Norman Day
Norman Day is a practising architect, commentator, and educator.
Opinion
City life
The pictures show happy citizens lolling about in a new nirvana. The reality will be a grey urban ghetto
The massive new Arden development in Melbourne’s north is going to end up like Docklands, maybe worse, with dark streets cutting through major blocks of construction, and an appearance of little useful public open spaces.
- by Norman Day
Latest
Opinion
City life
Bloated, backward and banal, Vic Market rebuild is the opposite of good planning
Melbourne’s beloved city market is sensual, lively, and bustling with energy but is set to be overshadowed by a series of banal towers that look like they were produced by an AI robot.
- by Norman Day
Opinion
Architecture
Prahran Square is nightmarish expression of garishness, zing and glitz
If the council had humbly dug a hole, made a functional ca park and created an accessible public garden at street level, it would have been simple. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
- by Norman Day
Opinion
Development
‘Pattern book’ designs may solve Melbourne’s housing crisis, but they come at a cost
The book will be made up of government-approved designs which are capable of fast-track construction thanks, in part, to the pre-approved permits they come with.
- by Norman Day
Opinion
Development
Melbourne is not Manhattan, and 130 new apartment blocks won’t make it so
Today’s Melbourne seems locked in a counterproductive straitjacket which stymies tailored planning and ignores the city’s legacy.
- by Norman Day
Opinion
Architecture
This large, ugly excrescence risks wrecking Melbourne for decades to come
To be built over the Jolimont rail yards, it’s called Treasury Square. In fact, what is proposed is simply a dense set of three buildings – no open public square in sight. Will we allow our city to slide into squalor once again?
- by Norman Day
Opinion
Arts
New NGV building a ‘beige, bland, gaudy show of retail-led exhibitionism’
NGV Contemporary looks like a manicured design fashioned by someone walking on eggshells of their own making, in bare feet, wearing a Ken Done T-shirt. They needed some Doc Martens.
- by Norman Day
Original URL: https://www.theage.com.au/by/norman-day-p536mh