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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 most elastic, permeable and scalable element of residential architecture and it appeared throughout the issue in a variety of forms and expressions, evidenced in the projects, critiques and provocations.

What do you do with all that space? (‘On Trial’, p021) raises relevant questions relating to territory, landscape and urbanity – to the backyard, front yard and in-between spaces – and to the inner-city consequences of deadly, low-density sprawl. With typical self-deprecating Kiwi humour, Martin Bryant and Penny Allan, along with Sam Kebbell in his excellent piece, Back to Front Yard (p030), manage to carefully leverage their local preoccupations and concerns so as to both address them and also press fi rmly on the pulse of architecture.

Kebbell lets loose on the ‘quarter-acre pavlova paradise’ embedded deep in the Trans-Tasman psyche, unearthing the obsession with the backyard and external appendages, such as balconies, verandahs, porches, patios and decks. Indeed, as an elegant exaggeration, the Residential projects confi rm some of Kebbell’s key points, with Glamuzina Paterson Architects’ Lake Hāwea House (p066) and RTA Studio’s Wanaka House (p048) inevitably drawing the eye to their own beauty and to that of the landscape; all the while perpetuating the myth of the ‘lone house’ as an eternal hero of architecture.

This refl ection is not intended to denigrate these projects, which are both exceedingly well refi ned and more than appropriate for their respective sites and context. Rather, the truth of their rarefi ed status is placed in stark contrast as much by the well-worn yet seemingly boundless territory of the suburban backyard ‘alts and adds’ aff air (Sandgate House, p060) as by a multi-residential development, such as The Quays (p084), epitomising gentrifi cation and rezoning projects around the world.

Keeping all this in mind, how can the housing typology develop by extracting knowledge from the lessons of history and actively deploying an interest in the elements of architecture? And, perhaps more importantly, what can the discipline learn from the residential typology? Firstly, Silvia Perea’s feature (p031) on Lina Bo Bardi’s superbly sited Casa de Vidro (Glass House) off ers a diff erent take on Modern architecture, encouraging the reader to move past those aspects presumed already known and concretised in the annals of architectural history. The house, apparently ‘as aquarium’, contains its own glazed courtyard while occupying the much larger ‘courtyard’ of the forest, the layers of transitional space delineated by the surrounding trees and canopy, thereby becoming a very early proponent of blurring the lines of inside and out.

Secondly, Aaron Peters’ On Verandahs piece for ‘In Conversation’ (p093) took the Queenslander verandah and used the vernacular to deftly move between scales, grappling with both the individual house and, more specifi cally, the city of Brisbane. The Queenslander manifestation of the verandah is the courtyard elevated, extended and then converted for many purposes – but somehow increasingly devalued in spite of its innate civic presence. Peters located the verandah as a place where the individual connects with the community, where these pockets of public–private space serve to interweave the fabric of the city. Where others have failed in the past, Peters avoided nostalgia in discussing this topic and made a strong point for mindful densifi cation and urban development.

Returning to the original query, there is something innate, something inherently of interest to humans in talking about houses, housing, homes or dwellings. The desire to fi nd rest and repose in a restless world drives each of us in some way or another and therefore the future mandate of the Residential issue might be justifi ed on this point alone – to continue, within the discipline, to examine and place importance on our key concerns as inhabitants of place. Melonie Bayl-Smith

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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; and yet questions can only come when the disciplinary parameters are determined.

‘Margins’ can be edge conditions, boundaries, exile, pedagogy, profi t, positions, constraints, risk, or the overbearing spectre of Modernism lurking as a marginal note on contemporary practice. The profession needs to better self-critique, to engage in a discussion between practitioners, academics and students. It is an obligation. Criticism should not be viewed as a pariah, it should be cultivated. In AR138, four reviewers – Anthony Burke (AB), Marcos García Rojo (MGR), Marissa Looby (ML) and Eva Franch I Gilabert (EFG)– have each added their commentary to the content, off ering multiple opinions as critique in marginalia.

Architects must take ownership of the economic and political forces impacting on practice, we should be more in tune and establish new ways of procuring and producing architecture. In one of the feature articles, ‘The machine that makes land pay’ (p030), Clare Sowden discusses the transactional values of the business of architecture and the business of speculative development, outlining the relationship of housing, debt and the economy as a matter of ‘life and debt’ – enforcing the link to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 in regard to real estate speculation. While in On Trial (p024) Juenan Wu observes the work of little-known Cambodian architect, Vann Molyvann, whose work holds a distinctly Corbusian sensibility. An architect once lauded then later exiled during the Khmer Rouge regime, he has since faded from collective consciousness.

Stephen Loo in the In Conversation article (p094) addresses the need for greater intuition in academia, noting that ‘universities need to develop an understanding of where architecture sits within an economic paradigm and the diff erences between the profession and academia within the knowledge economy’. And, in one of three interviews, Barry Bergdoll (p022) suggests we need to step beyond conventional barriers and attempt new types of interdisciplinary collaboration, allowing architecture to be seen as signifi cant in the design process. While, secondly, Ben Hewett (p028) demands practitioners show vision in both pragmatics and practice, engaging in strategic positioning to infl uence policy decisions. Finally, and intriguingly, Camilla Block (p034) believes that Modernism still holds signifi cance, even though it may purely be aesthetic and not ideologically driven – Modernism, it seems, is very much in marginalia.

And playing on the Modernist mantra, ‘less is more’, Austin Williams outlines that the contemporary discipline lacks the Modern Movement’s clarity of purpose in the feature article, ‘Less is less’ (p036). Examining Modernism as a standpoint, Williams attests that ‘back then a vision was positive. The future was viewed with anticipation, unlike today when it is more likely to be viewed with trepidation.’

Notable project reviews include Scenic Architecture Off ice’s Huaxin Business Centre (p052), Zaha Hadid Architects’ Wangjing SOHO (p068) and Woods Bagot’s Deakin University Burwood Highway Frontage Building (p076). Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, UTS by Denton Corker Marshall, a project fi rst published in AR133–Contrasts as Under Construction, returns here as a full project review (p044); while our Under Construction feature in AR138–Margins is the Kaohsiung Port and Cruise Service Centre by RUR Architecture (Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto, p018); and, the issue is fl anked by a revisit to the annual Residential edition in POSTVIEW (p006) and a look forward in PREVIEW AR139 (p098). And, to celebrate Architectural Review Asia Pacifi c’s launch in China, Austin Williams’ ‘Less is less’ has been translated into Mandarin (p040) for this issue.

Michael Holt Editor, Architectural Review Asia Pacifi cFrom concept to completion.

007

E D ITO R IALar 138Margins

Cover image

Alfred H Barr, Jr., founding director of

the Museum of Modern Art, devised a

hand-drawn diagram organising MoMA’s

departments by discipline in 1936. It

was conceived to illustrate the historical

development and crosscurrents of modern

art; he reworked the chart several times,

never considering it defi nitive. AR138’s

cover illustration is reminiscent, outlining

contemporary architecture's focus on profi t

and risk over theory or critique, where

everything is referential to Modernism. MH

› Margin for error = room for manoeuvre; room for manoeuvre = risk-taking; risk-taking = evolution. 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 ideas with varying factors of the architectural community. Often architects marginalise themselves to clients, developers, builders, etc., with heavy, meaningless sentences. ML

› Spanish magazine, Architecturas Bis (March, 1976), published Architecture in the Margins at a politically loaded period between Franco’s dictatorship and democracy. Articles refl ect on the term, notably Rafael Moneo and Helio Piñon’s Ideologies and language in the architectures of power. EFG

› 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

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Architectural Review Asia Pacifi c December 2014 – March 2015ar 138

Regulars 006 POSTVIEW–ar137 Melonie Bayl-Smith

024 On Trial: Vann Molyvann Juenan Wu

092 Folio

094 In Conversation Stephen Loo

098 PREVIEW–ar139

Under Construction 018 Kaohsiung Port and Cruise Service Centre (RUR Architecture) Amit Wolf

Book Round-up 012 Downfall, The Architecture of Excess / Out of Place (Gwalia): Occasional essays on Australian regional communities and built environments in transition

Review 014 Smartgeometry 2014, Urban Compaction Marissa Looby

Features 030 The Machine that Makes Land Pay Clare Sowden

036 Less is Less Austin Williams

040 Austin Williams (translated by Huaxia Song)

Interviews 022 Barry Bergdoll (Columbia University)

028 Ben Hewett (South Australian Government Architect)

034 Camilla Block (Durbach Block Jaggers)

Projects 044 UTS Broadway (Denton Corker Marshall) Claire McCaughan

052 Huaxin Business Centre (Scenic Architecture Off ice) Clare Jacobson

060 New Generation Bendigo Library (McGauran Giannini Soon Architects)

Anna Johnson

068 Wangjing SOHO (Zaha Hadid Architects) Hao Ma

076 Burwood Highway Frontage Building, Deakin University (Woods Bagot)

Graham Crist

084 Visual Arts Institutional Campus (Raj Rewal Associates) Ian Nazareth

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EditorialEditor

Michael Holt

michael.holt

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Contributing editor

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Marissa Looby

Contributing editor (China)

Austin Williams

Contributing editor

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Contributing editor (Japan)

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C O NTR I B UTO RS

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 design at University of Tasmania and director at Creative Exchange Institute. He ispresident of the Australian Deans ofBuilt Environment and Design (ADBED) and chair of the National Education Committee (NEC) of the Australian Institute of Architects.

Marissa Looby is AR ’s contributing editor in Australia, an architect at Woods Bagot (Sydney) and a graduate from Columbia University.

Claire McCaughan is an architect practising in the not-for-profi t arts sector and is currently head of programs at Object: Australian Design Centre and co-founder of Archrival.

Ian Nazareth is an architect and urban researcher, practising between Melbourne and Mumbai.

Huaxia Song is an architect at Robert A.M. Stern Architects and an architecture graduate from University of Notre Dame.

Clare Sowden is an associate director at PricewaterhouseCoopers

and an architecture graduate from University of Technology, Sydney.

Austin Williams is AR ’s contributing editor in China, director of The Future Cities project and lecturer in architecture at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China. He is also the former technical editor of the Architects’ Journal.

Amit Wolf is an architect, writer and curator. He has recently curated Beyond Environment (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 2014). He teaches architecture history and theory at Southern California Institute of Architecture and is an architecture graduate from the Polytechnic University of Milan and holds a PhD from UCLA.

Juenan Wu is an architect at BSC Architecture and was previously employed by Foster and Partners. She is an architecture graduate from Yale University.

Cover illustration Federico Babina is an Italian architect and graphic designer based in Barcelona.

Review in marginaliaAnthony Burke is professor of

architecture and head of school at University of Technology, Sydney and a director at Off shore Studio.

Eva Franch I Gilabert is an architect, executive director and chief curator at Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York. She has taught at Columbia University and Rice University. She graduated from TU Delft, ETSA Barcelona-UPC Princeton University and jointly curated the US pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale with OfficeUS.

Marcos García Rojo is an architect and a graduate from Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM) and Columbia University. He has taught at Barnard, Columbia College and ETSAM. Since 2006 his own practice has collaborated with off ices such as Lacaton & Vassal, Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Herreros Arquitectos.

Marissa Looby

Download this issue as

an iPad app from the

iTunes store

AB

MGR

ML

EFG

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Architecture and literature are notuncommon bedfellows, whether it is a novelinspired by architecture or a narrative arcreliant on the figure of the architect.Downfall, The Architecture of Excess –the first publication from RightAngleInternational Publishing – is an attemptto recount contemporary architecture.

A novel depicting the profession is notwithout precedent, with by far the mostrenowned being The Fountainhead (1943)by Ayn Rand. With Howard Roark as theself-willed luminary, it is a fascistic accountof a desire for control, suggestive of heroicindividualism. Infinitely more enjoyablethough are Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities(1972), a work of immense imagination thatregales the reader with descriptive tales ofcities as a conversation between Kublai Khanand Marco Polo, and Edith Wharton’s TheAge of Innocence (1920), a compellingobservation of New York. As an aside, andnot strictly a novel, the introduction to EBWhite’s Here is New York (1949) challengesWharton’s descriptions of the metropoliswith a love letter to the city. Arguably one ofthe most fantastical accounts of architecturethough is Georges Perec’s Life: A User’sManual (1978), a collection of separatestories as snapshots from a residentialapartment block in Paris, where the facadeis metaphorically stripped back and

domestic life is on display. Literature oftenuses architecture as its narrative foil.

Downfall depicts its central character,Joseph McTavish, as a behemoth of industry.While terminally ill in a clinic on the MexicanRiviera he writes his mémoires in an attemptto rewrite his checkered past. The readerlearns how McTavish has recently had afailed business venture, but is not deterredas he embarks on another impressive project.In meeting Patrick Cohen, an architectural star,McTavish wishes to give rise to a grandiosearchitectural idea. Yet, as the building beginsto take shape, Rene, an unconventional youngplumber, crosses their path and begins tounearth clues that suggest the ground isabout to give way on McTavish’s legacy.

It is an ambitious novel set betweenMontreal, Venice, London and Mexico,where architecture becomes one of theprimary characters. It weaves together thelives of three protagonists and represents acaustic look at the building industry and theprimeval quest to leave a mark on the world.It may not be the most well-crafted novel,with the dialogue a little clunky and the prosesometimes too rigid, but it does offer anopportune moment for reflection oncontemporary practice and maintains amarvellous lineage of architectural novels.It seems architecture can still use literatureas its discursive foil.

Downfall, The Architecture of Excess

Louise PelletierRightAngle International Publishing, 2014Paperback • 203pp • $15.95

Out of Place (Gwalia)

Occasional Essays on Australian Regional Communities and Built Environments in Transition

Edited by Philip Goldswain, Nicole Sully and William M TaylorUniversity of Western Australia Publishing, 2014Paperback • 304pp • $39.99

BOOK ROUND-UP

012

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 diff erent 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’ – and University of Queensland professor John Macarthur discussing stock exchanges and the electric telegraph in the fi rst era of globalisation, the book is a veritable tour de force in research and execution.

Given its publication through University of Western Australia Publishing, there is a raft of academics from the university’s School of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, including Philip Goldswain, an excellent

contribution from Criena Fitzgerald and Clarissa Ball. Overall there is an incredible pedigree and the depth to the research undertaken in the book’s inception is self-evident, but more importantly it raises pertinent questions.

As Taylor points out, ‘recent commentary in Australia on the forward trajectory of the nation’s mining boom elicits concerns for the movements, economic prosperity and well-being of the nation’s transient workforce’, suggesting that while Karratha, Paraburdoo and Moranbah may feature in Australia’s print media, it is reminiscent of the previous boom times, with little consideration for the potential impact on settings. He notes that ‘for nearly three decades, research into the built environment […] has been shaped by interests in “place”, “place-making”, “sense of place” and “placelessness”.’ What is evinced throughout are ‘pressing social and environmental concerns attending the boom and bust of communities, land degradation and reclamation and other human consequences of what Geoff rey Blainey famously termed the “tyranny of distance”.’

The book is an important survey through the historical circumstances that accompany large-scale enterprise in boom times, including the ‘provenance of settlements that will hopefully generate new and innovative opportunities to explore such issues’.

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014

REVIEW Marissa Looby

Smartgeometry 2014, Urban Compaction

Smartgeometry 2014 was a week-long workshop and conference held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, China, in partnership with the University of Hong Kong. The event was split into two parts: a four-day workshop, 14–17 July, and a public conference, 18 July, concluding with a symposium, 19 July.

At the outset of the twenty-fi rst century the architecture profession has undergone a digital revolution. Without question, digital platforms, also known as computer-aided design (CAD), existed before, but the expansion of CAD into a plethora of softwares that aid visualisation, documentation and representation in architecture is now growing at an unprecedented rate. In contemporary practice, an architectural fi rm needs to understand and operate across multiple platforms, but oftentimes, to the layperson, such softwares sound more like zoo taxonomy than architectural tools. Notably, Rhino, Grasshopper, Ladybug and Honeybee. Furthermore, the recent shift from CAD to Building Information Modelling (BIM) has redefi ned how buildings are documented, including changing how consultants interact in a three-dimensional virtual environment and the delivery of three-dimensional models for clients at the end of projects, as a working ‘as built’ model. The subtle shift from CAD to BIM and its subsequent changes to practice, requires an essay in itself but one key observation in this shift (from someone who uses these tools on a daily basis) is that they are complexifying and expanding; they not only allow for speed of documentation of a project, but also for realistic visualisations and quantifi able data all at the same time.

Since 2001, the Smartgeometry conference has been exploring, investigating and researching new softwares available to architects. The mission is simple: to combine academic, research and practice models into a conference, where people can experiment with new technology. Each →

Image courtesy Smartgeometry, photographer: John Nye

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016

REVIEW Marissa Looby

→ conference is set under a general theme and so the 2014 iteration was Urban Compaction – an apt topic given the conference’s setting in the city of Hong Kong. Unlike most conferences, where research (delivered by leading factions in a fi eld) is collated prior to the event and presented in front of an audience, the Smartgeometry conference is participatory. ‘Cluster champions’, chosen by the conference coordinators, lead a group of technologically savvy participants to explore a single idea. Following a four-day intensive, the results are then presented at a two-day conference and exhibition. The cluster champions come from diverse backgrounds, changing yearly, and so 2014 saw participants from architecture, electrical engineering, computer engineering, theatre and environmental physics, to name a few.

The ensuing proposals make for an invigorating week, where diverse ideas are exchanged so to understand the impact and possibilities of new technology for the architectural profession. Some of the most signifi cant highlights at this year’s conference were: The Bearable Lightness of Being, where architects and engineers modelled and built the lightest possible pavilion structure they could imagine; Fulldome Projections, where an infl atable dome (large enough for ten people to walk inside) was constructed to create a three-dimensional environment that allowed for designs to be projected onto its interior volume, allowing visitors to visually experience a fl y-through render; and, Block, a computer game formulated in the game engine Unity3D to quantify and understand the building of a city block, where players compete against each other to create the ideal city.

This conference is at the edge of the architecture discipline in the sense that participants vary in their experience and backgrounds and use gaming software and complex algorithmic scripts to analyse ‘big data’, which is rarely understood or used in the typical architectural practice. However, at the start of the conference, Shane Burger, one of seven Smartgeometry directors, and director of design technology at Woods Bagot, reminded its participants that in its 2001 variant, the conference relied heavily on experimenting with Grasshopper – a scripting tool rarely used back then and yet is now readily implemented in architecture practice. A plugin for Rhino, Grasshopper is a modelling and scripting tool to help create complex designs. The tool’s use is varied: it can be simply representational, with the end result visualising renders; or analytical, where, for example, facade panels are algorithmically confi gured to maximise sun protection while limiting the number of panel types; or for production, where the

script is sent straight to the fabrication team to build. Given the diversity and potential of such tools, the conference could be seen to have a very important role in expanding tools for the profession and to address questions as to the idea of what architecture is today.

The most prescient observation from Smartgeometry 2014 Urban Compaction was that so many diff erent research clusters were using gaming software to visualise and analyse their proposals. With exceptional return of capital in the gaming market, it would not be surprising to see such highly developed programs become popular as new tools for architects. Games such as Minecraft generate millions of dollars in revenue as a result of the sheer volume of users and so it would be a smart move for architects to take a leap into this market, to capitalise on the software’s abilities to analyse, create eff iciency and production eff icacy.

Interestingly, the Block cluster, for example, used Unity3D – a game development ecosystem platform, which allowed them to design a collaborative computer game, with four key players working together to design a city block, where design proposals were analysed and provided feedback for the players in their game creations. With a fully functioning trial version available for free download it is not hard to see why architects are beginning to experiment. The potential to test designs and compatibilities of programmatic combinations makes this an engaging proposition for the architecture profession. The cluster was strategic in questioning the role of the architect within the city, as well as analytical, by wanting to provide data for the player to understand and respond. Block also highlighted the technical profi ciencies possible by introducing new software that could have a substantial impact on architectural visualisation in years to come.

