Innehållsförteckning för May 2020 från Architecture Australia

The summer’s destructive bushfires have been followed by the challenge of one of the largest health crises in recent times in the form of a coronavirus (COVID-19). The Institute is acutely conscious of both the personal and professional impacts this pandemic is having on our members and the broader community. Our intention is to lend support where we can, including through regular COVID-19 member updates on our website, and we also encourage you to support each other. First and foremost, we urge members to prioritize their health and safety, and that of their families, staff and the communities in which they operate. We also encourage members to seek assistance if they are struggling financially as a result of this pandemic. Governments have provided some financial support and we will continue…

Introduction: what to do in an emergency The main pressures facing the Australian environment today are the same as they have been for years: climate change, land-use change, habitat fragmentation and degradation, and invasive species.1 In 2016, almost silently, the Bramble Cay melomys ( Melomys rubicola) was the first mammal in global history to become extinct because of sea-level rises caused by human-made climate change – and it happened right here in Australia. In 2018, the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) called on public and private sectors “to reach net zero operating emissions … by 2030, and to advocate for all buildings to be net zero carbon in operation by 2050.”2 In 2019, hundreds of Australian architects followed the lead of UK-based architecture firms by forming Architects Declare and declaring…

How can architects empower themselves and their cities to reduce the operational emissions of buildings? How can they create a higher level of resiliency to cope with the imminent impacts of climate change? These are some of the questions I have been able to ask through my research, thanks to a Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship.1 I’ve collated insights from more than 30 architects, policymakers, builders, suppliers and supporting organizations across three case-study cities – Vancouver, New York and Brussels. And the conclusion I’ve drawn is stark: the Passive House (Passivhaus) standard has been the cornerstone of the emission-reduction strategy across all of these cities, not only for architects driving better building design, but for government as well. Passive House – a voluntary standard for energy efficiency – has experienced an…

Of all the plans covering the walls of the Tin Sheds Gallery at the University of Sydney in 2017, it is the smallest I am drawn to: a tiny 1:100 plan of a table, hovering like an architectural cherub, in John Wardle Architects’ (JWA) Coincidences exhibition, a summary of three decades of the practice’s work. My interest is no coincidence, though: it extends an existing research focus on the table as one of the most adaptable spatial devices, able to operate functionally, socially and symbolically across scales, from the intimate to the civic – just like the schemes arrayed in Coincidences. Pablo Neruda called the table a “titanic quadruped,”1 and it is clear that John Wardle knows this too. Look at any of his projects and you can find both…

“I would say, if I have one truly distinguishing character, it’s that I’m totally curious about everything,” John Wardle tells me, as if this weren’t obvious from the moment you meet him. In the brief span of our conversation, Wardle mentions his interest in new technologies for timber fabrication; the spatial history of Sydney’s rail infrastructure; the work of Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha and his tactic of designing buildings to be entered from below; the structural system of the Murtoa Stick Shed in regional Victoria; the ambiguous way the Sir John Soane’s Museum is both private and public; the founding of Australia’s terracotta industry by Italian migrants; the art of Fiona Hall, Olafur Eliasson and Norio Imai; and his collection of Swiss-made Bolex movie cameras, an interest that…

When we started putting together this edition of Architecture Australia, the frightening images of Australia’s catastrophic bushfires, the damage caused and the increasing urgency of the climate emergency were top of mind. How designers and architects might reconsider the way our built environment responds to these complex environmental challenges remains a vital question, and one that we consider in this issue’s Dossier on the climate and biodiversity emergency (page 55). However, only a couple of months later (and after most of the contributions to this edition were written), we face an unprecedented and terrifying global pandemic. Like many people around the world, every member of our editorial team is currently working from home and using social distancing in a bid to slow the rate of spread of the coronavirus. We’re…

The State Library of Victoria (SLV), fronting Melbourne’s Swanston Street, covers an entire city block. Founded in 1854 and opened in 1856, it has a fascinating and complex history, sharing its site, at times, with the institutions now called Museum Victoria and the National Gallery of Victoria. The precinct felt like another world prior to the most recent renovation, which began in 1985. Inside the Domed Reading Room (opened in 19131 ), sparrows and starlings flew around the ceiling. The room’s breathtaking internal streetscape included ghost facades sculpted inside its octagonal drum. A remarkable suite of Edwardian Baroque furniture was lit by rows of feeble bulbs, with students and homeless people alike hunched over desks in constant twilight. To borrow an item, you lined up in the old first-floor catalogue…

