{"product_id":"merchant-builders-this-is-not-subtopia","title":"Merchant Builders: This is Not Subtopia!","description":"\u003cp\u003eFounded in 1965, innovative development company Merchant Builders pioneered cluster housing and townhouse prototypes that reimagined suburbia as relational rather than purely private. Their design briefs called for ambiguity: interiors that resisted rigid functionalism, and exteriors that blurred thresholds between house, neighbour and landscape. Pergolas, verandas and sunscreens created spaces of in-betweenness-sites for encounter, neighbourliness, and shared amenity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEdited by Alan Pert and Philip Goad, Merchant Builders: This is Not Subtopia! reframes the story of suburbia, drawing on newly uncovered archives, photographs and first-hand interviews. It positions Merchant Builders' suburban experiments as a profound, if under-recognised, response to the problem of subdivision, and connects their legacy to today's urgent debates on affordability, sustainability, and the endless expansion of suburbia.\u003cbr\u003eMore than nostalgia, Merchant Builders is a call to arms: a reminder that our suburbs can be designed for sharing, ecology, and community.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Melbourne University Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46047300452543,"sku":"9780522877984","price":138.6,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/1689\/8751\/files\/93594-c0fec1f2e5cdd62e539ca722a0507183daa6a22fe464afb5cca83ea8697368d2.jpg?v=1787127529","url":"https:\/\/www.popweasel.co.nz\/products\/merchant-builders-this-is-not-subtopia","provider":"Pop Weasel","version":"1.0","type":"link"}