Headlines: Architecture Australia, January 1996

This is an article from the Architecture Australia archives and may use outdated formatting

What’s been happening? Check this bulletin of news

National

By now a winner should have been announced for the national Aboriginal cultural centre proposed for Acton Peninsula, ACT. The National Capital Planning Authority’s shortlist was Greg Burgess, Allen Jack + Cottier, Denton Corker Marshall, Jackson/Swayn with Woodhead Firth Lee and Bligh Voller. Congratulations are not necessarily in order; the project is saturated with political dangers and the site (a former hospital) has an Aboriginal stigma of death >> New names for two major national practices: Godfrey Spowers is now Spowers Architects and Forbes & Fitz becomes Forbes and Fitzhardinge Woodland >> Disgraceful: The Australian’s new property editor, Tessa Denton, has ditched Peter Ward’s cantankerous, compelling Saturday column—the nation’s only regular commentary on urban affairs—to plug pink mansions up for sale >> Announcement of the Australia Award for Urban Design has been delayed. Now February? >> This year’s RAIA awards `scandal` is the national jury’s decision to visit (and honour) two Sydney houses which won NSW merit awards, while declining to visit the Glenn Murcutt residence which beat these for the Wilkinson Award >> Desiree Wadman is the RAIA’s new National Manager Environment. She has degrees in landscape architecture and environmental design >> Canberra architects have declared support for plans to extend the Walter Hayward Morris-designed National Film and Sound Archives; these rear additions would include a new front entrance >> Building designers now have their own national awards programme, sponsored by James Hardie >> Curtin University Professor Laurie Hegvold has told an Australian Institute of Building conference in Brisbane that tendering will be obsolete within 10-15 years—replaced by a flexible system of partnering made feasible through information technologies.

Australian Capital Territory

The ACT government is hoping to redirect a $7 million Better Cities (federal) subsidy from housing at North Watson to less controversial spending on North Canberra infrastructure >> Suggestions are floating that a Liberal federal government would allow freehold land ownership in the ACT >> Meanwhile, a Board of Inquiry into ACT’s leasehold system has witnessed tactics by developers to issue environmentalists with writs for defamation; a method frequently successful in silencing opponents, although the cases rarely reach court. In a Canberra Times article, Tim Bonyhady, of the ANU’s urban research program, noted that this method is so pervasive that it has its own acronym—SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) >> The ACT RAIA has asked other chapters to support a national competition for measured drawings, similar to its own state contest.

South Australia

Adelaide’s recent doldrums are being addressed by a new Capital City committee with members including the Lord Mayor and the state Minister for Urban Development. On the agenda are redevelopment of North Terrace and Victoria Square, an Aboriginal cultural gallery and the South Parkland recreational lakes project >> As well, there is now a $200 million batch of private developments planned for the CBD; mainly apartments with ground floor retail >>The City of Burnside’s new development approvals process claims fast turnarounds —three days for non-notifiable applications—and a non-bureaucratic mentality of customer service. Congratulate City Planner, Greg Waller.

Tasmania

The Hobart City Council has been discussing the future of some city street trees which block desirable vistas >> Oriel, the architecture column in the Mercury, has criticised Hobart’s city traffic system—suggesting that one-way streets increase rather than reduce traffic and that footpaths, not roads, should be widened because “every car driver is a pedestrian at the end of their journey” >> Designs to improve Elizabeth Mall have been on display for public comment.

Victoria

RMIT is building a Pacific Central International campus on the Carlton and United Breweries site at the top of Swanston Street. Ashton Raggatt McDougall have designed towers of 28 and 34 storeys in a style described by an Age reporter as “complex, spiky” >>
Ashton Raggatt McDougall’s millennial icon for RMIT, Melbourne.
As the Kennett government announces its agenda for a total redevelopment of the Victoria docklands within a decade, there are rumblings in the papers of a “let her rip” planning mentality >> Additions to Melbourne General Cemetery will house the remains of Robert Menzies and other illustrious dignities; Spaces are the architects >> Greg Burgess won the Kevin Borland Timber in Architecture Award, for five projects including the new Eltham Library >> With banks declining to “invest” in the City Link freeways project, Premier Jeff Kennett is being urged to instead develop an “enlightened” public transport system >> Pentridge Prison, due to close in 18 months, should be partly redeveloped as prestige housing, says City of Moreland commissioner Dimity Reid >> In her separate scene at RMIT, Professor Reid is transferring from the Dean’s office in the Faculty of Art and Design to become a Sub-Dean with Environmental Design and Construction.

