designonline.org.audesignonline.org.au/.../transcript_rebecca-caldwell...and-melody-ch… · web...

Transcript

UQ Architecture LecturePresented on 2 May 2017

PRESENTED BY:

Adam JeffordAPDL Manager, MC

SPEAKERS:

Kelly GreenopSenior Lecturer

Rebecca CaldwellArchitect

Emily JuckesArchitect

Melody ChenArchitect

Elizabeth Watson BrownArchitect

Adam Jefford:

Alright, good evening. You guys did well tonight. You didn't even need to be told to be quiet,

which I think is a really great start. I know it will make our speakers feel really welcome that they

know you're so excited. I'm excited as well I should say, but I would like to just start the night by

acknowledging the traditional owners of this land and pay our respects to their ancestors who

came before them, and to their elders still living today.

The location of the State Library on Kirulpa Point was historically a significant meeting, gathering

and sharing place for Aboriginal people and we proudly continue that tradition here today.

My name is Adam Jefford. I'm the Manager of the Asia-Pacific Design Library. I get the glorious

duty of doing housekeeping for a little while. I've got some notes here to kind of gesture at the

slide as I say these things, but the most important thing are exits, at the front Level 3. In an

emergency please move to your nearest exit and then gather outside the Gallery of Modern Art. If

your phone is not already on 'silent' could you please do that, but of course we want you to follow

of 29

UQ Architecture Lecture presented on 2 May 2017by Adam Jefford, Kelly Greenop, Rebecca Caldwell, Emily Juckes, Melody Chen and Elizabeth Watson Brown

along in the conversation tonight, hash tagging, Twittering, Instagramming, whatever works for

you.

We are also capturing tonight's lecture and we'll put it on Vimeo in about a week's time. It will

also be live stream through Facebook and through the UQ Architecture page. If you do need to

leave tonight could I ask that you exit through the back door please and our final one for tonight

is that if you want those CPD points that you can review, reflect and send those articles about the

lecture in to us at Design Online. The details for that you can find at the SLQ What's On page or

you can navigate directly to designonline.org.au.

I think I've covered everything, I've done some gesturing. It's now my pleasure to welcome Kelly

Greenop to the stage to introduce tonight's lecture. Thank you Kelly.

Kelly Greenop:

Thanks Adam. I always feel like we should give each other a little kind of tag-team tap as we

pass each other.

Welcome back to the second half of the lecture series for 2017. We're on the homeward stretch

but there's no loss of momentum as we continue with a frankly stellar line-up to take us through

the final four lectures of the series.

Tonight we feature local young practices and hear about their ambitions as well as their designs,

but I want to also give you a taste of what's coming up. Next week we have some more

international guests – Alexis and Murat Sanal of SANALarc of Istanbul and they're generously

sponsored by Think Brick. So if you don't have your tickets for those they're available now and

you can go online and grab them.

Our final two lectures after next week are Chris Welsh of Welsh and Major and we finish with

William Smart of William Smart Design Studios, also from Sydney who will reveal on his national

award winning Indigo Slam project as well as other landmark designs. So we're certainly not

petering out. We're just ramping up.

Tickets for those final two lectures will be released next week and we'll notify you through the

usual social media channels. So watch out for those.

Now onto tonight's lecture. We have a fabulous double-header tonight featuring two young

practices from Brisbane – Maytree Studios who are based in New Farm and Atelier Chen Hung

from West End. We're hoping to hear how things are different for these new practices, what

challenges they face, what difficulties they've overcome but also what differences they're seeking

of 29


out in running practices for themselves, new ways of practising that match their ambitions and

things that they've had to change in their approach to architecture.

First up we have a double act within the double act which is Rebecca Caldwell and Emily Juckes

of Maytree Studios. Bec founded Maytree in 2012 and Emily joined in 2015. They describe their

practice as 'humans first and architects second'. What a great catch-phrase. I really like that one.

This mindset infiltrates every aspect of their practice, driving them to design with greater intent

and underpinning their mission to make architecture more accessible. I can't wait to hear more.

Welcome Bec and Emily.

Bec Caldwell:

Good evening. Thank you so much for being here tonight. We're really excited to speak not just

about architecture but around practice and we're fully aware that many of you here have been

doing it longer and better. So we're really humbled that you would join us.

Maytree Studios as Kelly said was founded out of my bedroom and often in my pyjamas, around

five years ago. It was out of a desire to make architecture accessible, both in our fee, in the kinds

of project budgets we would look at and most importantly I believe in our language. We

constantly strive to find ways to clearly communicate our value and what we bring to the built

environment, but also our processes and making them really clear to our clients.

While many of our projects are residential, I came from a commercial background myself and so

was quite strategic about building systems in place in the business even though we were small,

or one, so that the business could grow and that we could take on projects of a greater

complexity, type and size.

The common threads through our work are that we are often working with existing fabric, we are

often working collaboratively and we're almost always working with fixed and modest budgets.

Tonight we'd like to discuss a few projects that aren't necessarily our best work or our favourite

projects, but they do communicate the challenge that we see as a small business in terms of the

changing nature of architectural practice.

That worked. Our team is made up of four people at the moment. So Emily and myself are the

architects. Kate is a graduate architect and Alicia, our interior designer. They're here somewhere.

There they are, and both absolutely critical to the success of our projects. As you can see on this

slide, we have a really diverse range of projects that moves from residential, retail, hospitality,

heritage and I think the important thing to remember when you look at a graph like this is that in

the middle of that there are people, there are clients and there are staff.

of 29


I'm sure many of you remember Andrew Maynard's article on work/life balance and when this

article was released it was just before I started Maytree. I was really looking at point two of

leaving the profession. Fortunately or unfortunately for my bank balance I picked number one.

We are really lucky in architecture that we have a pool of graduating students who really care.

They want to be part of something bigger and they want to create beautiful work. I strongly

believe that people want to be engaged in their work and it's up to the employer to provide an

environment that is stimulating, caring, empowering and balanced. Don't get me wrong, we do

overtime, but it's the rarity and not the rule. The way we define and adhere to scope manages our

fees but it also creates a sustainable office culture. Good built outcomes are important to us but

we believe that people are our bottom line.

