long favoured dominant groups while marginalising others.
The focus is on tactical, subversive placemaking—acts of informal urbanism that are subtle enough to evade scrutiny yet powerful enough to disrupt hierarchies. These interventions expose how marginalised communities carve out spaces of belonging, visibility, and memory in the face of exclusion.
Set in Sydney’s historic centre, adjacent to civic and commercial power, the project proposes the temporary reoccupation of a central public site. This space becomes a platform for storytelling, advocacy, and gathering, transforming into a cultural and social venue where counter-narratives can be shared. Themes may include gender, race, class, housing precarity, or climate justice, linking past injustices to present struggles.
By reframing a sanitised civic site as a contested ground of dialogue, the project highlights how architecture can function as activism. It positions public space as an equitable stage for collective agency and redefines heritage not as static preservation but as dynamic civic engagement.
With thanks to the following contributors and critics:
Kate Goodwin, ADP, Aaron Jin, Ballast Point Architects + Builders, Layla Kia, Cantilever, Jiayi Li,, Eva Lloyd, UNSW, Inés Benavente Molina, Benavente Design Workshop, Jessica Van-Young, Sibling Architecture, Nan Ye, UNSW/ADP
