Headlines: Architecture Australia, September 2000

WESTERN AUSTRALIA
The Multiplex consortium has been selected to build the $310 million Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre • Premier Richard Court denies that Convention Centre architect Phillip Cox stormed out of a meeting after Court criticised some aspects of the design. According to the West Australian, Court had refused to give the design his personal endorsement • The Freemantle Maritime Museum commission has gone to Cox Howlett and Bailey Woodland • Hames Sharley’s controversial Bell Tower is due for completion in October • Spowers Architects (Perth) and MGT Architects (Sydney) have been selected to design Campus West stage one, a major new building proposed for Edith Cowan University’s Joondalup campus • Jones Coulter and Young’s Science and Technology Building, also for Edith Cowan University,is nearly finished • Demolition has begun on the historic Fremantle grain silos after Heritage and Planning Minister Graham Kierath decided not to list them for conservation, going against the advice of the RAIA, Fremantle City Council and the Heritage Council of WA. In the Sunday Times angry Fremantle mayor Richard Utting declared “heritage protection by this minister is a joke” and called for the Planning and Heritage portfolios to be split 

Proposal for the Guggenheim at Geelong by Woods Bagot.

VICTORIA 
Woods Bagot have produced concept drawings of the proposed Guggenheim Museum at Geelong to demonstrate the site’s potential • Edmond and Corrigan have been appointed to undertake a joint masterplan for Newman College and St Mary’s College at the University of Melbourne • The City of Melbourne’s 2000/2001 budget includes $350,000 to support the Precinct Enhancement Program, $600,000 to complete their commitment to Federation Square, and $500,000 for the construction of a new riverside park • Monash Gallery of Art will host Reclaimed: Recycling in Contemporary British Craft and Design, from August 18 to October 1 • Cities in the Third Millennium, The Sixth World Congress of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, will be held in Melbourne from February 26 to March 2 2001. Architectural speakers include Richard Keating (USA), Will Alsop (UK) and William Pederson (USA) • The State Government’s draft residential code Rescode (intended to replace the Kennett Government’s Good Design Guide and VicCode 1) will impose stricter controls on building bulk, visual privacy, and light/space issues, with a major commitment to maintaining “neighbourhood character”, something many practitioners fear will stifle innovative contemporary residential design • Peter Elliott will refurbish the old Melbourne Magistrates Court, for new owners RMIT • Hero, Nation Fender Katsalidis’s conversion of the old Telephone Exchange into apartments, is underway • The Docklands Authority is to tender for the design/build of Collins St bridge, with Shane Murray and Peter Elliott assisting the Authority with design issues. The Victorian Government has agreed to underwrite the loan for the bridge • Yarra Trams are introducing new shelters designed by Norman Foster, supplied by JC Decaux • The slender but controversial tower above the Herald and Weekly Times Building by Denton Corker Marshall (Sydney) is waiting on planning approval. DCM also have proposals in for a new building for Axa above the old National Mutual plaza, and a project on the corner of Collins and Exhibition which will partly cantilever over the 10 storey heritage building at the front of the site • The $16.7 million redevelopment of City Square opens in September • Chinatown Square looks set to receive a $250,000 facelift, to complement the Chifley hotel and apartment complex due for completion in November • A $50 million development on a prominent CBD site owned by the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria will feature a 10-storey multi-use building • The MCG Trust and the Melbourne Cricket Club are funding a six-month $1.6 million feasibility study for the planned $250 million redevelopment of the MCG?s Olympic Stand and members’ pavilion • The Fringe Festival’s Architecture @ the Shed, is at Railgoods Shed No. 2, Docklands from October 6-21 • Lineage: the Architecture of Daniel Libeskind will show at the National Museum of Victoria, the Melbourne Jewish Museum and Span Galleries from October to January 2001 • Dimity Reed has resigned from her position as Professor of Urban Design at RMIT 

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
Armidale ‘42: A Survivor’s Account: Memory and Imagination is an exhibition based on the WW2 memoirs of architect Col Madigan, which opened at the (Madigan-designed) National Gallery of Australia on August 15. The paperback version of the exhibition book was launched by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley • At Addictive City, a one-day literary event, keynote speaker Ric Butt described the city as a great “architectural laboratory” with “one of everything” • Barry Webb and Associates have won a National Capital Authority competition for new Anzac Parade lighting 

SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Adelaide City Council will initiate a study to prepare redevelopment guidelines for the Franklin Street Bus Terminal • The Gateway to Adelaide public art project is now completed. Comprising sculpture and a water feature, the project is a segment of the $151 million Adelaide-Crafers Highway upgrade • Edinburgh RAAF base is to receive a $40 million facelift, comprising several new buildings 