Emily Juckes:

So in preparing for tonight we took a look back at the first, hopefully the first, five years of

Maytree Studios. We're looking to the future for many years to come. In that five years we've

been lucky enough to touch 117 projects in some capacity, of varying sizes.

When we looked at them we kind of thought what was interesting was that while we've been

super lucky to get some really great projects into the office, we've also had to think really

creatively about how to be an architect in the industry without a name, trying to find ways to get

clients to come to us, trying to sustain four. We've been up to six staff in the room. How do we

keep the money coming in? How do we add value and how do we get our projects rolling?

So, how do we do it? So 48 percent of those 117 projects were collaborative and by collaborative

we mean we've been working directly with a builder through the process in order to get the

project to happen for a tight fee for the client, or we've been in a DMC contract, or we've been

working with or for another architect.

Only 11 percent of those 117 were traditional full service project delivery. So the rest of them

were either working in a procurement method where our role was slightly smaller on the project,

or in fact what we think might be interesting in this application is that we actually scoped

ourselves out of work on some of these projects. So in a case where a client comes to us and

they've got a tight fee and they really can't afford an architect to be involved for the whole

process, we try to find where we can add value to the project, where we can make a scope,

where we can be involved and where we can help them get the outcome they want, but we very

consciously let go of some of the work. Eighty percent of what we have worked on either adds to

or alters existing buildings.

of 29


Bec Caldwell:

Buildings are getting built without architects. So we're trying to find a way to put ourselves back

into these markets and provide good design for the greatest number of people that we can.

Sometimes that's architecture with a capital 'A' and sometimes that's just design. This is on the

road out to what suburb? Indooroopilly. It's really offensive.

Emily Juckes:

To us in the room, right?

Bec Caldwell:

Okay. So Glasshouse residence was the first design that I worked on under Maytree studios in

my bedroom. The project was collaboration with my brother who was going to be the owner

builder and it had a really tight budget. The original cottage was retained and the project was

rolled out over three stages. Make that liveable, add a four by four metre extension to give them

a lounge room and finally, add a long pavilion and retire the cottage back to bedrooms. The plan

is a really simple one. It's set up on the axis of the existing cottage and the building envelope was

constrained by reducing the removal of trees. The long pavilion faces out to a mature orchid tree

right at the end of it and this gives the home privacy to the street and shade.

The second consideration was the central courtyard which is the left over space and this area

houses terrace seating, a fire pit and a pizza oven and despite all of my care with the interior, that

is their favourite room of the house.

The form of the project was driven by the client. They loved Grand Designs UK and they loved

the idea of the English barn. So they were looking at moving an old shed or building a new shed

on the site. The figures didn't stack up for that. So when I started it was on a flight from New

Zealand to Australia with my brother and we designed it on napkins which felt like a right of

passage in architecture.

The home was built for $1,650 a square metre and had to be really budget savvy. We sourced

recycled materials from Gum Tree including all of that timber. The bricks were from a recycled

brick yard in Sydney. The kitchen, the central timber element island to the kitchen is built out of

defected timber from a large commercial project and we also just had to kind of accept and work

with a lot of the quirks of the client.

The steel plates were not necessarily a designed element. I would love to have hidden the steel

connections but it was the cheapest and simplest method of putting the portal frame together. We

went on quite a journey with them to talk them into painting them black and luckily they trusted

of 29


us. The home was to be raw and industrial without feeling cold and the honed concrete floors and

bricks successfully added a lot of warmth to the interior.

The space while generous in its volume is designed to 2400 sheet sizes and to aid in buildability

and cost the supplies and vertically and horizontally between the portal frames. We spent money

on the windows and doors and we have a lot of operable windows and doors to allow for a lot of

great cross-ventilation.

The thing we worked hardest on in this project was the proportions. Getting these right so that

the space didn't feel alienating and hollow. The mezzanine that's the kids' play area crosses over

the top of the kitchen and gives that break to the double height space and also helps to introduce

the human scale. Here's the owner builder himself. All those photographs by the lovely Toby

Scott. The rest of them are by me and not nearly so good.

This project is located on a semi rural property in Clear Mountain. The client had a budget of

$400,000 and the project was delivered for $420,000. He's an Engineer and this is his building

model. We could not have delivered this project for that budget, if he had not been so invested in

the design and had not worked so hard on the procurement or tendering of the project.

It's essentially a shed with two masonry walls that anchor the dwelling to the site. Our strategy for

keeping this project on budget was to elevate the common areas, both in finish and scale and

keep all other spaces as spec built as possible. By that I mean 2550 ceilings, a prefabricated

truss roof, 2100 height doors and off-the-shelf glazing.

We were really careful about the things that mattered in this house. High windows pick up views

of distant vegetation on the hill behind and aid in cross-ventilation. Sun studies ensured that the

home was oriented perfectly for winter and summer solar gain. These are the things you can't

paint over if you don't get right and like so many of our Australian colleagues, the simple low tech

environmental responsiveness is critical to every project that we do.

The client procured and managed the build with absolutely no input from us. They also did the

interiors themselves and while they're competent they're not exactly how we would do them.

There are some details that were changed and there are things on site as we all know that

weren't perfectly resolved, that they sorted out with the builder directly. But the main ideas of the

project remained. They couldn't be value managed out. The project was delivered for $1,700 a

square metre.

We received an amazing email from a client upon its completion and I guess over and over Emily

and I talk about that this is our measure of success, happy people. Not necessarily the beautiful

shiny photo, although that is really lovely if we could get it.

of 29


Now for something on the drawing board. This client came to us having seen our design work on

a $1.5 million house and they are building a zero lot investment home but wanted a little bit of our

skill and thinking in their project. They said straight off the bat that they couldn’t afford us. They

had paid $3,500 I think for their last home with a building designer and initially we thought we

wouldn't be able to deliver this project, but after chatting with them, really liking them, we decided

that we could scope a fee. So we're doing a concept design. They're allowed one round of minor

change. It's costed by the builder and then we will do a construction documentation package that

doesn't go past 1 is to 50 sections.