Queensland

Brisbane City Council has launched its long-awaited City Centre Planning Strategy, which discourages cars, widens footpaths and recommends conversion of heritage buildings for apartments, hotels and galleries >> Professor Tom Heath, former editor of Architecture Australia, has retired from the Queensland University of Technology >> The University of Queensland has overhauled its course structure. If you want to enrol in the architecture course, you first need to do well in a one-year arts/architecture preliminary programme >> It’s true: brick veneer is Queensland’s most preferred building material; 80 percent of new homes have it, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. On another hand, timber could rise as a newly legal structural material for multi-storey housing; as recently promoted in a pilot development at Lutwyche >> The state government’s Planning, Environment
and Development Assessment Bill, to be introduced to Parliament in March, seeks to tidy up a morass of planning laws to avoid uncontrolled, “Los Angeles style” development of south-east Queensland. But there’s opposition to the idea of relaxing traditional zoning regulations that protect the “sanctity” of residential neighbourhoods from shops, factories, warehouses or offices. The state president of the Real Estate Institute, Ray Milton, says property owners should be compensated if their land values are downgraded.

New South Wales

Sydney University’s architecture course has been given a clean accreditation by the national review panel. The position of Dean (currently Warren Julian) is being advertised and Professors Lawrence Nield and Peter Droege have been reappointed >> At the University of NSW, Tong Wu, from QUT, has replaced Ray Toakley as Dean of the Faculty of the Built Environment, and Jon Lang has replaced John Ballinger as Head of Architecture >> Adrian Boddy is returning to UTS after two years leave at QUT, Brisbane, where he was in demand as an architectural photographer >> NSW Government Architect Chris Johnson has been negotiating with the Olympic Co-ordination Authority that designs for Homebush developments be submitted to an architecture review panel of suitable eminences >> The NSW government has asked the three bidders for the Walsh Bay finger wharves to include in their plans a lyric theatre, recital hall, drama theatre, Aboriginal and dance centres and a crafts gallery >> Housing/commercial developments of the Grace Bros and Fairfax buildings on Broadway, and a state government revamp of the Central Railway Station, are rejuvenating the south end of the CBD. George Street is also being upgraded by the city council and NSW Public Works and Services >> Architect Neville Gruzman, the new Mayor of Woollahra, has criticised “cubic” villas of rendered masonry popular in his constituency >> Newcastle’s city council is encouraging “shoptop” developments, which place housing above street-level retail facilities, by waiving some floor space ratio and parking requirements >> The Financial Review has investigated eternal issues in a story headlined “Architects often driven up wall by local councils” >> The federal and NSW governments are facing opposition on their deal with Rupert Murdoch to develop the Sydney Showgrounds at Moore Park for a Fox film studios and entertainment complex >>
Sydney’s Olympics from the proposed athletes’ village. Brickpit at left; aquatic centre in the distance.Simon Kenny
Sydney’s Lord Mayor, Frank Sartor, is pushing development of the `black holes` along George Street and legal power to require cash bonds from developers to fund landscaping of vacant sites if building is postponed >> An old but newly leaked report to the state government from accountants KPMG favours the Lend Lease consortium’s bid to build the $400 million Olympic Stadium; the architects on board are Cox and Peddles >> Tender guidelines for the Olympic Village project have been critiqued by state government adviser John Mant as being “vague” enough to raise questions of probity. Yet four consortia are bidding, with over 20 architects on the teams; rumoured to include Jackson TeeceChesterman Willis, Allen Jack + Cottier and Skidmore Owings & Merrill (Stockland Trust/Aurora/Multiplex), Lawrence Nield (Fletchers), Hassell (CRI/Baulderstone) and Cox/Peddles (Mirvac/Lend Lease) >> For the first time, the NSW RAIA has a president from beyond Sydney borders: Mark Jones of Nowra >> Sculptor Richard Goodwin’s National Corvette Memorial has been unveiled at the Garden Island naval base.

Western Australia

Yes, you still can’t say what you really think. WA’s renowned architecture writer, the coyly bylined Caliban, is said to have finally retired in disgust after his `comeback’ critique of new architect-designed housing in Joondalup was wastebinned by the RAIA’s state magazine, The Architect. The editors had legal advice that the crit was libellous, partly because it named the street, and thus presumably fingered offending architects >> Cox Howlett and Bailey are studying how the Perth City Council might viably revive Council House. Meanwhile, Richard Court’s state government—which considers the Jeffrey Howlett-designed 60s landmark a demolishable blot on its proposed heritage precinct—is offering the council a tempting building adjacent to the old Town Hall on the Hay/Barrack Streets corner >> Heritage to and fros in Fremantle: The council has aesthetic objections to Kerry Hill’s design for a hotel, and the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce has sponsored a public debate to promote `environmental’ signage in the town >> Subiaco residents have been blocking a scheme to bury the railway under their town centre, thus releasing a large block of land for development >> After a long and mysterious delay, the WA Board of Architects has finally approved the national visiting panel’s recommendation for accreditation of UWA’s architecture course. In what may be a related initiative, UWA has set up a gender and equity committee to increase the number and stature of women in the school >> Inner City Living, a joint venture of the state government and the Perth City Council, seeks to increase the CBD population from 4000 to 10,000 residents.

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Published online: 1 Jan 1996

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