Watsons Bay House is complete. More information and images at the project page.
Photography by Murray Fredericks.
As you can see from the diagram above, a developer can build two buildings with twin concept. He can save a lot of cash from the architectural billing and contract time, from the material purchases and double discounts, and, from the ease of proven installation and erection, all of which translate into large sums of monetary gain whose importance in American urbanism is paramount. Next time you drive by a twin concept building, take a look at them and say, “Thanks Orhan, I see what you mean.”
Open Agenda will award seed funding to three exceptional design research proposals that explore new positions in architecture for critical consideration. We are looking for text and graphic based proposals that seek to develop research through architectural design. Proposals will be evaluated on the strength of their research topic, their innovative approach to design as research, design quality and their potential for development as a public exhibition, lecture and publication. Proposals that explore new forms of media and communication in this context are welcome.
Watsons Bay House is complete. More information and images at the project page.
Photography by Murray Fredericks.
“I wouldn’t want you to cry for having had to come here tonight for this conversation, because nobody dragged you here.” - Peter Eisenman to Rem Koolhaas. So ends Supercritical, a little volume that documents the rare meeting of two architect friends/enemies/rivals/(whatever) – Rem Koolhaas & Peter Eisenman. It accurately transcribes the two’s complete inability to say anything meaningful to each other, and their ultimate decline into dressed-up name-calling. This spectacular failure on the part of their dialogue has forced me to split this review into two posts: one on the discussion itself, and one on the novel medium through which this piece presents itself.Via City of Sound
Pecha Kucha Sydney is participating in a global 24hr continuous Pecha Kucha Night to raise funds for rebuilding efforts in Haiti on Saturday the 20th February at the MCA.
There will be a continuous 24hr Pecha Kucha Night taking place in cities around the world and we are excited to be taking the slot of GMT+11. 100% of the proceeds raised on the night will go directly to Architecture for Humanity, a group currently involved in rebuilding works in Haiti.
It is short notice, I know, but we have pulled together a great list of speakers to talk on the night and a fantastic venue, so I hope to see you there!
Speaking on the night we have:
Saturday 20th February
MCA Harbour Terrace
7pm for 7:30 start
Cameron Sinclair, Founder and Chief Eternal Optimist @ Architecture for Humanity writes:
Haiti Fatigue.
It’s a phrase we will begin to hear over the next few weeks. The fact is more people died in Haiti than in the 12 countries affected by the ‘04 Tsunami. Oh, and rainy season begins in 8 days. So this natural disaster IS a big deal and it’s going to get rough.
We are not the first responders, we’re the last responders and we’re in for the long haul. We estimate having teams in Haiti for 4 years but we will only do that with the financial support of others. Thanks to the amazing Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein we’re going to change that.
We are one week away from launching PechaKucha for Haiti – the worlds largest distributed conference. This will be a 24 hour Pecha Kucha (20x20 style) in more than 100 cities – with 2000 presentations. 100% of all donations/proceeds will go towards building schools and community centers in Haiti.
http://www.pecha-kucha.org/pechakucha-for-haiti
I’d love it if you got involved in some way.
Cameron
More Info on the Global Pecha Kucha Night Fundraiser for Haiti
Tickets available online from Moshtix or on the door.
Junk Jet n°3 asked for fluxing architectures, boogie, buildings, rolling rocks, flying architectures, provisory pyramids, and temporary eternities; for all kinds of practical concepts and conceptual practices, for stable happenings and unstable thoughts, for lifted cellars and dugin landmarks, for curtains, mobiles, house boats, bubbles, zeppelins, flying saucers … … it received fantastic forms of material, immaterial, physical and mental flux. Not only were immovables made movable, but also were put forth moving ideas of aesthetic, social, and political concern. We recognize that it is in microarchitectures, where architecture resides today, that speculations cannot be hilarious enough, and that the post-digital is the era, we already live in.Ordered.
Mouse movements while I spent about an hour documenting a kitchen pantry this afternoon:
I picked up the first issue of Joe the Barbarian, Grant Morrison’s latest series from Vertigo Comics this week. The story follows Joe, a diabetic teenager, who in the midst of a seizure has a hallucinatory adventure through his house.
In the first establishing issue we follow Joe as he makes his way home from a school trip to a veteran’s memorial, catches a bus, gets home, moves through the house, climbs a set of stairs and climbs a ladder to his teenage wet-dream of an attic bedroom. Beautifully illustrated by Sean Murphy, it is a slice of life sequence right up until the last few pages where, having neglected to take his insulin, he begins hallucinating, the room warping around him and is greeted by his toys brought to life seemingly battle weary refugees from some war in the distance.