This is the kind of estate that it's going to be in. So, the bar's not too high. Where we bring our

value in a project like this is in two design ideas. Firstly we want to create a strong and unique

street presence and I guess that's why they're coming to us. So we're looking at introducing an

overhanging screened first level and playfully embedding the street number into that screen. The

second area is in a, or more accurately through the diagram there, the second area is through an

internal courtyard and void that is shared with the stair to create drama and spatial interest and

reduce the narrow corridor that you typically experience in a zero lot home.

Our design pushes them to spend some money in that area and make that a really beautiful

space and that will have to be offset by really conservative design decisions elsewhere. We

would love to design this project down to the minutiae of detail but we have to stay focused on

the items that we can control for this budget – light, air, connectivity, interest. That's all their fee

and their budget allows us to do and our goal is to arm them and their builder with as much

passion and knowledge as we can in the hope that they execute it well.

Over to you.

Emily Juckes:

And now to something completely different, jumping up a scale. So we think, we like to think,

we're trying to apply the same skills we would apply to a zero lot home with reduced service to

another larger scale project of a different typology. Bec and I come from different backgrounds. I

have an interest and a passion about heritage buildings and we've been lucky enough to get

some of that work coming through the practice. So we thought it was important to share some of

that with you tonight. But this project also demonstrates the collaborating with another architect

role that we're finding is very rewarding and very successful in keeping us getting involved in

projects even though we're small.

So this project is we've got a very small role in it. It's the Queens Hotel redevelopment adaptive

reuse up in Townsville. The site area defined by the white dotted line is the entire urban

redevelopment. Our role is just to do with the heritage building up here. Currently our role has

of 29


been scoped just to concept design to get it through development approval. So it's very small.

The larger project is being run by the Hames Sharley Brisbane studio by the very talented

Melissa Hughes and we've also been collaborating with Andrew Ladlay for heritage expertise on

the project.

So here is the beautiful Queens Hotel. A little bit about the history of the building. So built in

stages over about 20 years, about 1902 through to about 1920. An operational hotel with

beautiful guest rooms above and beautiful reception rooms below. Operational a hotel through

until the Second World War. When the American troops occupied it following the war the hotel

business gradually declined to a point where it was no longer viable. Some wings of the building

were demolished and then the North Queensland Telecasters Corporation took it over as

television and radio studies. So it took a pretty brutal level of adaptation to house that use.

When we first went to the building we were really captivated by the thresholds. So it's rapped on

the street sides by beautiful verandas, typical of the North Queensland hot tropical climate. So

they provide that beautiful refuge from the rain, beautiful prospect out to the context. What we

were really interested in was that that one building has this much diversity in its edge conditions

and on the back where the streets aren't there, this is what had happened to it because of the

occupation of television studios. So, inside all of those bits are really interesting old bits and

pieces of technology but on the outside it's pretty unsympathetic. At this end there's the repair job

of where one of the wings was demolished as the business was declining. So those verandas on

the end are kind of fake, mocked-up things of the wrong scale and proportion but built with

salvaged bits from the demolition. So it's a weird little mix and that's the result on The Strand, on

the premier street at the front. So it's been kind of mended quickly.

So a lot of our task was about finding how to fit new use into the building and that happened in all

of that area, but this is the bit that we became really fascinated with in terms of the architecture.

So by removing all of those unsympathetic additions we were left with an idea about reinstating

the grand two storey hotel wrapped with a double storey threshold space. We took cues from the

context.

So the building across The Strand it faces a really formal, traditional park, the ANZAC Memorial

Park which has the ocean beyond. We were interested in this kind of formal veranda but that

enables casual life on the veranda and the master plan for the site sets up a very tight laneway to

the rear. We became interested in this idea of setting up a casual veranda at the back. Here are

the two verandas, so the formal veranda at the front looking out to the also heritage listed pergola

out in ANZAC Memorial Park and our casual veranda behind that sets up a filigree screen and a

beautiful hanging vegetation landscape to contrast that formal one out to the front.

of 29


There's a lot of stuff jammed in there. The use at the moment is still in the early stages so please

don't pay attention to what's going on in there too much. The ground floor is basically a place for

casual dining. The master plan asked us to set up some pedestrian routes through the building

that connect from The Strand through the kind of long floor plate through to this new laneway

behind. We took cues from the existing beautiful tall heritage foyer in the building which you can

see up here and we made two new double height arcades through the building that give that

connectivity and break up that linear plan.

The end that had been mended, we've opened up as a double height void that addresses the

scale of – there's a big new public promenade that runs through this part in the master plan. So

we were trying to up the scale of that end of the building and address that scale of urban space.

There's a beautiful rhythm of double columns that runs right round the building in different forms

along the other street and we picked up on that and we've taken that round the back of the

building as well.

Here we are in Queens Lane with the high elevated dangling vegetation trellis and the active life

of the building, a slightly more playful composition happening with the screened element but it

picks up on all the cues that happen in the verandas at the front. So working with the same kit of

parts in the fenestration but reinterpreting them. We've been thinking about the veranda space as

being slightly exploded off the building to allow a bit of light and air into those internal rooms and

also just to deal with the requirements of the brief of that casual dining space, getting a little bit

more width in the veranda area.

So, this is a sample of some of the other stuff we've been doing. So we are doing other small,

interior refits and bits and pieces as well but we think the projects that we've just talked through

really pull up some of the things that are going on with young new practice in that we're trying to

find ways to be involved somehow in project work. We're trying to keep the business rolling over

and we're trying to do the best we can do and find the value that we have in projects even if it's

not in the traditional sense.

That's us.

Kelly Greenop:

Thanks Bec and Emily. That was great to hear.

