Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2018 i Architecture Australia

It was Frank Lloyd Wright who said: “The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.” This quote speaks volumes about how we, as architects, have the ability to help transform how all Australians live, regardless of social status, location or situation. We know we can make a tangible difference to the quality of people’s lives and to our cities. Architects are agents of change, enriching society through exceptional, sustainable design irrespective of scale, budget or complexity. In Australia, we have developed our own brand of architecture – a soul to our civilization – that defines who we are and where we come from. It encapsulates our diverse landscapes, our multicultural society and our youth. I believe our youth is…

Architecture in its Continuums is a succinct and engaging manifesto on how architects need to reclaim and celebrate the unique importance of spatial intelligence, an intangible but significant skill that harnesses the potential of space to reveal latent qualities and engender wellbeing. It is a clarion call for a new approach. Leon van Schaik has been leading research into what practitioners do for over thirty years, offering insights by bringing consciousness to the field, asking what happens when we design and how might “we position ourselves as architects on the stage of practice, in the arenas of society.” This book is a timely primer that hints at the key role the spatial intelligence of architects might play in helping to tackle critical planetary-wide issues as well as those on a…

1. Donald Watson, The Queensland House: a report into the nature and evolution of significant aspects of domestic architecture in Queensland (Brisbane: National Trust of Queensland, 1981); Donald Watson and Judith McKay, A directory of Queensland architects to 1940 (St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Library, 1984); and Donald Watson and Judith McKay, Queensland architects of the nineteenth century: a biographical dictionary (Brisbane: Queensland Museum in association with the Department of Environment and Heritage, and Q-Build Project Services of the Department of Administrative Services, 1994).…

Location Melbourne, Victoria Jury citation The New Academic Street (NAS) is a dramatic transformation of existing buildings to reconfigure the heart of the RMIT city campus. It included expanding the central library, more than doubling informal student learning seating, expanding retail offerings to students and creating a new “media precinct” in the lower levels of the redevelopment. Integrating NAS within Melbourne’s CBD has transformed the student experience and made the campus a dynamic urban destination. The collaboration of architects involved in the project has delivered real diversity and richness. To facilitate improved wayfinding and interaction, visual connections have been created between the street and the interior student spaces. The project addresses student experience in the twenty-first century and asks how universities might cater to education’s new consumers, who study and…

Location Majura, Australian Capital Territory Jury citation A collegial and collaborative working environment is a common model for the contemporary workplace but a radical concept for the staff of Canberra’s new Australian Federal Police Forensics and Data Centre. These highly specialized experts in digital, biological and chemical forensics, weapons intelligence, fingerprint and facial identification are used to being separated from each other and from the outside world. The new facility provides a workplace that will instead cultivate connections, exchange and the sharing of intelligence. A carefully layered plan separates sensitive areas by using spacious, light-filled and inviting corridors as internal streets, a remarkably calm and collaborative answer to this challenging brief. Architect Hassell; Project team Mark Roehrs, Mark Craig (project architects), Lucy O’Driscoll (design manager), Neil Hill (design leader), Troy…

Location Newtown, New South Wales Jury citation Restriction and constraint often lead to the best architectural outcomes and this is demonstrated at the Laneway House by Jon Jacka Architects. This low-budget project on a tight, inner-suburban site involves a series of simple and elegant design moves that are executed with rigour and clarity. Significantly, the reorientation of the original terrace house to the rear laneway encourages engagement with the local community in an earnest attempt to create a precedent for the neighbourhood. In sinking the compact living zone, which can be opened onto the laneway, below the main level of the home, the architects have defined the space and created edges and terrain on which a young family can perch and play. A luscious, planted skillion roof reaches to the…

Location Collingwood, Victoria Jury citation Campbell Street cleverly configures a small allotment in Collingwood into two light-filled, three-bedroom vertical dwellings with footprint dimensions of four metres in width and nine metres in length. Each six-level apartment features a basement, a ground-floor garage and a rooftop terrace, plus a light well spanning the height of the property that illuminates each home. The development drew inspiration from residential housing typologies in densely populated international cities, where buildings often take up the entire site footprint or are built to the boundaries. The jury was taken with the clear efficiency in detail planning and resolution of the internal fitout and built external fabric. Architect DKO Architecture and SLAB; Project team Jesse Linardi (design director), Seada Linardi (designer), Michael Drescher (director, interior design), Laura Saunders…

