Fifty years ago, at the Aquarius Festival in Nimbin, all manner of alternative lifestyles were debated. Attendees at the counter-cultural festival were unified by their passion for environmental conservation, sustainability, freedom and social equity. Leading the charge on housing was Col James, recently appointed senior lecturer in architecture at the University of Sydney. His theme was “sharing” – opposing the norm of the individual suburban home of one family, one house, one title. Col posited the idea of multiple occupancy, or MO, as part of his motto to “make housing a verb.”
Five years later, together with students, he developed a planning law and construction guide that allows MOs to flourish in the New South Wales Northern Rivers, which they do to this day. But before that, on his return…