Now for the second part of this evening we have Melody Chen of Atelier Chen Hung coming on

to join us. Melody is a Director of ACH, a practice she established with her partner James Hung

in 2008. Their practice is driven by a multidisciplinary approach where collaboration is

of 29


encouraged, a bit similar to what we've already heard throughout the design and construction

process.

ACH was selected in Wallpaper's 2014 Architects' Directory as one of the world's 20 best young

architectural practices. So that's no mean feat by any means. They've received numerous design

awards including the 2013 AIA National Architecture Award for small project and more recently

two awards in the 2016 New South Wales Architecture Awards for Residential Architecture,

Houses, New and Sustainable Architecture. So they've got some great runs on the board already

and I'm looking forward to hearing more from Melody.

Welcome.

Melody Chen:

Good evening and welcome.

Well thank you for the invitation. I really enjoyed Rebecca and Emily's talk. I almost forgot I have

to present. Here we are. I have a tendency of speaking Mandarin when I'm nervous, so excuse

me. I'm going to read of the text I've written.

So, my task today is to talk about new models of practice from the perspective of a new

generation Brisbane architect and I'm delighted to have this opportunity, at the same time a bit

unsure how well I can address the lecture agenda as our practice has been around for quite a

while and our practice model is – I wouldn't say it's innovative in the sense that a project always

starts with a client, a site and a brief.

So perhaps what I can contribute is to share with you that our interest and obsessions as

architects and talk about some of the challenges that we have encountered. So, five projects.

Hopefully there will be some stories that are linking back to the discussion topic.

Okay, the image on the screen is our current office in West End and it is located on the upper

level of this orange brick building. The first project I want to talk about is this whole way

converted gallery space located on the ground level of our office. The existing hallway is this

irregularly shaped peculiar room. It had a large window which faces down to a side driveway and

despite the narrowness of the space it's actually quite well lit with natural light. So we thought

perhaps with some simple alterations it could be potentially used as a social space of public

nature.

So we added truck lights, replaced the existing windows with the one large clear glass and

installed black window reveals to make the window appear like a display box and then [29:40]

of 29


from the letter 'D' design those super graphics on the window. It's the signage that's so big you

have to look – you have to stand really far away to look at it.

So this project really started out as a kind of experiment. In some ways it's our version of Atelier

Bauer's [29:58] architecture, a kind of urban room in the centre of West End where people from

different creative backgrounds can converse.

So over the years we have hosted many interesting exhibitions. We enjoy observing how people

respond to the peculiarity of this space. For example this is an installation. It's a vision curated by

Archer Davies showcasing work by Caitlin Franzmann. She constructed a passageway within an

existing hallway, making a space even smaller and narrower. Image on the left is what the

installation looks like upon entry. So the geometry and material is deliberately similar with the

existing structure. So it's not detectable to the viewer. The image on the right is the other end of

the installation where construction of the new structure is exposed and reveals itself to the

viewer.

One can watch people rubbing shoulders, squeezing through this tiny passageway and

comfortably unaware they have become part of the installation. So the way the artist chose to

make her work explicitly responding to the spatial specifics was very fascinating to us. So

although the gallery space. So this is a video of Sally Awer's debut fashion show. It took place in

this very narrow space. We had a large crowd that night and a very good looking crowd as well.

That’s the studio divided with the orange fabric as a screen. You can still see some of the

monitors behind it.

Okay. The next project is a different kind of urban room in [32:16] Gallery. It's the earlier

commission for a pop-up shop in South Bank. So the client has secured a temporary lease for a

commercial tenancy for her new concept store which specialises in books and objects about food

and drinks. So given it's temporary nature, the fit-out has to be extremely economical with

minimal modification to the existing space. Design and construction had to happen very quickly.

So, we were also mindful that this is not just any bookshop. It's a bookshop for food lovers. So

how can the interior reflect client's entrepreneurial ideas?

So these factors prompted us to choose the design process as a material-led process. We

experimented with different kinds of vessels and objects found in the coffee shop and take-away

shops. The paper cups were chosen at the end because of its modular nature that enables a

variety of formations, kind of similar to bricks in a way.

So you can see here that the cups are stacked in a running [33:37] pattern and they have to form

a loop in order to be structural. Then there's the challenge of finding a discrete way of fixing the

cups so the installation appears effortless.

of 29


The cups are not only the structure. They are also the façade, the screen, the program and a

branding device. There is something very gratifying about this sort of totality which can be quite

difficult to achieve in a building project.

So the floor plan is driven by the material's tendency and the structural system. The collinear

formation creates different zones. The object display area and the more intimate book nook. The

floor plans are colour vinyl stickers found from reverse garbage. It adds a playfulness to the

space and it also helps drawing people to the back of the shops. There are about 7,800 cups

used throughout. The installation was a collective effort. The good thing about it is the installation

didn't require any special skills and anyone with a bit of patience can do it.

The success of a commercial fit-out project is often measured by its commercial returns. In this

instance what were originally intended to be sort of three month pop-up turned out to be six

months. So the client's investment in design ideas really paid a handsome dividend.

The next three projects I'm going to talk about have a common ground. They are all situated in

the post-war suburban context and the architecture attempts to understand and work within the

suburban landscape. So this was a commission to design a self-contained flat for a single person

household in Keperra, 12 kilometres north of Brisbane. The area is quite large and the site is the

back-out of this corner plot which happens to be north facing onto a parkland.

We were surprised to find that the rear-side boundary only had a low chicken wire fence and this

is quite unusual given all other houses along the park have a 1.8 metre tall fence that clearly

defines the private land. Like an amphitheatre, the site sits on the higher ground, overlooks the

park. Therefore the nuances of public/private is instead defined by its topography. It's this

meeting of two terrains and the adjacency and ambiguity of public and private that were

provocative qualities that prompted us to think 'How can the architecture respond and negotiate

these conditions?'

