Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 165 i Architectural Review Asia Pacific

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

EMBRACING THE ZEITGEIST

I’ve been haunted by a question Kate FitzGerald, director of Whispering Smith and our cover profile, asked me: “Airbnb wasn’t invented by an architect. Don’t you think that’s odd?” I do! In an industry that loves aesthetic innovation, but often halts at business innovation, this issue is a celebration of the practices that integrate ingenuity into their very bones. Kosloff Architecture decided to build itself from the ground up as a B Corp: meeting the most rigorous standards of social and environmental performance. MODE developed its Reconciliation Action Plan as a codification of a commitment to design in connection to Country. Regional Design Service chose to base itself in the rural New South Wales town of Corowa and extend good design to regional communities. Whispering Smith is designing homes to…

1 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

THE ROAD TO A RECONCILIATION ACTION PLAN

Before we talk about Reconciliation Action Plans (RAP) specifically, it’s important to remember that reconciliation happens where we live, where we learn and where we work, and so is fundamental to everything we do.” These are the words of Reconciliation Australia CEO Karen Mundine. “For those of us concerned with Australian cities and the people who live in them, we must always remember that Aboriginal people are and always have been intrinsically part of our cities, and not always separated from them in remote communities as is often assumed,” explains Mundine, who is from the Bundjalung Nation of northern New South Wales. “In the way well-designed spaces can draw people in and be welcoming, so can understanding and valuing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges into architecture be more inclusive…

6 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

WHEN YOU BUILD AND THEY DON’T COME

As a business practice, architectural culture is fantastically slow to change. The industry puts on and takes off styles and design trends with ease, but these are merely surface changes to the architectural act and do not impact and mutate architecture as a cogent industry with a unique set of values. As such, architecture is a depository of old methods of attracting clients: word of mouth referrals or active socialising in certain circles. The downfall of these methods is that they reveal next to nothing about what makes the studio unique. With the few, though highly publicised exceptions of ‘starchitects’, most medium and small architecture studios sell themselves short when it comes to their content. This disconnecton, between architecture and marketing, could be traced back to the architectural culture in…

3 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

HOUSE B BY WHISPERING SMITH

Houses A and B sit adjacent on a triplex development plot, the likes of which can be seen littered across Perth. “Western Australia is very fond of chopping up blocks into three equal parts and bulldozing everything to zero,” says Kate FitzGerald, founding director of Whispering Smith. “Our planning system encourages this pretence that blocks are terra nullius, that nothing is there.” In the City of Stirling, where the triplex falls, it has been forecast that by 2030, as a result of private developments, only five percent of residential land will be shaded by trees. Felled jacaranda trees and demolished redbrick character houses make way for ubiquitous ‘Mcmansions’, as FitzGerald describes them. Whispering Smith conceptualised its three-home property development as an alternative to this urban density response. Stage one, House…

4 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

ENTREPRENEURIAL ARCHITECTURE WITH WHISPERING SMITH

Kate FitzGerald, founding director of Perth-based architecture firm Whispering Smith, is guided by a vision of the entrepreneurial architect. “This is the group of people who will split off from the established environment and say, ‘I’m not a wage taker, I’m a wage maker’,” she says. “They’re able to reconcile business innovation with their design work.” FitzGerald cites Monique Woodward of WOWOWA, Jeremy McLeod of Breathe Architecture and Warwick Mihaly of Mihaly Slocombe Architects as practitioners of this ‘entrepreneurial mindset’. “Maybe it’s only 10 percent of the architects that come out of university that are entrepreneurs, but it’s the fact that we don’t help them. There are no grants and there aren’t any business courses to help them become directors,” says FitzGerald. “How is it that those people are stumbling…

8 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

‘VERTICAL CRUISE SHIPS’?

After 3000 people in nine public housing towers in Melbourne were placed under the harshest coronavirus lockdown in Australia so far, acting Australian chief medical officer Paul Kelly referred to the towers on 5 July as “vertical cruise ships”. The statement was a reference to the danger of contagion in these overcrowded buildings. Such terms, however, play into a long, international history of vilifying public housing estates. Legions of social housing towers, such as Pruitt-Igoe in St Louis in the US state of Missouri and the Gorbals Public Housing Estate in Glasgow, Scotland have been demolished since the early 1970s, after being blamed for a wide range of social issues. But high density is not the problem. It is the way such buildings are designed, maintained and funded. Blaming specific…

