Parallel Nippon - what we liked + what we want to visit

'La Petite Chambre' makes the Archiflick shortlist!

We have been rather quiet, but we have been busy...making a short film!  And now that it's been made public, we're allowed to tell you about it!

Our film has been shortlisted for Archiflick - the 2012 National Architecture Awards short film competition - hurray!

The brief was to make a 30-60 second film that focused on or further explored any aspect of a project shortlisted for the 2012 National Architecture Awards.  One of the provocations was to showcase a project in a way it hasn't been seen before.

Out of the four WA projects shortlisted for the National Architecture Awards, we decided to do a film on the Cultural Centre Amenities by Coniglio Ainsworth Architects.  The other WA shortlisted projects were VENN by Matthews Architecture, 58 Stevens St by Officer Woods, and Hilton Community Centre by Bernard Seeber.  The Cultural Centre Amenities seemed the most publicly accessible project and stimulated the most ideas amongst the group (including some spontaneous script-writing by BM), so life got set aside and we went off to do some filming in a public toilet...!

home as project house

Said friend Florence (name has been changed) is a business professional and still recent graduate who is building a home in a newly developed estate by Stocklands, south of the river.  The particulars are; the home is a land and house package by Ideal Homes, block is 320m2 and house is 136m2 (total area of 182m2 with covered open spaces; garage and alfresco).  The home is a standard design for a 280m2 block and therefore, Florence has more garden than would be usual.  The total package has cost approximately $370,000 (inclusive of home, land and design variations).

I have asked Florence to share some insights into the process and reflect on her experiences on the murky topic of; building with a project home company.

[Image Google Maps of Perth Suburbia]

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Fiction architecture & a popcorn article

I just wanted to share my latest crushes (architectural of course).  It was either trying to articulate my rage at the many failings of this profession or posting about my new inspirations, I have chosen the later.

The title is borrowed from a theory pioneered or borrowed and at the very least propagated by Thornton Architecture.  The title is pretty apt for these whimsical projects.

Firstly Andrew Maynard Architects.  I recently spent a while looking through this practice's website after ADR published 'Hill House'.  Not my favourite as published on their website but the humour and sleek detailing does appeal and nicely shown in other works;

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Suburban Odyssey

Yesterday KvV and I visited the Shaun Tan exhibition, ‘Suburban Odyssey’ at the Fremantle Arts Centre (runs until July 15).  Having marveled at the illustrations of the picture books, ‘The Rabbits’ and ‘The Arrival’ in a coffee table sort of attention span, I really appreciated seeing the evolution of his works.  The major works are of suburban landscapes, from early pieces of realism and portraiture to suburbia as magic-realism and then the working sketches of his later work illustrations.

So our fascination with suburbia, have we seen it all before?  Not as Tan manages to capture suburbia.  I found this quote from a love-in, online review by The West Australian, "These are serious paintings of Australian suburbia, bringing to life that which is usually pictured as dull and monotonous.  Many Australian artists celebrate the boredom of the suburban landscape, but Tan is able to breathe magic into the streetscapes of Perth".

I would agree with the sentiment but I feel that the best descriptive word would be his ability to capture a ‘benign’ suburbia.  Is this suburbia in its best version? There are no seething, bleak undertones, think Tim Burton’s ‘Edward Scissor Hands’ or David Lynch’s ‘Blue Velvet’, just a perspective that some of it’s implied rules are strange (homogeneity, 9-5, crows).  Whilst BENIGN doesn’t have the charisma of AMAZING, the intellect of DELIGHTFUL or the nous of CLEVER, it is used in its ability to convey a kind, generous, gentle disposition.  The magic realism of his stick figure series of paintings (definitely worth the short trip) promote the idea that alien landscapes (or objects & creatures as seen in his later works) can be both strange and benign, which is surely if you took this idea further a message of tolerance?  Maybe I have run away with that thought, but to see these layered paintings and different techniques; pencil, gauche, acrylics, pastels and layered cardboard, wood, cloth & plaster, was a nice interlude for a Thursday.  

Teaser pictures below.

exhibition intro

working perspective

layered painting

Manjimup SHS Science Laboratories - JCY

On the edge of Manjimup, a large inland town in WA’s South-West, is a multi-purpose educational campus which has expanded since 1999 from a Senior High School to include a TAFE, a primary school, and an Edith Cowan University facility.

Three science laboratories and an accompanying staff office have been constructed in the northern part of the campus, replacing transportable buildings that used to house the senior high school’s physics and chemistry labs.

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Boral Blues

After a long session, the athletes are tired and drained. Many schemes for a small brick factory have been generated, designed and discarded. Eventually the ideas exhausted, the team collapsed on the sidelines.