We often referenced the works by German photographer Beate Gutschow In her LS series she

uses digital technology to montage the fragments of post-industrial images to recreate

photographs that depict arrangements of 17th Century landscape paintings. Paintings at the time

were highly organised constructs and strictly adhered to the composition of principle of

foreground, middle ground and background. The foreground is the entry point for the viewer. The

landscape is framed by trees and bushes, like a stage. The middle ground often contains the

river or a path and the background is composed of a distant landscape. The choice of good

source material are non-discriminative. She takes photographs from parks, construction sites and

no-man's land to acquire the visual elements needed.

of 29


So in our view, architecture is not too dissimilar in its ability to reconstruct and idealised setting.

We were looking for a way to interpret this otherwise benign landscape. The house is conceived

as three rooms. Each of the rooms has a viewing aperture, framing different aspects of the

landscape beyond. The room to the west is for sleeping, the room to the east is for living and the

middle room does not have a specific function. It is the entrance room, the outdoor room and also

the connecting room. The grey shaded parts are storage and services. They are treated as solid

within the plan, like a thickened wall perhaps. The views are an integral part of the construct of

the rooms. The bedroom window frames an adjacent balsam tree. The outdoor room frames the

view of the immediate bush view and the living room is characterised by the view of a more

distant landscape. Here are the three views in context of the building.

So these apertures have cinematic effect with the ever-changing scenery. The oblique angles in

the living room directs ones eyes towards the intended view and this angle is reflected on the

exterior of the building form. So the materials are chosen for their low maintenance quality in

response to client's brief. The [39:50] concrete gives thermal mass, it stabilises the indoor

temperature and its rock-like quality anchors the structure. There is a series of operable devices

that enables the house to be quite transparent and permeable but also can be adjusted to suit

levels of privacy required and fully enclosed for security. So this photo is actually taken just after

completion. It's looking a little bit bare but the hedges are now quite overgrown and kind of

provides a nice edge to the house. So the house is actually not as exposed now.

So in contrast the interior spaces align in plywood and cypress pine to give warmth to the rooms.

Lighting our floors and [40:53] hidden within the pelmet, reclaiming the ceiling plan from a clutter

of light fittings. So the building area is 45 square metres, much smaller than the 80 square

metres allowed as a secondary drawing under the Planning Scheme. So to compensate for this

really compact footprint there's the wall of joinery that provides storage to the house.

The next project is a commission from an ambitious client who purchased a challenging site or

should I say ambitious clients because it's a family of four. They had a lot of trust in us as their

architects to help them build their home. The site is in Ocean Shores, a seaside suburb in

northern New South Wales. Natural landscape in the area is quite beautiful and dynamic with

constant-changing vistas. The site is on top of the hill with spectacular distant ocean views. On a

clear day you can see the whales.

On the other side of the road is council owned land, so the view will never be built out. However,

the site also comes with several inherent challenges. It backs onto the highway, so this is the

Pacific Highway and the noise is a real deterrent. Also the majority of the site is quite steep and

for existing vegetation which required planning assessment to remove. So therefore only half of

the site is buildable.

of 29


So the clients are drawn to the site particularly because of its various prospects – the ocean view

to the east, Mount Chincogan view to the west and the long range Byron Bay Lighthouse view to

the south. These views are important parts of the project brief and really became the drivers in

the shaping of the building.

So with the understanding of this specific conditions we had to think about a strategic way of

integrating these somewhat disparate characteristics, embracing both its constraints and

qualities. The idea was to introduce an architecture spatial device that connects all the elements

together. The spatial device that has apertures that captures the view, it also functions as a noise

buffer, shielding the habitants from highway noises and by giving it a thickness and volume it

then becomes a usable room. In this instance it accommodates the servicing spaces such as

laundry and bath house.

So this special device actually had to be semi-outdoor. So it's not weather-tight in order to sort of

ventilate the house through the room without compromising its noise attenuation qualities. The

habitable rooms are then organised around it to make this elongated wedge form.

As you can see the building almost takes up the entire width, diving the site into manmade

landscape of the front yard and the wild bush belongs to the back yard. So, we were sort of

interested in this notion of non-hierarchical plan that enables freedom of use. All the rooms can

be accessed from the semi-outdoor room or from the front garden. The street facing front garden

is the main outdoor activity zone and is treated as an extension of the house. The shaded parts

are where the tight space is. Circulating through the semi-outdoor zone and being exposed to the

elements is an integral part of living in this house.

This semi-outdoor room in the middle which has the magic view of the distant ocean and the

elevation is a critical determinant of how one experiences the view beyond. So the section is

more explanatory of the relationship of this semi-outdoor room, the existing topography and

adjacent landscapes. Once again we draw on this work by Beate Gutschow. The many layers in

her photograph create this great spatial depth.

So this front view is reminiscent of the composition in her photograph where the floor level of the

semi-outdoor space, the front yard and the greenery beyond and the vista are these layers that

complete the construct of the room and of the view.

The street view of the house. So the roof is tilted to sort of create another space above, here, a

mezzanine space, which I will show later. The semi-outdoor room is the arrival space and there is

no formal front door. The material palette is kept to a minimum and is applied to differentiate the

indoor versus the outdoor zones. The interior is lined with [47:20] board in all surfaces – the

ceilings, the walls and the floors. It's one of the materials that can do that which is nice. The

of 29


outdoor zone has compressed fibre cement sheets as wall cladding and colour wood decking as

a floor finish. The thresholds are defined by black aluminium door and window frames. Again

these are the apertures within the semi-outdoor room.

View of the semi-outdoor corridor, most hard working room of all where there are overlapping of

functions and the special space where the lady of the house requested to have a mezzanine

space which can be used for all kinds of activities like dancing. We couldn’t be more than happy

to oblige. So, we had to be mindful of the site elevation – this is taken from the neighbour's front

yard – to have any kind of openings to avoid overlooking the neighbour and the rear view of the

house, the roof eave detail was an input from Sam, the builder. So you can see there's the

ventilation detail which adds a really nice edge to an otherwise very solid form.

So with this project the contract administration was managed by the client. So, we anticipated

this arrangement and had to build in certain robustness in the design so that the architecture can

be easily understood by the clients and the builder.

