ArchitectureAU Latest

Making more of our relationship to light

Anthony Di Mase — Mon, 20 May 2013 06:00:00 +0000

“The laws of physics are so benign, so generous. And get this … That rain is our sunlight, Professor Beard. It drenches our planet, drives our climate and its life. A sweet rain of photons, and all we have to do is hold out our cups!” (Ian McEwan, Solar).

It’s simple and obvious: “all we have to do is hold out our cups” and capture the natural light that “drenches our planet.” Consider that on any given day the illuminance of the average office building’s facade is about 100,000 lux, and all we need to light a desk inside that building is 320 lux. By better using the visible parts of daylight while excluding unwanted heat, we can reduce the amount of energy required for lighting while also curtailing energy usage for heating and cooling. Smarter use of daylight equals increased sustainability – it’s that simple.

Glebe Town Hall

Jean Rice — Mon, 20 May 2013 05:00:00 +0000

The Glebe Town Hall is an item of state significance, situated on a prominent site on the corner of St. Johns Road and Vernon and Lodge Streets, Glebe. It forms an important landmark in the area for the local community. This building has aesthetic significance at a state level as a fine example of a largely intact building in the Victorian Free Classical style of architecture. Many of the building’s features are characteristic of this style and civic buildings of this period. Designed as one of the grand town halls of Sydney, with richly decorated interiors, and all of the modern facilities, the building is significant as a major component of the Glebe Conservation Area. The Glebe Town Hall has continued to provide a strong sense of place within the local community and to provide a centre for the social and cultural life of the area, and to function as a popular venue for entertainment, social events and fundraising functions. The building has social significance for its original association with the Glebe Municipal Council, and involvement with the government functions and development of the suburb of Glebe since the late nineteenth century. —From the NSW Environment & Heritage Statement of Significance.

Transform: Altering the future of architecture

Justine Clark — Mon, 20 May 2013 01:02:29 +0000

Less than two weeks remain till the Transform: Altering the Future of Architecture discussion day and debate about gender, agency and the future of architecture. It’s one of the fringe events happening in Melbourne during the 2013 National Conference, and bookings close 23 May.

Transform is framed by the broad question “If architecture was more inclusive would it also be in a stronger position?” The event connects current speculations on the futures of the profession to parallel moves to create a more equitable profession, and argues that the two are tightly entwined. This leads to further questions: How might we alter the future of architecture to generate a more equitable, effective and robust profession? How can architecture make meaningful and compelling contributions to communities, while also being more inclusive? What might such a discipline look like?

Conservatory, Melbourne

Freya Lombardo — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:00:00 +0000

Where would you take Marie Antoinette for lunch? It’s a question not often asked, but it springs to mind when visiting Melbourne’s Conservatory. With its grand proportions, opulent finishes and bespoke detailing, there is something distinctly regal about this space.

Sydney-based architecture and interior design firm Blainey North and Associates’ work for Conservatory comes on the back of its extensive engagement with Crown on other projects, including the Crown Towers Villas luxury suites, the Crystal Club members’ lounge, and accommodation and restaurants at the Crown Metropol in Perth.

Parker revival

Peter Salhani — Thu, 09 May 2013 06:12:54 +0000

In the early 1990s I picked up a Parker armchair off the footpath, needing little more than a light sand and a lick of Danish oil. In the late 1990s I snapped up a Parker table at a garage sale, and a buffet at an op shop – both for a song. By the noughties, however, luck was running out: Parker (like me) was verging on “vintage,” with price tags to match.

Parker furniture has been a household name in Australia for over half a century, and in recent years, collectable. Not just for its provenance, but for the simplicity of design and quality of craftsmanship. Though It’s not been made for many years, in 2013, Parker is back, but not as we know it. Founding designer, Tony Parker, has teamed up with bespoke joiners Covemore Designs to reintroduce selected pieces from his mid-century range, with help from Workshopped (promoters of Australian design).

40 years young: JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design

Christina Waterson — Thu, 16 May 2013 05:10:48 +0000

There is no other place in Australia like JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design. Founded in Adelaide, JamFactory celebrates its 40th year in 2013, having already helped scores of Australia’s most talented design and craft practitioners realize their full creative potential. The diverse and highly skilled practitioners I had the pleasure of meeting on this one-day visit tell of its deep and far reaching impact.

Taringa House

Margie Fraser — Thu, 16 May 2013 05:00:00 +0000

While backpacking in Germany many years ago, Con and Mary Zahos spent their last pennies on a Walter Gropius-designed Rosenthal tea set. It is a sleek composition of black and white porcelain; its minimalist lines set to survive any fashion ephemera of coming centuries. The couple’s acquisitive act of love (and sacrifice of pragmatism) set the pace for a lifetime of collecting, and celebrating, their twentieth-century heroes.

More followed, with pieces by Cassina and Bauhaus favourite Marcel Breuer sitting alongside an abiding passion for the functionalist works of the Internationalists, and Santiago Calatrava and Renzo Piano. What, then, can become of such passions, and such a collection, bristling with importance in its own streamlined way, in the confines of a pretty Queenslander home? How does one house these minimalist treasures within the decidedly textured, decaying layers of old painted timber and decorative embellishments?

Tim Greer: Cloudy Bay and beyond

Justine Harvey — Thu, 16 May 2013 02:00:00 +0000

Justine Harvey: You’ve made a successful career in Australia as a director in the Sydney practice Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects (TZG) but you’re originally from Christchurch. What was behind the move?

Tim Greer: I grew up in New Zealand and loved my life here. I started working in Sydney and found it an incredibly optimistic and inspiring city back in the ’80s. It seemed like a perfect place to be because it had amazing civic architectural aspirations, that didn’t seem to be fully realized. I’d lived in lots of cities and spent a couple of years travelling the world and it just seemed like an exciting place to be. There was no grand plan; it just grew on me and stuck. It also helped that Australia is so close to New Zealand and I do come here [to New Zealand] a lot: two or three times a year at least. I’ve just done a little building in New Zealand with one of my friends.

