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Paul Bo Peng’s winning virtual reality concept: Hotel California.
INTERNATIONAL
Gun Sydney CADster Paul Bo Peng has won first prize from 100 international entries in the VR Une Architecture ArchiCAD/Quick Time ideas competition; he’s off to Europe on the strength of his proposed Hotel California • Mies ’ Villa Tugendhat, in Brno, Czechoslovakia, has reopened with his original interiors recreated • Leo Ryan’s House Styles exhibition of Queensland architecture has gone down well at the Australian Embassy in Paris and is next due at our high commission in London, then Jakarta • Australian builders have opened a village of nine conventional project homes in Gifu prefecture, Japan.
NEW SOUTH WALES
Olympic Update: At the RAIA’s NSW Chapter Awards, Premier Bob Carr announced James Grose as the winner of a competition among six ‘emerging’ architects— Peter Stutchbury, Ed Lippmann, Neil Durbach, Virginia Kerridge and Jim Koopman —to design a BHP-funded Olympic Visitors’ Centre at Homebush. In his Sydney Morning Herald column, Leo Schofield wrote that he “hopes Grose can produce a building as remarkable as Ashton Raggatt McDougall ’s startling Storey Hall in Melbourne” • Hassells won the Olympic railway station at Homebush: their team, led by Ken Maher , includes Rodney Uren , who worked on notable Norman Foster terminals • The Olympic Co-ordination Authority now has on staff a qualified urban designer—Harvard graduate Bridget Smyth . Also, it has advertised for younger architects to propose “fresh ideas” for streetworks at Homebush—but the advertisement stresses that they must have “demonstrated capacity to complete complex urban projects” • Professor Neville Quarry has announced his retirement from UTS at the end of this year—no doubt generating spirited competition for his spot. Meanwhile, he has written an RAIA book on the first 15 years of National Architecture Awards (publishing this month) and has been cobbling together—with eleventh-hour funding from Dulux —a small representation of Australian architecture (Opera House model, Murcutt panels) for the main gallery at September’s Venice Biennale • A high-profile competition to design an ecologically sensitive ‘future generations’ university on the NSW Central Coast has stalled with the dissolution of the Australia-Japan partnership, but the local promoters have vowed to go on • Glenn Murcutt has celebrated his 60th birthday at Berowra Waters’ Inn, the Hawkesbury River restaurant he designed for Gay and Tony Bilson • After holding the top city planning spots in Melbourne and Sydney, John McInerney has left the Sydney City Council—as has the head of its city projects group, Greg Deas • South Sydney City Council has released plans for a poster-plastered pedestrian bridge across William Street—and neighbouring Sydney and Woollahra alderpeople are appalled • Sydney architects have been publicly flagellating themselves and the NSW government over this year’s scarcity of named state awards for new buildings. However Lionel Glendenning —lead architect with the awkwardly initialled HBO+EMTB —has come off the backburner with a controversial answer to claims that Sydney’s buildings are more dull than Melbourne’s (see Radar ‘Projects’, IMAX Theatre) • In a recent Herald profile, Meriton supremo Harry Triguboff comes across as a bully of councillors considering DAs for his proliferating high-rise, low-cost apartment towers. Waverley Council’s manager for major capital projects, Paul Anderson , said “it’s like going into the prize fight, that’s what it’s like with Harry Triguboff” • In a continuing effort to make builders increasingly responsible for construction quality (requiring a culture shift), the NSW government has proposed doubling compensation for shoddy workmanship to $200,000. Insurance premiums will rise, especially for persistent jerry-builders • The Australian has claimed that Philip Cox would like to administer “a large dose of Ratsak” to American sports stadium architects with whom he is competing here and in Asia. The writer did not clarify why • Possibly affected by Atlanta adrenalin, Lord Mayor Frank Sartor bounded ahead of a state government timetable to announce a string of major Circular Quay and central city improvement projects • Urban Affairs and Planning Minister Craig Knowles wants to establish a Sydney waterfront task force to consolidate the planning of 20 different authorities controlling harbour foreshores • Lighting Design Partnership , a British consultancy which combines illumination engineering, architectural and stage lighting skills, has set up in Sydney after finishing work on the Brisbane air terminal • Melbourne developers Lustig & Moar and the Grollo Group have won approval to jointly develop Sydney’s GPO as a Grand Hyatt.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Premier Richard Court ’s role in beautifying central Perth as a European-style place for people has been praised by WA architects quoted in the Financial Review . Court said the next moves are to landscape St Georges Terrace, design a gateway at the eastern entrance to the city and build a central area transit system • Perth City Council has approved a 300-unit apartment and retail complex on the Canterbury Court site at Rowe and Beaufort Streets. Oldfield Knott ’s Meritonesque design has curious juxtapositions of high buildings on the block’s corners and much lower developments between.