So the next project is back in Brisbane, the Brisbane fringe. This is a project commissioned for

31 townhouses for a developer. So the area photograph on the left is the 1970s area photograph

of Algester. You can see the suburban pattern started to emerge and the subdivision sort of

happens on the sort of higher ground. This is the lower lying parts of the area which is kept as

acreage allotments and outside is on the border of this transition in [50:16] pattern. The image on

the right was taken in 2012 and you can see the green corridor becomes very pronounced but

you can observe that it starts to be eroded by housing developments.

So, the acreage sites are often intertwined with creeks and waterways due to their low-lying

position which are sort of ideal conditions for biodiversity. So we began mapping the local green

infrastructure network, highlighting the existing and potential green corridors and parkland as a

way of trying to understand the context and condition that we're dealing with. So under the

Planning Scheme these sites are usually zoned as emerging community. They have been very

popular sites for denser housing developments carried out by private development companies.

So these are the examples of formula driven housing products in the area. Typically there is a

central driveway and dominated by double garage with minimal communal spaces. Lack of

structural plan also means that the developments are quite isolated and lacks, devoid of any

connectivity to neighbourhood.

Which prompts us to think about the effect of our project. As a component of the whole in the

context of the neighbourhood, we imagine the potential of linking green open spaces up and

downstream to form a collective green grid. This green grid at some point intersects with the

of 29


broader green network and then it starts to have more significant impact on the quality of the

environment.

Typical townhouse floor plans. Duplex is the most efficient and sellable product. The problem

with this plan – there are that many problems, I won't point them out one by one, but for example,

the garage blocks any kind of cross-ventilation and light, so the dimming spaces are relying on

the back yard to provide these basic needs. The side spaces here, they're narrow and doesn't

have a purpose. So these houses all have two metre, or shall I say 1.8 metre spacings between

them.

So we began to think how we could perhaps come up with some new types and they were

introduced to the northern type of the single, standalone houses and the more compact south-

facing types which are triplexes in the form of really compact terrace house types. So for the 'N'

type the idea is to amalgamate the side setbacks and then turn them into a side yard which

allows for natural light and ventilation, and the southern type is more about how can we introduce

more connections with the internal street by not open plan, instead we'll have kitchens in the

room that faces the street.

So we were interested in really the spaces in between buildings. Our proposal then explores this

organisation of central internal street and its relationship to the individual private outdoor spaces.

The [54:24] Street choreographing a dynamic vehicular approach and changing views. As one

moves through the site the unit arrangement steps in and out in response to the street's profile

creating the articulated backdrop to amplify the experience of the front pocket garden.

So with this sort of project because economy is a huge factor, so we had to utilise most of the

basic elements you have which is the driveway and the spaces in between. So these are the

photos taken just after completion. It's looking a little bare because we installed small appliances

for budgetary reasons, which is fine because the landscape is part of the idea, but I believe it will

grow over time. You can see the central driver curvature creates this dynamic perspective

instead of tunnel vision. The driveway is meant to be turfed and to be quite so much narrower,

but instead of this impervious concrete finish, but the council did not support the alternative which

is turf driveway due to consideration of refuse, garbage truck accessibility.

The units appear to be box-like upon entering the site but one discovers a sectional cut roof

profile after turning back which is reminiscent of Caitlin Franzmann's installation that I showed

earlier. We especially made sure that there is a generous open space, shared open outdoor

space here which is much, much more than the council's requirements. In fact it's so big that you

could fit a basketball court in it.

of 29


Brick is the dominant building material here throughout. We have chosen a brick that is quite

economical and also available in two sizes - the standard height and the double height. So the

double height bricks are commonly used in housing projects because less labour is involved in

laying them. So here the standard height brick forms a base and then double height brick above.

So this is a view of the S types. You can see the kitchen facing the street in order to get some

connectivity and permeability through the units.

So unfortunately in this part of Brisbane car is still the preferred transportation method. All our

developments have at least a single or double garage and the Planning Design Guidelines also

stipulates a minimum car parking requirement. So it's difficult to persuade developers not to

provide garages but in this project the garages are designed to be less like an enclosed space. It

has an open back, so hopefully in the future when car ownership is obsolete then this structure

can be adopted to another function. The interior spaces are pretty rudimentary. Aluminium

windows and doors are selected as residential grade and there's plasterboard throughout. So

really the construction is quite rudimentary to make sure that it's as commercial visibility.

Thank you.

Kelly Greenop:

Thanks Melody so much.

We now have an excellent discussion to bring these two presentations together. Elizabeth

Watson Brown joins us. For many years she ran her own award-winning practice before joining

Architectus as their Design Director. Libby is a member of the Board for Urban Places and she's

also an Adjunct Professor at the School of Architecture at UQ. Please make her welcome and

we'll have Emily and Bec join us back on the stage.

Thanks.

Elizabeth Watson Brown:

Wow. Can you hear me? Yes, good. Thanks so much. It was so brilliant hearing you talk again. I

must say we had a great lunch last week when we got together. We talked and drank a little bit of

wine for two and a half hours. We had a great conversation. So in a way it'd be nice for you to

join into the sort of conversation that we had last week. So I think it would be really great for

people to listen to you talking together. I think that's the way that we can have this conversation

rather than me kind of running it all. You should be talking.

I certainly really enjoyed your presentations. It was so wonderful to see in much more detail what

you've been doing and I'm so impressed by your strategizing around design and practice. I did

of 29


leap to it when Kelly asked me to be the discussant tonight because I was really interested in

finding out more about you, but also just always really excited about wonderful young women

making their way as you so clearly are.

So as I said, I think we're really interested in the conversation between you tonight. So I think

maybe to start that conversation it would be nice to make some observations about

commonalities and a few sort of counter points in terms of the way you work in you practices. In a

way they're similar in scale. They're probably slightly different. I think you've been practising for

nine years or something like that Melody, and you guys have been together for…

Bec Caldwell:

Five.


I know and you said to me the other day you grew up. Last year was when your practice grew up

which was fantastic.