Porosity: The Architecture of Invagination

Endriana Audisho — Wed, 15 May 2013 23:46:32 +0000

Richard Goodwin has dedicated over thirty years of research to speculating on the boundary between art and architecture and the complex relationship that exists between the two professions. He sees current urban architecture as failing humanity. Cities shape social and political bureaucracies as well as each and every individual, and with this in mind, Goodwin repeatedly states that we must accelerate change: we don’t have time for current architectural styles because they are redundant by the time they evolve. Goodwin sees public space as the oxygen of the city and in Porosity: the Architecture of Invagination (2011) he presents research on an architecture driven by interiority and its direct connection with external public spaces. Goodwin’s porosity paradigm thus views this spatial act, which he calls public art, as a very powerful mechanism for change in the city. Goodwin’s theories become something beyond architecture but something not quite urban planning.

His work is also beyond visionary. As Lebbeus Woods defines it, the term “visionary” generally refers to a person who exists somehow apart from the real world – as in “having visions.” Goodwin doesn’t believe he is practising speculative or visionary architecture. He states: “Some of us just can’t build what we want to but we are serious about what we theorize. I’m an artist architect – I like to make stuff, some of my parasites take six years to go through court. I’m not a paper architect.”

Home sweet home

Peter Wilson — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:17:00 +0000

Could my 1983 sketch be included in what Shelley Penn has referred to as “outputs of the architecture industry”? A byproduct, perhaps – curious sheep miming a cubic structure, a junction of sky and bleached grass, indecisive gums unsure if they are ballerinas or trees. At that time we were researching the figurative, even trawling Victoria’s Western District for clues. The landscape reference seems to have crept into my luggage each time I left Australia’s shores. From Spain to Lebanon we encountered expatriate gums, and also in Cyprus, where Brits had planted them to banish malarial swamps. The wide sky over the flat polders of Holland were further Western District reminders, and in Umbria we saw the rolling fields of the upper Yarra Valley.

Think Brick Awards update

Wed, 15 May 2013 05:00:06 +0000

Due to popular demand, the deadlines for entries in the 2013 Think Brick Awards Open Face and About Face Student categories have been extended. Students and architects now have until 5pm on Friday, 24 May 2013 to submit their entries.

The About Face Student Award calls for students to design their own “Pholiota,” the Melbourne home of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, applying the same building technique as was used by the Griffins – the Knitlock system of interlocking concrete-reinforced tiles. The winner will receive a return flight and three nights’ accommodation in Venice.

Centre of attention

Tue, 14 May 2013 23:00:00 +0000

In April 2013, AAU reported on the Cox-led advocacy to save the Sydney Exhibition and Convention Centres. Today, the Australian Institute of Architects threw its weight behind the debate, saying that the NSW Government’s decision to redevelop Darling Harbour through a single contract with a single developer has betrayed the public interest.

The NSW Chapter of the Institute released the following statement from the Institute’s National President Elect Paul Berkemeier, who says that the NSW Government should fulfil its responsibility as advocate for the public interest by defining and defending the public realm for the project, rather than leaving this critical step to a development tender.

Czech-Seidel House

Katelin Butler — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:08:00 +0000

Upon entering this family home in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Kew, you mightn’t notice that a renovation has taken place at all – and that’s where the charm lies. The clients, Peter Seidel and Karen Czech, bought the house five years ago and were “taken by the initial feel of it.” The original house was designed by Godfrey and Spowers (now Spowers) in 1984. Responding to the client’s brief that the original aspects of the home shouldn’t become a “second cousin” to the new elements, architect Richard Stampton focused on making the most of the existing opportunities.

The project is made up of a series of subtle modifications that together create a warm and functional home that makes reference to late 1970s/early 1980s architecture, but which is suited to contemporary family life. Richard uses the example of Asplund’s law court extension in Stockholm to explain his approach to this project – the built heritage is preserved, while making way for new use. This is an alternative to the more common approach to a backyard extension, which involves clear articulation between old and new, or a “new box out the back.”

One One One Eagle Street

Antony Moulis — Mon, 13 May 2013 05:00:00 +0000

A high-rise tower presents a paradox of sorts: while it might look like the building has been designed vertically, it is essentially the stacking of horizontal planes that creates this vertical presence. If a strong vertical expression is desired, the columns can be designed to extend beyond the outer floor edge, puncturing the facade. Alternatively, the building’s horizontal stacking can be hidden behind a more solid or camouflaging skin. The first thing visitors are likely to notice about the new high-rise tower at One One One Eagle Street in Brisbane, designed by Cox Rayner Architects, is the way in which it plays with these traditions in its decidedly non-orthogonal expression.

The tower sits adjacent to a magnificent Moreton Bay fig tree, and between two buildings designed by Harry Seidler and Associates: The Riverside Centre (completed 1986) and Riparian Plaza (completed 2005). The precinct was envisaged in Seidler’s 1996 masterplan, which included One One One Eagle Street as its final piece, the building situated on a site placed slightly back from the river’s edge between the two existing towers.

2013 Brisbane – Queensland Regional Architecture Awards

Sun, 12 May 2013 23:51:05 +0000

The 2013 Brisbane Regional Architecture Awards from the Australian Institute of Architects Queensland Chapter were announced on Friday, 10 May, at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. Winning projects, from the ninety-five entries received, will now progress to the Queensland Architecture Awards, to be announced in Brisbane on 21 June.

Translational Research Institute – Wilson Architects + Donovan Hill Architects in Association (Public Architecture)