QUEENSLAND
The inquiry into Queensland’s construction industry has been told that the state has too many builders—and more proof of their capitalisation should be required, with ratios set against the value of projects. Separately, suppliers and sub-contractors have been urging the government to introduce security-of-payment legislation to prevent further serious losses when builders go bust • While his firm’s remedial proposals are in public comment stage, Sydney’s Philip Cox has delivered to The Courier Mail a frank critique of current aesthetics in central Brisbane—especially the Queen Street Mall (“cluttered calamity”) and Elizabeth Street (“a Berlin Wall”) • Noosaville architect Maurice Hurst has won Queensland’s Architect of the Year Award, sponsored by the state’s board. Top graduates were Philip Crowther and Lisa Lambie
AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
Tony Powell , director of the National Capital Planning Authority from 1974 to 1985, has passionately attacked the ACT Government as “not competent by any measure” to plan the territory’s future. In The Canberra Times, he called for federal government “fiscal involvement“ to help develop Canberra as a technopolis • Sydney architect Peter Tonkin ’s plans to enhance Civic Square and Ainslie Avenue include replacing the “overpowering” central fountain with smaller water squares and lawns • Discrepancies in the latest valuations of Canberra properties have amazed locals • At a Transport and Regional Development conference on Housing an Ageing Society, David Lane , director of architects Thomson Adsett , called for a holistic approach to accommodating the coming generation of affluent oldsters—encompassing urban design, planning and social policy as well as architectural aesthetics • Monash University’s Professor Leo Bonollo , an industrial designer, will replace Professor Judith Brine as Dean of UCanberra’s Faculty of Environmental Design • Daryl Jackson was to have delivered this year’s Walter Burley Griffin Memorial lecture at the Academy of Science on September 3 • A Canberra estate agent and a draughtsman who pirated and built a local developer’s house plans have been ordered to pay more than $14,000 in damages • A Canberra Times editorial claims that local builders are ignoring energy efficiencies and must change their attitude or risk regulation. “It is a good example of how the marketplace does not deliver the most efficient use of resources … rather, the cheapest.”
TASMANIA
Construction has begun on new medium-density housing at Wapping, near Hobart’s waterfront, to a scheme by Eastman Heffernan Walch & Button with Leigh Woolley • A proposal to move the University of Tasmania’s small urban design department in Hobart to join architecture in Launceston is creating controversy. RAIA president-elect Keith Drew said that course standards would fall to an unaccreditable low, since 86 percent of Tasmanian architects practice around Hobart.
VICTORIA
Local/international pairs shortlisted for the National Gallery of Victoria are Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners withBates Smart, Gae Aulenti with Denton Corker Marshall, Mario Bellini with Metier 3 and Arata Isosakiwith the Buchan Group • Who’ll get the go-ahead to design another RMIT conversation piece across Swanston from Building 8 and Storey Hall? With Corroand ARM ruled out because they’ve had their turns, rumoured contenders are the newly mergedKatsalidis/Nation Fender, Perrott Lyon Mathieson andMetier 3 • The Kennett government is again being criticised for shepherding too many major projects past normal planning regulations via direct Ministerial approvals. Examples: Crown Casino’s plans for a Gucci-standard retail complex (likely to suck shoppers from the central city?), high-rise apartments on the shore of low-rise Port Melbourne, and a 140 metre residential tower on 60 metre-limited St Kilda Road. Planning Minister Rob Maclellan says he has been approving about 95 percent of proposals put to him, and Lord Mayor Ivan Devesonhas told a business breakfast that “ad-hoc exemptions fuel uncertainty and undermine broader business confidence because of inequities“ • A colonnade of gum trees, a five-bridge canal and streetside fruit stalls are planned for City Square—an early Denton Corker Marshall design recently described by Mayor Deveson as “too bleak, too stark and too dark” • Developer David Marriner has announced five developments worth $420 million: a mini-Southgate on the Yarra at Richmond, a hotel and penthouse development at City Square, a nine-storey carpark on the old Herald and Weekly Times site, an apartment complex in Flinders St and student housing in Carlton • Minister Maclellan has finally proclaimed the Heritage Act, administered by a new body, Heritage Victoria. The chair, Dr Jan Penney, has flagged an unsentimental approach • Premier Jeff Kennett has proposed completing the original dome of Victoria’s Parliament House, although cost is a worry • There’s been consternation in some Melbourne quarters over the judging of the $10,000 Wools of New Zealand Interior Design Awards—won by Sydney’s Engelen Moore for a minimalist Sydney house with no curtains and concrete floors offset by two squares of grey carpet. Although the commended entry, Ashton Raggatt McDougall’s Storey Hall, includes exotic wool textiles—padded kinked bulkheads and custom-made complexity patterns on carpet—jurors (including Jean Nouvel) apparently thumbed-down their architecture • With funding from the Energy Research and Development Corporation,RMIT’s Centre for Design is investigating “green” heating • With help from interpreter Ian McKenzie, deaf student Greg McKee is completing an honours degree in architecture at Deakin University, Geelong.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Despite some recent advances, the multi-function polis has lost federal funding and will receive significantly less from the state government. A new chief executive, DrLaurie Hammond from New Zealand, will steer the MFP’s next directions • The Adelaide City Council is outraged by state government moves to transfer its planning powers to a development corporation of government appointees—presumably the Adelaide Partnership—to kick-start the somnolent city via new developments.
NATIONAL
The RAIA is planning its 1988 national conference in Cairns—and papers are now available for this year’s Adelaide conference on art and architecture • A national RAIA Archicentre survey shows illegal building works in 29 percent of Queensland houses, with Victoria at 20 percent. Archicentre’s MD, Robert Caulfield, blames the economy and home renovation shows on TV • Melbourne lawyer Paula Gerber-Jones has won a Telstra Australian Business Woman of the Year category award for her success in establishing the 600-member National Association of Women in Construction • Sydney’s Jackie Dean has won the Australian Commercial/ Industrial Photographer of the Year Award for a series of nostalgic architectural images.
Image from an architectural portfolio which won Sydney photographer Jackie Dean a professional photography award.
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