The Block cluster leaders – Los Angeles architect, programmer and gaming developer, Jose Sanchez, computational and architectural designer, Satoru Sugihara, and architect and CG artist, Sergio Irigoyen – not only originate in the architecture profession but express a diverse range of skills, building on those gained from more traditional methods of architecture. The cluster opened up a series of questions as to the role of the architect in the city and the collaborative nature of the profession today and the wider conference paralleled such enquiry. The impact on new technology is an unstoppable force within the profession today – whether practices choose to get on board or not, or continue to struggle through with AutoCAD – these tools are nevertheless expanding architecture well beyond the traditional methods of practice and beyond the confi nes of architecture.

‹‹ Architecture has a responsibility to articulate social, political and economic forces into forms of higher collective aspirations – it’s always been a relational discipline. The emergence of tools allows for the democratisation of relevance and the consideration of more voices and parameters within the design process. EFG

‹‹ The traditional stages in design, and its conception through different scales, changes here. Elementary hierarchies are blurred, as all the elements are scaleless on screen and need to be integrated from the beginning of the process. MGR

Representational, analytical or productive modelling tools have weak relationships between ethical imperatives, data management and architectural form. If we’re to achieve a paradigm shift in the articulation of underrepresented voices an even stronger relationship between ethics, data and form is needed. EFG

›› Not only expanding but constituting a rewriting of the core business offerings of practices and changing the nature of practice itself. AB

›› Optimisation: not a proper architectural term as it entails the (non)-formulation of a position or argument by hiding the criteria to achieve this optimal condition. When this criteria is not public, it hides a lack of compromise to prevent any possible demand of reaction/positioning. MGR

›› Softwares change the way architecture is conceived, by necessarily simplifying its arguments/logics of representation/conception. Attempts to abandon marginalia end up reproducing a new marginal position regarding critique and argumentation. Assuming this simplification has to be understood as a conscious decision: the disdain of the marginal condition in order to join the mainstream is part of the BIM agreement. MGR

Interesting link to the changing workforce. If drafting is effectively ‘data entry’ and this is the obvious aspect to be outsourced, we need to be ready for a changing workplace paradigm, accepting that interconnected businesses with micro servicing of workflow components is only one of the massive changes to hit our businesses, brought on by technology (see The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee). We need to change our attitude to technology, from that of an optimiser to a source of innovation (value) and competitive advantage, which should be central to any business. AB

› This model of conference is one of the big wins that computational architecture has championed. Along with other tactical urbanist type happenings, I think there’s a ‘do more, say less’ philosophy here, which is great. AB

››

›

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018

UNDER CONSTRUCTION Amit Wolf

Exterior shell

Offi ce and vertical circulation

Public boardwork

Departures

Arrivals

Exploded Axonometric

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019


Section (top)

A Mechanical

B Office

C Port and cruise service

centre lobby

D International

conference hall

E Retail

F Boardwalk

G Departure lobby

H Arrivals lobby

I International security

J Document check

K International waiting

lounge

L International luggage

claim

M Service

N Parking

Circulation routes of

departing / embarking

passengers (above)

International travellers

Domestic travellers

O Domestic gate

P Domestic /

international gate

Q International gate

R Drop-off area

S Ticketing and check-in

T Escalators

U Exit / ground

transport

V Immigration / customs

BB

A

B

B

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HC L M

B

B

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EF

F D

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RUR ARCHITECTURE

KAOHSIUNG PORT ANDCRUISESERVICECENTRE

O

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Q

R

O

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U V

S

‹‹ An example of adjectives used to tell us what architecture is and to avoid the need to say what architecture actually does, delaying the real argument until the building. In the meantime, see Atlas of Novel Tectonics (Reiser and Umemoto, 2006). EFG

Taiwan’s push in Kaohsiung, Keelung and Kinmen to integrate global systems of transport and exchange

with leisure and civic functions collects and scrapes sea and sky. RUR Architecture’s (Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto) 38,800sqm Kaohsiung Port and Cruise Service Centre, the fi rst in this series, sets the stage for novel architecture for global cities. Alongside a masterplan for a raised promenade for Kaohsiung’s bustling waterfront, RUR also presents a distinctly elegant engagement with building possibilities and means. In general, within the three-part scheme, the centre’s public and retail segment, nestled between the arrival/departure concourses and the civic tower, is the more coherent and distinct structure. Integrating perimeter and core solutions, its underlying fi ve-storey diagrid reformulates the architecture of long-span shells. RUR’s work-up to the Port and Cruise Service Centre has seen real challenges, but

also real advances, within the economy of the steel-framed shell. The shell of the Wellington Bomber underlying RUR’s proposal for the 1994 Cardiff Bay Opera House (and the digital expansions on the geodetic system, as in the opera’s foyer) or the Yokohama Port Terminal competition a year later, a more classic truss system presenting an array of modulated sections, are obvious examples. Less obvious is the poured-concrete exoskeleton of O-14 in Dubai. (While it couldn’t be formally further from the steel shell, O-14’s concrete diagrid subscribes to the same logic of arched-truss purling: that of structural dynamics by which forces are checked transversely, across the arches). In all these examples, the steel-frame’s gauntness, a hallmark of truss logic, is worked-off by the eff ects of the fi nished surface.

The determining factor in Kaohsiung is the nested shells’ doubly laid steel-truss system, which is sandwiched by 20,000 →



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→ aluminium cladding panels. RURstrategically placed the service areas(vertical circulation, MEP and buildingservices) at the extremities of the structure,forming a double skin that spans up to 10metres. The decision to overlay a secondarystructure behind the primary trusses isconfi rmed when examined from theboardwalk below, along the water’s edge.Readings of the interior section becomeambiguous, so while the five lobedprotrusions and centre-to-edge conditionspersist, the slab datum is erased andfrustrated, resulting in what RUR terms a‘solid-state’ volume. This condition isadeptly maintained in the tower. Forces aredistributed along the set primary/secondarydialectics, moving obliquely between coreand shell. Paralleling the public spaces thatform its base, the tower’s dispositionextends yet a sixth lobe, crowned, in turn, bythe open-span penthouse floor.

The currency and lustrous glory ofRUR’s Kaohsiung Port and Cruise ServiceCentre show this achievement to be neitherthe overtly rationalised form one wouldcome to expect, but neither is it the finaltransference of architecture’s currentambitions into building. What remainsbetween the two, in fact, can be found in thecentre’s departure concourse, where it isdiscernible as a relatively minute, reticularshell. Made of equal parts of steel and light,it is an objet trouvé that originates in thefully-developed-yet-never-realised giant-

robot stage of the Taipei Pop Music Centre,built in tandem by RUR and closelyconnected to the Port and Cruise ServiceCentre. This marginalised robotic trajectoryof the Pop Music Centre, and its latestexpression here, is to stress once more thatthe Port and Cruise Service Centre is neversimply a feat all to its own. If one is drawn tothis architecture, it is because somethingessential to the field’s future condition hasbeen accomplished.

Model images

1. Water side

2. North elevation

3. Road side

4. Gates

5. Boardwalk

6. Land side at night

7. International lobe

interior

Panelisation (right)

Side panels

bent in place

twisted

Curved panels

single curve

double curve

Flat panels

canopy

tower

lobe walls

lobe inner

lobe underside

lobe roof

All images courtesy

RUR Architecture

‹ The project explores the potential structural condition of the poché (a sort of contemporary ‘opus caementicium’ that can be inhabited). This exploration is conceptually more advanced than certain Deconstructivist examples. The structural occupation of the inlay can be traced back to Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and his Statue of Liberty (see Greg Lynn’s Folds, Bodies & Blobs: Collected Essays (La Lettre volée, 1998). MGR

Tilted Roof Plan Roof Structure

Curved glazing

Flat glazing

Standing seam roof

Curved panels

Flat panels

Side panels



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INTERVIEW Michael Holt

022

Michael Holt MoMA’s architectureexhibitions were established by thearchitect Philip Johnson and willsoon be curated by academic MartinoStierli, what did you bring to the roleas chief curator?

Barry Bergdoll The main thing I brought to[the role] was an interest in the two-waystreet between contemporary concerns andhistorical work – given the museum hasalways struggled with what it means to bemodern or contemporary,1 since Alfred HBarr diagrammed what a ‘modern’ museumcould be. Art is a consciousness as to therelationship between the historical and thecontemporary. I was interested in thatspecificity of MoMA, which brought its ownhistory and was one of a handful ofcollecting institutions in the world. I had adetermination to work with originalmaterials, so an architectural department ina museum that was collecting materialsheld exhibitions that would reflect the ideaof collecting – even if that’s changing in adigital world.

MH The most notable exhibitsthroughout your tenure seem to focuson the American Dream, with ideaspertaining to Modernism andmodernity, how do these exhibits openup discussions on the discipline?

BB The interesting thing about HomeDelivery was I knew the danger in using thehouse to talk about the nature of fabrication,but I was fighting from the beginning that itwas perceived as an ideal home or lifestyleexhibition.2 I used the house because it wassomething that allowed a lay audience to

make a connection to the exhibition, but itwas really asking ‘is there a paradigm shiftbetween mass standardisation and masscustomisation with the return fascination infactory-produced architectures that werebrought in by the digital tools ofarchitecture?’ I wanted to try to push that,but also to push the connections with theirown history, to call into question the ideathat there had been such a paradigm shiftand that the earlier history of prefabricationwas not relevant.

MH There may be suspicion with thenotion of Modernism in currentarchitectural practice – believing it tobe contradictory. How do you see therole of Modernism in the contemporary?

BB It’s a perplexing question becausesuddenly we’re all talking Modernism againon the other side of Postmodernism.Modernism and modernity are terms thatcan be either independent or wrapped upwith one another: modernity (moderntimes), modernisation (a political program ofrationalisation of efficiency, of deliberatetransformation of society, politics, economics)and Modernism (an artistic expression of thoseother two phenomena). So, is this Modernisma form of revivalism or an attempt to almostwrite Postmodernism out as an interlude, oris it Postmodern-Modernism?3 Because thecondition of Postmodernism, as it’s beendiscussed philosophically, is with us even ifthe stylistic expression of Postmodernism isnot of interest to architects whointellectualise their practice. Rem Koolhaaswith the [2014 Venice Architecture]Biennale is riding the wave of that questionbecause suddenly we’re asked to addressthe idea of absorbing modernity – notice hedoesn’t say ‘absorbing Modernism’, ratherhe says ‘absorbing modernity’.

MH The architectural climate is onewhere stylistic endeavours are lessdefined and rational methods ofproduction are becoming more complex,what is then the impact on production?

BB If you go beyond the common notion thatEuropean Modernism – the ModernMovement – had a social purpose and infact had more formalist concerns, you’ll seethat such a condition is past because this is

a condition of generally a small group, whosaw themselves as the avant-garde inconfrontation with established conditions.4And, the fact that we now live in a set ofaccepted modern conditions, what kind ofarchitecture would either be a resistance tothe status quo or would seek to be theleading edge of some critical activity? Ithink one of the biggest issues right now ishow to return the sense of missions – social,ecological, etc. – to architecture, withoutreducing it simply to technique.5 That’s whyI think there’s such a lively backlash againstsustainability, against LEED accreditation,against all of these things that have becomesimply quantitative exercises – anautomatism that have almost becomevacant pieties.6

MH Does the role of the architect needto shift or evolve to prevent it fromsuccumbing to external forces?

BB During my time at MoMA I have tried tobe the best advocate possible forarchitecture and actually counteractarchitecture’s own self-destructivetendencies: to save it from vague defeatismor the whole celebrity culture of‘starchitecture’, which, despite the fact thatonly a handful of architects are in publicview, they’ve actually marginalised theactivity of architecture. The problem is thatit obscured research and work that might behappening in other quarters. Some of themost interesting things are new types ofinterdisciplinary collaboration – not ones inwhich architecture simply becomes thehand servant of ecology, law, social factionsetc. – a truer conversation in whicharchitecture can still take a leading role andis enriched by these conversations.I’m not interested in throwing our handsup;7 I’m interested in empoweringarchitecture. Architects need to try toconvince public officials that architecture isa creative way of thinking that is also aboutproblem-solving;8 that is, let’s have thedesign professions be part of theconversation at the outset rather than callthem in to figure out how to make anattractive entry or exit into something that’sbeen designed by an engineer, or value-engineered out of existence by agovernment bureaucrat.9 10

Barry Bergdoll is the Meyer Schapiro professor of art history in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University; he has recently stepped down from his role as chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

1 A disciplinary problem, we struggle to understand differences between fashionable and avant-garde; a central topic in discussions held between Mark Wigley and Peter Eisenman at Columbia University’s In Dialogue series – ‘classifying’ architects according to these categories, e.g. OM Ungers. MGR

² Interesting parallel with digital fabrication techniques or parametric design tools. The discussion is out of focus: it shouldn’t be centred on the means of production but in the pertinence of its results. MGR

3 An interesting observation: confl uence of Modernism and Postmodernism into a

confused contemporary understanding – could be an essay of its own. ML

4 This is precisely a good defi nition of what marginal contemporaneity means: a set of illuminated individuals (aware or unaware of their own condition regarding society). The avant-garde condition is an attempt to over-categorise. MGR

5 Agreed. Technological advances need to account for something more than just factual output. ML

6 ‘Radical pragmatism’ points to a bureaucratic discipline, a ‘pleasing all’ outside of architectural discourse. ML

7 The architect should be leading other factions

within the discipline and inventing solutions, rather than remaining idle at the hands of clients/developers etc. ML

8 The idea of the ‘architect as a luxury’ has been installed in society, mainly due to the starchitects’ refusal to engage in discussions from a prominent position. MGR

9 This reduction implies program, and other principal components of architectural practice, have been taken out from the design equation. MGR

10 The follow-on question links back to the editorial, once you have a seat at the table, what are you going to say? AB

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ON TRIAL Juenan Wu

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ON TRIAL Juenan Wu

025

01. Main stadium,

National Sports

Complex, Phnom Penh.

02. Diving platform,

National Sports


03. Lecture rooms,

Institute of Foreign

Languages, Phnom

Penh.

04. Press booth,

National Sports


Images courtesy

Callum Andrews. All

photography shot on

35mm film.

A sweeping elevated concrete walkway greets visitors at the campus of the Institute of Foreign

Languages (IFL) in Phnom Penh – the oldest and largest university in Cambodia. Walking along the path one’s eyes are drawn towards the rhythmic vertical fi ns along the linear balconies and led up to the lofty hexagonal roof beams that form the datum between building and sky. To the left of the main building stand four whimsical lecture halls perched on zigzagging columns, with roof elements reminiscent of the Greek key. Between the academic building and the lecture halls is a circular library building enclosed in a glazed facade, providing panoramic views; deep concrete columns surround the exterior, providing both structure and shade. While it is 32 degrees Celsius outside, the space inside the buildings on campus feel cool and shaded, without the need for air-conditioning. The campus is populated with rectangular refl ecting pools, sometimes freestanding, sometimes forming rings around buildings, making the hot climate much more pleasant to bear. It is hard to believe that these marvellous buildings are few of those still intact and in use by Cambodia’s most infl uential Modernist architect, Vann Molyvann. Because of his exalted status structures have been either destroyed or damaged from decades of war and an unstable political climate; the Vann Molyvann Project is working to protect his remaining structures and to restore his archives destroyed during the Khmer Rouge.

The IFL campus is typical of Vann Molyvann’s unique style, blending Khmer traditions with a Modernist sensibility. A symphony of concrete and brick, the buildings’ Corbusian inspired structural forms pair with the serene refl ecting pools that pay homage to ancient Angkor temples. The central academic building’s

pinwheel plan is emphatically Modernist and the 22 robust hexagonal concrete beams arraying perpendicular to each side of the roof in turn dramatically emphasise the pinwheel form. The circular library, on the other hand, takes its form from the traditional Khmer straw hat – continuous trapezoidal columns reference the hat shape as they ring around the circumference. The elevated walkways connecting buildings on the second fl oor can be read as heroic Modernist gestures, but they also serve a circulation necessity during the rainy season in summer when the ground fl oods, a condition specifi c to this region of Southeast Asia. Even at the scale of a balustrade, Vann uses the Modernist medium of bare concrete to forge an abstracted version of the nāga, a six-headed serpent of Khmer mythology. Throughout the IFL campus, both strikinglysculptural and in harmony with its environment, one can sense Vann’s distinct style – a Modernism supported by history and saturated with tradition. Unfortunately,most of Vann’s buildings that exist today have either fallen into disrepair or face imminent demolition by profi t-driven developers, an alarming trend in Phnom Penh due to its rapid and chaotic development. Vann’s exceptional structuresare barely known to the general public, withfew outside Cambodia aware of his name.

How did a once prolifi c architect with both infl uence and skill fall into near obscurity? How did the once lauded and celebrated buildings fade from a society’s collective consciousness within the span of a generation? While an exploration of Vann Molyvann’s story chronicles one architect’s forced journey from fame to exiledue to war and corruption, it also illustrates the tenuous relationship between the architect at large and the society for which he builds. →

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

O N TR IAL

‹ ‘The unbearable slightness of the architectural form’ (a variant of the Milan Kundera novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984) – certain effects or qualitative situations reproduced without recalling the original form. MGR

‹ What is the difference between operating in the margins and the condition of exile as a detachment from local recognition? The marginalisation could be a self-imposed constraint working in our favour, e.g. Georges Perec writing A Void (1969) without the letter ‘e’. It is possible that the ‘marginal’ could be a creative impulse. ML

What history do we choose to reconstruct or pay homage to? Architectural authorship, fame or stardom are all different words that refer to a relatively recent construct within architectural thought. It seems to be a necessary ingredient within contemporary historiographies as if architecture, today, depends on it. I hope we can forget such terms. EFG

Other exiled architects: Lubetkin, Erskine or Goldfi nger in the UK, but also Vilanova Artigas in Brazil – projects built in a domestic exile. Trying to prove political independence of the architectural form is fi ctitious. The political sense is evident, not only in propagandistic terms, but in the spatial materialisation of a certain way of occupying a space. Propagandistic and spatial content of architecture can be ideologically in confl ict, e.g. Giuseppe Terragni and the Fascist party. Putting propaganda and space in confl ict does not prevent the intrinsic political agenda of architecture. MGR

›

›



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ON TRIAL Juenan Wu

026

→ Following its independence from France in 1953, Cambodia enjoyed a period of prosperity during the 1950s and 1960s, spawning a rapid building boom. Vann, then a young architect in his early thirties, became the central fi gure who spearheaded Phnom Penh’s urban development initiative under the leadership of King Norodom Sihanouk. The fi rst Cambodian to be trained in Europe, Vann brought his considerable experience and knowledge from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris back home and designed many of the city’s most iconic structures. With over a hundred projects in Phnom Penh and around Cambodia, Vann was fast becoming one of the most respected fi gures in the country. All progress, however, came to a halt when Cambodia succumbed to civil war in 1970. The visionary King Sihanouk was deposed and the Khmer Rouge besieged the nation. Pol Pot’s regime brutalised the country with horrifi c genocide and destruction and Cambodia did not see peace for another two decades. With the architect forced to fl ee the country, seeking refuge in Switzerland, Vann’s buildings became dilapidated, misused and his archives were largely destroyed.

Vann returned to his home country in 1991 after Cambodia attained a fragile peace, but it was far from triumphant. The once revered architect now found himself relegated to the backlogs of history and his buildings remain hidden in plain sight. Indeed, Vann Molyvann is often in articles declared as the ‘neglected architect’, the unsung hero. Even the Vann Molyvann Project – an eff ort dedicated to documenting Vann’s existing buildings – started only after a New York-based architect stumbled upon his structures during a trip to Southeast Asia. The formerly communist Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) currently in power has much less interest in architectural ingenuity than King Sihanouk. Though the CCP approved Vann’s request for the return of his villa, Vann’s public buildings are one by one succumbing to bigger and faster developments on pace with the rapidly expanding Asian economy. In the frenzied pursuit of economic gain, the CPP is not only jeopardising important cultural icons but also threatening the ecology of the site around the buildings. Vann’s National Sports Complex (1964) [now known as Olympic Stadium, though it hasn’t hosted an Olympic Games] built for the 1966 Games of the New Emerging Forces [set up by Indonesia], for example, was designed with refl ecting pools similar to those at the IFL, where he meant to both allude to the Angkor temples and to temper the eff ects of seasonal fl ooding. Under the CPP, the pools around the stadium have been removed to

make room for more profi table developments, causing the area around the stadium to fl ood constantly. After his return to Cambodia, Vann headed the committee responsible for the protection of the Angkor temples and was instrumental in maintaining the authenticity of the area by keeping hotels and restaurants away from the hallowed temple grounds. But because of those very eff orts the CPP deemed Vann unfi t for the role, for he was not welcoming new development.