Location Brunswick, Victoria Jury citation This project is the beginning of an ambitious experiment that aims to shift the status quo of apartment design in Australia. The development achieves a NatHERS rating of 8.2 stars; is carbon-neutral in operation, using a fossil fuel-free embedded network; and uses rainwater harvesting for irrigation and common-area bathrooms. Sustainability extends beyond the building into social and economic elements: generous communal amenities, useable public space, alternative finance structure and clever and efficient construction techniques. The building encourages its inhabitants to lead a more sustainable lifestyle through sharing laundry facilities, growing vegetables, learning to work together as a community rather than as isolated households and taking the train or riding a bike to work. The jury was impressed by the architect’s determination, rigour and perseverance in…

Heritage luwa by Taylor and Hinds Architects with the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania larapuna, Tasmania Joynton Avenue Creative Centre and Precinct by Peter Stutchbury Architecture in association with Design 5 – Architects for City of Sydney Zetland, New South Wales Monaro Mall, Canberra Centre by Universal Design Studio and Mather Architecture Canberra City, Australian Capital Territory The Cadogan Song School by Palassis Architects Perth, Western Australia The Darling Building by Williams Burton Leopardi Adelaide, South Australia Victorian College of the Arts former Mounted Police Stables by Kerstin Thompson Architects Southbank, Victoria Educational Architecture Highgate Primary School New Teaching Building by Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects Highgate, Western Australia Macquarie University Incubator by Architectus Macquarie Park, New South Wales Monash University Learning and Teaching Building by John Wardle Architects Clayton, Victoria…

I met Don in 1977, when I went to work with him on the recommendation of Colin Griffiths from Harry Seidler’s office. Don had worked for Seidler as apprentice and undergraduate from 1950 to 1953. Through Seidler’s mentorship, Don became an unashamed modernist, Bauhaus disciple and pragmatic designer, city planner and conservationist. He was greatly respected by his friends and peers, not only for his contribution to architecture and the city over a sixty-seven-year career, but as an educator, mentor and writer. In 2006, Don published his memoir Sydneysider: an optimistic life in architecture. In it, he acknowledged those special consultants, peers and friends whom he respected and collaborated with to achieve his great work. It would be remiss if I did not mention some of them here: Aldis Birzulis,…

This issue will be my last as Architecture Media’s editorial director. By the time this 2018 National Architecture Awards celebratory volume is published I will be in my new role as Dean of Architecture and Head of School in the University of Queensland’s School of Architecture. My life in architecture as a writer, editor and advocate has been incredibly rewarding, personally and professionally. It has been a privilege to make a contribution to Australian architecture through publications, events and awards over the past fifteen years. I would like to thank the architects, photographers, academics, writers, designers and publicists who have encouraged, challenged and inspired me. I am incredibly indebted to my Architecture Media colleagues past and present for their mentoring and camaraderie and would like to acknowledge the leadership and…

Pavilion Propositions: Nine Points on an Architectural Phenomenon Since London’s Serpentine Galleries’ former director Julia Peyton-Jones “invented” the pavilion in 2000, the seeds of the archetypal pavilion have spread and germinated all over the world. The exhaustion of pavilions and pavilion programs has led some to ask: have we reached “peak” pavilion? In this book, authors John Macarthur, Susan Holden, Ashley Paine and Wouter Davidts analyse the phenomenon of the contemporary pavilion, not as an overinflated architectural bubble heading for an unseemly deflation, but rather as a “rare and remarkable” new commonplace that has emerged. The authors offer nine propositions that first rebuke “the adage that the pavilion is an overused and obsolete subject for critical practice and discourse” and then consider the pavilion as a medium through which architecture…