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CAPITheticAL

BCC has been missing in action because we've been working on our proposition for the CAPITheticAL competition - click on the image below to view our submission!

Capithetical (Meeting No.1)

Affirmative Architecture: Resonations and Reservations from AJH, KvV & FJE

Notes, reflections and sketches from the Affirmative Architecture symposium. We haven't covered everything, just a few things that resonated with us, and a few more that didn't.

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Design Process: MP and the Bridgetown House

After a conversation between AJH, FJE and MP about dissertations, and MP's Bridgetown House Project on a Wednesday afternoon.

With roots in his dissertation on non-proffessional builders, MP has been engaged for design services by a musician couple planning to build a small house on a rural lot outside Bridgetown.

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AJH: Thesis in its current form

As I prepare my Dissertation Preparation, Research Context Assignment (3), it seemed like a good idea to actually post up how the Thesis process is going this semester and reflect on where am I...

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Rebuilding Bunbury Cathedral

AJH: ABC last Sunday night featured this story on Compass.  So I highly recommend watching on ABC iView before it disappears.

HG I know you will love this, this architect actually got to design a Cathedral, which is extremely rare on a world scale not just an Australian scale.  Also Robert Juniper was involved in the project too.  Great feel good story.

New St Patrick's (image: still from ABC's Compass)

Old St Patrick's (image: still from ABC's Compass)

New Bunbury Cathedral

Architect: Marcus Collins

Builder: Perkins

Client: Catholic Diocese of Bunbury

I watched this interesting 25min documentary about the rebuilding of Bunbury Cathedral following fatal storm damage in the 2005 Bunbury tornado, and subsequent demolition. 

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Hidden Perth Architectural(?) Gems

This is to start a thread of places that you love, but may not know, the places you like to look at as you drive/walk/bus past on your way to ......

There is a certain house that is perched high on a hill in East Fremantle, and is a two minute walk from my Nanna's house. Every time I drive to my Nanna's house I covet the beautiful simplicity of this house, which can be seen from the intersection of Pier and Parker Streets. So much to my shock when I discovered a 'For Sale' sign out the front.

As curiosity would have it, here are the details (I sigh as the price flashes up and as I type this it is probably already sold). Yes, the inside does look old, but this house has a real street presence and if your ever in the area I would recommend a drive by:



Just an off topic point, I think someone should come up with the 'collage suburbia'. I do love this suburban area near my Nanna's house for it's very even mix of 'heritage' homes (Penshurst, Aldgate, Knocknagow etc), 50's/60's modernism, 90's/00's McMansions and a few that have just been Italian'o'fied in the past.

Willi Dorner

This talk was AWESOME, although I have to say that my opinion was highly influenced by being a climber and sitting next to another rather excited climber. I think we both liked the fact that Willi said increasingly he was using climbers and parkour people along with conventional dancers.  I am so glad KvV booked spaces for me as this event was sold out! - HG

I am mildly conscious of the fact that I may be slightly misappropriating Willi's artistic intention in favour of my own, but I think this is fantastic because I am tired of urban spaces dictating to the user how they should be occupied. Surely if this is our habitat, it should be shaped by us, rather than it shaping our behaviour. As a climber, I think I see the city very differently - I see positions and places that we could be, and pathways, ways of moving through and occupying space that exist on a three-dimensional level, instead of being restricted to a two-dimensional plane. I think that some of his installations highlight that three-dimensional space. - LW

Willi discussed two of his projects:

Anywhere Somewhere Everywhere
A little hard to explain, but essentially there is one performer and one audience member. The audience member is given a mobile phone with some guiding instructions on it, and is lead through the city by the performer, or 'shadow' who communicates intermittently with the audience member. They are typically lead through disused spaces of the city. The performance takes about one hour.

Bodies in Urban Spaces
A group of audience members is lead through the city. There are about 20 performers, who run ahead of the group and 'install' themselves in various places, making visible the gaps in the urban fabric. Willi said he likes to lead people through a range of neighbourhoods, and perhaps ones that people might not usually go to. The performance often picks up a lot of people along the way, at one point they had about a thousand people following them in London, causing traffic to stop and such. The also have to rehearse in the actual places they will be performing in, and this also typically collects an impromptu audience.

I recommend viewing the photos before viewing the video below, as the stillness is important in the understanding of the performance. The performers usually stay in one place and position for about 3-4 minutes. Apparently people are often irritated by the stillness of the performers and sometimes touch them because they do not believe they are real!

See here for photos from Willi's website (scroll down to 'bodies in urban spaces') and here for a Guardian album.

Below is a video that Willi showed us at the end of his talk from a performance at the Philly Fringe festival.

AJH, do you have anything to add?