It is a bleak state of architecture, when architecture that is both as beautiful and sensible as Vann’s becomes lost to the collective cultural knowledge. His ability to walk the balance between theory and practicality, intuitive fl ourish and rational rigor, traditional values and Modernist aesthetics, is rare if not unequalled. It is a joy to experience and explore Vann’s buildings, making it all the more unfortunate that they have become a cultural afterthought. Though it is deplorable that war, corruption and political shifts have deprived generations of architects of the artistry of Vann’s work, there may be a silverlining. Vann’s struggles could infl uence architecture more than just on the art of building making. The thirst for profi t and progress is an ever-present force and attempts to preserve the past while ignoringthe force of development are bound to fail. After a nation has been ravaged by decadesof warfare and poverty, is it not perhaps unfair to ask for the halt of well-deserved economic progress in the name of historic preservation as a kind of fetishised nostalgia? Vann’s journey demonstrates thatprogress will happen regardless of circumstance and to blindly fi ght the thirst for economic boom is to end up on the losing side.

It becomes the architect’s responsibilitythen to work with, not against, the current ofdevelopment. The architect must step beyond the design perspective and truly engage with the economic and political forces that dictate our environment. To workclosely with developers and decision-makers so that development becomes moreinformed and better considered. The point is to better recognise the driving factors in society so that we are prepared to help direct it. Preserving the physical entities of abuilding will serve a society more fruitfully when combined with activating the importance of the built environment in the minds of society. The arc of history shows that though rapid economic growth will bulldoze much of history in its wake, yet once the building boom subsides, the society is often beset with a sense of loss and a longing for cultural identity. The cultural aftermath of such rampant development, however, is often not felt or

recognised until years, if not decades, later, when most of the heritage has been taken over by identical steel and glass skyscrapers. Architects should lead the way in balancing the scale between unchecked growth and emphasising the past at the expense of the present. Vann’s work inspires wonder and deserves reverence; he beautifully moulds the concepts of Modernism into Cambodia’s cultural and regional specifi city. Vann Molyvann’s buildings have earned their place in the architectural canon and much is to be learned from their design and implementation. To truly keep Vann’s legacy from the brink of lost memories is to spread his ideas and illustrate their importance, all the while working to keep his work from total destruction. As such, surely today the architecture profession can learn how to create sensible and culturally relevant buildings within the frame of the global economy.

‹ Two possible ways: 1. The Groucho Marx motto: ‘These are my principles, and if you don’t like them ... well, I have others’ and its contemporary version (‘Yes is More’); 2. The overused metaphor of Melville’s Bartleby as an architect: ‘I would prefer not to.’ MGR

‹ The dangers of working within the system reside in the production of illusory or insignifi cant change yet sill having a sense of accomplishment, while still perpetuating the ills within the system. The virtues of working within the system, is the possibility to truly change it. EFG

An interesting notion could be historical heritage approached from a purely spatial point of view. Then buildings would be considered for their spatial potential to respond to particular needs or situations, as well as to trigger new uses and appropriations. MGR

‹ Also discussed in Bergdoll’s interview (p022). Architects can’t be seen to be stopping progress; perhaps there’s a middle ground in helping to direct change. Strong opposition pushes the architect further from the decision-making table. ML

‹ This could be discussed in terms of the loss of important historical artefacts, such as Vann’s work, but it also should be considered in terms of gentrifi cation; even without architectural icons, the same destruction can occur. ML

›



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INTERVIEW Thomas Hale

028

Thomas Hale Are architects currentlymarginalised in the procurement andproduction process in the constructionof the built environment?

Ben Hewett One of the statements [in‘Preview’ to AR138–Margins] was the ideathat the profession’s posturing is leaving itmarginalised. That’s an important point forthe profession to recognise. As architects,we do have a ‘false consciousness’ andwe’re unaware of how we project our skillsets or our value. This is not limited toarchitects, but it’s that basic understandingof your audience. We can be apathetic, notas a representative group, but more in theroles architects are choosing to play, leadingus to fall into the margin. If you understandthe profession in simplistic terms as adichotomy – the design architect versus thebusiness of architecture – then hopefullyyou soon realise that you can’t have onewithout the other. It’s ridiculous to putarchitecture into a binary condition, toreinforce those stereotypes, as the disciplineis expansive in its possibilities of practisingor operating. It is encouraging to see thelikes of Graham Jahn [director of cityplanning, development and transport, Cityof Sydney] and Bridget Smyth [designdirector, City of Sydney] as architectssetting the parameters for architecture,either in the planning or procurementcontext and making a significant difference.

TH Is there an immediate problem inrelation to the distinction between‘profession’ and ‘discipline’?

BH As a profession we spend most of ourtime talking about our differences, whichare minor in comparison to our commonalities.I’m a member of the profession but speak ofthe discipline, which includes the profession

and academia, journalism, non-registeredarchitects, etc. To be more inclusive indescribing architecture is more effectivein communicating our value to thegeneral public.

Architects are easily manipulated viaour continual focus on individuality, which isperhaps an inheritance of the ‘hero’architect. The general perception of architectsis that we’re egotistical, believing we’reartists, and so can be easily played offagainst each other in an environment of feecutting or opinion seeking. We need to betterconsolidate our strategic position and presentthat back to government to inform policy1and to explain our value and shift the system.

TH If advocacy2, policy input anddecision-making are projections of apossible future, is there a place forvision or an ideological view?

BH Yes and there’s an interesting tension inthat: architects offer vision and pragmatics,which is a positive combination that isn’temployed as much as it might be. All toooften architects are labelled as experts inone or the other. In many ways my dailyactivities are removed from architecturalideologies but everything I push for,facilitate or implement, is at the core ofwhat constitutes good design. And part ofthis is refuting the common statementemployed to disregard an architect’sopinion: ‘design is subjective’. For instance,in our design review program we establishobjectivity as a key principle of good review,with five people on a panel setting asidepersonal preferences and working togetherto form a view around the design merits of aproposal, according to principles that we’veestablished as criteria for good design.Obviously disagreement occurs but theprocess of argument establishes theposition I will take and formalise in my role.

TH In current discussions on officedesign, tenants want maximal floor-to-ceiling heights while developersdemand floor-to-floor targets, whichultimately affects the leasable areawithin a development envelope,leading to commercial viability –does this create a disjunction wherewe are designing without knowledgeof the framework?

BH That’s really a question of therelationship of economics with planning.But it also recognises the success of designin some ways, because the recognition ofgood quality environments, amenity andnatural light drives higher returns and, as weknow, the floor-to-floor height in a tower canbe critical in many ways but any change infloor height can mean significant costs interms of envelope.3 During the designprocess, architects ultimately balance therelationship between planning andeconomics. That experience and knowledgeis important to feed back into when theconditions are being set, which allows theopportunity for more architects to bestrategically involved in planningand/or economics.

TH If we operate in a professionalcontext that proliferates the ‘hero’architect status and stagnate inModernist sensibility – replicatingrather than inventing – is the disciplineable to change?

BH Is that process ever going to change?Hasn’t copying4 those you admire orworking through their approach to informyour own always happened?5 For the mostpart when the Modernist idiom is replicatedit becomes generic, which is problematic forthe city. In terms of the discipline being ableto change, we need to focus less on being ahero and more on where the most differencecan be made. When we, as a profession,lead the stages with the most interactionand strategic influence, then we have farmore impact on the wider context.And this is also important in terms ofcommunicating. For every talk I give withinthe discipline I try to do two outside of it,6 soI better understand how to communicatethe value of the discipline. It’s aboutconstructing intelligible responses, knowingwhen we talk within the discipline it’s asophisticated specialised language; butwhen we talk to those outside we need to bevery clear and far more precise.7 We can’tcontinue to be a victim complaining thatsociety just doesn’t understand architects.The value of communicating simply andeffectively is paramount and until we’re ableto discuss our value collectively in thoseterms we need to stop complaining aboutthose not recognising our importance.

Ben Hewett is the South Australian government architect and executive director in the Offi ce of Design and Architecture SA. He was recently appointed an adjunct professor in architecture at University of Technology, Sydney.

¹ Not just to the government but to clients – in a capitalist system playing architects off each other is a problem, leading to smaller fees. Unifying the discipline and respect among the architectural community will strengthen our individual position. ML

² A new architectural buzz word – like sustainability. Everyone seems to discuss ‘advocacy’ in a generic sense. What does it mean? And why are architects taking on this role? ML

³ This is a generalisation, as the fl oor-to-fl oor height depends on many

other parameters, such as glazing surface. The isolation of a single parameter and the establishment of a 1-to-1 relation with daylight ratios is reductive, therefore, subjective (deliberately or not). MGR

4 Generalisation. There are many examples of

inventing by copying, many contemporary practices have made this their leitmotiv (i.e. Fake Industries Architectural Agonism). There are high degrees of innovation and exploration in this copycatting act (assumed or not). MGR

5 I agree this happens, but don’t agree that it

should be an accepted idea. Precedents, when used by students at university to learn design, are dangerous and lead to this method being acceptable to the general public. ML

6 As noted in the Editorial. Audience: engaging within architecture,

as well as external. An important distinction. ML

7 IKEA-like descriptions end up in a banalisation of the message by attempting to reach a broader audience. MGR

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FEATURE Clare Sowden

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01-02. Orange, New

Jersey, 2011. Images

used in Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, Museum of

Modern Art as part of

MOS’s Thoughts on a

Walking City. Images

courtesy Christopher

Woebken.

‘The skyscraper is a machine that makes land pay,’ according to Cass Gilbert, the architect of the

Woolworth Building in 1913 – an early New York City skyscraper. Yet despite Gilbert’s enunciation and the Woolworth Building being known as the ‘cathedral of commerce’ it was not a commercial success, as stated in Carol Willis’ Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago. Indeed, it was critic George Hill who explained the relationship between margin and program in ‘The Economy of the Off ice Building’, published in Architectural Record from 1904, stating: ‘an off ice building’s prime and only object is to earn the greatest possible return for its owners, which means that it must present the maximum of rentable space possible on the lot.’ In short, he believed the only measure of a building’s success was the return derived from the land. In his opinion any unnecessary ornamentation was perverting the course of someone else’s money.

Utilising capital for investment in property is not new, although contemporary sources of capital are sometimes less direct. Interestingly, at the 19th AsRES Annual Conference (Gold Coast, Australia, 14-16 July 2014), RMIT University’s Wejendra Reddy presented ‘How Asset Consultants Infl uence Institutional Property Allocation Decisions: An Australian Study’, suggesting that everyone is bound to the mechanisms of speculation through the superannuation system, with 10 percent of capital from most superannuation funds allocated to the

real estate sector. Australian superannuation funds are the country’s major institutional property investors, with the benefi ts and downside risks of market fl uctuations in fact borne by the populace itself – collectively, the population are the primary investors in the built environment, not just the consumers.

Thus, the superannuation system and investment choices connect the populace with the business of speculation. In turn, speculative development has always been intertwined with the business of architecture. In his address to the American Institute of Architects in 1923 architectural historian, Barr Ferree, said that there was: ‘… no greater evil in architectural study than isolation [that a] building represents a coordination of events, each of which is essential to its proper understanding. A building requires a full knowledge of the events of the time in which they were built for their complete understanding, just as a biography of a man must include the events of his lifetime.’

The analysis of the economic and fi nancial paradigms impacting on the procurement of architecture projects remains as relevant today as has been the case previously; however, it could be argued that much architectural discourse has buried such analysis under rhetoric on style, method and aesthetic heroes. For example, architectural histories of the skyscrapers oft detail the planning, design and material advances that gave rise to vertical construction and neglect to detail the →

THE MACHINE THAT MAKES LAND PAY

‹‹ It would be interesting to consider the heights of a certain city’s downtown buildings as a bar diagram of its economic development. MGR

‹‹ It is interesting to consider the date of this publication and how generally the yield from clients today demands a similar economy. However Ben Hewett’s interview (p028) points to recent trends in a more design-focused clientèle, demanding ‘greater fl oor to ceiling’. ML

‹ I often use the quote from Susannah Hagan, ‘Architecture is a mongrel not a thoroughbred. It has no “purity” and no “independence”. It is form and function and symbol and technology. Its means and ends are various, and it is welded to the actual world whether we like it or not by money.’ (Digitalia: Essays on the digital, the environment and the avante-garde, Routledge, 2008, p23). AB



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→ commercial and financial histories thatunderlie the events and times in which thetypology arose.

The machine that makes land pay is notjust the skyscraper; all types of buildings aredevices for generating revenue from onceidle plots of pasture. Be it on the greenfringes of cities to the once wholesomebastion of public land, revenue can now besought from all types of land. Evengovernments who once relied on anexpanding tax base for increases to revenuenow seek to unleash capital from ‘lazy’ realestate assets. It seems land must be madeto pay and everyone is involved.

In order for any speculator to reap areturn from their investment they must atsome point in the cycle endeavour toemploy, converse or lunch with an architect.The architect is intrinsically linked in theprocess of maximising one’s return fromtheir plot. The machine is no good without aprofessional who knows how to play it,knows its rules, its idiosyncrasies and,ultimately, someone who knows how to pullthe handle. As it is upon pulling the handleof the machine that the plot becomes real,that the profit is created. The architectmetaphorically draws forth for thespeculator the sounds of the Queen of theNile poker machine and the physicalmanifestation of what the plot can become.

Architecture’s relationship to economicsand capital is oft portrayed as complex, yetlike most transactional services it can beunderstood in simple terms. In 1893 BarrFerree – again addressing the AmericanInstitute of Architects – observed: ‘Americanarchitecture is not a matter of art, but ofbusiness. A building must pay or there willbe no investor ready with the money to meetits cost.’

The business of architecture and thebusiness of speculative development aretransactional and their relationship can beunderstood in direct terms. Yet the tradingof real estate in its more abstract form onmarkets, in portfolios and as financialinstruments, forms a more esoteric reality.

Parlay these ideas forward to 2008 andthe subprime housing crisis – morecommonly referred to as the GlobalFinancial Crisis – brought to light thetrading of abstracted value of housing anddebt through derivative instruments.

The repackaging of financial productsand the link to architecture were explored inthe exhibition House Housing: An UntimelyHistory of Architecture and Real Estate inNineteen Episodes – an ongoing, multi-yearresearch project conducted by the TempleHoyne Buell Centre for the Study ofAmerican Architecture at ColumbiaUniversity. The research most recentlyappeared in Casa Muraro in Venice, inresponse to Fundamentals, the 2014 Venice

Architecture Biennale, curated by RemKoolhaas, with the most salient example ofthe relationship of housing, debt and theeconomy outlining the foreclosure crisis of2008 in the episode, ‘Housing as a Matter ofLife and Debt’. In this, the mortgage (debt toequity) equation is explored and financialcredit is pronounced a matter of ‘life anddebt’; where even after death, one cannotescape one’s debt. The exhibition sought touse a domestic sphere and devices toillustrate and ‘consider architecture’seconomic fundamentals, which locatehousing at the centre of the currenteconomic regime’.

In addition to the exhibition, a paneldiscussion opened up a critical conversationon the roles played by finance, real estateand their imaginaries, architecture. Thediscussion was titled ‘Fundamental #13’ andwas intended as a supplement to Koolhaas’#12 Fundamentals, focusing on the shift infunding for housing from public sources intoa tradeable, securitisable asset and itsrecirculation in markets as real estate. Thepanel recognised that real estate is themachine that allows for substance to beconverted into capital and back again.

Interestingly, it was the physicality ofreal estate assets that initially drewinvestors due to their tangible nature, asRichard Ely, known as the father of landeconomics, stated: ‘the prudent purchase ofland is a better investment for the ordinaryman than stocks or bonds as in land he doesnot pit his judgement against a Board.’

The paradigm of real estate and thuscities, however, is immaterial, as real estateis commoditised and can be traded onmarkets, packaged up in portfolios andfinancial instruments and sold on with itsmost discerning characteristic – its yieldand return on investment. The conversion ofthe physical (architecture) into theimmaterial (financial instruments) and backagain, through the machine of real estatetransactions, is intrinsically and inextricablylinked, with the subprime crisis of 2008,highlighting how the machine that makesland pay encompasses us all.

03. View of Woolworth

Building. Image courtesy

The Pictorial News Co.,

N.Y. No. NN 98., Library

of Congress, Prints and

Photographs Division.

04-05. Images as part

of House Housing: AnUntimely History ofArchitecture and RealEstate in NineteenEpisodes, Casa

Muraro, Calle Barbaro,

Dorsoduro 350, 30123

Venezia

June 5–16, 2014,

Images courtesy The

Temple Hoyne Buell

Center for The Study of

American Architecture

Graduate School of

Architecture, Planning

and Preservation,

Columbia University.

This is a capitalistview of the builtenvironment. Otherapproaches couldinclude visions ofbuildings as socialdevices (Vincenza’sBasilica Palace) ortemporary installationsquestioning theestablishment (CedricPrice’s Kentish TownAction Centre).Profitability is only oneof the possible factors totackle, nor is it the mostrelevant even for thosesponsoring construction(see Rolex LearningCentre, SANAA, whichdirectly produces noincome for its maindonor but remainsinscribed in a largercampaign of marketingand franchising). MGR

Nor just the building.What does it saythat increasingly thebusiness of architectureis making moneythrough consultancyand strategy, not justbuilding? AB

It is sometimes sadlyforgotten that thearchitect is a necessityin the building process.ML

› This equation can besolved in many differentways, depending onthe creativity of thoseinvolved agents. ML

› While this is all true,the charter, equally,puts the architect intoan ethically responsibleposition – a quasi publicservant, who needs to beprepared to say no. AB

› The general conceptionof liveable spacesfrom a perspective of‘minimums’ is one of thepossible origins of thesubprime crisis. Cheaplyreproduced buildingsbought as an investmentoffered in financialterms. A disposable‘architecture’. Thequestioning of thiscondition is marginaland often criticised froman economic point ofview. MGR

03

04

05

Our relationship to our homes, propelled by media, has become an investment question. So the concept of the family (multi-generational) home is something that needs to be addressed in terms of the ‘enduring city’. Have we forgotten how to layer public space through time? Is this happening with the home as well? AB

›

›

›

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INTERVIEW Thomas Hale

034

Thomas Hale Is architectureexperiencing an ‘end of ideology’by endlessly replicating as opposedto inventing or critiquing and doesarchitecture even need ideologicalpositions?

Camilla Block I think there are people tryingto steer the boat and those in the wake ofthe boat; those trying to steer are the peoplemaking policies and deciding the frameworkunder which architects work and those inthe wake are the small practitioners. You’renot necessarily guiding your own projects –it’s a bit of a top down approach. Architectsare easily manipulated because it’s easy topit them against each other. I think so muchof our profession’s lack of control in theindustry has to do with our inability to worktogether on practical matters – having avoice in the way contracts are written, whatwe can charge [in relation to] how muchwork we do, etc. Those are less aboutideology and more about setting up our heftto the profession.

TH Sou Fujimoto recently saidthere was a culture in the Japanesearchitecture fraternity, whereestablished practitioners activelysupport the upcoming generation.1Is there any such value to thisapproach in Australia?