Imagine a future where Sydney, Hobart and Darwin experience severe flooding almost every day. Food and drinking water are contaminated, leading to 870,000 cases of bacterial gastroenteritis. Infectious diseases are rife, with between five and eight million people exposed to dengue fever. Heat stress, power outages, breakdowns in public transport, and psychological and behavioural disorders are all wreaking havoc. According to the Climate Council’s report Climate change 2015: Growing risks, critical choices, this is the scenario Australia will face in 2100 if nothing is done to curb today’s greenhouse gas emissions. In 2018, the United Nations warned the world that we have only 12 years left to limit global warming to 1.5°C and that it would require “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” Although time is…

In architecture schools across the world, conversations about how to respond to the climate crisis are happening right now. Fervent and well-intentioned conversations, perhaps tinged by idealism or militancy, perhaps by panic. Sometimes these are led by students, sometimes by staff and leadership, sometimes by all three working together. In places, the conversation is very advanced, while elsewhere it is halting, conflicted, or barely beginning. But it seems fair to say that many of us working in architectural education are keenly aware of how we – as educators and institutions, and acting through the professionals that we educate – contribute to the climate crisis. Conversely, we are vitally aware of how we could be part of efforts to address it. Architecture schools equip their graduates with skills and knowledge. But, importantly, they…

“Justine, we know it is your day off, but John was wondering if he could have a quick word.” Amanda Ritson, then John’s amazing PA, has rung me at 5 pm on a Wednesday. I am editor of Architecture Australia, but today I am at home with a baby and a three-year-old (it’s all a blur, really). It is close to witching hour. John comes on the line, his charming and self-deprecating self – “I know you’ve probably finished the layout, but I’ve just got one more photo …” I can’t remember if we used the extra image, but in my hazy recollection, this was just one of a fair few Wednesday afternoon phone calls. A few years later, the kids are bigger and we are lucky enough to visit…

2019 Somewhere Other Australian Institute of Architects, National Architecture Awards, Jørn Utzon Award for International Architecture 2018 Captain Kelly’s Cottage Dezeen Awards, House Interior of the Year Royal Institute of British Architects, RIBA Award for International Excellence Learning and Teaching Building, Monash University Australian Institute of Architects, National Award for Educational Architecture Australian Institute of Architects, National Award for Interior Architecture 2017 Tanderrum Bridge Australian Institute of Architects, Victorian Architecture Awards, The Melbourne Prize Captain Kelly’s Cottage Australian Institute of Architects, National Architecture Awards, Eleanor Cullis-Hill Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations and Additions) 2015 Melbourne School of Design, The University of Melbourne (in collaboration with NADAAA) Australian Institute of Architects, National Architecture Awards, Daryl Jackson Award for Educational Architecture Australian Institute of Architects, Victorian Architecture Awards, Marion Mahony…

Gold Medal John Wardle John Wardle is an architect’s architect. He is a designer of consummate skill whose works – from small, intricate pieces of joinery to complex highrise buildings – receive detailed attention and conscientious formal experiment. His works celebrate both individual craft and the broader production processes of making a building and re-position the role of the architect as chief designer in that activity. Importantly, his works are the outcome of a studio-based collaborative practice. Since the formation of his Melbourne-based practice in 1986, John Wardle has devoted his energies to maintaining the design ethos of the small office as it took on ever larger institutional and commercial projects across the country. His early practice was built on the design of single-family houses such as Kitamura House in…

Businesses, universities, organizations and institutions across Australia and the world have declared a state of climate emergency. But how are Australian architects turning this declaration into action? Architecture Australia asked a group of sustainability experts to share practical advice on how built-environment professionals can make tangible change. The various perspectives in this Dossier indicate that there is no single solution to this urgent and complex challenge, but that there are powerful tools available for architects to use - including those that help persuade clients to jump on board.…

I first met John Wardle in the early 2000s when I visited his office soon after beginning my career in architectural publishing with Artichoke magazine. John Wardle Architects (JWA) had recently moved into a smart new studio space in Bogle and Banfield Associates’ 1960s Total House, a CBD enclave for Melbourne’s architectural community. Here, John had commissioned artist Peter Kennedy to create And So … Illumination 1 (2003), a striking neon artwork framed by the silhouette of the building’s floating office block. This text-based work operated at the scale of the object and the billboard, collapsing the distinction between room and city. Over the past 20 years, the studio spaces of JWA have led double lives as exhibition and event venues. My most recent visit to the office was to…

Thirty-two years ago, when I was getting to know Melbourne and its architecture, there were persistent whisperings about a beach house at Balnarring, said to be remarkable. Eventually I met John Wardle, the author of this much-discussed house, and went on a site visit with him – the first, as it turned out, of many visits to his buildings in subsequent years. And yes, indeed, the house was remarkable; a hybrid of an autonomous object – almost cabinetry-like, giving the impression that a drawer could be pulled out in an act of extension – and site specificity, the way it rested among the tea-trees seeming effortlessly right in weight and density. It was, and still is, utterly wonderful, and it signalled the hybridity that has characterized all the work of John…