A plug for some talks that Antoinette has organised with Futurenet centred around the ongoing refurbishment work at the Sydney Opera House.

The team from JPW responsible for the new work being undertaken at the Sydney Opera House will run through a series of presentations covering: the lighting of the new toilets, materials research into bronze, the Utzon Design Principles, the Western Colonnade and Western Foyers, solving access issues with escalators and roofless lifts, the use of computer technology from first renderings to AIA prizes for the BIM model and finally the work being done for the new Opera Theatre. Packed eh?

Thursday 3rd September 6:30pm at Level 2 of Republic Bar, corner Bridge and Pitt Streets, Sydney.

Registration Form (pdf)

The Architects’ Association of Denmark and the Australian Institute of Architects would like to encourage all architects, filmmakers and people in general who have an interest in their surroundings to participate in a collaborative film-making event. The film will to be launched in concordance with the World Day of Architecture.

60 Seconds of Architecture is an open international film project where anyone can contribute with a one minute film clip. Using Architects’ energy versus global crisis as a point of departure we urge everyone to produce a 60 second film that deals with this theme. All submissions will be accessible through the website www.60secondsofarchitecture.blogspot.com and all the participants are free to use and display these clips (or complete film) as they see fit. When the total number of films has been received, they will be edited into a feature length to be shown at a function on the World Day of Architecture.

The project seeks to uncover the relationship between, on the one hand, architects theories and practices, on the other hand, public perception of space and architecture. We would like to realize a crossover field where professionals along with everyday people enter a dialogue about the architecture of the future.

World Day of Architecture

The World Day of Architecture is a global celebration and demarcation of the field of architecture. The day is adopted by the International Union of Architects (UIA) and encourages architects and citizens alike to devote the day to Architecture and our immediate surroundings. This years’ theme Architects’ Creativity versus Global Crisis approaches the unprecedented conditions our world is experiencing. The day will host a long list of events and interactive workshops that will engage professionals and public to reconsider the way we live. It will present local and national projects that demonstrate the energy architects are expending to alleviate the planetary crises, and the architectural and urban solutions they have developed.

Submissions

Deadline for submission is 15 of September 2009.

Add your submissions at the Vimeo group page, and for further information please contact Hans Bærholm, Architect’s Association Denmark +45 3085 9008 or hb@aa-dk.dk.

Events

The film will be screened at a reception hosted by the local department of Architects’ Association Denmark and at Customs House in Sydney during the Sydney Architecture Festival. Other screenings will be posted on the website as they are confirmed.

Following is a review that I wrote for Monument Magazine. I have written briefly about the Reservoir on the blog when it opened, but it the article following was a good opportunity to
It appears in Issue 92 currently on sale.

Paddington Reservoir

Tonkin Zulaikha Greer with JMD Design (Landscape) and Simpson Design (Structural Engineering)

Sydney is not one for ruins. Its buildings are rescued before they are able to grow decrepit in the desire to prove that yes, our architecture is not that new to this place. Even the notionally old get treated as archival specimens, touched up in period lead based cosmetics and sealed in acid-free mylar bags. They are abutted with contemporary additions clearly delineated by stainless steel angles so as to remain uncontaminated by current building practices. There are exceptions to these exquisite corpses, Cockatoo Island, that fantastic accident waiting to happen, is one. Left to its own devices it is a post industrial public playground on the harbour so far left alone by conservationists. Paddington Reservoir is another, and while it has undergone major surgery in its reboot as an inner city public space, its status as a ruin remains.

Completed in 1866, Paddington Reservoir was one of Sydney’s early pieces of hydraulic infrastructure servicing the local area, however its reach was limited and was decommissioned in 1899 when the larger and higher elevated Centennial Park Reservoir was built. Following this its empty chambers were used for storage and as a garage by the water board before being handed over to Paddington Council who maintained its use as a garage and opened a park on its roof. When the roof collapsed over the Western Chamber in 1990 moves were made to adapt the reservoir as an public space.

Tonkin Zulaikha Greer were engaged by the City of Sydney to undertake the adaptive reuse of the reservoir as an urban park. Together with Anton James Landscape Architects they have inserted a sunken garden into the remains of the western chamber and left the interior of the eastern basin as a large column-filled space. A park sloping up from Oxford Street sits over the eastern basin and vaulted aluminium sun shading, patterned to mimic the brickwork below, hover over signalling the submerged park to Oxford Street and in their filigree provide some contrast to the otherwise robust detailing of the project.