CB I was recently in Copenhagen andheard things I’ve never heard said outsideof the architecture profession, commentsmade by politicians and planners. Forinstance, the new Danish arts policy saysthat ‘we need to value the cost ofarchitecture as an investment’. Have youever heard anyone but architects say that?Instead, we have ‘value managing’, which isalmost the sinister underside of that.Interestingly, I also heard that when land is

parcelled up it is sold for the ‘right’ price notthe highest price – that was a jaw-droppingmoment! The Danes also want to give youngoffices a chance, for example, NORDArchitects – who are coming out here soon– were invited to do a competition for acancer outpatients building. They werechosen largely because they had never doneit before, all the other [entrants] had.The jury was looking for a ‘new way’, sothey chose architects who’d never done ahospital. [The decision was] not driven byyears of experience as to the most efficientcorridor widths and the best way to make ahospital building by default. I do think thatnurturing new ways is actually clampeddown in the way we work [here]. One of ourpotential clients once said to us, ‘I don’tmind innovation just as long as it has beendone before’.2

TH In an industry that seems tocultivate a symbiotic relationshipbetween smaller practices (knownfor their design excellence) and largerpractices (known for their labourcapability), how do young practicesprogress? Do they necessarily needto partner with larger practices?

CB It’s very difficult to generalise; wewere lucky with BVN Architecture asAbbie Galvin [BVN director] wasparticularly supportive in the competitionstage and then was respectful enough tolet us develop it [Durbach Block Jaggers,in association with BVN Architecture, wona design competition held by UTS]. So it’snot about polarised roles, if it is then youhave to ask why would those larger firmsbother when they’ve got their own designability? They don’t need smaller offices tocome in; you could poorly weight therelationship where the smaller office has nonegotiating power. You would’ve pitched itas ‘we’re just the fluff and you guys have gotthe real muscle’. The key is you have theright mindset with the office you’repartnering with, because it can work outthat a larger office swallows the designwhole. There is a point, though, where onpaper you don’t have the right professionalindemnity insurance box to tick, but thereshould be some ability to demonstrate youhave delivered projects and know whatyou’re doing.

We need a real overhaul on contractswith clients. When you’re given an onerouscontract by an institution or a client, youhave no bargaining power because you’retrying to get a job. We should, whether it’sthe institute or the board, get standardcontracts in place that come with a feescale, even a guide, because we are cuttingeach other’s toes off to get work. As ourrisks increase our fees reduce.

TH Would you say that we have cededprofessional responsibility as a result ofrisk aversion; and, if so, how has risklimited our engagement in design,construction and city building?

CB We’ve got to the point where we’re soobsessed with what might go wrong that wespoil it for everyone else.3 At some point youhave to weigh up the question, ‘are wecrippling the experience for everybody inexchange for ameliorating a relatively smallrisk?’ The Danes are taking massive risks,not just in creating accessible space but[deciding that] every 400mm step doesn’tneed a handrail. Obviously their accessibilitylaws are different to ours but anotherexample is at a larger scale, where they’reopening up their school playgrounds aspublic space. So instead of what we’re doing[in Australia], slowly fencing and shuttingdown due to insurance, the Danes are doingthe opposite. They have a policy in place toopen up.

TH How important is precedent in yourwork and how do you view the use ofmotif and style in the conceptualformation and actualisation of a project?

CB If you go and see a Le Corbusier buildingit could have been made yesterday, it’s soalive, it’s so elastic. The current stream ofarchitecture doesn’t build like that. I thinkwe’re eclectic, like bower birds. We have avocabulary.4 But I think architects[nowadays] need to be more educated andbetter travelled. We spend too much timewith words and, if you can do nothing morethan replicate a gorgeous version in theright context, then that’s better thanproducing some kind of invented rubbish.

Camilla Block is a director at Durbach Block Jaggers. She has taught at University of Technology, Sydney, University of New South Wales and University of Sydney, and is an architecture graduate from University of Sydney.

¹ They support them by adopting a ‘free-desk’ policy, allowing any student to freely (literally) work for them. This perverts the relation, creating disloyal concurrences. It is, therefore, impossible to set up any heft in the discipline’s marginality regarding the rest of the decision-makers. MGR

² The Danish have a strong appreciation of artistic endeavours and encourage innovation. Many European countries don’t need individuals to be professionally registered to a board to call themselves an architect. Rather than complaining about what we don’t have, how does Australia challenge this in a similar way? ML

³ Professional insurances (and insurances in general) rule our world. Designing or building has lost its sense as a communal construction due to the lack of engagement from the different agents (client, consultants, architects, etc.), who are continually obliged to juggle damage control and risk so as not to

lose everything. The safety coeffi cients that insurances use are so high and important they govern any potential decision. MGR

4 A very dangerous statement. I don’t think there are many professions who’d believe the bower bird model is the way forward. Isn’t innovation the key?

Shouldn’t architects think critically, invent new forms/methods/means of practising architecture? What if the whole world just followed Le Corbusier? This seems in contrast to all of Block’s statements on being less conservative and looking at Danish models, where young architects are given the

chance to experiment with new typologies. If architects don’t want to change and invent, what incentive is there to challenge planning and code requirements in Australia to be more Danish? ML

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FEATURE Austin Williams

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简就是少LESS IS LESS

01. Less is Enough: On Architecture and Asceticism, Pier Vittorio

Aureli, Strelka Press,

2013

02. Zang Tumb Tumb: Adrianople, October 1912, Parole in Libertà (Words in Liberty),

Filippo Tommaso

Marinetti, 1912. Image

courtesy Museum of

Modern Art, New York.

03. Futurism, Joshua C

Taylor, Museum of

Modern Art, New York

and Doubleday &

Company Inc, London,

1961

04. L’Architettura Futurista, Manifesto (Futurist Manifesto of Architecture), Antonio

Sant’Elia, 1909.

Image courtesy

Wolfsonian-Florida

International University

05. Plan Voisin, Le

Corbusier, Paris, 1925.

Image courtesy

Fondation Le Corbusier.

The phrase ‘less is more’ is usually attributed to Mies van der Rohe, although according to a recent

monograph, it was something he overheard Peter Behrens say in 1907. In architectural terms it has long meant: ‘to reduce and distil buildings and their components into simple forms.’ But, almost by defi nition, it conveys far more than that.

Firstly, it expresses the idea that simplicity has honed an object to its essentials, just as an engineer, for example, might strive for slenderness. This is not to say that a simple building requires less eff ort to understand – simplifi ed does not equate to ‘dumbed down’. In fact, sometimes it is more diff icult to understand a simple piece of architecture than a heavily detailed one. An ornate building, for example, may have been designed with a single proscriptive intent.

Secondly, ‘less is more’ spells out the idea that there are eff icient and rational solutions to complex problems. This philosophical point was outlined by scientist, Henri Poincaré, some 55 years before van der Rohe claimed credit for it. ‘We discover the simple beneath the complex, and then the complex from the simple,’ he said. In other words, ‘less’ is not an end in itself. The important point about being able to do less with more is the ‘more’ part. We simplify in order to progress. It is an indicator of the rational human being.

Fast-forward to the present, academic Pier Vittorio Aureli now argues ‘less is enough’. In other words, he suggests that we should simply accept things as they are. He seeks comfort in the celebration of simplicity in and of itself, rather than seeing it as a launch pad for something else, something better. Aureli’s austerity-driven and anti-consumerist manifesto advises its audience to accept much at face value. In essence, we should not strive for ‘more’ at all. It is a false god. Rather, he wants to formalise the concept of contentment, of stasis, of retreat... of just ‘less’.

In 2010 academic, Jeremy Till, composed the formulation ‘Mess is the Law’, arguing in favour of contingency. He is correct to say that inquisitiveness, doubt and judgement are fundamental to the human condition; however, Postmodernism’s deconstruction of the objective rules has also had a corrosive eff ect on subjective judgement. Contingency feeds confusion. Seeking to understand the world nowadays is patronised as an act of naivety. Society operates in an era in which belief is frowned upon and replaced by the celebration of doubt, where everyone professes to be ‘passionate’ about most things but with little ‘commitment’ to anything.

The modern world has little of the Modernist era’s clarity of purpose (this is not an article defending the dated ideas prevalent at that time, but simply that the clarity of purpose today is sadly lacking). By contrast, society exists in an era of unknown unknowns. Philosopher Jean-François Lyotard defi ned modern – the very thing that he was against – as ‘any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse ... making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative’. In other words, Modernists had the audacity to argue for something humanistically universalising and this has come to be viewed by many with horror.

Essentially, the contemporary era is one of fragmentation: one that seems to have given up on big ideas, values, ideology, belief or anything that smacks of coherency. The only bright new ideology seems to be ‘optimism’, which, in today’s climate, is another word for passive self-belief. Indeed, presently, many in the west profess their positive hopes for the future. Surveys regularly assure architects’ ‘confi dence’ in an upturn, for instance, blissfully unaware of the fatalism inherent in this line of thought. The growth of uncertainty in the future is very worrying and simply ‘looking on the bright side of life’ cannot off set the reality. Optimism is nice but it refl ects, rather than counters, an absence of a critical philosophy. →

‹ In business, isn’t this called ‘agile’ leadership? AB

‹‹ A means to attain the exceptional and not as a way of assuring a ‘minimum’, similar to notes on p032. MGR



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→ The real danger in our era’s devotion to uncertainty is the resulting ambivalence to objective truth. Jeremy Till, for one, ‘acknowledges doubt as a strength’. He has a point, of course, but it is one thing to recognise the complexity of things and quite another to wallow in unknowability. For if everything is contingent, the discipline is left with a recipe for fatalistic immersion in a world too complex to comprehend; one that advocates that the profession should simply try to do what it can with the situation as it is found. The contingent point, therefore, is not to change it, it would seem. To profess grand narratives, ambitious resolutions or universalising solutions is ‘elitist’ (and elitism has become the ultimate boo word).

Things used to be diff erentLe Corbusier published his classic modernist blueprint for the present and the future, Ville Radieuse (Radiant City), in 1924. Such a vision for an ideal city would be regarded with contempt in western liberal thought today (and many hated it back then, of course). The cause of this chagrin would not be because the Modernist vision was unappealing – although many may still fi nd the aesthetics particularly galling – or that it would have been unpleasant to live in if it had been built. No, what is being condemned today is the audacity of the ‘vision’.

Back then a vision was positive. The future was viewed with anticipation, unlike today when it is more likely to be viewed with trepidation. Writing in 1920, Aleksander Rodchenko, the Russian Constructivist photographer wrote: ‘I am so interested in the future, that I want to be able to see several years ahead right away.’ He went on to insist that ‘it is our duty to experiment’. Conversely, today practitioners have the tyranny of the risk assessment form as a symbol of the age.

Ultimately, the Modernist project is condemned simply because it refl ects modernity. Although architects still profess an interest in Modern architecture, it is often simply shorthand for ‘contemporary’ architecture. ‘Modernity’ itself is seldom defended. The notion of ‘progress’, for example – central to the Modernist project – is anathema in today’s social conditions. Ditto: the concept of development, which is never seen without its miserable prefi x ‘sustainable’.

Everywhere we see the mantra of limits. Indeed, restraint is so mainstream today that many architects seem to enjoy having restrictions imposed on what they can do. The profession views free choice as a hindrance and controls as creative freedom.

It is an upside-down world. Modernity, progress, development, growth, productivity, mobility, liberty, choice, opportunity, etc, which are usually dictionary defi ned as positives, are generally viewed in a negative light today.

The role of environmental politics in this moral and philosophical collapse cannot be overstated. The eco discourse sees humans as the problem. How often has the argument been made that there are too many people, travelling too much, building too much, using too much energy and consuming too much? Society is surrounded by those who sanctify the nihilism stemming from the belief that what humans do is inherently harmful.

With such a contemptuous view of humanity, is it any wonder that doubt and self-loathing have become mainstream: that restraint is sanctifi ed? In this all-pervasive moral onslaught, architecture will not be able to maintain the illusion of a creative profession if it refuses to challenge the widespread belief that human actions are inherently, or inevitably, destructive and that society – including architects – should be reined in.

How diff erent it once was. Exactly one hundred years ago, Antonio Sant’Elia published the Futurist Architecture Manifesto (Manifest of Futurist Architecture) that rejected the old world and presented a powerful vision of radical change. Change for the sake of change is not necessarily a good thing but this was change at the point of collapse of the European powers on the brink of war. This was a time when cultural disillusionment was fi nding a nationalistic form.

The Futurists mostly made the wrong political choices; however, they posed polarising questions at a moment when new-fangled modernity was in crisis. ‘The utter antithesis between the modern world and the old is determined by all those things that formerly did not exist,’ wrote Sant’Elia.

His solution was to profess that ‘architecture cannot be subjected to any law of historical continuity. It must be new, just as our state of mind is new.’ Admittedly, there is a nascent philistinism in these rhetorical statements of Sant’Elia, but while we cannot, and should not, pretend to emulate the past to create the future (that would be too ironic in an article arguing for modernity), it is important to capture some of the spirit of that age. The universalising idealism, the forward-thinking, the humanistic prioritising, the social vision, the belief in human agency, the ambitious risk-taking and the willingness to argue to defend one’s position are all sadly lacking today. It’s about time that some of the ‘shock’ was put back in the ‘new’.

› ‘Contingency’ ties with certain contemporary attitudes that claim to accept as many external arguments on a subject without questioning them. By assuming that everyone can be right postpones criticality. MGR

›› Can we explain what is to be qualitatively proposed? Can/should that be quantifi ed? MGR

›› How does this notion convert into the contemporary? We no longer deal with old and new but, instead, new and newer. A reformatted version as iterative rather than radical. We’re content to repurpose as newer as opposed to invent. ML

› This is not just a mistake within the profession, but with clients as well. A misconception between what it is to be ‘modern’ and to that of ‘modernity’. ML

› Progress and growth are now understood to be one and the same thing. AB



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040

06. Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913 (cast 1931) by

Umberto Boccioni.

Image courtesy Museum

of Modern Art (MoMA).

07. AEG Turbine

Factory, Berlin (1909)

by Peter Behrens. Image

courtesy Austin

Williams.

06

07



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Article translated by Huaxia Song

简就是少LESS IS LESS



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ar138

P R OJ E CTS

01 Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology, SydneyDenton Corker Marshall Sydney, Australia

02 Huaxin Business CentreScenic Architecture Off iceShanghai, China

03 New Generation Bendigo LibraryMcGauran Giannini Soon ArchitectsBendigo, Australia

04 Wangjing SOHOZaha Hadid ArchitectsBeijing, China

05 Burwood Highway Frontage Building, Deakin UniversityWoods BagotMelbourne, Australia

06 Visual Arts Institutional CampusRaj Rewal AssociatesRohtak, India

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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, UTS

Location: Sydney, AustraliaArchitect: Denton Corker Marshall

Review: Claire McCaughanPhotography: Richard Glover

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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, SYDNEY

047

If architecture is on society’s margins,as postulated in AR138, one reason isundoubtedly the painstakingly slow

building process when compared to theexponential growth of digital technology.This growth is so huge it is very difficult tocomprehend and usually, when an issue isnot widely understood, the resulting tensionblinds brilliant opportunity. Currently thetension in architecture between the real andunreal is mammoth and the profession hasyet to determine how to convert this tensioninto opportunity. However, Denton CorkerMarshall’s (DCM) Faculty of Engineeringand Information Technology at University ofTechnology, Sydney (UTS) has potential tocontribute to the profession’s understandingof how to mine the tension between the realand unreal.

Firstly, an examination of the realconditions: located on the western edge ofthe UTS campus, a critical halfway point onBroadway’s steady incline, the Faculty ofEngineering and Information Technology isthe first signifier of university territory.Given its dominant location, it iscommendable that UTS held the BroadwayDesign Competition, where six Australianarchitecture teams were selected toparticipate in Stage 2 of the competition. DCM was announced as the competition winner in 2009 and the building was off icially opened in June 2014.

In keeping this topographical context inmind, DCM deftly solved the masterplanningpuzzle with a diagonal pedestrian routebetween Wattle Street and Jones Street.Above this ground-level connection is the‘crevasse’, a light-filled and naturallyventilated atrium that is the social core ofthe faculty. When access to Alumni Greenfrom Jones Street opens later in 2014, thispedestrian connection will be an easy andnatural shortcut to the heart of UTS, furtheropening up the campus to the city.

Beyond this masterplanning issue,the Broadway building responds to anenormous set of site, budget and briefconstraints. Leaving DCM with little roomto craft anything other than a monolithicform, the only architectural opportunityresided at the fringe of the envelope. Slightshifts were deployed across the ‘binary-screened’ envelope and the most generousof these gestures involved pulling back thebuilding footprint at ground level along theBroadway elevation. The result is a coveredpublic footpath that returns width to theBroadway footpath, which was originallyremoved through street widening in 1906.

DCM opens up another opportunity onthe building’s fringe at the ‘arcade’, which isa peaceful pedestrian corridor between the subject building and Building 10 (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Health). →

01. Perforated sheet

metal allows for

glimpses beyond.

02. Entrance at the

corner of Wattle Street

and Broadway.

‹‹ Sometimes it’s OK topositively assumemarginality and use it tolook at reality from alateral perspective. MGR

‹ A very literal translation between the building’s program and its use: information, data and binary processing. ML

‹ Voilà! Something that can be easily explained and assimilated by non-architects without falling into stylistic discussions. MGR

02

‹ This is the reason for the misunderstanding between architecture and public, not a technological gap. Stylistic discussions are purely fashionable and hardly quantifiable, with relatively low qualitative implications. It’s impossible not to fall into a superficial analysis of the architectural product. MGR



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→ DCM carefully wrapped the binary screenaround the north elevation above the arcade,attentively contrasting the larger gestures ofthe Broadway elevation. This contrast in scalealso occurs in the manipulation of the groundand subterranean floor plates along the lengthof Broadway, where sharp and deep voidsallow light into social spaces below. While theentire building accommodates up to 5,000students and staff across teaching, learningand research spaces, it is in the subterraneanspaces where the students congregateinformally and where the activity of the facultyis most easily translated to the passing public.

While the Faculty of Engineering andInformation Technology is a handyillustration of the profession’s ability to getit right on the ground, how does the buildinginterpret the unreal context, the digitalenvironment that inspires so much of thework emerging from the faculty?

Secondly, an examination of the unrealconditions: Erik Brynjolfsson and AndrewMcAfee, in their text, The Second MachineAge, describe the power of digitisation toincrease understanding, stating that ‘it doesthis by making huge amounts of data readilyaccessible, and data is the lifeblood ofscience. By “science” here, we mean thework of formulating theories andhypotheses, then evaluating them.’

Alongside this universal condition isthe faculty’s vision to deliver learning

environments that ‘encourage disruptivetechnologies’, which appears to be at oddswith architecture’s constrained ability todisrupt (due to the low-risk environmentpermitted by institutions and developers inAustralia). This condition further confoundsthe unreal context.

DCM’s response to this murkyenvironment is to describe the building as a‘living laboratory’, essentially positioning thebuilding as an agent for digitisation byconverting architecture into a researchdevice. As DCM director, Barrie Marshall,said back in 1996, when describing theconditions surrounding the MelbourneExhibition Centre, ‘it’s becoming very clearthat the game is to be smart’. The outcomeof this strategic move is a rooftopco-generation plant for the Faculty ofEngineering and Information Technology.This plant is the first living laboratoryconsisting of electricity-generating windturbines, solar water panels, photovoltaicsolar panels and a series of solar thermalconcentrators. As one of the firstinstitutions to install solar thermalconcentrators on a commercial scale, UTSis collaborating with RMIT University,Standards Australia and Solem Consultingto deliver the first Australian Standard forindustrial-scale use of this technology.

While the rooftop is the platform formost of the research activity, the internal →

04

‹‹ And how does it deal with having the flexibility to adapt to and from future technological advances? ML

03

03. The facade’s

angular form veils the

internal program.

04. Stair accessways

slice across the atrium

space.

Plans (left)

A Dean’s wintergarden

B Dean’s offi ce

C Boardroom

D Meeting room

E Reception

F Offi ce

G Kitchen

H Associate dean’s offi ce

I Workstation support

J Store

K Plant

L Instrument room

M Analysis room

N Engineering offi ce

O Multipurpose room

P Chemical process lab

Q Biological process lab

R Female toilet

S Disabled toilet

T Male toilet

U Informal lounge

V Small classroom

W Medium collaborative

classroom

X LDC capstone study

area

Y LDC quiet study area

Z Learning design centre

AA LDC workshop

AB LDC laboratory

AC Software

development lab

AD Women in engineering

AE Student union

AF Data arena

AG Informal collaborative

space

AH Void

AI Informal computer

laboratory

AJ Computer laboratory

AK Cafe

AL Terrace

AM Arcade

AN Student lounge

AO Medium lecture

theatre

AP Large lecture theatre

AQ Small lecture theatre

AR Switch room

AS Substation



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→ spaces of the building are the stage toconvey data, where screens displayreal-time data of the building’s performanceand even the use of collaborativeclassrooms is monitored via door thresholdsensors. Researchers and universityadministrators are able to mine the livinglaboratory for hypotheses and outcomes.

