On a recent trip to Brisbane, I had the opportunity to take a look at the refurbishment of the State Library of Queensland by Donovan Hill. It is an addition to a building completed in 1988 and designed by Robin Gibson. Following are some notes/thoughts.

Lets get one thing straight - this is a mental building. There are about four thousand ideas at play, and each corner has been treated as an opportunity in formal gesticulation. Don’t have a corner handy? Never mind, just bend out a bit of wall and make a new one.

It seems like an experiment into applying the logic of Carlo Scarpa at the Castlevecchio only with an 80’s brutalist number in place of a 14th century castle in Verona. And it is suprisingly succesful experiment.

It is an open, public building. The ground floor is almost entirely permeable with a shady, cool atrium at its centre. There is free wifi, that seems well patronised by the public and a public deck overlooking the Brisbane River. The floors above house the books, reading areas and function rooms.

At the RAIA Conference two years ago, Timothy Hill described in his elliptical way, the difficulties his practice was having in realising this project. Having seen it now complete, it is easy to see why a public client and large construction company may have had a tough time with this project. It is a public building detailed - in parts - like residential project. That this is part of its charm should be no suprise; how often do you walk through the public domain of a building, out onto a finely crafted timber balcony? Or handrail fixings that are made of seven interlocking components?

If there is one strange thing (brought to my attention by Dan) it is that for a library, books feel very scarce. They must be in there somewhere as there are desks with people reading them all over the place, but unlike say OMA’s library in Seattle, actual physical books are not the focus.

It was inevitable, given Sydney’s recent weather; but the cubby has absorbed too much and returned to pulp.

It was fun while it lasted and hopefully we will have more info on a new version in the near future.

It started life as a stand at the Sydney Design and Decoration trade show that was held last week. Six architects and designers were asked to produce a ‘Sustainable Room’ (sustainability have you heard of it?) as a centrepiece of the show.

To be honest, I am not really sure what they were after, but we produced a prototype for a flat-pack cubby house, made of cardboard that would could be recycled easily once it is no longer fun, or when it rains, whichever comes first.

This version is probably a little larger than it needs to be and ultimately we are planning a version that will come flat packed in a size that fits in the boot of a car, is ultra cheap and easy to construct.

Perhaps we could embed the cardboard with seeds and as it slowly disintegrates in the rain and early morning dew, it starts a new growth, planting dense native shrubbery where the cubby house once stood.

(Photo by Roger D’Souza)

(Photo by Roger D’Souza)

Following the show, we dismantled it into its seven tubes, put in the back of a truck where it got a little battered around, drove it over to my sister’s house where it found its second home. We built it, hung out inside for the afternoon, drew pictures of robots on the walls and clouds in the tubes.

Here is some ‘advertising material’ we produced for the trade show stand.

The material for the cubbyhouse was sponsored by Visy who supplied the cardboard and Dulux who gave us the paint that we used on the inside during the trade show.

The UTS Tower in its Natural State: Summoning The Darkness.

I was in Canberra (again…) the other week and spotted the recently completed kiosks on Lake Burley Griffin by SC friends, Terroir.

If you have every tried to get something to eat in the vast area of the Parliamentary triangle, you will know that these kiosks are a much needed service to Parliamentary triangle. Sitting on either side of the land axis they are small timber clad boxes with heavy cantilevers. The underside of the cantilever is eroded with a series of circular brightly coloured cutouts, like the tide just went out and the exotic undersea plantlife left stranded.

Metabolist Masterplan or Snow Crystal?

Link to full size image.