Dimity Reed

Dimity Reed was born in 1942 in Parkes, New South Wales, the middle child of two siblings. Her father worked at a local Coles store 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 workers ran by her grandmother. During that time South Melbourne was undergoing social change, where many of her neighbours and other tenants were being evicted from their homes as landlords were increasingly selling off properties to developers. This was a key event in her life that proved to be a catalyst for Dimity’s passion in the design and development for low and no income housing.

Dimity was schooled at Melbourne Girls Grammar School in South Yarra and later undertook a Bachelor of Architecture at Melbourne University immediately after secondary school. She married towards the end of her second year of the degree and was pregnant with her first child by the start of the fifth, causing her to put her architectural career on hold. She returned to study 10 years later, after giving birth to her three children, completing a Masters of Architecture at RMIT University.

After graduating in architecture Reed worked for Kevin Borland for a few years, but she was always interested in setting up her own private practice. When she expressed this to him, he was very supportive, and even gave her the current project she was working on — a house extension in Mt Eliza. She worked as a solo practitioner for many years, mainly residential and office alterations and renovations.

In 1982, shortly after 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.

Reed has been involved in various organisations and planning committees throughout her life, including starting Women in Architecture, an organisation set up to cultivate female talent within a primarily male-dominated field. She initially contacted every female who had graduated from an architecture degree in Victoria and set up meetings, of which bore some great female partnerships, like that of Anne Cunningham and Anne Keddie.

As the movement continued to grow, a select number of women decided to run for the board of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, with four making in on and Dimity becoming the first female president of the RAIA (Victorian Chapter).[1] She used her new role to get younger architects involved in the Institute (much like her housing commission work) and promoting their works and new philosophies on the city of Melbourne, introducing a new chapter of the RAIA and architecture within Melbourne.

Since then Dimity has worked on a series of commissions and panels, notably the Shrine of Remembrance Trustees for the new underground 'Galleries of Remembrance' of which it was paramount in commissioning ARM for the project.

Dimity has always been involved in the active critiquing and discussion of architecture in the written media. She got her first writing job through Caroline Ross (a friend of Kevin Borland) who gave her a job at The Sun newspaper writing a weekly page on architecture in Melbourne, which also led to her writing for The Age newspaper and co-publishing a series of publications.

In 2023, the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects named the annually awarded Melbourne Prize, as the Dimity Reed Melbourne Prize, in recognition of her urban and architectural contributions to the city and the architectural profession.

Despite working as a practising architect with her own practice, Dimity has predominantly been involved in the urban planning realm, acting as an architectural advisor on a lot of planning and government boards. As well as providing architectural discussions in Melbourne’s local papers and collaborative publications, she also served as the head of design at RMIT and a professor of urban design.

In 2007 Dimity, with a small team started work on the revitalisation of Dandenong City. The work was undertaken due to the city going through what Dimity describes as an “Urban Depression”.[2] In 2006, the state government pledged $290 million to revitalise 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”.

Though she is now retired from the architectural sphere, Dimity is still very active on the homeground board (a no-income housing initiative) and heads up her own film production company, Mad Women Films in conjunction with her two filmmaker sons.[3]

They have recently released a series of films of Wagner's four Ring operas. "While there are a number of recordings and analyses of the Ring Cycle, I understand that no-one has yet explained on screen how Wagner used the music to tell his complex story, how each character and each event has a musical motif that recurs throughout the four operas. All four episodes were produced in Melbourne by director Sam Reed and producer Professor Dimity Reed who worked with Professor Lees. In the result their work makes a valuable contemporary contribution to the array of material dedicated to the Ring Cycle".[4]

• ABZ of Pregnancy, co-authored with Professor Carl Wood. Nelson, 1972[5]
• Exploring Language: Senior English, co-authored with Judith Womersley. Harcourt Brace and Jovanovich
• Exploring Language: A Stretch of the Imagination, co-authored with Judith Womersley. Harcourt Brace and Jovanovich
• Australia’s Guide to Good Residential Design, National Office of Local Government
• Need, Greed and Indifference: Making the Australian Suburb (In preparation)
• Melbourne in Spires, a calendar on 150 years of Australian architecture
• Tangled Destinies: The National Museum of Australia. Images Publishing, 2002
• Judging Architecture: Image Publishing, Contributor, 2003
• Carlton, A History, Contributor. Melbourne University Press, 2003
• I Believe This, Contributor, Random House, 2003

• Founding member of the Association of Women in Architecture, 1978
• Board Member, Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), 1978–2000
• Co-ordinator of Victorian pilot program (1979) and the national program (1980) for architecture in schools program, 1979–81
• Chairman of Directors, Archicentre Pty Ltd, home advisory division of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, 1980–84
• RAIA State President, Royal Australian Institute of Architects (Victorian Chapter), 1984–86
• Co-ordinator, Melbourne Architecture Foundation, 2001–present

• RAIA Bates Smart and McCutcheon Award for Architectural Journalism, 1988
• RAIA President’s Award for Architects In Schools Program, 1988
• RAIA President’s Award for an outstanding contribution to architecture, 1990
• RAIA President’s Award, Curation of the 'Home Sweet Home' Exhibition, LaTrobe Library, 1991
• RAIA Life Fellowship, 1992
• Honourable Mention, Southbank Housing Competition, 1993
• RAIA Bates Smart and McCutcheon Award for Architectural Journalism, 1996
• Victorian Government Honour Roll of Women, 2003[6]
• Member Order of Australia for contribution to Urban Design, to affordable housing and to sustainable housing, 2006

• Dimity Reed - Contributor

• Australian Institute of Architects
• Melbourne Prize