The culmination of this data isconceptually manifest in the sensationalData Arena, a three-dimensional datavisualisation facility. The virtual realityenvironment houses a large cylindrical screenfour metres high and ten metres in diameter.The 360-degree condition, where even thedoors form part of the experience, allowsstudents, researchers, industry partnersand government to interact with visualinterpretations of data. The most advancedfacility of its kind in Australia, the DataArena is located at the pedestrian nexuson the corner of Jones Street and Broadway.

It seems that the Data Arena offerspotential to uncover architectural

opportunities for a digital context; however,its white undulating cloak is anunderwhelming, static curtain that has verylittle presence on Broadway. When thepublic is invited to view all the other activitywithin the Faculty of Engineering andInformation Technology, the dominance ofthe external binary screen over the DataArena’s curtain is curious. Regardless of thispeculiarity, DCM has positioned the buildingto act as a critical research platform, onethat is not subservient to digital technology.

For the profession to move out of theboundary territory of effectiveness we needto recognise that fellow industries areharnessing innovation to their advantage.Practitioners need to use their creativity,adaptability and flexibility to recognise thatthe functionality of a building can be digital.By valuing this creative currency, theprofession will be able to better position thevalue of architecture.

05. Entrance lobby at

the building’s

southeastern aspect.

Section (above)

A Carpark

B Aerodynamics

laboratory

C Store

D Computer laboratory

E Informal computer

laboratory

F Entry lobby

G Cafe seating

H Informal lounge

I Student societies

J Women in engineering

K Workstations

L Dean’s wintergarden

M Smoke spill fan room

N Bridge

CONSTRUCTION COST: $205m ($4820 PER SQM) / START DATE: January 2009 / EARLY WORKS CONSTRUCTION START: April

2011 / EARLY WORKS COMPLETION: February 2012 / MAIN WORKS CONSTRUCTION START: February 2012 / MAIN WORKS

COMPLETION DATE: May 2014 / SITE AREA: total building area 43,500sqm, usable floor area 22,050sqm, 18 floors: 4

basements and 14 floors (above ground) / CLIENT: University of Technology, Sydney / PROJECT MANAGER: Denton

Corker Marshall / ARCHITECT AND INTERIOR ARCHITECT: Denton Corker Marshall / PLANNING: JBA Urban Planning /

QUANTITY SURVEYOR AND BUILDING CERTIFIER: Group DLA / STRUCTURAL, CIVIL, FACADES AND ESD: Aurecon / MECHANICAL

AND ELECTRICAL: Waterman AHW / SPECIALIST LIGHTING: Electrolight / FIRE AND HYDRAULICS: Arup / VERTICAL

TRANSPORTATION AND FIRE SAFETY: Aecom / ACOUSTICS AND VIBRATION: Renzo Tonin & Associates / TRAFFIC: Halcrow,

GTA Consultants / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS: Taylor Brammer / ACCESS: Morris Goding / OH&S: Architecture & Access /

TESTING AND COMMISSIONING: Norman Disney & Young / CONTRACTOR: Lend Lease.

Section AA

JONES STREET

WATTLE STREET

A

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‹ Interesting concept for an inverted ‘data panopticon’. MGR

‹‹ ‘Data’ – what for? What is the interest of this access? This seems similar to other approaches, such as the mixing chamber in the Seattle Central Library by OMA. One of the most interesting approaches to data use was developed in the nineties with MVRDV’s ‘datascapes’. MVRDV’s offspring transformed that into a ‘post-rationalising’ strategy that explains everything. MGR

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HUAXIN BUSINESS CENTRE

Location: Shanghai, ChinaArchitect: Scenic Architecture Office

Review: Clare JacobsonPhotography: Su Shengliang

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The Huaxin Business Centre tells an unconventional Chinese story of form following structure. As the entrance

building to a new off ice park, the building was destined to be eye-catching. Scenic Architecture Off ice designed the showroom as a place where potential clients are brought to review building models, drink tea and sign contracts for space in 10 serviceable (but far less exciting) spec off ice towers by Itsuko Hasegawa. It needed to look good. Principal Zhu Xiaofeng could have produced China’s latest look-at-me shape, complete with sexy curves. Instead, he designed a building the inviting confi guration of which depends on its columns and trusses. In so doing, he shows how a back-to-basics approach can produce stunning contemporary design.

Scenic Architecture Off ice began by lifting the 730sqm building on pilotis to let nature run underneath – a Corbusian idea that still works well here. Landscape architecture by Design Land Collaborative – including small trees, fl owering bushes, a gravel fi eld and wooden walkways and decks – centres on a koi pond. Mirror-fi nished stainless steel wraps concrete piers with steel cores, refl ecting the surrounding landscape design and to feign a fl oating structure. Trusses extend from the piers to support 10 wings; the centre is actually

constructed as four independent buildings connected by bridges. The piers and trusses are placed to accommodate six old camphor trees that once lined an on-site road. Two of the buildings – one shaped like a Y and supported by three piers and another L-shaped and resting on two – interlock with the six trees like a Chinese puzzle. Two other buildings, modelled on the initial Y and L, extend the complex to the street front, implying that Ys and Ls could continue ad infi nitum, if only they had the chance.

Zhu explains that focusing the design on the structure is atypical in Chinese architecture, which tends to prioritise form. That he chose a form-follows-structure direction seems almost retro-Modern. But the dynamic building that his approach produced is far from the classic boxes of high Modernism. The Ys and Ls produce complex triangles and Xs. Cantilevers project dramatically into the trees and toward the sidewalk, while obtuse angles draw the eye toward the building. Screens made of twisting white aluminum strips form a continuous but see-through facade, producing a shifting rhythm and allowing views to the trusses within.

The interior continues the themes developed outside. A glass-enclosed exhibition room completes the ‘empty’ ground fl oor (save for its very present →

01. The building is

shaded by its twisted

metal facade and cross

bracing.

02. The generic urban

condition is punctuated

by the showroom.

›› I’d argue that ‘structure follows pre-existences and form follows the resulting structure’. MGR

›› ‘Modernist principles of form and features such as pilotis’ – it seems a stretch to call this building Modernist. ML

›› The choice of a structural type is not an anecdote, it implies a formal prefi guration (as in Marc-Antoine Laugier’s engraving of the Vitruvian primitive hut, 1755). MGR

02



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→ sales models of new buildings). From herea skylight-covered, U-shaped stairway leadsto the second fl oor rooms. Those facing thestreet are used as off ices for the developer,Huaxin (known in English as China Fortune),while those nestled within the trees are VIProoms and tearooms for meeting withpotential clients. The connections betweenthese rooms reinforce the project’s concernfor nature. Four outdoor courtyards dot thepath; one contains a shallow pool fromwhich water drips into the koi pond below.Branches from the camphor trees intersectthe pathways and enter a meeting room (thearchitects did not receive the correctmeasurements of the tree, with the happyaccident forcing them to cut out a space inthe screen for the branch). Detailing comesfrom the structure; for example, the pathincludes triangular gates formed by trussesinstead of traditional round moon gates. Asimple loop makes circulation around thebuilding easy, but the variety of views alongthe way keeps it interesting. The complexityof the spaces and their materials andconnections has the eff ect of making thebuilding look bigger than it is.

Huaxin Business Centre is located inXuhui, a Shanghai district famous for thesycamore-lined streets, colonial-era villasand high-end boutiques and restaurants ofthe former French Concession. But theCaohejing Subdistrict of this district is notthat Xuhui. It sits between Shanghai’s Innerand Middle Ring Roads and had beenconsidered the suburbs back in the → Ground Floor

Level OneRoof

0 2 5m

03. Natural light

dapples the interior

spaces.

04. The existing trees

have been subtly and

eff ortlessly incorporated

into the building fabric.

05. Mirrored fi nishes

and water features both

confuse and delight,

provide pleasing

contrasting experiences.



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→ French Concession’s early twentiethcentury heyday. It is currently home tomeek residential, commercial and officestructures. Now that Shanghai has grownto accommodate 24 million inhabitants,Caohejing – only a couple of metrostops from the centre of Xuhui – isprime for redevelopment.

It is difficult to predict how thisredevelopment will impact the future of theHuaxin Business Centre. The building wasdesigned as a temporary structure to beused to fill office space, though it has sincebeen officially designated as permanent. Itis unclear whether the developer, thegovernment or the local community willassume rights to the building and it isdifficult to envision how the non-linearspaces might be reused. One proposal onthe table is as a reading room. Then again,the building’s vigorous construction allowsthat it could be part of Caohejing for a longtime. Whatever function it assumes, theshowroom will remain a show-and-tellexample of the inherent beauty of structure-based design.

PROJECT: China Fortune Exhibition Hall / CONSTRUCTION: 2012-2013 / PROJECT SIZE: 730sqm / STRUCTURE: Steel

truss and shearwall / MATERIALS: Aluminum strips, glass, concrete, stainless steel / DESIGN TEAM: Zhu Xiaofeng

(design principal), Ding Penghua (project designer), Cai Mian, Yang Hong, Li Haoran, Du Shigang / STRUCTURAL

AND MEP: Shanghai Greenland Building Steel Structure LTD. / CLIENT: China Fortune Properties.

I’m not sure that this is a structure-based project, but one that respects and integrates the existing without modifying it. MGR

‹ Disagree that this design is based on structure. It seems that the design lifts up into the trees, so requires a structurally complex solution. All elements of structure are hidden – even the columns are mirrored to hide the form. The beauty is that the building’s structure is hidden in plain sight. ML

06. The edge condition,

the building’s margin, is

indistinguishable as the

layering multiplies.

07. The showroom is a

beacon in the otherwise

mundane urban

surrounds.

08. Informal meeting

rooms are punctured by

existing trees and

foliage.

08

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060-067-AR138-Projects-Bendigo.indd 060 5/11/2014 9:57 am


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NEW GENERATION BENDIGO LIBRARY

Location: Bendigo, AustraliaArchitect: McGauran Giannini Soon Architects

Review: Anna JohnsonPhotography: Andrew Latreille

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01. Northern elevation

at the building’s main

entrance.

US architect and landscape designer,Linda Pollak, suggests it is preciselyat the threshold between one

condition and the next where architecture islocated. She writes: ‘thresholds are wheretransformations begin, where exchangesbetween unlikely things occur and whereidentities are declared […] threshold as anoperation involves the preservation ofdifferences, as well as the creation ofsomething new.’ McGauran Giannini SoonArchitects’ (MGS) recently completed New Generation Bendigo Library redevelopment presents a literal threshold in the historical precinct of Bendigo. Reworking the existing 1984 library building and curating a new public axis across the site, this new development forms an urban threshold between old and new, as well as between Hargreaves Street and Lyttleton Terrace. This strategic urban manoeuvre opens up the relationship to the site and to the northern edge of the building, which faces a previously under-used park adjacent to the old Heritage-listed town hall.

And it is this threshold where the new library’s planning is organised. At ground fl oor an internal street spans the length of the building and links one major entrance to the next. A range of fl exible learning spaces, meeting rooms, quiet reading spaces, new research and archival facilities, gallery

spaces and a specifically designedchildren’s library area are dispersed acrossboth the ground and first floor. Defining thenorth-western corner of the building is acafe and community reading area. Inaddition, MGS has radically updated thelibrary services and operations from theexisting facility, which has strengthened thestrategic opportunities with affiliatedcommunity, public programs and services(including the Bendigo Art Gallery and theBendigo Historical Society). It is this careful refi guring and reconciling of the urban context – activating the public conditions of the building’s perimeter and providing an organisational armature – that is MGS’s major achievement.

Renamed the New Generation Bendigo Library, this project had at the outset the expectation to provide a state-of-the-art twenty-fi rst century library. And, programmatically, this is what MGS has done. This library is now the second largest in Victoria. However, with the building’s newfound importance and considering Bendigo’s dramatic growth – the population is expected to almost double by 2041 – it is somewhat surprising to consider the ambitions of the architecture itself: the form, surface qualities and architectural language. Positioned within a dynamic site – a slice across a major public precinct →

‹‹ Thresholds and intermediate buffer spaces are the spatial materialisation of ‘margins’, with a certain degree of indeterminancy. MGR

01

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→ and adjacent to Heritage-listed buildings – this threshold condition seems ripe for the creation of a new architectural expression.

The design, with its irregular forms, angled walls and sheer concrete surfaces, certainly aligns well with a broadly contemporary aesthetic. A specially conceived, over-scaled timber lantern animates the interior double-height void and yellow perforated metal screens off er protection from the sun, with both geometric plays photographing well. However, in such a historically rich site and with the neighbouring old Bendigo town hall seeming to throw up a challenge, it is speculative to suggest whether the building could off er more than sophisticated planning and pragmatic solutions. This could have been a great opportunity to present a more defi ning, ambitious example of what architecture could be in a regional context.

To return to the notion of thresholds or limits, is there scope within the limits of the profession to be more assertive and more exploratory with architectural form? What can drive civic architecture beyond default asymmetry and angled concrete surfaces? In the mid-1850s Bendigo was Australia’s highest producing goldfi eld and, as a result, the city has a plethora of notable Victorian buildings. These are signifi cant public buildings representative of a period in time, but nevertheless possessing a confi dent, handsome attitude – albeit imported – that communicated the aspirations of the rapidly developing town. With Bendigo undergoing another major urban development, is it not an opportunity to conceive of a building of

greater optimism and vitality – one that at least equals or surpasses these examples?

The role of the architect in producing architecture for regional Australian towns isa signifi cant challenge, most notably due tothe relatively quick change many of these towns are experiencing and the public community role the buildings play. Where demographics are changing and, in some instances, where there is a population of low-income, socially disadvantaged communities, there is a certain responsibility to make new public buildingsthat are conceptually strong – both programmatically and visually. This is evenmore signifi cant for a library given it is an important civic typology undergoing radicalchange in both its use and function.

The budget for the New Generation Bendigo Library was not surprisingly tight; however, there are signifi cant examples of regional buildings with extremely constrained budgets that successfully negotiate diff icult programmatic issues, while off ering up a great visual, architecturaldelight. For example, Searle x Waldron’s ArtGallery of Ballarat Annexe (2011) swung off the rear of the historic gallery building. It seems that there is a certain amount of urgency needed to rethink and rework – even possibly starting from scratch – how public space and architecture interact in changing regional Australian cities and to provide for diverse communities and cultures. There is an urgency to supply visually and programmatically ambitious buildings, brave in their declarations of whatAustralian architecture can be.

02. Shared learning

environment.

03. Distinctive children’s

play space.

04. Colours invite and

direct the building’s user

throughout.

05. Interior of the

children’s library space.

The definition of whatcivic architecture can beis presented here as apurely formal problem: it’s an attempt to build a local imagery to be identifi ed with. However, considering the globalisation of architectural production, its politeness and homogenisation, the results risk being a copy of any other random situation. MGR

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PROJECT NAME: Bendigo Library Redevelopment / CATEGORY: Public Architecture – Alterations

and Additions / ARCHITECT: MGS Architecture / DESIGN AND DOCUMENT: July 2011 - Sept 2012 (14

months) / CONSTRUCTION COMPLETION: Sept 2012 – 28 Jan 2014 (18 months) / TOTAL PROJECT COST:

$9.5m / TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST: $7.8m / SITE AREA: 4010sqm (280sqm extension, 3730sqm

refurbished) / PROJECT COST PER SQM: $1945 / TYPE OF BUILDING CONTRACT: Major Building Works

(AS4000-1997) / CLIENT & OWNER CONTACT DETAILS: Bendigo City Council and Goldfields Library

/ ARCHITECT: McGauran Giannini Soon Architects / PROJECT DIRECTORS: Joshua Wheeler, Eli

Giannini / PROJECT ASSOCIATES: Chantelle Chiron, Ryan de Winnaar / PROJECT TEAM: Rob

Compagnino, Kit Kietgumjorn, Babak Kahvazdeh, Gary Yeoh, Sue Buchanan / ACOUSTIC CONSULTANT:

Marshall Day Acoustics / BUILDING SURVEYOR: Building Issues Pty Ltd / CIVIL, ELECTRICAL,

ENVIRONMENTAL, HYDRAULIC, MECHANICAL CONSULTANT: Iriwinconsult / CIVIL CONSULTANT: Rider

Levett Bucknall / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Rush Wright Associates / LIBRARY CONSULTANT: KEWS

Consulting / GRAPHIC DESIGN: Hofstede Design / CONTRACTOR: Contract Control / PROJECT

MANAGER: Pavan Consulting / COGB ARCHITECT: Don Goldsworthy / ORIGINAL ARCHITECT (1982):

Robinson Loo Wyss & Schneider.

06. Neighbouring green

space enables a full

northern elevation to

respond to the context.

07. Covered walkways

allow for shade and also

help navigate between

programs.

08. Ample bicycle

storage and planting at

the building’s southern

aspect.

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WANGJING SOHO

Location: Beijing, ChinaArchitect: Zaha Hadid Architects

Review: Hao MaPhotography: Virgile Simon Bertrand

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An off ice and retail complex that acts as a beacon on the horizon, conceptually conceived as ‘Chinese

fans that circle and embrace each other in an intricate dance’, Zaha Hadid Architects’ (ZHA) Wangjing SOHO is located in the Chaoyang District (northeast Beijing), between the Fourth and Fifth Ring Roads. It is home to an array of multinational corporations, such as Microsoft, Daimler, Caterpillar, Panasonic, Nortel and Siemens, as well as various Chinese start-up companies. Conveniently located along an infrastructure corridor en route to the Beijing Capital International Airport, the context is typically varied: banal corporate high-rise, set off against surprisingly generous public space. As with any commercial, retail or off ice business complex there is a curious sense of the ‘seen it all before’ as the non-descript urban landscape homogenises architecture, no matter the location.

It is hardly surprising then to fi nd that ZHA’s latest project has itself been homogenised. It was widely reported in the middle of 2013 that a Chinese developer

allegedly plagiarised ZHA’s initial ‘threepebble’ concept proposal for WangjingSOHO in the Chinese city of Chongqing –the unerringly similar Meiquan 22ndCentury is currently under construction.Beijing is home to other supposed copies,with CCTV Headquarters by OMA,according to Peter Eisenman, heavilyinfl uenced by a project he had formulatedin sketch form.

In universities the world over, mimicrytakes place in students’ projects as theyimitate the works of their idols. And so torehash a well-worn idea prevalent inarchitecture schools, taken from Frenchphilosopher, Jean Baudrillard, contemporaryarchitecture (or at least its stylisticapproach) may be in simulacrum – wheresimulation leads to the extinction of theoriginal. In Simulacra and Simulation (1981)Baudrillard states that things are not alwaysas they seem, as the perceptibly false hidesreality, and so reality is absolved andreplaced by hyper-reality. As such, who canunequivocally say that stylistic influence is adirect copy? Is contemporary architecturesimply in the first stage of simulacra, →

01. The three pebbles or

mountains congregate

to form an inner

courtyard and shared

public space.

02. A moment of pure

architecture in among

non-descript urbanity.

‹ Is this culture healthy? How do we change this to create more criticality of what comes before in order to foster difference? ML

‹ It is interesting to consider this when looking back to AR135–Elements, where Urtzi Grau looked at the Apple Store’s patent for the glass stair. What are the components that make something a copy? ML

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→ where there is a ‘refl ection of a basic reality’, with projects escalating in simulacra to a state where, eventually, ‘it bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum’. Can buildings be copies if they are just stylistically similar?

