The business of architecture
We have observed with growing disquiet over recent years that architecture is fast becoming the invisible profession. Be it in the papers, on talkback radio or coming directly from parliament, rarely are the opinions of architects publicly sought on issues that affect the built environment. Over and over again, builders, planners, real estate agents, plumbers and... Continue Reading →
What was it? An unsanctioned exhibition of non-shortlisted entries into Stage 1 of the Flinders Street Station Design Competition (FSSDC). Co-ordinated by Edwards Moore at Sibling in Fitzroy, it was part design display, part political protest and part social gathering. 27 of the 112 non-shortlisted entries were exhibited, including our own discussed in a previous post... Continue Reading →
What's on Your Desk? - November Process We attended Process at Loop earlier this month, a session of the Australian Institute of Architects' long running young architects' talks entitled, What's on Your Desk? Presenting current projects and a few miscellaneous ideas were our friend and colleague, Steve Rose, together with Jack May and Andy Yu. Killing... Continue Reading →
What is it? Previously known as Melbourne Architecture Week, Melbourne Architecture Annual (MAA) is a festival that has taken place the past two years in the last week of October. Its aim is to engage the broader community with both architects and architecture. Festival activities therefore tend towards content with wide-ranging appeal, including ask an architect... Continue Reading →
Flinders Street Station from the northeast, courtesy of Major Projects Victoria What is it? An international design competition to redevelop Flinders Street Station, Melbourne's busiest train station and home to 200,000 passenger visits a day. With a site area of over 40,000sqm and a significant presence between the Hoddle grid and Yarra River, the competition... Continue Reading →
20050218.1327 Concept sketches for an unrealised early project. Rivendell was the whimsical name of the sprawling rural site in Mount Martha, for which we proposed a house partially embedded into hillside. Our design was composed of an off-form concrete, partially subterranean volume linking to a series of above ground, timber towers. The project was to... Continue Reading →
Bruder Klaus Chapel by Peter Zumthor What is it? A number of years ago, Peter Zumthor presented a memorable lecture in Melbourne. Among the projects he discussed was the Bruder Klaus Chapel, as yet unbuilt, a chapel he was designing for a small community in Mechernich, Germany. Zumthor explained that the community was to fell... Continue Reading →
What was it? A seminar organised by Justine Clark on behalf of the Australian Institute of Architects recently that discussed Melbourne's suburbs and its disconcertedly low housing density. Rather than propose specific solutions, it sought to broadly articulate the scope of the issue and how our understanding of it might help us chart a course... Continue Reading →
20120130.1952 From sketches originally drawn in 2000 / 2001, re-discovered recently while cleaning up the studio and rifling through old sketchbooks. The ski lodge grows out of the mountain, an upwardly thrusting rock. It is resolved as two separate volumes, with different functions, orientations and materials. One volume comprises services; the other comprises living spaces.... Continue Reading →
Delta Shelter, Washington Who is he? Principal of Seattle-based architecture studio, Olson Kundig Architects. Kundig recently toured Australia as a guest of the excellent C + A journal, presenting insight into the origins of his unique architectural philosophy and the raw yet intricately detailed projects that result. He discussed his formative inspirations, mostly derived from... Continue Reading →