Architectural Review Asia Pacific AR138

Considering the plethora of local and international magazine publications focused on design trends in housing projects, it is curious that AR follows suit with its annual residential issue. The latest Residential instalment, though, remains true to recent form by pushing well past the typical preoccupations on bespoke dwellings. Unsurprisingly, Residential took this mandated review of the typology in its stride, featuring compelling works from high-density development through to idylls in remote locations. Further, the geographic net now cast by AR allows for thoughtful work from across the region and, as such, New Zealand was awarded the strongest presence this year. The Antipodean projects were counterbalanced by a clear editorial overlay focused on the courtyard – introduced by way of its origins, history and urban manifestations. Arguably, the courtyard is the…

The transferability of the term ‘margin’ is under investigation. It is assumed the profession is experiencing a false consciousness that disables any possibility of a disciplinary position being formed. In Preview (published in Residential) I queried in ‘a profession with no margin for error, where is the room for manoeuvre?’ As architects we are hemmed in, claustrophobically unaware of our own inevitability. We are no longer aware of the external, exploitative assertions impacting on daily practice or pedagogy; indeed, the very notion of formulating an argument or ideological stance leaves many architects or academics marginalised – architecture is on society’s margins. However it is evident that a manifesto will not suffice alone, but the engagement of the discipline to seek to ask questions rather than to repeat answers is paramount;…

Margin for error = room for manoeuvre; room for manoeuvre = risk-taking; risk-taking = evolution. MGR The counterpoint here is ‘in relation to whom?’ Thinking of the broad range of things we produce and, as importantly, how we produce them. AB I don’t fully agree. Architects give form to the spaces the ruling class allows, except where architecture becomes uncomfortable and disruptive. Read Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975) as the perfect diagnosis of contemporary practice. MGR An important contradiction to consider throughout the issue. How does an architect discuss ideas and how do they communicate them externally? Not only from the perspective of the architectural theorist or critic as marginalised, but in relation to the contemporary voice of the architect and how they discuss…

Melonie Bayl-Smith is director of Bijl Architecture and adjunct professor at University of Technology, Sydney, where she also conducts design-based research. Graham Crist is a senior lecturer in design at RMIT and a member of the design practice, Antarctica. Thomas Hale is an architect at Woods Bagot (Sydney), specialising in urban design and infrastructure. He previously worked at Zaha Hadid Architects, London. Hao Ma is a graduate architect and critic practising in Shanghai and a graduate from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Anna Johnson is a lecturer at RMIT University, a freelance writer and architecture critic. Clare Jacobson is the author of New Museums in China, former editorial director at Princeton Architectural Press and a design editor and writer based in Shanghai. Stephen Loo is professor and head of school, architecture and…

Architecture and literature are not uncommon bedfellows, whether it is a novel inspired by architecture or a narrative arc reliant on the figure of the architect. Downfall, The Architecture of Excess – the first publication from RightAngle International Publishing – is an attempt to recount contemporary architecture. A novel depicting the profession is not without precedent, with by far the most renowned being The Fountainhead (1943) by Ayn Rand. With Howard Roark as the self-willed luminary, it is a fascistic account of a desire for control, suggestive of heroic individualism. Infinitely more enjoyable though are Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (1972), a work of immense imagination that regales the reader with descriptive tales of cities as a conversation between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, and Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence…

Out of Place (Gwalia) is a collection of essays exploring historical, geographical and cultural factors contributing to an understanding of places and settings characteristic of Australian transient communities. From Gwalia and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, Charters Towers in Queensland and Queenstown in Tasmania, the places provide opportunity to revisit sites of history from the different angles of architecture, landscape theory, social history and visual arts. They also provide a springboard for thinking through the pressing issues for contemporary Australians and counterparts in other ‘post-settler’ societies. With essays from notable academics such as William M Taylor – commenting on such topics as the politics of displacement in a transient society and ‘The moral economy of prefabrication: The curious case of the Brown Hill Mine building and Kalgoorlie Health Laboratory, c.1899-1923’ –…