TASMANIA
RBB Terroir, in association with SEMF, are redeveloping the historic London Cambers in Macquarie St, Hobart • HBV are completing documentation for the $4 million Gibson’s apartment/retail/commercial development behind Hobart’s Salamanca Place. Construction is about to commence on the firm’s Silos project, also in Salamanca Place • Robert Morris-Nunn and Associates have a proposal for a new Scotsdale Forestry centre out to tender. The firm is also completing a development application for the new Mt Wellington Springs Hotel site won in competition • The heritage listed Royal Hotel in George St, Launceston is being redeveloped by Jack Birrell Architects • Andrew Andersons is working on designs for the University of Tasmania’s School of Art, as well as facilities for the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, including a contemporary gallery, at Inveresk Railyards • Jacob Allom Wade have completed designs for the Tahune Forest Development for Forestry Tasmania, including a tree top walk and visitors centre 

NORTHERN TERRITORY
Father Frank Flynn, Australia’s best known outback Roman Catholic missionary and (among many things) architect of the present Catholic cathedrals in Darwin and Port Moresby, has died in Sydney, aged 93 • Perth-based firm Cox Howlett & Bailey Woodland has been appointed lead architect to design a $100 million medium-density residential complex in Darwin. The development will reuse a 8.5 hectare industrial site near the city centre 

INTERNATIONAL
Australians are prominent at the Architectural League, New York. The League’s Ten Shades of Green exhibition about “architectural excellence and environmental responsibility” included Clare Design’s Cotton Tree Pilot Housing complex on the Sunshine Coast. Sydney expat Jeremy Edmiston, with SYSTEMarchitects business partner Douglas Gauthier, was among the six winners of the League’s Young Architect Forum 2000. Most recently, Peter Stutchbury spoke at the League about his work. • Tom Kovak’s exhibition at the Aedes Gallery in Berlin, coincides with Davina Jackson’s 40 Up at the city’s Stilwerk Design Gallery. Die Welt reviewed both shows under the title “Building at the End of the World” • RAIA Gold Medallist Gabriel Poole is one of the speakers at the Ninth Asian Congress of Architects, Kuala Lumpur in September • WoHa Designs / WH Architects have won stage 2 of the Land Transport Authority of Singapore’s design competition for two stations on the Marina Line against impressive international competition. The competition was one of the first in Singapore to be judged anonymously according to design rather than track record • The Singapore Institute of Architects and the UIA have withdrawn their support for the Singapore Management University Urban and Architectural Design Competition. DEG (Singapore) and Cox Architects and Planners and Design Inc have both been shortlisted • Sarah Whiting (Harvard University), Mark Wigley (Columbia University) and Roemer van Toorn (Berlage Institute) will be keynote speakers at “Formulation Fabrication: the Architecture of History” in Wellington, 13/16 November 2000

NATIONAL
The Productivity Commission’s final report, the Review of Legislation Regulating the Architectural Profession, has been completed and is now to be considered by the Commonwealth Government • Stadium Australia by Bligh Lobb and the Cairns Convention Centre by Michael Rayner of Cox Rayner Architects have won BHP Australian Steel Awards. Commendations went to the livestock pavilions at the new Sydney Showgrounds, by Scott Carver, SJPH Design Partnership and Timothy Court & Co, and the Sydney SuperDome by Philip Cox • The Australian Industrial Relations Commission has given effect to the decision to increase award rates of pay for students, graduates and architects • Information on complying with AS1428 on disabled access to buildings is now available at www.accessibility.com.au • The Housing Industry Association predicts a 20 percent national fall in new dwelling starts over the next 12 months, renovation work will fall by $500 million and non-residential construction by $1.5 billion • BIS Shrapnel director Robert Mellor has forecast “one almighty shock for the industry” • A study of thirty courses in the Sydney Morning Herald paints a grim picture for architecture students. Architecture rated among the lowest for graduate satisfaction, and the second lowest for graduate starting salaries • The Building Designers Association Australia, according to RAIA Chief Executive Michael Peck, is making unrealistic claims about the services provided by its members. Peck says the BDAA has been “incapable of producing competency standards for their own members. In contrast, architectural qualifications and competency standards have been defined and refined in Australia for more than 100 years”, according to a Canberra Times article