China, it seems, is an epicentre for piracy across a number of formats, whether it is pirated software, entertainment or, now, architecture. Pirated materials are referred to as shanzhaii, a land where intellectual property is a grey area. The developer responsible for the (allegedly copied) building, Chongqing Meiquan, may well believe that there is no issue of intellectual property, but it does raise the question as to a debate that has extended across the discipline for years: the original and the copy.

In regard to ZHA’s projects in the Asia Pacifi c region, it is diff icult to discern which came fi rst as a design idea, where each seemingly germinates as a modifi ed version of the other. In AR134–Authority, the Jockey Club Innovation Tower, Hong Kong, was reviewed, with the SOHO projects in Beijing (Galaxy SOHO) and the soon-to-be-completed Sky SOHO in Shanghai are

undoubtedly similar. However, due to the SOHO China client overlap across the projects, it is hardly surprising that there are similarities to be drawn. While the ZHA projects present an intriguing number of iterations, with each borrowing from the other, providing a sleek and typically ZHA aesthetic, each project remains the original, leaving others to undoubtedly copy.

ZHA’s mixed-use development consistsof three anthropomorphic buildings that announce themselves as iconic. Well, that isif the hanging smog did not shroud the city in a thick veil. It is ironic to discover that thedevelopment has attained LEED gold certifi cation. The buildings meet certain quantifi able targets, which makes for a compelling case in the Chinese context, andestablishes itself as a credible sustainabilityadvocate through, for example, its water fi ltration, but the buildings are a little let down by the interior spatial planning.

The expansive, 10-metre-high lobby space and other generous public spaces areoff set by a fairly routine open fl oor plan arrangement, typical in off ice layout, but, typical of any ZHA project, it is beautifully →

03. Typically swooping

ZHA interior design and

lighting strategies guide

the user.

‹ This raises questionsregarding thedemarcation oftypological and stylisticiterations: are SOHO’sinteriors a furtheriteration of MAXXI?Then, how would wedescribe OMA’s Villadall’Ava in regard to LeCorbusier’s Villa Savoye?MGR

‹ Ironic but stillimportant that ZHA iscontributing to pollutionminimisation, ratherthan adding to it. ML

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‹ Water fi ltration systems have no relation with any purely architectural concept (it is a system engineered completely out of the discipline, without an impact in the way the building is conceived). MGR



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ARCHITECT: Zaha Hadid Architects / CLIENT: SOHO China / SITE AREA: 115,393sqm / TOTAL (ABOVE GROUND) GFA:

392,265sqm / TOTAL (BELOW GROUND) GFA: 168,415sqm / PROJECT DIRECTOR: Satoshi Ohashi / PROJECT ARCHITECT:

Armando Solano / PROJECT TEAM: Yang Jingwen, Christoph Klemmt, Shu Hashimoto, Yung-Chieh Huang, Rita Lee,

Samson Lee, Feng Lin, Seungho Yeo, Di Ding, Xuexin Duan, Chaoxiong Huang, Ed Gaskin, Bianca Cheung, Chao-Ching

Wang, John Klein, Ho-Ping Hsia, Yu Du, Sally Harris, Oliver Malm, Rashiq Muhamadali, Matthew Richardson /

COMPETITION TEAM: Satoshi Ohashi, Cristiano Ceccato, Inanc Eray, Ceyhun Baskin, Chikara Inamura, Michael Grau,

Raymond Lau, Hoda Nobakhati, Yevgeniya Pozigun, Michael Treder, Yevgeniya Pozigu / STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING:

Adams Kara Taylor (UK) (competition); CCDI (Beijing) SD, DD, CD / FACADE: Arup Facade (HK) SD; Inhabit

(Beijing) DD / MEP ENGINEERING: Hoare Lea UK (competition); Arup Engineers (SD).

→ detailed. There is fi nesse to the fi nishes and the sinuous recessed soff it lighting actsas wayfi nding and enthuses its occupants; while the scalloped column detailing intensifi es the sculptural fl uidity one comes to expect from a ZHA interior.

As the three building volumes congregate around a semi-enclosed public access way that bisects the site – providing seclusion from the urban environment – there is an increasing recognition of urbanity and scale, as the three huddled masses tower above. This is where the onlooker fully appreciates the hulking masses of the buildings; the striated banding of the facade conceals the fl oor plate beyond, with the buildings rising eff ortlessly skywards.

ZHA’s projects are notoriouslyphotogenic and this project does notdisappoint, as the sculptural form swirls andswoons for its occupants and onlookers. It isa beautiful, sculptural moment in anotherwise banal urban landscape. Ittransfixes the onlooker, allowing for intrigueand interest in architecture. It may be thelatest iteration in the work of ZHA in theAsia Pacific but they are each moments ofpure originality.

04. Generous

fl oor-to-ceiling heights

provide a sense of

grandeur and scale.

‹ Probably the most interesting feature of the building, with a very good connection between architectural detailing, construction and conceptual formulation (not so easy to fi nd nowadays). MGR

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BURWOOD HIGHWAY FRONTAGE BUILDING, DEAKIN UNIVERSITY

Location: Melbourne, AustraliaArchitect: Woods BagotReview: Graham Crist

Photography: Peter Bennetts

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Woods Bagot’s Burwood HighwayFrontage building is a fineexample of well-crafted and

thoughtful architecture, with clearlyarticulated and well-lit interior volumes incontrast to a monumental solidity, stronglymarking its presence on the Burwoodcampus of Deakin University. It succeeds onits own terms.

The building, however, contends withtwo design problems. First is the question ofcontemporary learning spaces and theirplace in a contemporary institution; andsecond, a viable or believable approach tothe dispersed metropolitan/highwaysuburb. Each is a problem of differentiationand distinction. How is a university differentfrom an office workplace or a retail space?How can the vague terrain of metropolitanBurwood – in Melbourne’s sprawling east– be distinguished from the inner-city?

The entry level of the building is abovea car park podium and is populated by amerchandise store, a commercial cafe and

flexible, drop-in workspaces. It isunambiguously a workplace in the sameway that the term merges office,commercial and retail spaces, while thecontemporary corporate environment in turnmodels itself on an education campus. Nearthe lifts, students and staff interact casuallyas a small group gathered around a hotdesk/cafe bar area; adjacent to which is aninformation kiosk. They all seamlessly flowbetween one another. At upper levels,niches of breakout space next to the liftlobby are set in shafts of light cut downthrough the building. Such spaces areequally familiar to large office environmentsand to tertiary institutions. The familiarityrepresents a convergence of theseinstitutional models and keeps open thequestion of how one is distinguished fromthe other.

If the difference between an office,university, law court or food court is of lessrelevance, its location on a substantialinfrastructural highway may be the →

01. The building’s

eastern aspect entrance

point and ramp.

01

‹‹ The signifi cation and qualitative information of the built environment is precisely the biggest strength of architecture and the main claim that architects should raise in contemporary practice. MGR

‹ In most of the mentioned uses (offi ce, university, law court, food court, etc.) the only differences lie in the kind of furniture used to occupy the space. MGR

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→ trigger for testing diff erence. This highway frontage building is in a middle-outer suburb, remote from the civic urban centre and a part of the large fi eld of low-density sprawl. Could (or should) the architecture of the dispersed road be of a diff erent order from, for example, Melbourne’s Docklands precinct? The sprawling metropolis is a diff icult terrain, at times desperately undiff erentiated and often diff icult to understand. In this context, by far the biggest audience for the architectural object is speeding past it. It is curious then that the most heroic image of the building is the rear facade, facing away from the highway. This is the projecting wing, hovering over an open space on pilotis and pointing back toward the centre of the campus.

The highway itself is not simply a strip for cars, with a tram stop in its centre, the stop connected to Deakin via an underpass, which pops up on the podium over car park levels. The sculptural ramps, which descend to the campus ground, make the best of this circuitous route across its base. The Burwood Highway Frontage building reconnects directly with the road and its ground by descending internally from the entry podium level to a small fl at fl oor auditorium, fully glazed as it faces the

traff ic and where the lectern has the road as its backdrop.

While the masterplanning of a campus building to front the Burwood Highway takes a large step forward to assert Deakin’s location here, the building barely struggles with the particular condition it faces. It makes its most substantial move in terms of anchoring the road front and asserting its educational status, in its rendering of solidity through the screen of fi ns over its facade. This solidity is reinforced through the composition of pleats in the fi ns, forming subtly triangulated planes on its surface. From the right aspect and a certain light, it reads as a shimmering gold mass facing the highway as it ascends a hill to the west, while at the same time creating a solid bookend to the campus of dispersed →

02. Eastern elevation

with its louvred facade

and pilotis, facilitating a

distinctly Modernist

sensibility.

Axonometric (above)

A Shading element

B Glazed element

C Entrance

D Floor plates

E Exhaust service

cladding

F Vertical circulation

G Landscape elements

H Landscape circulation

‹ A rare feature nowadays: the will to build urban conditions, to consolidate cities and enrich the urban environment. Architecture contributing to the creation and development of cities (through the addition of programmatic complexity, the offering of un-demanded public space, the reconstruction of a ‘natural’ diversity and randomness, etc.). ‘Urbanism starts inside my building.’ MGR

A

B

C

D

E

G

H

HA

EF

F

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→ buildings. The equivalent of this solidity internally is the rusticated wooden battening lining the lift core at each level. Squint, and these light, linear elements of aluminium and timber form a massiveness, which might start to set the building’s distinguished identity.

Thinking of a university building through diff erentiation of its type or of its urban location might seem nostalgic for a period when universities were ‘other worldly’ and architectural Modernism thought it could be an expression of that through experimentation. Such big ideas areworth struggling with. Embodying that struggle for transformation and diff erentiation in buildings makes a salient point about the acquisition of knowledge. Diff erentiation from the real world could seem an outdated understanding of a university, or it could be the marketing of a point of diff erence. In an urban environmentwhere learning, off ices and food courts programmatically and aesthetically merge and hybridise, we can be positive about thatmerger and still confront the question of diff erentiating the spectrum of urban experiences and institutional types.

PRINCIPAL AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Sarah Ball / DESIGN LEADER: Bruno Mendes / TECHNICAL LEADER: Karl Engstrom /

PROJECT TEAM: Mark Kelly, David Ley, Melissa Blandford, Rob Donegan, Richard Galloway, Henry Ly, Emma-Louise

Matthews, Ian McDonald, Matthew Si / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Rush Wright Associates / SERVICE ENGINEER: Umow Lai

Pty Ltd / STRUCTURAL AND CIVIL ENGINEER: John Mullen & Partners / BUILDING SURVEYOR: PLP Consultants /

QUANTITY SURVEYOR: Wilde & Woollard.

A

B

C

D

E

A

F

03. The sharp eastern

corner announces the

building to the user.

04. Informal meeting

spaces offer students

and staff breakout space

05. The louvred facade

restricts visual access in

the day but opens up at

night.

Axonometric (above)

A Passive design

B High performance

facade

C Underfloor air

distribution system

D Optimised indoor

environment quality

E High water efficiency

F Renewable energy

technologies

Facade detail (right)

A Powder-coated

aluminium non-captured

curtain wall system

B Double-glazed vision

panels

C Extruded aluminium

solar protection louvres

D Louvre brackets fixed

at stacked joints

E Perimeter concrete

hob to raised floor

system

F Raised fl oor tiles

A

B

C

D

F

E

Environmental Section Diagram

Facade Detail 1:20

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VISUAL ARTS INSTITUTIONAL CAMPUS

Location: Rohtak, IndiaArchitect: Raj Rewal Associates

Review: Ian NazarethPhotography: Sushil Khandelwal /

Architectural Research Cell

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The physical manifestations of Modernism in India can be found in seminal projects scattered across the

country, notably Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. Modernity, however, is also linked with sweeping political and social reforms following independence.

Charles Correa, BV Doshi and Raj Rewal are notable examples in a generational shift for architectural practice during this period. Their work, steered by contextual nuance, off ered a new thrust to the emergent International Style proposed by US architects, Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson. Through revisiting the primary conditions of architecture, their projects informed an evolving local canon that sought to reconcile universal technique with an Indian sensibility.

Rewal’s Visual Arts Institutional Campus is located in Rohtak, a suburban district in the state of Haryana in Northern India. Rohtak forms part of the National Capital Region (NCR) conurbation, north-

west of British architect Sir Edwin Lutyen’s New Delhi and south of Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh.

The 90,000sqm campus is clustered around courtyards, composed as a gridded matrix. In reference to the site boundary, the building’s rotation sets up a diagonal, with the envelope staggered and arrayed on either side of the axis. Further, the campus’ orientation is in response to the climatic extremes of the northern plains.

Urban planning and architecture, fashion, fi lm and television, and the arts are the four core disciplines within the campus and each programmatic component is replete with a distinctive identity. Indeed, Rewal uses the essential requirements of the four briefs to drive the spatial and aesthetic characteristics. The buildings are structured around principal learning, teaching, exhibition or communal spaces.

The duotone grain of the red and buff sandstone characterises the campus, used as both surface cladding for the facades →

01–02. Campus aerial

shots showing pure

geometry and repetitive

form.

Plan (above)

A Common activity area

(auditorium, library and

conference hall)

B Amphitheatre

C Institute of Film and

Television

D Institute of

Architecture and

Urban Design

E Institute of Fine Arts

F Institute of Fashion

Design

G Cafeteria

H Administration

I Guesthouse

‹‹ It is important to add the strong technical component of this adaptation: the vernacular and local examples, that mix here with Modernism in language and ambition, imply the use of formless physical phenomena, only reproducible once perfectly framed and described in tectonic terms. MGR

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A

B

G

H

I

CC

DD

EE

FF

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→ and paving for outdoor circulation areas. Materiality is a unifying feature in Rewal’s body of work, sandstone being the preferred architectural material. The two stones are dexterously deployed to highlight the separation of the vertical and horizontal (facade and ground plane) and to exaggerate each building’s recesses, allowing for a subtle interplay of light and shadow.

The building’s geometrical symmetry, though, is loosened in the design of the masterplan to ensure the axes misalign – a deliberate ploy that maintains the diff erentiation and individual identities for each programmatic discipline. This shift creates a vast quadrangle, as multiple courtyards merge into a central square.

Here, a large cylindrical volume – designated as common activity area – interrupts the predominantly low-rise development. It hosts a central library, auditorium and conference facilities, a vertical move momentarily shifting one’s gaze away from the regularity of the built form. An inclined disc with a structural lattice crowns the structure. Ceremonial stairs are extruded from and ascend either side, terminating at a vantage point to survey the campus.

Rohtak is a typical northern Indian suburb. Its development has been gradual, mohallas (neighbourhoods) and nagars (colonies) being the unit of growth. However, it is an area primed for rapid industrial and commercial development and touted as a future tertiary education hub.

By contrast, Rewal’s earlier work such as the Parliament Library, New Delhi (2003) was contextually rooted by its proximity to Herbert Baker’s Parliament House. At Rohtak, context is a composite reading, a clear hierarchy emerging through historicism and type. Rewal refl ects on the nature of educational environments, as well as architectural elements (staircases, amphitheatres, courts, corridors, facades, screens, neighbourhoods, etc.) collectively staged within modern precepts. In its seamless integration of an extensive range of concepts and archetypes, the project defl ects from mere representational vocabularies that appear to dominate contemporary architectural production in India.

The amphitheatre is located to the south of the library, off set from the common activity area and the open-air foyer. A vast steel and glass panel roof seems to fl oat over the amphitheatre, its overhang forming a shallow colonnade in the courtyard. Across the foyer, the Institute of Fashion and Design’s western facade is set deep, screened by an external staircase that spans its length. Shaded pavilions projecting over the landings accentuate each level; they also visually reference the library complex and forecourt and are reminiscent of chhatris (canopies) prevalent in the vernacular styles of architecture.

Program and ‘non-program’ have direct correlations. The un-programmed areas are choreographed movement spines and →

03. Photovoltaic panels

cap the cylindrical

volume.

04. The ascent to the

top of the central

volume has a layered

and textured materiality.

05. Forms stand

opposed but meld

together with a

consistent use of stone.

06. Courtyard areas

provide ample space for

informal gathering and

relaxation.

Sections (above)

A Auditorium

B Conference hall

C Library

D Principal’s offi ce

E Classroom

F Laboratory

G Computer lab

H Reception

I Foundation courses lab

J DVD, VCD and book

library

K Resource centre

‹‹ Putting aside stylistic implications, it is interesting to see this project in relation to William Turnbull and Charles Moore’s Kresge College and its attempt to reproduce village-like domesticity (the domestic sphere, another forgotten realm in practice nowadays). MGR

0 2 10m

C

B

A

E

E

D

Common activity AmphitheatreCentral area

Institute of Architecture and Urban Design Central area Institute of Fashion Design

F

G

F

F

I

I

H

Administration

K

J

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Section B



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→ junctions of cross-disciplinary exchange.Rewal also presents a critique of thepedagogical models for design education,proposing that spatial thinking is stimulatedand incited by conversations. In some waysit is an extension of the conceptual narrativeembedded in Rewal’s National Institute ofImmunology (1990), of intentional divisionsand yet certain reciprocity betweendisciplines. He continues to curate thesemoments through architecture andlandscape, with ideas that imply flexibility,intimacy and monumentality.

The work of Raj Rewal offers aconscious layering of tradition, culture andidentity within an aesthetic ethos ofModernism. Through iteration, the projectbecomes an analytical device to viewculture and architecture afresh. The VisualArts Institutional Campus finds itself in awider discourse of laissez-faire urbandevelopment in India, where no clear orrobust model exists. In weaving betweenscales and absorbing typologies, the projectoff ers some resistance to the globalarchitectural model consumed by the flowof capital. Rewal pursues alternatives andcritical practices for urbanisation, precedentsthat will impact future projects.

LOCATION: Rohtak, Haryana / CLIENT: Directorate of Technical Education, Haryana / COMPETITION: 2008 /

COMPLETION: 2014 / SITE AREA: 90,968sqm / BUILT-UP AREA: 47,242.74sqm / ARCHITECT: Raj Rewal Associates /

PROJECT TEAM: Arvind Mathur, Ankit Bansal, Maneesh Gupta, Sunil Gautam, Sanjeet Bose, Shadab Ahmed Asrar, Ram

Avtar / PROJECT MANAGER: RITES Ltd. / CONTRACTOR: Aluwalia Contractors India Ltd. / STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Vijay

Rewal Associates / MECHANICAL, ELECTRICAL ENGINEER: Ru Tech Services Inc.

07. The building has a

monolithic sensibility as

the pure geometric

forms clash.

Detail 1 - alternative dry

granite cladding (above)

A 30thk x 552h polished

granite slab up to 900

held by 6 dia 60 long SS

pin (min 4 per stone)

B 8mm groove in both

directions sealed with

‘silicone sealant’ on

backer rod

C 6 dia 60 long SS pin

fixed on a 6 dia

self-tightning SS bolt

with a thimble 25 dia

and 3thk

D 6 dia 60 long SS pin on

vertical joint of adjacent

stones 1 no. in 152mm

high stone and 2 nos. in

552mm high stones

E Continuous cramp

fixed to RCC using 6 dia

60 long anchor fastner

@600mm c/c

F 4mm thk bent to shape

SS sheet continuous at

every horizontal joint to

take self-tightening SS

bolt at intervals as per

drawing

Detail 2 - dry granite

cladding (above)

G 18thk x 608h and up

to 900w polished

granite stone held by SS

pins and supported by

notch in 152 x 50thk

bond granite stone

H 25 dia washer

I 40/55 x 40 x 5thk SS

cramp fixed to RCC by 6

dia anchor fastener

J Transparent silicone

sealant

K 4mm dia 50 long SS

pin holding granite

stones in a 6 dia

pre-drilled hole

L 6 dia 60 long SS pins

on vertical joints of

adjacent stones 1 no. in

152h stone and 2 nos. 4

dia 50 long pins in 608

high stones. All vertical

joints are 8mm groove

sealed with ‘silicone’

sealant

M 152 x 50thk up to

900mm ‘honed’ granite

stone held by 4 dia 50

long SS pins at intervals

N This cramp is a

continous angle 40 x 55

x 5mm with 4 dia 50

long SS pins to hold

stones at bottom of

beams at all fl oor levels.