Location Zetland, New South Wales Jury citation On the site of the former South Sydney Hospital, the Joynton Avenue Creative Precinct includes the Joynton Avenue Creative Centre and the Banga Community Shed, separated by Matron Ruby Grant Park. The respective transformations of the Esme Cahill building, built in 1936 as nurses’ accommodation, and the operating block, built in 1913, both originally designed by the New South Wales Government Architect, have breathed life into what had become abandoned buildings in the early 2000s. The former nurses’ accommodation consisted of multiple individual rooms, a matron’s suite and shared facilities, including recreation areas and bathrooms. The architects have inverted what was effectively a separated cellular building plan by skilfully inserting a series of voids that enable social interaction across the first two floors.…

Location Geelong, Victoria Jury citation Barwon Water has occupied this central site in Geelong for over eighty years and the two existing buildings, which are now joined, for over forty years. In deciding to remain on the site and to adaptively re-use these buildings, the organization has made a positive contribution to the consolidation of the Geelong city centre. The re-use of the buildings resulted in very low embodied energy compared to building anew but also yielded a far more intimate floor plate than the supersized workplace floor plates that are now the norm. The transformed workplace feels vibrant and domestic in scale and is well suited to creating compact workplace “neighbourhoods.” A high-performance shading facade was developed, which also tempers the scale of the building, both externally and from…

Location Clayton, Victoria Jury citation Monash University’s Learning and Teaching Building is a fine addition to the Clayton campus. While the building plays a physical role as a gateway to the university, its less tangible but perhaps more important role is as a gateway for new students to the campus experience. The low-rise building is a successful student hub that encourages teaching, learning and study in various pre-class, in-class and post-class settings. Its design concept is of an interior landscape that recalls the places found in a city or neighbourhood. The interior architecture uses light, views and materials and finishes usually associated with a building exterior, combining these with spaces and volumes that recall city structures (brick forms that enclose lecture theatres) or topography (staircase bleachers and platforms that tumble…

Location Main Beach, Queensland Jury citation This eight-storey, seven-residence apartment building directly facing Main Beach on the Gold Coast is in a prime position, specifically aimed at the high-end residential market and signifying a new level of luxury living. It is an elegant, modern structure with articulated and operable facade elements, a series of timber screens that can be used to create both shade and privacy. Because the apartments take up an entire level each, they have more of the atmosphere of a house than that of an apartment. The jury was taken with the subtle yet raw material palette of sand-coloured off-form concrete, grey ironbark timber, blue-grey zinc and black balustrades. Designed to retain its naturally weathered appearance, the building is well suited to the harshness of the coastal…

Location Geelong, Victoria Jury citation The overhaul of the headquarters for Barwon Water in the Victorian city of Geelong is a clever adaptive re-use of the agency’s 1977 building in which the majority of the original concrete and steel structure was retained, resulting in an estimated saving of one million kilograms of CO2 compared to using new materials. Of the material removed from the site, 80 percent was recycled. Internal connectivity is greatly improved via the introduction of an infill structure that physically and visually links the north and south blocks, while a central atrium allows natural light into the building and improves its environmental performance, staff engagement and comfort. The building is wrapped in a high-performance skin comprised of a double-glazed, thermally isolated curtain wall system shielded by customized…

Location Cottesloe, Western Australia Jury citation Cottesloe Lobby and Landscape is a sensitive reworking of the public entrance to a 1970s beachside residential tower in suburban Cottesloe, Perth. The consideration of the entry sequence begins outside the site with material palette references to the coastal landscape. The overall effect is one that binds the project to its place of sand and salt water. A generous public contribution is made through the brick textured plaza mediating engagement with the street. In time, the dappled light that will fall through the canopy of the centrally planted feature tree will subtly mark the first threshold. The sand-coloured brick wedge plaza uses English bond and narrows down toward the concrete canopy seemingly floating above standings of stainless steel tubes. A turn of direction and…

