Blue Archive: Early Release Material

The Blue Archive is under development. Early release material includes a talk David Weir, of David Weir Architects, at the 2014 edition of MERGE Emerging Architects 'On Impact', and a 'project portrait' of Jonathan Lake's North Perth House, which was a popular site at Open House 2014.

The archive project has seen speakers and event organisers including MERGE, Curtin University, CODA, the Office of the Government Architect, CODA, the DIA and Gresley Abas generously allow us to film their talks, and video documentation of a number of exhibitions, installations, and built projects. We hope this will contribute to the strengthening of architectural culture in Perth through the availability of quality, engaging, primary source information delivered with high production values. The intent is to assist with the discovery and sharing of good ideas through the cataloging and of the work, thoughts and personalities of architects and allied practitioners, to allow well informed conversations and creative works.

In due course a website will be launched, with fully catalogued metadata on the speakers and events. Material will be progressively added as editing is completed and permissions received.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy these first two videos:

David Weir (David Weir Architects) - 'On Impact'

Project Portrait: Jonathan Lake Architects - 'North Perth House' 

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  

thinking about: film

"Even if they are not all good poems, you do realise how incredible the thirst is for poetry as a way of apprehending and thinking about life. It sort of deals with the same questions as philosophy does, but it builds up from the ground and from specific detail whereas philosophy comes down from above and abstract generalisation. It allows you to experience other people's thoughts in a way that other art forms just don't, and reading all these entries together you see that people are looking for a way of dealing with the other. I don't want to term it spiritual exactly, but certainly the numinous aspects of existence aren't dealt with much in our culture."

- poet, novelist and international litigator Nick Laird on poetry, in The Guardian, 4/1/2013

To me, the essence of that quote really applies to film, not poetry. To me there is no better medium than film to "experience other people's thoughts", and for dealing with "the other". It is more visceral, has more "specific detail", and is also a very familiar medium - easy to make now with cheap computing, easy on-line promotion and distribution, and widely understood within our TV and cinema centric culture. Poetry I think held this popular story telling role within our culture, but has it no longer (except, perhaps, combined with song lyrics - which are given greater power in music videos). 

Recently among the collective, there has been quite a bit of film discussion and making; most of which has not yet reached fruition. 

Read more >>

Armstrong Parkin Architects - Christmas Card

APA Christmas Card 2012 from Blue Carpet Collective on Vimeo.

'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...!