Go Away and Come Back Exhibition

Go Away and Come Back: an exhibition of architecture, travel, research, experience is currently open upstairs at the Moores Building Contemporary Gallery on Henry Street in Fremantle.

The closing party is this coming Sunday 4-7pm. There will be snacks, drinks, and thought provoking, engaging works to interact with.

Sneak previews and more info: www.facebook.com/GoAwayandComeBack  

CALL OUT FOR PROPOSALS Go Away and Come Back: an exhibition of architecture, travel, research, experience.

 

Image: Detail Opportunistic,

2012. R. Creagh.

Go Away and Come Back:

an exhibition of architecture, travel, research, experience.

What does it mean to return home after focused travels? What meaningful contribution can be made when returning with understandings found elsewhere or between places? Go Away and Come Back: an exhibition of architecture, travel, research, experience spirals around these questions proposing an investigation through the work and travels of established and emerging architects.

Architectural pilgrimages, study trips and grand tours have a significant place in the historical understanding of architectural education. Now, the internet grants access to the other side of the world from a home interior. Is the value of study trips questioned by the proliferation of online architectural media? With the increasing convenience of travel has the status of the grand tour shifted within the education of architects? Has inexpensive digital photography diminished the way experiences are recorded? Given the change in global economics, and a shifting emphasis away from old colonial centres, is there still relevance to the overseas internship?

Go Away and Come Back is a proposed peer reviewed exhibition of research works. The visual enquiries  are invited that draw on exhibitors’ travel documentation and reflection to further understandings of the nexus of architecture, experience, research and travel. In a contemporary world of globalisation and mobility, submissions are invited that challenge assumptions about both travel experiences and architectural research through grounded enquiry and engaging mediums.

 Call for proposals now open.

A maximum single A4 page written expression of interest, including a brief biographic statement, should be received before Monday 24 June, 2013. An additional reference image may be included at the applicants’ discretion. Please email to Robyn Creagh r.creagh@curtin.edu.au or Shannon Lyons  s.lyons@curtin.edu.au

Successful applicants will be invited to attend a series of optional workshops in Perth. As part of the curatorial review and development of the research works, at key points in the lead up to exhibition an interdisciplinary selection of creative practitioners and scholars will provide mentoring and critique. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue of works and scholarly essays.

Response to FJE’s review of Duckworth-Smith’s PS12

FJE invited me to respond to his commentary as (while stuffing our faces at lunch last week) we disagreed over both his reading of Anthony Duckworth-Smith's presentation at the last PS12 and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5. Our views on that seminal novel we shall keep for elsewhere. FJE’s comments addressed by this post are here: FJE's Comments.

FJE's main critique of Duckworth-Smith seems to be that his project is both too narrow and too broad in focus. My impression of FJE's criticism was the following: Firstly as an architect D-S should be presenting a resolved building design as a 'solution' to his site of investigation - that is that his project is too broad. Secondly, that as a resolved building design this should deal fulsomely with all aspects of design quality - that is that his project is too narrow. (I note that FJE levels neither of these criticisms at Weller.)

This broad-narrow criticism does not seem to engage with Duckworth-Smith's work on the grounds it was presented. D-S's presentation of his work did not claim to ‘solve’ these potential sites, but to engage with them, and address one of the perceived (or actual) resistances to their development. Contrary to FJE I find D-S's acoustic-based enquiry of these sites timely in direction and focus. I view this as one of the many possible routes of enquiry into the question "How can Perth become more dense?" Which to my mind is the question immediately raised by Weller’s (amongst others’) assertions that it must. There are a plethora of possible answers to this question and some have geographic locations and building forms that would have more spatial and lived quality than others.

D-S starts a move in one such direction of quality from a review of amenity by mobility in Perth's suburbs. He has located a typology – the East-West bus corridor – that to my knowledge has not yet been addressed in this context. (Our old highways and suburban railway stations have for example received much more attention. Perhaps they are more glamorous.) D-S draws on his specific skills and interests to address one significant constraint to this site – acoustics – while acknowledging the work of others who have worked in similar sites with different focuses.

Where FJE's criticism fails is in not being able to locate D-S's work within a developing field of enquiry. Within this context D-S’s work opens up more specific questions and possibilities for exploration. To my mind this 'opening up' is a research success, rather than failing.

Finding Urban Space for Children - Candidacy Presentation - Courtney Babb

On Friday in building 201 at Curtin Uni Courtney Babb will present the topic of his PhD research project: Finding Urban Space for Children. Courtney was recently awarded candidature, and this session is an opportunity for the BE research community to find out what he’s up to and support him at this early stage of his research. This session may also be of interest to anyone beginning their HDR studies or approaching candidacy. Here’s a brief statement from Courtney on the thesis research:

“My PhD is focussed on better understanding the relationship between children and the built environment, in particular their independent mobility and active travel. I will do this by designing a children’s walkability audit that measures elements within the built environment that are important to children’s travel behaviour. A key objective of the research is to investigate how measures can be developed to reflect the subjective nature of some relationships, such as the perception of safety. The research draws upon post-positivist planning theories and participatory methods to develop the audit.”

Friday 17 June. 11am. Room 649. Building 201. Curtin Uni.
3rd in the "Four from the BODY" series of BE Fortnightlies.