Where I think it becomes interesting is that the next seven issues of the eight issue series will document parallel journeys through the house. One where we follow Joe descending through the house from the attic to the basement (where I am assuming his medication is?) and the other where he follows a a Narnian/Wizard of Oz like adventure populated by his toys and the contents of the house.
The domestic as landscape for epic adventure.
The idea that there will be timelines operating simultaneously in one space; the long drawn out battle to save a fantasy world, and the short trip from one end of the house to the other, is intriguing and I look forward to watching it play out. It reminds me a little of the haunted house tale The House of Leaves, where the internal measurements of rooms don’t quite add up and the basement leads into an infinite darkness. Morrison describes this transformation of familiar ground to arduous terrain:
So like I said, it’s really quite grounded, because it’s all about this journey down from the attic to the basement of the house. And I think we can all relate to that, because man of us will have had those moments when we were sick or feverish and had to venture down to the kitchen to get something that would make us better. And we all know how difficult it can be to cross familiar ground if you’re weak or injured or delirious. The terrain of an ordinary home can easily become larger than life and apocalyptically meaningful.
In any case, being Grant Morrison—and Grant Morrison in Flex Mentallo mode at that—I am fairly certain that there will be intricacies to the tale that will play out as the series progresses (for instance, Morrison has indicated that the landing where Joe leaves his satchel will be of importance later in the series) so we will check back in at the conclusion of the series to see if it lives up to its promise.
“The committee said there is also a need for an underground master plan. It said the government should catalyse the development of underground space over the next decade. The committee also emphasized a need to develop subterranean land rights, a valuation framework and to establish a national geology office.”via Warren Ellis
A 3 year old boy presented to our accident and emergency department with an obvious penetrating head injury. He had tripped and fallen onto a metal model of the Eiffel Tower which then became rigidly lodged into his skull.
Every ten minutes the black box pings a server on the internet via the ethernet connection to check if it is for sale on the eBay. If its auction has ended or it has sold, it automatically creates a new auction of itself. If a person buys it on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into ethernet, and the cycle repeats itself.The current auction taking place may be found here.
Phosphorus is at the heart of modern farming; an essential ingredient of agricultural fertilizers. It has no synthetic alternative and is being mined, used and wasted as never before. Inefficiencies in the processing of food and the soaring demand for meat and dairy produce across Asia is fuelling demand for phosphorus faster than anyone had predicted. … Significant Phosphate reserves exist in only a few nations: Morocco holds 32 per cent of the world’s proven reserves, with Western Sahara, South Africa, Jordan, Syria and Russia holding the other significant reserves. A new geopolitical map may be drawn around the remaining reserves – creating a small number of new “resource superpowers” with a pricing control over fertilisers that some suspect could end up rivaling OPEC’s control over crude oil.
“Maybe this cold hard dose of reality is what Dubai needed,” said Sheikh Hamdan, adding that he remained “hopeful” his mountain range would one day be completed. “Maybe it’s time for us to pull ourselves up by the straps of our handmade custom-fitted patent-leather Italian boots and put our slaves back to work. Only through ingenuity, perseverance, and forced labor can Dubai get back to being Dubai again.” “And mark my words,” he added, “We will still put a man on the artificial moon we’re building by 2025.”
Late last year it was announced that Lend Lease had been awarded development rights at Barangaroo, a massive harbourside project on the western flank of Sydney’s CBD. The proposal concentrates the built area to the south of the site leaving the north of the site to parkland. For additional bling, a Richard Rogers designed hotel building with red steel exo skeleton extends into the harbour.
The image above is not that scheme. It is the same site, but by MVRDV nine years ago. More on this later. But first a little background on this project. In 2006 there was a public, open two-stage competition for the site. A shortlist of five practices went into a second stage from which the team of Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects with Paul Berkemeir Architects and Jane Irwin Landscape Architects were selected as the winning entry. Up against the likes of Morphosis and Richard Rogers, their proposal succeeded partly due to its focus on sound urban principles and a generous split between park and built area as opposed to an identifiable architectural statement.