Detail 1 Detail 2

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

MN

0 20 50mm

07



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FOLIO

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094

IN CONVERSATION Stephen Loo

The recent conjunction of signifi cant events in the economic, social and political landscape of higher education

in Australia has prompted many in architectural academia and practice to deeply consider what constitutes the education of an architect in relation to contemporary professional practice and their contributions to social and environmental well-being. These events have of course a larger backdrop of accelerating epochal and global volatility: pressing climate change emergencies, unpredictable international economic systems, dazzling proliferation of new materialities and computational technologies, as well as the seemingly un-mappable rhizomic defi nitions of social life and spectral cultural imaginations. These events severely challenge the practical and ethical eff icacy of architectural education, as we know it, with a call for an urgent reconfi guration of its strategic and policy domains.

At the time of writing, the Australian Federal Government is considering wide-scale reform to the higher education sector. Proposed deregulation of university fees will lead to a rise in the cost to students for a university architectural degree, with predictions from a minimum of 30 percent to a threefold increase in costs. With lower typical earnings after graduation, students facing both increased course costs and interest rate for repayment on student loans will likely be demotivated from studying architecture. An architectural graduate whose debt will grow faster than repayments will not be able to participate eff ectively in the economic system through investment and innovation. Furthermore, the possibility of universities receiving no funding through Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP) for the Master of Architecture professional degree – although architecture may be a discipline with ‘clear community benefi t and modest fi nancial rewards’ (Kemp and Norton, 2013, p86) – has already precipitated strategic curriculum reforms by universities based on the ‘returns’ in off ering an architecture program.

In 2011 the then Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) was tasked by

the newly formed federal Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA) to develop Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) for disciplines representative of higher education clusters nationally. The national consultation process for the TLO project compelled academics and the profession to articulate succinctly what discipline-specifi c baseline academic qualities should a student graduating in architecture in Australia possess. While it is still not known how the resultant TLOs will infl uence TEQSA’s quality assurance processes of higher education providers, the TLOs have already had a marked, though somewhat osmotic, infl uence on considerations of competency criteria by professional bodies, as well as learning outcomes and criteria-referenced assessment practices at universities.

The Architects Accreditation Council of Australia (AACA) has just completed a major review of the National Standard of Competency for Architects (NSCA), designed to determine the benchmark standard of competency required for registration as an architect in Australia. The NSCA provides the main set of criteria within Australian and New Zealand architecture program accreditation procedure (ANZ APAP), which itself underwent a comprehensive review and change in 2012.

The new NSCA will sit alongside an Education Framework of the Australian Institute of Architects (the Institute) currently located within the Institute’s higher education policy. The reconfi guration of the Institute’s Education Framework, a process now underway, provides the profession and universities with an opportunity to map the relations between universities and contemporary architectural practice. These relations have been fi lled with tensions from the mismatch between the continual re-examination of subject matter, owing to the critical refl ection implicit in research-based university teaching on the one hand, and the need for specialisation to build a commercial edge in professional expertise and negotiating a regulated professional practice environment, on the other.

Alongside this, is the long debated

question of research. Owing to the need to build reputation, hounded by the spectre of rankings for its market edge, and necessity for diversifi cation of income from teaching, universities require its academics to produce research; though the qualifi cation of what constitutes research in architecture in light of national criteria for research productivity and its relationships to industry and public funding requires a whole other article. Schools of architecture struggle to make ends meet in having to fulfi l a curriculum governed largely by professional accreditation requirements, while producing research the defi nition of which remains unclear. A vicious cycle emerges between the pressure to teach well and maintain student numbers while undertaking research: it is well proven in the architecture discipline, it is teaching income that supports research. This forces teaching to be carried out more eff iciently, which usually means more strategic plans for doing so with their associated time-hungry administration, which generally ends up in reductions in contact time with students, leading to student dissatisfaction and potential reduction in market share, and so the downward spiral continues.

So what should architectural education constitute in this landscape of higher education? And what are the most eff ective means for Australian universities to impart this education? The latter question begs another more profound one: are universities in Australia the right place for contemporary architectural education? If so, and it is my strong belief that this is so, can universities carry out this task in their current governance structures for curriculum and research? How do we work our way out of the prevailing view and incessant debate that there is a fundamental misalignment between what is taught at universities and what the profession perceives it needs from graduate architects? More importantly, can we aff ord to risk, by allowing this schism to prevail, whether in attitude or practice, the contributions the architectural discipline makes to the grand challenges facing our world, through its unique epistemological and methodological approaches to

AT THE CROSSROADS OF AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION REVIEW

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095


knowledge, understanding and practice, that is fundamentally diff erent albeit connected to the hypothesis-based scientifi c thinking and the narrative or discursive-based humanities thinking?

Architectural education continues to be generally seen by the profession and parts of academia as possessing a fundamental vocational character. That is, that there is a particular skill base that needs to be imparted, that the learning experience and curriculum content need to have a connection to the ‘real world’. Peter Wheelwright, in an article for the Journal of Architectural Education, ironically points out that ‘where exactly had the students been, [when at university] if not in “real life”?’ (Wheelwright, 2004, p56). What is implicit here is that there are diff erent realities between the professional and the academic worlds, although changes to economic policies by many national governments have more than successfully turned many a university sector into players in the global marketplace, creating a diverse and strange hybrid breed of commercial/pure knowledge/common good corporate entities.

The profession has little choice but to operate within the constraints of an existing real world (Wheelwright, 2004, p57), but there are several reasons why it does not follow that the simulation of the ‘real world’ within university programs is an eff ective, or even possible, way of providing students with insights into the wicked problems that the profession deals with. Firstly, in many cases the profession, and its clients and community, as well as the environment in which it participates, is changing faster than academia, and architectural research is having a tough time keeping up with this, especially when access to funding and time is scarce. The profession has to fi nd new and innovative ways to operate within the changing paradigms of consumption, globalised attitude to habitation, novel contractual and fi nancial procurement methods, innovative research and development in building products. Architects are also being called to participate in fi elds as diverse as law (expert witnessing, visualisation and spatial mapping, etc.), computer gaming and special eff ects industries, business and entrepreneurship (information fl ow design, corporate restructuring, etc.), and health and medical science (dementia care design, housing and well-being, etc.).

Furthermore, the ‘real world’ of the university possesses a diff erent spatio-temporality to professional practice. The time to think about problems or, more accurately, to problematise – that is to say, to formulate questions creatively and eff ectively – exists by very diff erent economic imperatives at a university. And

having access to specialist research spaces and infrastructure for that thinking (and making) means that the nature and direction of academic endeavour does not, and should not, resemble conditions in professional practice. In addition, architectural academics, unlike their professional counterparts, are located adjacent to a range of non-cognate disciplines, the research and teaching of which have the potential to, on the one hand, radically challenge the epistemic conditions of architectural production and, on the other, provide opportunities to forge new, experimental but concrete interdisciplinary relations to better understand the deep but diff erent anchoring of the academic and professional realms in the economy of the world.

Lastly, the diff erences between the real worlds of academia and the profession do not mean that architectural education moves away from the architectural competencies, say those that are within the NSCA, which form the criteria for the accreditation of architectural programs. Disciplinary knowledge and skills in construction, environmental studies, history and theory, professional studies, communication and design need to remain central to any architectural curriculum, but the nature, extent and mode of engagement with this knowledge need to be tempered by the robust educational philosophy specifi c to each program, as maintaining diversity and developing inclusivity are paramount to stave off professional obsolescence. It has been proven that successful organisations are those that have shifting and permeable boundaries to allow for adaptable and collaborative practices, but this arrives from having boundaries to start with, which can then be designed to have increased permeability. Graduates with a set of critical skills specifi c to the spatial, tectonic, design and making ontologies of an architectural education will not only partake in the profession of the future, but will be able to demonstrate the productiveness of architectural thinking and practice in interdisciplinary and inter-professional projects, which are becoming the norm in solving complex problems.

Australia is not alone in reassessing its architectural education. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is also carrying out an education review to deal with, not unlike Australia, the large increase in the cost of architectural education and rising student debt, as well as the schism created between the understanding of the professional context and its synergy with the creative agenda of studio-led design, owing to the segmented road to registration (RIBA Parts 1, 2 and 3).

The London School of Architecture (LSA) is an initiative that off ers a radically →

‹‹ Big mistake: it corrupts professional practice, making us more vulnerable in economic terms and therefore marginalising production and relevance. MGR

‹‹ Yes there are differences but both aspects of the profession are extremely important in creating well-rounded architects. Academic studies create criticality – changing the course purely to practical would be just a drafting degree and vice versa – a purely academic pursuit doesn’t tackle the realistic complexities of creating a building. Architects should negotiate between both. ML

‹‹ Technology is changing faster than the profession. The profession is struggling to keep up as well. ML

‹‹‹ Will there be any benefi ts with increased fees? Will teachers have more face-to-face time with students – especially important in design subjects, where some course restrictions have students only meeting with their teachers once a week. This, compared to schools worldwide is alarming, where students interact with teachers three times a week.

This is not to say the reader supports increases in fees, but will there be any benefi t to the student? ML

‹ Joint ventures and occasional associations between offi ces seem the future for professional practice, where liberalisation and freelance work seem to necessitate. MGR

‹‹ In particular, studio cultures and professional practice are up for renovation. A great conference last year hosted by Monash University and RMIT for AASA had a lot to say on this point. A book is forthcoming. AB

‹‹‹ Architectural research has less to do with other disciplines’ particularities; practice and academia seem deeply connected and informed, promoting continual cross-breeding of ideas. In architecture, it’s necessary to apply research in a practical manner or assume research will mainly deal with historical argumentation. MGR

‹‹‹ This set of requirements shouldn’t be present at all in the latter stages of education. Higher education shouldn’t be envisaged as a ‘professional minimum provider’ but the opposite: as a chance to attain points that practice can’t reach. MGR

‹‹‹ While this is all true, a university education today, compared to twenty years ago in Australia, now includes international guests and studios, travelling, 1:1 building, a huge array of technology and opportunities for students to get involved in archi-culture, festivals etc. as an everyday event. Students’ work generally refl ects this! AB

‹‹‹‹‹ Another aspect of the student debt that is of concern at a disciplinary level is the ripple effect of diminished capacity to borrow for business loans and in effect start a business. If young practices are the lifeblood of the profession, they will be wiped out. AB



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→ diff erent curriculum structure that aims to increase access to architectural education in response to increasing costs for students. LSA will seek accreditation from RIBA this year and will have its fi rst intake of students in 2015. Designed as an ‘alternative Part 2 route into the procession for talented Part 1 graduates’, the fi rst year of the program will see students in a year-long salaried placement and assigned a practice mentor. Each fi rst year must join a research cluster, where practices collaborate to produce responses to architectural issues, a move that allows practitioners associated with the LSA to explore their own critical and creative interests. All projects in the second year will be focused on a single London borough and this location will change each year. Each year it is expected that the LSA studio space will be within the borough itself. Workshops and facilities are to be negotiated from local providers, meaning that LSA will run without the overheads of operating physical premises, thereby minimising costs, allowing fl exibility of location and scale, while remaining agile and responsive to change.

In Lyon, France, Confl uence: Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture is off ering an education approach that is international and collaborative, based on ‘pioneering and radical understanding of research, experiment and trans-disciplinarity’. It aims to: ‘construct an unparalleled view of architecture at the intersection of disciplines, to cross prospective and experimental visions, to create an appetite for engagement and taking risks, to generate unforeseen alternatives, to challenge the uniformity of production and imposed standards, to question and go beyond the implicit limits of architecture.’ Running alongside vertical studio streams, it has seminar and courses covering history and theory, humanities and social sciences (including philosophical, ethics, aesthetics and narrative), art and visual culture, construction and digital tools.

In the US, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has recently endorsed an additional pathway that leads to licensure, namely licensure upon graduation from an accredited program. The idea is to integrate the internship and examination requirements that architects must fulfi l into the years spent completing a professional degree in architecture.

A pattern that emerges from the international examples of rethinking architectural education is a better continuity between university education and professional practice prior to registration. If seen as a block, the nominally fi ve-year education and two-year post graduation experience means that there is potential for

greater crossover between the role of academia and the profession in preparing candidates for registration. Universities do have a responsibility to impart core competencies to students, but will need a system of validation that robustly delineates the principles of responsibility of the universities and the profession in the development of competencies in architectural candidates, but is suff iciently agile to cater for the diversity of educational missions among university programs.

What university programs impart to students is not vocational training but a critical faculty and a technically informed imagination that arrive out of many of the competencies developed in vocational training. As Wheelwright admits: ‘… I suggest to students that we do not teach them to do architecture but rather teach them to think about doing architecture. Later when they become professionals they will learn how to do it in a true sense.’ (Wheelwright, 2004, p56)

Architecture programs need to be fashioned to develop the core competencies for graduates to shape the future of the built environment, but through this, build their intellectual creative capital for them to be able to participate in fi elds beyond architecture and their capabilities to broker interdisciplinary projects. These competencies and experiences should provide graduates with suff icient armature to not only predict, but to negotiate dexterously, what the future brings.

Within universities, the architecture curriculum and its research methodologies should be that which allows the discipline to mediate the generation of new forms of knowledge through experimental and productive interdisciplinary exchanges between non-cognate disciplines. In this way, the architectural discipline becomes an active participant in fulfi lling the mission of many universities that place high value on the creation and dissemination of knowledge, because it provides the thinking and practice platforms to demonstrate that research is a creative pursuit.

Lastly, universities need to develop an understanding of where architecture sits within an economic paradigm and to acknowledge the diff erences between the profession and academia within the knowledge economy. Importantly, both the profession and academia need to understand that architecture is central within an emerging economic paradigm, that of the creative experience economy, which is implicitly trans-disciplinary, intimately linking architectural education to diverse fi elds, such as neuroscience at one end of the scale, to philosophy, information systems, tourism studies, economics and ecosystem studies at the other.

›› This is the most important asset for both students and practice: the development of architectural critical thinking – this can’t be quantifi ed in terms of professional profi tability. MGR

› It is important to note that confl uence would be a private institution without professional certifi cation (at least at the beginning), with very expensive fees (particularly for a country such as France). Its collaborative aspect and dematerialised way of teaching is, however, a new approach to follow attentively. MGR

D Kemp and A Norton

Review of the Demand Driven Funding System Report, Canberra:

Commonwealth of

Australia, 2013.

P Wheelwright, ‘Why

There is No Such Thing

as “The Real World”’ in

Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 57, No. 4

(May, 2004), pp.56-57.



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AR139—DISCLOSURE

Email: submissions@arasiapacifi c.com

Architecture must look at its critical and pedagogical approaches, at its

grassroots level, to assess where and how the profession should change.

As practitioners we are apathetic towards criticism (or the need for critical

dialogue) and, more disconcertingly, we are apologetic for the fodder

factories that churn out graduate architects for use in the profession.

Are we more concerned with the mindless production of drawings

than ideas? Are we hell-bent on the need for young practitioners or

recent graduates to complete drawing sets or to conceive ideas? It is

easy to assign a student body the task of imitating a sectional drawing

from a notable architect and to then assess this as adequate or not, but it

is quite another to empower the student with the tools required to take

ideas into the profession.

AR139–Disclosure is focused on how we perceive our role and our

work. The practice of architecture requires its own full disclosure of the

facts, to scrutinise our own methods or approaches, to evince critical

commentary that moves away from studied indifference. We should

actively encourage rather than dissuade. It may not be straightforward

but the direction is clear: we need critical enquiry and pedagogical

intuition, but we will need to hide the medicine in the mashed potatoes.

Michael Holt

Former US President Richard Nixon addressed the nation on 15 August

1973 in regard to the Watergate investigations, believing that ‘full

disclosure of the facts’ would render him unimpeachable. Needless to say,

his edited version of the ‘facts’ did not prevent his demise and yet the

current political context again yearns for full disclosure and greater

transparency. A prescient example is funding disclosure thresholds.

However, public scrutiny is now infinitely more difficult, with the flow

of information and critical commentary significantly controlled.

In business transactions, disclosure means to tell the ‘whole truth’

about a contractual arrangement so to prevent anyone knowingly

falsifying or concealing any significant fact. While other manifestations of

contemporary aspects relating to disclosure are security risks,

surveillance, privacy measures and the declassification of secret records

or factual accounts in the public interest. In philosophical terms, Martin

Heidegger theorised ‘world disclosure’ – how language informs the

average everyday understanding of things. Language is not simply an

instrument for expressing ideas; it is the very dimension that brings the

world to be.

The term ‘disclosure’, then, is a curious one when thought of in terms

of architecture, for reasons akin to those found in the political example,

where silence or secrecy appear the most effective measures in critique

and inquisition. There is an unwillingness to critically discuss architecture;

to be engaged in decision-making, where competitions for prominent

projects are invariably shut down to public enquiry, an intensifying

problem between public/private, and a lack of academic inspiration. The

culture of architecture is subsequently privatised.

› Empowering anyone is risky. Empowering anyone that is younger than you is risky and generous. Architects don’t usually like taking risks nor being generous. Why would this change in academia? MGR

› Ideas must fi rst be written and then exacted or iteratively developed in design. Aldo Rossi believed architectural theory went hand-in-hand with a theory of design; a clearly defi ned theory of architecture provided a system for designing. Indeed, Rossi wanted to produce a text outlining his methodology in design, based on Raymond Roussel’s How I Wrote Certain of My Books (1935). ML

› To imperfectly quote, ‘Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas’.AB

Agreed, yet it is important not to fall into unnecessary exhibitionism. Therefore how do we determine what information is valuable and what is not? Are we ready to accept serendipitous creative processes as valid, even if it can’t be logically explained? If so, are we ready to demystify the arcane idea of architectural production? MGR

›

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FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE

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Regulars 004 Editorial

009 Folio

Features 007 The future of healthcare Surabhi Chaturvedi

022 Dying well in hospital Stanton Kroenert

Projects 010 Dandenong Mental Health (Melbourne, Australia) Bates Smart in association with the Irwin Alsop Group

014 Nepean Mental Health Centre (Sydney, Australia) Woods Bagot

018 Chris O’Brien Lifehouse (Sydney, Australia) Rice Daubney

C O NTE NTS

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Welcome to the fi rst Architectural Review Asia Pacifi c supplement. Our focus for this edition is on the healthcare sector. In future versions we’ll seek to address the key areas of specialisation in the architecture profession and highlight expertise and intuition. As a fast growing sector, health and medical facilities are achieving widespread acknowledgement beyond their basic functional requirements. No longer are medical centres and hospitals seen as cold, industrial buildings only serving a programmatic purpose. Architecture critic, Charles Jencks, was a fi rm believer in the ability of a building to inspire, so when his partner, Maggie Keswick Jencks, was diagnosed with a terminal illness it was their shared goal to provide buildings that would signifi cantly hearten their users throughout their cancer care: Maggie’s Centres are now as synonymous with medical programs as they are with their notable architectural designs. While living with advanced cancer for two years, Maggie used her knowledge and experience to create a blueprint for a new type of care. With the help of world-renowned architects, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Richard Rogers, the centres have become globally recognised architectural moments as well as functioning buildings in the provision of advice and assistance to patients. It was Maggie’s belief that people should not ‘lose the joy of living in the fear of dying’. It is hoped that architecture can continue to play its part.It is interesting to note Australian architecture off ices are following suit in the pursuit of design excellence for healthcare facilities. The New Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne (designed by Bates Smart in conjunction with Billard Leece Partnership) has scooped a number of awards since its completion in 2012, including the AIA National Architecture Award for Public Architecture 2012, World Architecture Festival’s ‘World’s Best Health Building’ 2012 and the Design & Health International Academy Awards’ International Health Project (over 40,000sqm). The AUD$1 billion project provides new models of care incorporating innovative international health care concepts, such as evidence-based design principles, environmentally sustainable design, the introduction of daylight and nature into work and health care settings, and the co-location of clinical, research and education facilities.Featured in both AR130–Pawn (as Under Construction) and AR135–Elements (full project review), the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) by Woods Bagot is another example of a world-class medical facility. Derived from its unique site geometry and the need to create a forecourt entry adjacent to the new hospital to the west, SAHMRI’s sculptural, iconic form is characterised by a panelised facade that unifi es the organic diamond-shaped plan while showcasing the two atria inside the building. The SAHMRI facility is designed to accommodate up to 675 researchers, providing nine fully fl exible wet and dry laboratory modules to PC2 standard as well as a vivariums, cyclotron and associated public areas. And so, in contributing to the advancement of healthcare architecture, our supplement’s projects continue this lineage. Indeed, Bates Smart (in association with the Irwin Alsop Group) return with the Dandenong Mental Health facility (p010) – a design aimed to deinstitutionalise the building and to help contextualise the project in its low-rise education buildings and single-family housing suburban environment. Woods Bagot also returns to our publication with the Nepean Mental Health Centre (p014) – a new insertion into the existing hospital campus at Nepean Hospital in Sydney’s north-west. And HDR Rice Daubney showcases the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, Sydney (p018), the ‘fi rst integrated cancer treatment centre in Australia’, off ering everything a patient needs in one place, including ambulatory care, allied health, clinical trials, research, education, complementary therapies and psycho-social support. Architectural Review Asia Pacifi c

Architecture and Design Division

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E D ITO R IAL

Cover image:

The South Australian

Health and Medical

Research Institute

Photograph courtesy

of Trevor Mein

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FEATURE Surabhi Chaturvedi

007

THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE

Healthcare design is changing: it is at the forefront of newtechnologies and continues to implement design strategiesthat help to revolutionise architectural design as well as

medical practice. Undoubtedly, the rise and development of smarttechnology systems in nanotechnology, biomimetics, molecularelectronics etc continue to transform medicine, but they are nowbeginning to impact on architecture. Cutting edge innovations inecological sustainability and energy efficiency influence designtrends across the healthcare sector. But it is not simplytechnological aides that change design; recently the provisionof interior spaces that cater more adequately to patients’ needshas been thoroughly researched and implemented in projectsacross Australia.