Residential Architecture – Multiple Housing 35 Spring Street by Bates Smart Melbourne, Victoria Campbell Street by DKO Architecture and SLAB Collingwood, Victoria Ivy Apartments, West by Davis and Davis Architects West Lakes, South Australia M3565 Main Beach by Virginia Kerridge Architect Main Beach, Queensland Nightingale 1 by Breathe Architecture Brunswick, Victoria Short Lane by Woods Bagot Sydney, New South Wales Spire Residences by John Wardle Architects Brisbane, Queensland The Bottleyard by MJA Studio Perth, Western Australia The Rochford by Fox Johnston Erskineville, New South Wales Colorbond® Award for Steel Architecture Bruny Island Hideaway by Maguire and Devine Architects Alonnah, Tasmania Bugiga Hiker Camp – Grampians National Park by Sean Godsell Architects Victoria Gold Coast Sports Precinct by BVN Carrara, Queensland Optus Stadium by Hassell Cox HKS Burswood, Western Australia Sustainable…

UN Studio and Cox Architecture’s “Green Spine” Wins Southbank Tower Competition A twisting, dual-tower design by UN Studio and Cox Architecture was named winner of Beulah International’s global competition for a $2 billion plus tower in Melbourne’s Southbank in August. Dubbed Green Spine, the winning proposal was conceived as an extension of Southbank Boulevard, which the City of Melbourne is currently converting into a linear park. It draws the green space of the park and the nearby Royal Botanic Gardens into the tower’s public spaces at various levels and up the terraces and balconies nestled in its curved facade. Juror and Victorian government architect Jill Garner said the twisting form would be “an elegant addition to the skyline.” Green Spine was one of six shortlisted designs from some of the…

Exhibitions celebrating living Australian architects are rare, especially those that focus on a single architect. They are important, not just because they offer an opportunity to mark a colleague’s contribution, but because – if the architect is not the initiator – they allow others to assess and curate an architect’s work and, in doing so, allow new insights, glimpses of a legacy that the protagonist themselves might not even have realized they had achieved. And this is the case with Don Watson: A Civil Servant, the small, intimate, fondly and carefully put together exhibition curated by Janina Gosseye, Douglas Neale and Alice Hampson and devoted to the significant (and ongoing) career of Brisbane architect Don Watson. Watson is not your usual subject for an architectural exhibition. He’s an architect, an…

Location Perth, Western Australia Jury citation The Cadogan Song School provides facilities for the St George’s Cathedral choir within the heritage-sensitive Cathedral Square precinct in the Perth CBD. Located between St George’s Cathedral, Burt Memorial Hall, Church House and the Deanery, the Song School works across two levels to ensure full access through the precinct. Sculptural vaulted arches and a “tuning fork” spire reference both the lancet windows of the cathedral and the choirmaster’s instrument, providing cover to the expressed corkscrew stairwell. Underneath lies the subterranean Song School proper, crypt-like in its volume and character, thoughtfully distinguishing its contemporary nature by way of careful material selection. The school sits within the foundations of the cathedral and Burt Memorial Hall, allowing the program to make a considered impact on the visual…

Location Barangaroo, New South Wales Jury citation International House Sydney in Barangaroo was at the time of its completion the tallest timber structure for a commercial building in the world. This achievement alone signifies the degree of innovation needed to realize such a complex project in the inherently conservative construction industry. The use of several timber structural systems, and there are four types at play, is a hallmark of the prowess of the project. Building tectonics are celebrated and confidently expressed. The overt expression of the blackened services and their integration with the structure yield an honest and expressive interior that feels intimate and humane – a counterpoint to the mega-floors of most new commercial floor plates. This careful attention to detail continues through the facade, where the use of…

Location Sydney, New South Wales Jury citation The reinvention of Darling Harbour is a significant moment in Sydney’s urban transformation. Long past its 1980s heyday, the precinct had become tired and congested, with limited visual or physical appeal. Although this is one of the city’s most visited public places, the redevelopment sought to enhance the urban experience – not just for tourists, but for residents and workers. The new design is based on a deceptively simple urban proposition that carves a wide concourse link, fundamentally changing and enhancing patterns of movement through the city and connecting Chinatown to the harbour in an intuitive way. This project has repaired and extended parks and landscapes. It has provided new water features and spaces for events, performance and cultural and civic activities. The…