However for these same reasons it was also a masterplan that was easily exploitable—sensible planning is not an issue that the public will take up arms for—and in the years following the competition, commercial tweaking required larger buildings and the scheme was adapted to suit. To a point. Eventually, the design team was sidelined , a new closed competition was held a new tender for development rights was held, ex-Prime Minister Paul Keating spoke out in favour of returning the headland back to some supposedly pristine pre-colonial time and got his way. All of which took place without much of a fuss, save a few articles in the local paper. (If you would like it, further reading may be found at Hill Thalis’ website and there is a good rundown of the evolution of the site at Butterpaper.)
And so we have this proposal by Lend Lease and Rogers.
The image above is not that scheme. It is the unsuccessful second stage competition entry by Lend Lease and Richard Rogers, four years ago. Add a few thousand square metres and squint a bit, and you have the current scheme. Red Exo skeleton towers? Check. Low rise buildings along Hickson Road? Check. A detached headland park? Check:
In a radio interview, Phillip Thallis of the original competition winning team makes some good points about the new scheme. A subtle change—at least one not likely to be noticed by the public at large—is the removal of the street between the developable area and the parkland from the masterplan. As Thalis notes, streets act to keep development in check and without them, the line between public and private becomes blurred, often in favour of commercial interests. Speaking in defence of this approach, Chris Johnson describes it as being a “sensitive, poetic” solution. That is all well and good, but the so called ‘feathered edge’ between parks and development area is a characteristic more at home at a retirement village golf course than it is in a city.
Thallis also notes that the design and commercial details of the other entries had not yet been disclosed, something that Sydney-siders ought to be concerned about given the significant chunk of the city this project comprises.
So.
Now for the point of this post. Which concerns a curiosity that as far as I am aware, has not been a part of the discussion of the site.
In 2000, Deputy Chair of the Barangaroo Delivery Authority’s Design Review Panel Chris Johnson, while he was NSW Government Architect co-authored “Port Cities: Rotterdam Sydney” with Winy Maas of MVRDV. The spiral bound study was not formally published (it has no ISBN or publisher information within), does not appear on MVRDV’s publication page, and a web search returns only one entry—a listing in the Bauhaus Dessau library—so widespread knowledge of this document seems unlikely.
I picked up my copy at the 2000 RAIA National Conference in Sydney where Winy Maas was the keynote speaker, and it seems it was produced as a project to coincide with his time in Australia.
The study comprises of:
Above, “Ridge Development” by GADD. In which the city of Sydney is seen as though it were virgin landscape waiting for sub-Murcutt skillions to inhabit it.
It is the last section, ‘Sydney Harbour Projects: The Activated Landscape’, which is of particular interest given the recent announcements regarding the western edge of the CBD. While this section of the book is authored by MVRDV, the entire book is presented as being co-edited by Maas and Johnson, so it stands to reason that Chris Johnson too was engaged in discussions around the assertions presented within.
Three opportunities are presented for Sydney to make use of its harbour activities; Concentration, Islands, and Bridges. In each case a typology is presented as super infrastructure containing a dense mix of program skewed toward the hyper industrial. The representation is rudimentary and feels somewhat rushed, which it may well have been, but the idea is clearly articulated—a dense consolidation of mixed use types utilising opportunities presented by a harbour-front city.
Inhabited Bridges
Stacked Islands
Concentration
The least spectacular, but most familiar, concentrates activity on the blank stretch of East Darling Harbour, now known as Barangaroo. A bunch of evenly dispersed towers occupy the site, interspersed with port infrastructure raised over the water on steel trusses. And it may be long a bow to draw, but it does appear that Rogers’ hotel tower shares some common with MVRDV’s earlier vision.
The crucial difference, of course, between these proposals and those currently on the table is the emphasis on the dense mix of program, commercial residential, and the singling out of industrial infrastructure. In reference to the promotion of the new economies of leisure and international business and the relegation of older economies of port infrastructure and industry to the city fringe, MVRDV asks:
“Does this ‘push in’ and ‘push out’ of new and old economies lead to even more mono-functional urban zones? Does the city run the risk of becoming too dependant on new economies? Would it not be economically wiser and in urban terms more attractive for the city to house the largest amount of different activities? Would this not contribute to towards Sydney’s metropolitan aspirations of being a truly diverse global city?”
Or to quote Fugazi: “What a difference a little difference would make”
In the intervening years, the notion of Sydney Harbour as a port for industry has been played out, with port activity making way to banking headquarters to occupy the edges of the water. Perhaps climate change will put the absurdity of delivering freight to the periphery of the city and trucking back it to the centre by road back on the agenda, but for now it seems unlikely that freight will increase in the harbour.