I am reminded of Peter Zumthor’s recent project in Cologne, where the integration of a gallery onto the 19th century museum was an act of grafting rather than the removable bolt-on addition to an historic relic. New walls were laid directly onto the ruins below creating a new entity as a monolithic whole. At Paddington Reservoir, a similar tectonic is at play; the brick arches, requiring a binding agent to keep them standing, are covered by deep slabs of concrete. The permanent melding of two eras of construction.
In the repetition and amplification of the arch motif in the concrete there are also allusions to the work of Italian modernist Carlo Scarpa and while the project demonstrates an exposition of what came before through similar tectonic means, as project director Tim Greer makes clear, the architect operating under the lump-sum design and construct contract has few of the luxuries Scarpa shared in dealing directly with master craftsmen on site over the course a buildings making.

Here, the architects developed a comprehensive strategy for interventions at the Reservoir to accommodate the inevitable quirks and dodgy structure that may give way over the course of the construction. So concrete running perpendicular to Oxford Street traces and repeats the neat line of the brick arches, while concrete that runs lengthways runs a ragged line of best fit. Likewise, balustrades running around the park are vertical or wonky depending on their orientation to the street. The palette has been restrained to steel, timber and concrete and where possible existing surfaces have been left untouched.

In its current state, the Paddington Reservoir has a charming purposelessness. For a park it is a lot like a building, and for a building there is not a great deal it accommodates. There are plans – as there always are – for a cafe along with amenities that will allow more varied uses to take place; a good thing as it is a space perfectly suited for a number of activities beyond pleasant walks, much like TZG’s other recent project in similar circumstances, Carriageworks at Eveleigh that is now as much a market hall and site for hip hop and graffiti art showcases as it is a theatre.

Sydney is not short of opportunities like the Paddington Reservoir, and it is a credit to the City of Sydney Council that they have invested in this project, a park within a ruin, replacing hydro-distribution hub with public infrastructure, that will hopefully find itself the scene of much activity before it is adapted once again in its future life.

A little belated this one…but, you know we got there eventually.

The City of Sydney has selected the projects that will be included in this year’s temporary art program in the laneways of the CBD. The project is curated by Dr Steffen Lehmann and the theme this year is “By George! Hidden Networks”. Eight projects have been selected to be installed through Summer later this year.

We submitted a proposal with a (massive) team led by ourselves and Arup, along with Holler, ABC Pool, UTS and the Powerhouse Museum. I will post our proposal for an alternate reality game running through the network of laneways at some point. But for now here are some images of the a few of the winning entries that will fill the back lanes of Sydney’s CBD come Summer.

Images and project descriptions, courtesy the City of Sydney:

‘Infinity Forest’ – Mathew Chan (Scale Architecture), Isabelle Cordeiro, Katie Hepworth: A temporary forest jolting people who cut through Penfolds Place with an unexpected concentration of nature and an intimate reflective room.

‘The Urban Barcode’ - Maix Mayer, Damian Hadley and Tribe Studios: The barcode of Jan Gehl’s “Life Between Building” created with white fluorescent tubes in Abercrombie lane with a pocket size open air cinema showing movies about cities.

‘7 Metre Bar’ - Richard Goodwin, Adrian Macgregor and Russell Lowe: Highlighting inaction on climate change, combining the landscape of weather and topography with the architecture of a catastrophe and the interactive technology of digital games.

‘PS: Potential Spaces’ - Neeson Murcutt, Chalk Horse and Freehills: Linking the idea that laneways could one day be used for future habitation, with new street furnishings, markers, mirrors and lounges, revealing the hidden potential.

The other winning entries are:
‘Dwell in the City’ - Kim Bridgland, Adrian Hill and team -
A prosthetic skin applied to along the brick walls of Bridge Lane, as a barely audible heartbeat pulses through the laneway, visualising decay of aging bodies

‘The Meeting Place’ - Aspect Studios Landscape Architects, Herbert+Mason, Derlot, Light 2:
A playful installation encouraging participation and interaction while heightening the experience of moving through the urban space of Little Hunter Street.

‘Family Unit: Chill Trailer’ - Anne Graham and the Bond Family:
A mobile trailer that opens up and expands with events and performances in a number of laneways to encourage community interaction and participation. The trailer will transform into everything from a nightclub to a kitchen, chill-out space, classroom and even a garden.

‘Forgotten Songs’ - Michael T. Hill, Richard Major, David Towey, Richard Wong:
Engaging with the beauty, unexpectedness and unfamiliarity of displaced birdsongs, while exploring how Sydney’s fauna has evolved and adapted to coexist with increased urbanisation.