Location Zetland, New South Wales Jury citation Joynton Avenue Creative Centre and Precinct continues the ongoing investment by the City of Sydney in well-placed and fine-grained strategic urban interventions. Joynton Avenue is very bold – it provides a new template for how we make public spaces in our cities. Its open space is activated by affordable housing and is flanked by two structures configured for public use as meeting and makers’ hubs. The project adaptively re-uses the old nurses’ quarters of the former South Sydney Hospital through the addition of a vaulted verandah structure. The vaulting reinforces the project’s focus as an intimate public gathering space and has a plethora of playful details that celebrate the functional aspects of a roof in providing shade and weather protection. This comfortable roofed…

Location Carrara, Queensland Jury citation The Gold Coast Sports and Leisure Centre was completed in time for the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Its design concept introduces a generous internal street as a clear ordering device linking two major sports halls that can be subdivided into a number of quality sports facilities. Change rooms, amenities, meeting rooms and function spaces are arranged neatly along the internal street and colour is used effectively to highlight alternative sports hall entry points. It is a delightful, light-filled volume containing a sculptural timber stair, quirky roof lights and cheerful tiled finishes. This key facility will become a significant asset for its community. — Gold Coast Sports and Leisure Centre was reviewed by Sheona Thomson in Architecture Australia Jan/Feb 2018. See architectureau.com/articles/building-for-a-future-gold-coast Architect BVN; Project team Mark…

Location Sydney, New South Wales Jury citation Located on Bourke Street in Sydney’s inner-city neighbourhood of Surry Hills, this mixed-use project comprises twenty-two apartments across six levels above a retail podium at ground level. Echoing the height and brutalist materiality of the neighbouring Wesley Mission, all surfaces are finished with textured board-formed concrete. The street frontage is defined by densely planted balconies and terraces that stagger across the facade to provide shade, shelter and either privacy or engagement with neighbours between levels. This planted facade creates private botanical spaces for the residents and gives back as a living building to the street. Each apartment has good cross-ventilation, with openable windows on both the north and south facades and full-height sliding glass doors leading onto outdoor cantilevered terraces. The jury was…

Location Burswood, Western Australia Jury citation Optus Stadium is an immensely complex undertaking that successfully resolved structural, social and commercial challenges to deliver a worldclass sporting arena. The project used approximately 14,000 tonnes of structural steel to achieve clear cover to 85 percent of the 60,000 seats, while addressing challenging ground conditions. The use of steel complemented an ambitious fast-track construction schedule, allowing future flexibility and a high level of refined architectural detailing. All primary steelwork was fabricated in Western Australia ahead of schedule. The design also futureproofed the stadium for a 10,000-seat expansion, with uninterrupted sightlines and the inclusion of removable steel plates for an athletics track. Other key steel initiatives included a piled structure to overcome the ground conditions; single-span feature roof trusses with architectural pin connections; feature…

Over the years of producing his substantial body of work, Kerry Hill became an international architect of great distinction and one of the very best Australian architects. His practice, Kerry Hill Architects, won many local and international awards, acknowledging the outstanding quality of its designs. These included the Kenneth F. Brown Asia Pacific Culture and Architecture Design Award, two Far Eastern Memorial Foundation Awards, the President’s Design Award in Singapore and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. From the Singapore Institute of Architects and the Australian Institute of Architects there were numerous other awards, too many to list – most notably, from Singapore, four top design awards and a Building of the Year; and from Australia five international awards and two George Temple Poole Awards for the most outstanding work…

Neil Clerehan was one of Melbourne’s great architectural figures. For more than sixty-five years, he served his profession with the greatest distinction as an architect, editor, writer, advocate and critic. At the same time he delighted and scandalized colleagues, clients and friends as no other could. Clerehan was born on 29 December 1922. He was schooled at St Patrick’s College in East Melbourne and the daily electric tram ride from the family home in Elwood to St Kilda railway station fostered the young boy’s fascination with houses and Art Deco blocks of flats. For his eleventh birthday, Clerehan asked for a subscription to Australian Home Beautiful. His future ambition was sealed. Matriculating aged sixteen, Clerehan enrolled in architecture at Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT University), only to have his studies…