QUEENSLAND
Edwin Codd, of Codd Stenders, Brisbane, is Queensland 2000 Architect of the Year • Brisbane architect and designer Noel Robinson has won the QUT Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering 2000 Outstanding Alumni Award, and the QUT Professional Excellence Award • Chris Clarke of Bligh Voller Nield has been appointed Master Architect for the Brisbane Airport Corporation • The University of Queensland’s Department of Architecture has been incorporated into the School of Geography, Planning and Architecture. Professor Michael Keniger has been appointed Head of School • Art Built-in, a Queensland Government public art policy will see two percent of the cost of applicable state government capital works building budgets allocated for the integration of art and design • John Ilett has been appointed Design Director at Urban Art Projects • The 12 story high Pyramid Dome, billed as the world?s largest standing temporary freestanding structure, was launched on the Gold Coast • Peddle Thorp has won the commission to design a new $25 million facility for the Mater Hospital in Mackay • Skidmore, Owings and Merrill’s New York office will masterplan the $2 billion Springfield Town Centre, southwest of Brisbane • Francis Golding of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment in the UK is the keynote speaker at the Queensland Public Works Department’s September conference Making of the Public Realm • Bligh Voller Nield have won the commission for a new building for the University of the Sunshine Coast • The Gona Barracks site redevelopment will include a mix of public housing and luxury dwellings, along with the planned landmark Smithsonian building and a new Gallery of Modern Art • The Queensland Government is to announce an international design competition for the new museum of modern art • The Queensland Master Builders Association has recorded the most dramatic fall in building approvals in two decades • Superstar designer Marc Newson has teamed up with lifestyle property developers morehuman. llama, their first project, is billed as “the future of apartment buildings”. It will be released in Brisbane, then “rolled out” to other Australian cities • Ian Ferrier, well known Queensland architect, died in March aged 71. Ian was RAIA President 1980?1 and Queensland chapter “Architect of the Year” for 1995. He was the designer of many innovative churches

NEW SOUTH WALES
The recent accord over the Museum of Contemporary Art, signed between the City of Sydney and Sydney University, means Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima may have to enter again a competition she thought she had won three years ago. Sejima was “selected unanimously” for the cinematheque project in 1997. Sydney’s Lord Mayor Frank Sartor, who wants to run a new international competition for the MCA venture, has been taking advice from leading European architects. London associates of Swiss based architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron say they have been approached re taking part. The new brief is likely to differ substantially from the 1997 version. If reinstated, Sejima will be the first woman architect of international standing to be engaged in a major architectural project in Australia • The NSW Government has agreed to finance the Asian Gallery extension to the Art Gallery of New South Wales by Richard Johnson of Denton Corker Marshall (Sydney) • Lindsay and Kerry Clare of Clare Design have been appointed directors of the Travis McEwen Group. Clare Design has also joined the Architecture Alliance • Woodhead International have won the tender to refurbish the Reserve Bank of Australia at Martin Place • Bates Smart have won the Multiplex Toga Group in-house competition for the adaptive reuse of the heritage Jones Bay Wharf • SJPH DesignInc are promoting themselves as ESD innovators, as are other large commercial practices • Morris Iemma, Minister for Public Works and Services, has set up the Construct Improvement Roundtable to promote the cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas on advancing the state’s building industry. Members include Robert Peck and Davina Jackson • BHP have invited 13 prominent South-East Asian architects to the Olympics. A four-day program will introduce BHP’s guests to prominent Australian architects, culminating in a panel discussion about architectural issues in the new millennium • Wood / Marsh and SJPH are designing the new Chatswood railway station. Shortlisted to design the new Parramatta station are Peter Eisenman with SJPH, AREP (Paris) with Phillipe Robert and Jackson Teece,Terry Farrell with Conybeare Morrison, and Norman Foster with Hassell. Word is that Hassell are highly fancied as the architects for the ten stations in between • Sydney 2000 Olympic Design of the New Millennium is on show at the Customs House until November 12 • Housing Crisis in Olympic City, by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, claims the Olympics are having a negative impact on housing, increasing rents and eviction threats, and putting pressure on the homeless • Greenpeace representative Blair Palese, has praised the Olympic Village as “pretty progressive” • Riverside Corporate Park at North Ryde has won the Property Council of Australia?s Rider Hunt Award • De la Vega Architects has purchased the NSW Fire Brigades’ property at Bathurst Street, with plans for a mixed-use development • Earle Arney has been appointed Design Director (NSW) at Woods Bagot • Paul Keating described the Finger Wharf development at Woolloomooloo as “the most cynical and undemocratic development of its kind that Sydney has ever seen” • Ken Yeang is running workshops at the University of NSW from 2–5 November • Renzo Piano will be in Sydney for the opening of Aurora Place on November 24. He will give the 2000 Lloyd Rees Memorial Lecture at the MCA during his visit.