Dimity Reed

In 2007 Dimity, with a small team started work on the revitalization of Dandenong City. The work was undertaken due to the city going through what Dimity describes as an “Urban Depression”. In 2006, the state government pledged $290 million to revitalize Dandenong in partnership with VicUrban and the Greater City of Dandenong. “Renovating a vast city follows the same process as renovating a house; it’s just that the implications are far-reaching, the costs are of a different order and the time lines stretch into the future”.

In 1982, shortly after successfully setting up her own practice, Dimity received a call from a government minister, asking her if she would like to work as a housing commissioner as the authority had gone into disrepute surrounding Land Deals. As part of her work with the housing commission Dimity looked at engaging the new young architects of the time such as Peter Corrigan and Greg Burgess to look at designing new houses for old torn down blocks within Carlton (many are still standing today). As well as addressing the state of high-rise commission housing in areas such as Broadmeadows in terms of its interaction with the communities that occupy them.

Dimity Reed (born 1942, Parkes, New South Wales, Australia) is an architect. She has been involved in government advisory roles, as well as writing for both The Sun and The Age newspapers.

Dimity Reed was born in 1942 in Parkes, New South Wales, the middle child of two siblings. Her father worked at a local Coles during that time before being enlisted in the war and based out of New Guinea. When he returned from the war, the whole family moved to Victoria in 1946, taking up residence in South Melbourne, Victoria. She lived with her mother and older brother in a boarding house for itinerant works ran by her grandmother. During that time South Melbourne was undergoing a social change, where a lot of her neighbours and other tenants were being chased out of their homes as their landlords at the time were selling off the properties to developers. This was a key event in her life that provided to be catalysis for Dimity’s passion in the creation and development for low to no income housing.