So, I suppose the conversations are a little bit about design as a verb and design as a noun in a

way. That's one of the counter points I kind of see, certainly in the way you've chosen to present

your work tonight. So I'm going to ask a question of each studio and then maybe you'd like to just

talk to each other about it because I know you can.

So Maytree, you've talked so well about that close engagement with clients which is incredibly

compelling and we've seen quite individuated sort of results out of that process I think, not very

predicted responses but certainly where you feel the presence of the clients in that work. We

definitely talked about that last week, about how important that is to you and how humans come

first as you said. But what values are actually held in common between you? What is there when

the project is finished? What have you discussed together about what you share and obviously

you share so much beyond the idea of the construction of the practice. Could you share a little bit

of that with us?

Bec Caldwell:

She does what she's told.


Okay, you can.

of 29


Bec Caldwell:

She never does it.


Because it's always a negotiation when you're collaborating isn't it?

Bec Caldwell:

It is.

Emily Juckes:

It is.


That’s an interesting thing to do, to partner. Yeah.

Emily Juckes:

And I think Bec and I are coming from very different backgrounds. We've got very different

passions, but the thing that I think – and it's a recent phenomenon that we've had to kind of

identify, what is common between us because we've only been working together for a very short

period of time, but I think – and it's a little bit about the humans first, architects second. So the

thing that we do have in common is we're very driven to run projects as best as we can to respect

the client and respect everyone involved - the consultants, the builders and ourselves and our

staff.

So the way that we do that and the way that we recognise our differences is in making sure that

the practice has a very rigorous and rigid process to the front end of projects. So, we approach

the front end with a system that allows us to capture all aspects of the brief and all the constraints

of the project. We're strict about documenting that and we're strict about communicating that with

the client, up front, getting that super transparent and getting everyone on board early on. We do

that collaboratively. So we work at that front end together. That allows us to be accountable to

the client's goals, accountable to all of the constraints of the project and we're rigorous about

checking in with that very, very regularly.

What we think that framework does is it allows us to do what we want as design professionals

from there. So in working with us we hope that clients come to us and they're getting g a very

professional level of service from Maytree Studios but they will get a different design response

of 29


from each of the individuals and each of the people within the practice. That seems to work

because we're all quite different, not only Bec and I, but Alicia and Kate as well. We all work quite

differently and we solve problems differently. I think that's what we have in common.

Bec Caldwell:

And I think where there's a framework like that, that's around meeting a program and a budget

and town planning constraints and there's kind of this agreed approach to the problem at hand,

then ego is taken off the table and we can really sit down.

The other day I showed Emily something and I went 'Look at this'…


And she said 'That's rubbish.'

Bec Caldwell:

She's like 'No.'


That's absolute rubbish.

Bec Caldwell:

Yep and we can have that conversation. It's not good enough to leave the door.


Which is very healthy, isn't it?

Bec Caldwell:

Yep, it is.


But do you collaborate on designs together or are you sort of compartmentalising that to a

degree?

Bec Caldwell:

No.

of 29



So you share all the good stuff…

Emily Juckes:

We definitely do.

Bec Caldwell:

But it's very natural.


Yeah.

Emily Juckes:

And it's mostly in that role of critiquing each other regularly throughout the process and keeping

each other and all of us, keeping each other accountable and always checking in that what we're

doing fits our scope, fits what the client wanted and it's great if it looks fantastic too. We're of

course trying to do that but our agenda is leading. We lead with a people first agenda rather than

an aesthetic or an intellectual agenda. So we're also trying to keep each other accountable to

that all the time.


To that as well, and so clients would come to you having read – and it's very articulate on your

website and it's great having read other reviews – they come to you because of that idea of the

service and the transparency and the fact that you're going to respect them. Or have they…

Bec Caldwell:

I think they stay with us because of that.


They stay with you, yeah.

Emily Juckes:

We're unknown. Like people don't come looking for us.

of 29



How do they come to you?

Emily Juckes:

The majority are through word of mouth, through referrals. We've got a lot of repeat clients.


Other people have said 'It's been a great process. You'll really like working with these people.'

Emily Juckes:

Absolutely and those quotes about the experience with us as people are really what matter to us

in terms of marketing. So, yeah.

Bec Caldwell:

A client recently commented on our meeting minutes, you know. We're doing a really beautiful

house for them but what they really loved was the meeting minutes and I always think that's so

important. If I go talk to a lawyer and I don't really know the process of what that lawyer does, but

if there's really clarity, if I know what's happening, if I understand what I'm paying for, how much

more I enjoy that experience.


They're let into the mysteries of what it is we do and I think it's only, yeah, honourable to do that

and honest to do that.

Bec Caldwell:

Yep.


So Melody, it's an interesting sort of – it's a different kind of focus, isn't it? You and James are life

partners. You studied together, you know, and it seems to me looking at the work that there's

quite a convergence of thought and approach there in terms of what you've negotiated

presumably or developed together through your education and your partnership together.

How much do your clients understand of the process? You know, like why do they come to you?

What do they see? What draws them to you?

of 29


Melody Chen:

That's an interesting question. So, I guess in the beginning of the project we spend a lot of time

with our clients. So we try to kind of get to know them, understand their requirements, understand

project conditions and usually that discussion sets the tone for the design process. We use a lot

of different tools. So we often make models. We use 3D images and diagram is sort of an

important part of how we communicate certain architecture concepts to the client. You pretty

much get a feeling at the end of the process whether the client understands your architectural

intent or not. That's also a test whether our architectural ideas are relevant enough to a client's

brief. So yeah, it's kind of pragmatic.


Yeah and there's amazing pragmatism between both the practices obviously. But how do you –

do you adjust? Do you adjust and amend to the client's ideas or are they coming to you looking at

these glorious things that you've shown and said 'I want that', 'I want one of those', 'I love the look

of that', 'I like that style', 'I like that form', 'I like that thing'.

Melody Chen:

Yeah, funny enough the clients like our projects and it's probably one of the reasons they

approached us, but we rarely get clients who want a replica of one of the houses like Keperra

House or [01:09:00] House. They usually like part of it. I mean it would probably make more

business sense if I can just replicate that.