Beyond the insertion of the stacked freight port, MVRDV’s ‘Concentration’ proposal offers little more than a densification of the city edge, with the randomly placed towers not presenting a terribly compelling urban situation. The two other proposals—bridges and islands—however unlikely, do offer more, prompting discussion of how this under-utilised harbour may be treated as urban infrastructure rather than merely the backdrop for corner suites.
“To address this impasse between the rightful expression of the Muslim religion and the value of Switzerland’s overwhelmingly scenic environment we challenge you to design a solution that allows the best of both worlds. Can you design a minaret as event rather than object?”Elsewhere, Sam Jacobs, draws a parallel to that country’s taste for minimalism in which the ideology of purity can not sustain such decorative elements:
“It’s interesting to see the language of architecture caught up in this ideological crossfire. This episode underlines how architectures language is part of wider culture. That what it represents and how it represents it is deeply significant.”
The Watsons Bay House is approaching completion. The project page has been updated with a number of construction photos.
08:47:46 Arch [0901509] B ALPHA Someone just told me there was an explosion at 08:47:48 Arch [0901509] B ALPHA wtc….BR 08:50:25 Arch [0901509] B ALPHA A plane crashed thru the twin towers. Real bad..BRwikileaks has released half a million pager intercepts from the New York and Washington DC area on the morning of the September 11 attacks. Mass confusion, misinformation, militarisation and the collapse of architecture rendered as text messages. There is some good discussion of some of the more relevant messages taking place on reddit. Related: Jan Utzon, son of Joern, is a 9/11 sceptic.
Pecha Kucha Volume 13!!
This Thursday 26th November at 6:30pm
At the Red Rattler theatre, 6 Faversham St, Marrickville NSW 2204
$10 on the door, or purchased online from Moshtix
Our photo policy is part of our meeting room policy which I will attach. This meeting room policy was rewritten just prior to our opening of the building in April of 2006. At that time, the architect was very sensitive to photos being taken and the possibility of them being used for commercial purposes, so we added the following: “Permission to photograph the library reading rooms and other public areas of the building may be granted by the library director or her designee. Photographs and videos may not include library signage or the library logo, and photographing may not disrupt library customers’ use of the library. Library employees on duty may not be photographed for political campaigns. Fees for commercial photographs of the library may be established by the library director, subject to the approval of the Board of the Trustees.”The extended conversation that follows on Archinect tracks the issues of privacy, the disruptive potential of photography and the right to take photographs on government owned land.
Super Colossal has been awarded first place in the Gold Coast Cultural and Civic Precinct Masterplan competition. The project provides new facilities for the Gold Coast Council, including a Performing Arts Centre, Visual Arts and Heritage Centre, cinema complex, restaurants, city council accommodation, significant parklands and an integrated pedestrian and bicycle network for the city.
“In common with many entries this proposal recognises that the site of the Gold Coast Cultural and Civic Precinct lies within the flood plain of the Nerang River and is therefore vulnerable to inundation from predicted future sea level rise; initially flooding low-laying land and later almost half the site.
Responsible approaches to meeting the danger of predicted flood events are to prepare either to defend the site or to retreat.
This scheme creates a decisive subdivision over the site to defend the land by both consolidating and raising the low-laying areas to form the precinct as an ‘Island of Culture’.
By designing a defended cultural and civic precinct as a hybrid - “is it a building island or is it a landscape island?”- this bold scheme presents a new urban type for the Gold Coast whilst simultaneously recalling the ancient islands in the Laguna Veneta such as the Isola Murano and Isola San Michele.
The winning scheme proposes a civic square, located at the heart of the ‘Island of Culture’ envisaged as a grand outdoor place with a central address at the intersection of three bridging pathways that reach out from the island to the community.
The bridges connecting the city to the ‘Island of Culture’ can also extend pedestrian and bicycle routes through to the civic square creating the potential for a lively public place at the centre of this visible, iconic landmark.
By concentrating the civic and cultural functions on the ‘Island of Culture’ the remaining site is proposed as open parkland not only retaining the green edge at this point in the city but also extending the opportunity to link with a sequence of forest parks that would create significant linear landscapes stretching into the south-west hinterland.
With the scarcity of public open space for the future flood-free City of the Gold Coast these open parklands will make a significant contribution.”
Team: Matthew Bennett, Erin Field, Marcus Trimble
Collaborators: Arup
Random postings from our library