6 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

COPYRIGHT AND PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY

With an ever-increasing desire for visual recognition in social and print media and a drive to constantly feed third-party digital platforms, design firms may be overlooking their responsibilities when it comes to working with copyrighted photographic material. When commissioning photography, not only should design firms be ensuring the imagery strengthens their visual brand, but also that they understand their legal position, brand protection and their own client’s privacy considerations in the use of copyrighted material. Copyright in Australia is automatically applied to any photographic works created and has been in place since 1968, with several amendments made since to accommodate various circumstances and changes in the market. Copyright of photography plays a vital role in protecting a photographer’s investment in time and equipment, their professional development, creativity, and the ability…

8 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

TALLANGATTA SHOPFRONT REVITALISATION PROJECT

In 2019, Towong Shire Council awarded $5 million to deliver a project it called ‘Destination Tallangatta’ – the creation of a new community hub in the main street of this north-eastern Victorian location. It included general improvements to drive economic development and tourism to the area. Tallangatta is a town with a peculiar history, having been relocated eight kilometres away from its original site in the 1950s to accommodate the expansion of the Hume Dam. The old town was flooded, and Tallangatta moved, but the dam waters never rose, meaning that, at low ebb, the ghostly remains of the old town are still perceptible. Tallangatta is a National Trust listed notable town because it is the most intact of the communities that were relocated in the 1950s. Regional Design Practice…

4 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

REGIONAL DESIGN SERVICE

The town of Corowa in regional New South Wales is a 45-minute drive west of Albury. It is located on the banks of the Murray River, on the border between New South Wales and Victoria, with a population of little more than 5000. It is also the unlikely birthplace of architecture and design studio Regional Design Service. Phillip Nielsen and Aaron Nicholls began their practice in 2017. At the time, Corowa had not had an architect in residence since 1973. Nicholls, the practice’s business director, was originally from Corowa. But since 1991, both he and Nielsen, a registered architect, had considered themselves for all intents and purposes seasoned city dwellers. “I left here when I was 18, and I didn’t think I’d ever be coming back,” says Nicholls wryly. Both…

6 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

BECOMING A B CORP WITH KOSLOFF ARCHITECTURE

“THE FIRST QUESTION WE ASKED OURSELVES IS ‘WHAT DO WE WANT THIS TO BE?’ THE ANSWER WAS THAT WE WANTED TO ENGAGE IN PUBLIC ARCHITECTURAL WORK AND THAT WE WANTED TO DO THAT AS A B CORP.” – JULIAN KOSLOFF Well prior to establishing Melbourne-based Kosloff Architecture in 2017, founders Julian Kosloff and Stephanie Bullock knew they wanted to align their practice with the principles of a B Corporation. “It was one of the first decisions we made,” says Bullock. “The first question we asked ourselves is ‘what do we want this to be?’ The answer was that we wanted to engage in public architectural work and that we wanted to do that as a B Corp.” B Corp certification was established by global non-profit B Lab as a system…

9 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

BRICKLAYERS ENTER MIXED REALITY WITH FOLOGRAM

Founded in 2018 by Cameron Newnham, Nick van den Berg and Gwyllim Jahn, Fologram offers a software ecosystem for designers, architects, engineers, creatives, artists and educators to unlock the power of mixed reality (MR). The Fologram plugin links design software to augmented reality (AR) devices such as the wearable HoloLens and phones, allowing designers to see holograms of their creations in three-dimensional (3D) space. Design models are generated through holographic instructions rather than traditional two-dimensional drawings and spatial information is sent back to devices, creating a more efficient and advanced construction process. It’s a reversal of a now well-established dynamic, in which machines are programmed in imitation of, and anticipated replacement for, the craftsperson’s skillset. Instead, Fologram enables craftspeople to work with digital tools and meet them in MR. “By…

5 min

Architectural Review Asia Pacific|No. 165

BOOKSHELF

“Enduring human enterprises, I have long contended, need a memory that transcends any particular individual; and that memory is carried between the members of that enterprise and between its generations in the form of anecdotes.” – Leon van Schaik In the collaged, archival style pages of Building a Culture, the latest title from Melbourne-based Uro Publications, Leon van Schaik transcribes anecdotes on the origin and development of design practice research at RMIT University. Van Schaik is Emeritus Professor of Architecture at RMIT’s School of Architecture and Urban Design and Innovation Professor and Innovation Chair of Design Practice Research. He commenced his position in 1986, initiating the university’s now globally renowned practice-based architecture research program. Building a Culture is based on van Schaik’s 2018 lecture on the occasion of his appointment…

2 min