And it's a trap, isn't it, though? You know like if there is a received language that you've created,

it creates a trap for you presumably as well about the kind of…

Melody Chen:

So I guess that because we're so process driven, perhaps it's the attitude. At the end of the day

it's about the attitude that you can sense from architects in their work. Rather than for us it's

definitely not a kind of set image or…


A menu.

of 29


Melody Chen:

A material palette.


A menu, just the sense of how you do that, yeah. So you've sort of had different educations in

different institutions although I think you two…

Melody Chen:

Yeah, we studied together.


You studied together?

Melody Chen:

I feel like I'm back in uni.


You guys graduated from UQ I think in 2004 and you graduated after three different types of

design education, right, in 2010 from QUT. So you guys obviously sort of see value in diversity

from your backgrounds and you and James, Melody, had the same education. You've had some

shared value, so that's pretty interesting from the point of view of what we were just talking about,

negotiating thing.

You've all taught and you've all been students clearly, very good ones. What do you bring from

practice to the studio and the students that you teach? And then part B of that question what are

the students teaching you and I think that will be a really good conversation to have with the

students in the room tonight?

I realise we've got three minutes apparently. Is that really true? Kelly? Okay.

Bec Caldwell:

Emily and I have totally different approaches to this question…


Yeah, okay good. Well, fight it out.

of 29


Bec Caldwell:

…because when I tutored, what I really loved was coming in there and getting them to commit to

a concept and then teaching them, giving them the permission to craft a beautiful thing because

that's really what we do in practice. We might want to couch it in a whole lot of other words, but

that's really what we're doing and I think that's maybe a bit of my industrial design background,

product design in terms of shaping something lovely whereas Emily…

Emily Juckes:

It's so funny. I think the complete opposite.


[01:11:23]

Emily Juckes:

And this comes through in our work.


Do you think it comes through from your education? Yeah, very much so. Your background,

yeah.

Emily Juckes:

I think so. All the time. In a completely contrasting but complementary way.


You've got that balance, yeah, yeah.

Emily Juckes:

Yeah. So I think, I see a real value in the kind of indulgence of design education and being

allowed the time and space to work out how to attack a design problem, how to apply process,

how to work it through, how to be regress. I see immense value in that and I see even more

value in it now where we are now and what we're doing now because if you can't do that quickly

and readily and you're not match-fit to do that, you can't keep up with the pace of the industry

that we're working in now.

of 29



And it's so about.

Bec Caldwell:

I would try and cull the self-doubt that students have.


Yeah?

Bec Caldwell:

You know, they have a lot of – they go, they do a bit of work and then they undo it for a few more

weeks and then they redo it.


Are they different now? Are they different now the students from the people you were when you

were students?

Emily Juckes:

No.


Look, I still do a bit of that in the office.

Emily Juckes:

We all do it. Our object is though how to make money.


Yeah. Melody?

Melody Chen:

Well I only talked quite briefly one semester as a tutor, so my experience isn't extensive in that

area but usually I just try to share my experience and share my way of doing things and everyone

has their way of doing things. So, yeah, that's how I would do it.

of 29



And do you bring something back from the studio, from the students?

Melody Chen:

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, students these days, they are so good at seeking out information and

then be able to sort of find solutions to resolve a design issue, very quickly. So they're very good

at sort of finding – and with the technology advancements they are able to kind of do that very

quickly.


The efficiency of that's remarkable, isn't it, and the judgement that they have in actually seeking

that out. We've got one minute or half a minute. So I'm going to ask that clichéd question. What

are your goals? Where do you see – I'll start with you guys – where do you see yourself in 10, 15

– yourselves and the practice and you expressed a desire for that to be continuing well beyond

the five years. What are you moving towards?

Emily Juckes:

Look, I think both of us at the front of our mind at the moment in terms of our life/work balance

we're both mothers, we're both negotiating growing families that roll part time work, all of that

kind of stuff. That's what's right in our face right now which is hard, very, very hard. But I think in

the long term we can see beyond that and I think we want to be doing more of what we're doing

now.


Great.

Emily Juckes:

Just better, keep on getting better.

Bec Caldwell:

And growing great people.


Yeah, learning and growing great people in the practice, yeah. Brilliant.

of 29


Bec Caldwell:

Want people to come through. If they choose to leave that's fine, but they go bigger and stronger.


Sounds like a good place to work. Melody, where are you on your trajectory and where are you

going?

Melody Chen:

I share the same view because I also have a seven month old baby, so it feels like this kind of…


Look, congratulations. You know. Respect. Respect.

Melody Chen:

I don't know how Emily does it.


Respect, yeah. Yeah.

Melody Chen:

So yeah, we're looking forward to sort of the next chapter of our journey that James and I will

share and also with other sort of collaborators. Brisbane is such an exciting place to be right now.

There's so much going on in terms of the urban development. So yeah, I'm really excited to be

part of that landscape.


Fantastic. Well, join me in thanking these great people. Thank you.

Kelly Greenop:

Thank you so much Libby, Bec, Emily and Melody for a really fascinating discussion and great to

see such wonderful projects coming out of what I think of as young practice even though they've

been going nigh on 10 years, but you know, still young in relative terms for Brisbane.

Before we finish tonight I have the important duty to announce the Arch-I-Spy winner for this

week. Before we'll do that I'll tell you what's coming up next week which Alexis and Murat Sanal

of 29


from SANALarc who are coming to join us. Please get your tickets online. If you're watching

online they're available and we'd love to see you here. It promises to be an excellent lecture and

finally to Arch-I-Spy and the winner for this week is the irrepressible Stephan Tuck. So

congratulations to Stephan. I don't think she's here but congrats to her and the APDL team will

be in touch.

So thank you for tonight and we'll see you next week.

[End of Transcript]

of 29

designonline.org.audesignonline.org.au/.../transcript_rebecca-caldwell...and-melody-ch… · web...

Documents