Sketches from Spain

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Barcelona Pavilion

The sculpture is a bronze reproduction of the piece entitled Alba (Dawn) by Georg Kolbe

Toledo

Figueres

Dali Museum, exterior sculpture holding a bright gold breadstick

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Surveys

Well just wanted to post an idea I had. After hearing and knowing of graduates who either became disenfranchised with practising architecture or realised it wasn't the best way for them to contribute to architecture or maybe leading to different career paths, I wondered if any comprehensive survey has been done on Architecture graduates.

A possible survey could focus on the paths of graduates taken at 1-2 years after graduation and 3-5 years:

-what current field employed in (practising architecture, architecture related, design related, non related, other (travel, further study)

-what form (FT, PT, casual or contract, self employed).

-Happiness in employment; on work colleagues (support and direction), type of work, etc

- Income (per annum amount or hourly rate)

Of course all done anonymous.

Normally surveys are done to research a point, hmmmm. I think some aspects I would be interested in would be the retention rate in architecture after graduating and whether private practice is supporting graduates adequately?

So thoughts...

Inspired by what Glenn Murcutt said at Re:Hab (very much paraphrasing); that he teaches to contribute to the profession as he doesn't employ others in his practice.

One Person at a Time...

This reflects my general attitude to educating people about what architecture is (based on my limited knowledge at the time) and what we do.

In January (2011) my mum and her partner went on a camping holiday to the South West of our state. Staying in Albany, my mum recognised that the following building was most likely of architectural merit (she liked it) and proceeded to take photos to show me when she returned home. I thought a little sharing wouldn't go astray.

ALBANY ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE (AEC), Cox Howlett Bailey Woodland, 2010

Even though this building has been quite controversial, and I have a vague recollection that Albany residents were not big supporters of the design, I do think it seems quite nice. This is another building in the legacy of previous Government architect Professor Geoffrey London. The building is to be “an impressive design which will become the jewel in the crown of the new waterfront precinct", (Hon Michelle Roberts, 2006) and maybe a form of redemption for the Architects that produced the PCEC.

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Barcelona Modernist Blues

© Amanda Hendry, 2010.

© Amanda Hendry, 2010.

Two unfinished creatures opposing each other over the pedestrian promenade.

One creature, eager for a view up Avenida Diagonal,

hulking on the corner,

a black form,

legs tensed holding up the mass of the body,

a shimmering belly, the reminder of its sea side position,

its internal organs being rearranged,

its tough skin ready for attack by its seemingly disarming neighbour.

Does the skin with a few contortions for the catchment and flow of light

reveal a creature unsure of itself, so very young in this city of elders.

The neighbour so arrogantly self-assured,

as white and pure in appearance to equal the dirty, black night of its own exterior.

A contrast of mass,

sure of its placement on the site,

immoveable,

tall,

lazily gazing out over the water

and yet to the avenue and that of the squat form of its inferior neighbour.

Both a little unsure of the nature of their first conversation,

both unexpected modern familiars,

both aliens waiting for time to make them accepted residents of the city.

(In a strange mood to wax lyrical about a building that looked sad, written on site 25/9/2010, by far the least impressive modernist architecture seen on our travels.)

© Amanda Hendry, 2010.

© Amanda Hendry, 2010.

(Barcelona Forum Building by Herzog and de Meuron, Diagonal 00 Tower by Enric Massip- Bosch)

New Developments at Barangaroo, Sydney

This link was forwarded to me by a past work colleague, I like to think it's a timely reminder for Perthites that some bad urban decisions by Government seem to be an Australian problem also I like to save good examples (this is a cracker letter) of Architect's correspondence, as this will inevitably be something we may have to write in our professional lives.

Viewpoints on the Barangaroo Development were featured in Architecture Australia, May/June 10, pp 47- 58. The front cover states 'Urban controversy at Barangaroo' and this doesn't appear to have been abated in anyway. The following term 'Barangarooted' has also been coined.

A quick synopsis from what I have read and gather is that Hill Thalis Architecture and Urban Projects/Paul Berkemeier/Jane Irwin (HBTI), are a local sydney firm who won an international competition for the Concept Plan of the Barangaroo site. A moot point is their following lack of involvement in the progression of the development, the site has been divided with one developer LendLease developing a large portion of the site. The following is a link to HBTI's website and their recent letter addressed to The Director General, Department of Planning, Sydney about LendLease's recent Masterplan submission. Most likely the following will occur; this letter will make his office, when his PA will ensure a suitable officer will provide a general and non de script reply, fulfilling general protocol. Even so we can but hope it helps for a better final outcome and generates enough publicity for State Politicians to take notice.

Hill Thalis: Barangaroo Update

Letter