Indeed, Anjali Joseph, director of research at the US-basedCenter for Health Design, suggests core design strategies –instituted to facilitate patient recovery – are: interior ‘healinggardens’ and a greater focus on the integration of lighting andventilation controls as well as natural daylighting. Further, inresearch conducted by Kortney Jo Edge (University of Florida,2003) as part of a thesis on the correlation between wall colour andpatient recovery at the Shands Hospital, Gainesville, Florida, it was

noted the colour palette and spatial planning of program has animpact on the anxiety and stress levels of patients and can, ifproperly planned, lead therefore to quicker patient recovery times.

As Joseph notes, the exposure to comfortable levels of naturallight can result in reduced depression, ease of pain, improvedmetabolism and vitamin-D absorption, and the reduction inneonatal ailments. The role of surrounding environments andinteractive design on healing was instituted at BVN Architecture’sWestmead Millennium Institute (WMI), Sydney, Australia,completed in 2014. While, at HDR Rice Daubney’s Chris O’BrienLifehouse (reviewed on p018), strategic placement of windows,thermal mass and horizontal louvres for shading enables minimalmechanical ventilation – reducing energy costs, resulting in a moreecologically sustainable facility. Meanwhile, the ‘tri-generationsystem’ provides a one-step process for the production of →

01. Atrium at Bates Smart’s Royal

Children’s Hospital (completed 2012).

Image courtesy Bates Smart.

02. Meals produced using

Regethermic technology.

03. Swirling geometry at Woods

Bagot’s South Australian Health and

Medical Institute (completed 2014).

Image courtesy Woods Bagot.

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FEATURE Surabhi Chaturvedi

008

→ heating, cooling and electricity, using renewable resources, so the building is supremely energy eff icient. Incidentally, developments and advancements such as these are often triggered by environmental and economic concerns.

Importantly, architects specialising in the provision of hospitals and special care facilities are required to cater primarily for the comfort of patients but also family and friends. As such, contemporary healthcare design promotes fl exible waiting areas that allow loved ones to relax, providing workstations with laptop and phone charging points, lounges and rooms for overnight stay.

Unquestionably, Bates Smart and Billard Leece’s Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne (RCH) is a pioneer in Australia as it accommodates and accounts for the social and psychological needs of its patients and extended family. For example, in-patient and clinical care areas are designed in neutral shades and have softened interiors to invite patients and make their stay comfortable and reassuring. Not surprisingly, Australian healthcare facilities more than compete with the rest of the world. Projects such as the WMI or RCH provide hotel-like services; even with new room service food options. In-hospital experience is now very diff erent to traditional Rethermed Transport system technologies for room service, with their insulated trolleys travelling from room to room. Such cumbersome services required large, dedicated kitchen areas and storage, limiting the occupiable fl oor area for other essential programs. But now food delivery systems, such as the TUG system, reduce the fl oor space requirements for separate kitchens and stores.

As noted, technological developments in healthcare have been constrained to medical devices and instruments (3-D imaging, RFID patient tagging, advanced diagnosis tools). Notably, Westmead Children’s Hospital was the fi rst institution to have replaced traditional X-ray fi lm with digitally accessible fi les at strategically placed terminals throughout the facility, which are remotely connected. The facility also uses advanced techniques such as tele-radiology, telemedicine and remote health-related information, which is relayed to the regional areas of the country. However, Winthrop University Hospital Research and Academic Center, New York, remains a benchmark. As soon as a patient enters the facility, they have the option of checking in via kiosks, eliminating the need to queue for an appointment. Once entry is confi rmed, the relevant doctor can digitally locate the patient’s records and appropriately administer treatment – electronic medical records are becoming an essential feature of most healthcare facilities. Further, the treatment rooms are intentionally designed to be interactive, reducing the need to shift patients from room to room. Such technologies enable doctors to share valuable videos, tutorials or educational materials with the patients, which, in turn, the patient can access at their leisure.

Jeff Keller from Australian fi rm Regethermic – one of the largest food service equipment importers – believes the operational

logistics in healthcare projects are greatly infl uenced by the successful implementation of robotics. For instance, automated meal delivery systems could evolve into a more sophisticated operative known as the Aethon TUG system (Device Technologies). These systems are currently used at Canberra Hospital as well as a few other facilities across Australia.

Similar advancements in technology can also be applied to the external fabric of a building, with the use of sensor-operated composite fabric systems such as the Homeostatic system and the Smart Screen system – developed by Decker Yeadon – and the retractable sails by Wilkinson Eyre Architects at Gardens by the Bay, Singapore – detecting changes in atmospheric conditions that trigger a response to the internal environmental control systems monitoring internal lighting, ventilation and temperature in real time. Responsive building envelopes could be a design tool that is at once pure function and aesthetic sensibility. Indeed, Bates Smart’s RCH or Woods Bagot’s South Australian Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), Adelaide both exhibit wonderfully designed external skins with automated envelopes that allow for such manipulation.

To summarise, healthcare facilities are shifting in their traditional appearance. Where previously there was solid mass – unwieldy and logistically diff icult to manage and negotiate – healthcare facilities now operate as individual units spread across a campus to reduce building mass, often with a central atrium and a focus on the integration of the exterior and interior volumes. Further, the use of renewable resources such as harvestable rainwater, tri-generation systems and appropriate orientation on site avoid the need for artifi cial lighting and ventilation – all key features in current design. Intriguingly though, healthcare is metaphorically merging with the hospitality type, where hospitals promise a ‘comfortable stay’. Through the integration of ICT connectivity and seamless, non-obtrusive monitoring of environments, architectural projects in this sector are at the forefront – both spatially and technologically. However, architects subsequently face the task of designing and planning for the integration of information technology, triggering the need to integrate the design of the internal and external fabric as a composite system.

As practitioners, the vision for the future in healthcare is dependent on the adoption of new technologies, both in the digital realm for operational systems for patient care, but also in the construction aspects pertaining to functionality and aesthetics. Although initial costs may be higher in comparison to traditional materials and technology, over a building’s lifespan the benefi ts far outweigh the cost price. Therefore, architects and designers – in using available resources, implementing research in design and appropriate interior spatial planning – have the opportunity to continue the excellent progress being made in the health typology, ensuring that the future of the healthcare sector is continually changing and always exciting.

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DANDENONG MENTAL HEALTH

Location: Melbourne, AustraliaArchitect: Bates Smart in association

with the Irwin Alsop Group Photography: Virgile Simon Bertrand

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a

b

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e f

e

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fh

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j

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David Street

Cle

ela

nd

Str

eet

When appointed to the project by the Department of Human Services, Bates Smart in

association with the Irwin Alsop Group explored how architecture could evolve away from the archetypal mental health facility. They sought to create an environment where the buildings would enhance treatment and healing, and where staff , visitors and the public viewed the environment as welcoming and therapeutic.

The design aimed to deinstitutionalise the building and to help contextualise the project in its low-rise education buildings and single-family housing suburban environment. To create an appropriate scale, the architects have grouped the living, dining, staff and support spaces, and 120 single bedrooms, into 38 pavilions, and arranged them around 16 landscaped courtyards. Internally, the extensive use of natural timber for the walls and ceilings, together with the external cladding and exposed structure, give the building a residential character, which is further enhanced by carefully landscaped courtyards and external garden areas.

The clustered pavilions create residential units for juvenile, adult, aged and secure extended care patients. Secure courtyards (where the walls of the pavilions provide the necessary security) were a →

01. Subtle use of timber

for the external fi nishes

allows the architecture

to blend in.

02. The archetypical

shape of a house in

elevation off ers the user

a sense of the familiar.

Site Plan

A SECU

B ART building

C Aged Acute Unit

D Adult Acute Unit

E Covered way

F Ambulance entry

G Civic courtyard

H Existing cogen

I Existing boiler house

J Existing hospital

building - West wing

01

Site Plan



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→ fundamental element of the design and allow natural light to penetrate deep within the buildings. The courtyards are the focal point of the lounge and dining spaces, blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior, and providing a threshold experience with an integrated recycled timber, bench-seat window frame.

Upon entering the building visitors are greeted by a small courtyard garden, a peaceful outlook for those waiting for entry to the individual units. Staff stations have clear lines of sight to lounge and dining areas, courtyards and corridors, allowing supervision and observation without unnecessary intervention. Strategically placed security doors provide fl exible boundaries for units to vary in size and share spaces.

Collaborating with the client, Bates Smart challenged the traditional radiating and linear bedroom arrangements of mental health facilities. All bedrooms are single-occupancy with an en suite facility, desk and a large window with views onto the neighbourhood. The reassuring normality of

this arrangement is designed to providetherapeutic benefits.

Durability was a design priority andblackbutt timber was chosen for externalcladding and exposed columns. Robustconcrete perimeter upstands, from groundlevel up to windowsill, provide low-levelexternal separation. These combined withinternal masonry dividing walls add tothermal mass and contribute to a stabletemperature environment. In addition, theuse of in-slab heating and cooling supportedby 100 percent fresh air enhances theinternal thermal environment.

The project was constructed in two stages to allow for the maintenance of existing mental health accommodation on site. The blackbutt cladding of Stage 1 has now weathered to a neutral grey, complementing the landscaping and surrounding residential character. It is not surprising to note that, at the time of writing, the Dandenong Mental Health Centre is shortlisted for the 2014 Australia Institute of Architects National Award for Public Architecture.

03. Internal courtyard

spaces are sheltered by

the cantilevered volume.

04. The strict geometry

of windows and building

envelope provide a

verticality, off ering

views skywards.

Level Two 0 2 10m

COMPLETION DATE: 2014 / CLIENT:

Southern Health / ARCHITECT: Bates

Smart / PROJECT ARCHITECT: Irwin

Alsop / BUILDER: Kane Constructions

/ SUPERINTENDENT: Coffey Projects /

QUANTITY SURVEYOR: Davis Langdon /

LANDSCAPE DESIGNER: LBA Design /

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Irwinconsult /

SERVICES ENGINEER: Waterman AHW /

LAND SURVEYOR: John Chivers and

Associates / BUILDING SURVEYOR:

Philip Chun and Associates / ESD

CONSULTANT: Cundall



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NEPEAN MENTALHEALTH CENTRE

Location: Sydney, AustraliaArchitect: Woods Bagot

Photography: Trevor Mein /Ethan Rohloff

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The Nepean Mental Health Centre is anew insertion into the existinghospital campus at Nepean Hospital

in Sydney’s north-west. Designed torespond to the increase in demand formental health services as a result of thegrowing and ageing population, the designof the facility provides restorative healthcare integrated into the local communityand linked to the adjoining health precinct.

The centre is an example of how mentalhealth care is shifting towards creatingregenerative, healing environments for apatient’s recovery. With the provision of 64mental health beds, servicing highdependency and acute or specialist mentalhealth services for older persons, the centrealso includes a dedicated inpatient wardand new facilities for the outpatient dayprogram.

Designing for mental health requiresdetailed consideration of a number ofcomplex issues around access and safety. Inthe past, this has meant that theseinstitutions are more focused on suchfactors than they are on design. However,research shows that salutogenic design –that which focuses on factors that keep uswell – significantly increases healing rates.

Sensitive to the needs of patients andstaff, Woods Bagot created an environment

that acts as a catalyst for the healingprocess. The design proposition was tocreate a ‘living architecture’, inspired bynon-institutional and residential typologies.Driven by strict security and patientrequirements for safety, the design conceptembraces a level of tactility and humanness.

A building that is designed to helppeople recover from mental illness requiresa hard exterior edge for security. However,Woods Bagot sought to incorporate adesign that helps stimulate the healingprocess, contrasting the building’s steel andglazed exterior with interior architecturethat is soft and interconnected, engagingwith the users and landscape. Theseinternal spaces and courtyards are designedto feel non-institutional, with a focus onhealing by design to create a sense ofhumanity and ownership.

Natural light and privacy are keyaspects of the design. Six outdoorlandscaped courtyards provide respite forpatients, families and staff from the moreclinical setting of the wards. With generoussolar access, the therapeutic internalcourtyards create visual connectivity andengage users with a tapestry of landscapingthat changes with the passage of time,allowing regeneration to become visiblytangible.

The courtyard design encouragesindoor/outdoor connectivity, while curvedlines throughout the landscape encouragepatients to wander, sit and reflect, and alsoto engage with the facade and landscapedesign. The latter is physically embeddedwith plant detailing in the precast facade,enhanced by real vegetation and foliage thatallows residents to touch and feel. Theoverall effect is a calming, healing ambience.

The colour palette is inspired by thebuilding’s surrounding environment. Thecopper green staining and natural patina ofthe precast has depth and tactility,providing unique ‘on weathering’ finishesthat will continue to evolve over time.

The essence of the project lies increating an architecture that embodies aregenerative environment, stimulating thehealing process. Evidenced-based designand patient-focused care recognise andrespond to the needs of the community,enabling restorative environments forpatient recovery.

01. (left) The prominent

awning shields patients

from solar glare and

announces the entrance.

02. An aerial view shows

the buildings clustered,

relationships between

programs – connected

yet distinct.

02

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NEPEAN MENTAL HEALTH CENTRE

017

03. North-eastern

elevation reduces in

scale as the user

approaches the

entrance.

04. The building’s

western aspect zig-zags

in profi le.

Plans

A offi ce

B open plan offi ce

C waiting

D corridor

E resource room

F storage

G lift lobby

H staff room

I W/C

J comms room

K workstations

L copier

M plant

N staff outdoor area

O secure corridor

P bedroom

Q en suite

R consult

S treatment

T multifunction

U family / breastfeeding

V entry

W waiting area

X reception

Y staff station

Z clean utility - medicine

AA dirty utility

AB acute lounge

AC acute unit courtyard

AD HDU lounge

AE HDU unit courtyard

AF media room

AG quiet room

AH gym

AI laundry

AJ kitchen

AK dining

AL servery

AM intake

AN magistrate room

AO vehicle / ambulance

drop-off

AP secure wait

AQ secure assess room

AR seclusion room

AS secure courtyard

AT group meeting

AU SMHSOP lounge

AV Courtyard

AW Lightwell

AX library

AY Cool room

AZ disposal waste

BA Hydrant pump room

BB loading dock

BC linen waste

BD patient property

BE switch room

ab c

d

d

h i

j

k

kl

m

m

m

i

e

e

f

f

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gn

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aa

aa

a

Existing SWAHS 1 personnel building

Existing SWAHS 1 executive building

Existing Penrith Hospital

Level One

Level Two

Level Three

COMPLETION DATE: 2014 / CLIENT: Southern Health / ARCHITECT: Bates Smart / PROJECT ARCHITECT: Irwin Alsop /

BUILDER: Kane Constructions / SUPERINTENDENT: Coffey Projects / QUANTITY SURVEYOR: Davis Langdon / LANDSCAPE

DESIGNER: LBA Design / STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Irwinconsult / SERVICES ENGINEER: Waterman AHW / LAND SURVEYOR:

John Chivers and Associates / BUILDING SURVEYOR: Philip Chun and Associates / ESD CONSULTANT: Cundall



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CHRIS O’BRIEN LIFEHOUSE

Location: Sydney, AustraliaArchitect: Rice Daubney

Photography: Tyrone Branigan /Simon Grimes / Brett Boardman

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019

The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, Sydney, by HDR Rice Daubney takes an innovative approach to cancer care

focusing on the patient experience – a particularly prescient approach. It is the fi rst integrated cancer treatment centre in the country, off ering everything a patient needs in one place, including ambulatory care, allied health, clinical trials, research, education, complementary therapies and psycho-social support. Although integrated with the existing functions of the Royal Price Alfred Hospital and research facilities at The University of Sydney, Lifehouse is a private, not-for-profi t facility serving both private and public patients; and so as a registered charity all income is reinvested for the benefi t of patient care.

Lifehouse is the realisation of the vision of Chris O’Brien, a leading Sydney-based head and neck oncologist. Its goals are simple: to make things easier for people with cancer so they do not feel alone when navigating the confusing elements of →

01. (left) By stacking

programmatic volumes

vertically, the building is

a unique medical facility

in the Australian

context.

0 4 10mLevel Two

Ground Level



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→ dealing with their illness, to turn new discoveries into better cancer care and, of course, most importantly, to pave a way toward a future without cancer.

Unusual for Australian hospitals, Lifehouse is a nine-storey vertical structure. Because of the vertical arrangement, the design team spent a considerable amount of time making the patient journey as natural and comfortable as possible. Discreet parking, a hotel-like concierge, expansive waiting areas, modern design fi nishes, an abundance of natural light, and intuitive wayfi nding support a positive experience as patients enter and navigate the building.

All spaces within the building revolve around a central atrium that rises up through all nine fl oors and includes an expansive skylight, which diff uses natural light throughout the building. Glass elevators connect each fl oor, off ering subtle glimpses into the programmatic operation of the facility and dramatic views of thefloors below. Perforated metal is a recurringdesign element in the atrium, as well as inthe waiting areas and on exterior panels; thepattern is based on the braille text for theword ‘Lifehouse’.

The vertical order of the facility reflectsfunctionality: ambulatory facilities are on

the lower levels, acute and support zones are in the mid section, and the top two levels house inpatients. The 96 private rooms were purposefully planned in this ‘prime real estate’ to benefi t from the expansive views. Many of the rooms also have access to private external courtyards and healing gardens.

Taking inspiration from the Maggie’s Centres in the UK, Lifehouse includes a space called the Lifehouse Living Room to house supportive services, education and treatments that can be used in partnership with clinical care to help manage the side-eff ects of treatment. Located on the ground fl oor, the space provides therapies such as massage, yoga, acupuncture, Reiki and Qi Gong.

The introduction of a building of this scale to the context required a thoughtful design response from HDR Rice Daubney. To reduce the overall height, a clinical department was located below grade, withnatural light introduced through recessedlandscape courts articulating the buildingedge. The street facade, consisting of twotransparent levels clad in patterned frittedglass, is set back – breaking up the overallmass and responding to the pedestrianscale. The horizontal glazed blades to the

north balance the verticality of the louvres to the south, providing diversity among masses and creating a lively design.

The building is conceptually enclosing and protective without being introverted. The exterior facade layering, louvres, patterned glass and perforated screens allow abundant natural light to penetrate the building while providing patients with privacy from those on the outside. Having opened in April 2013, the project has become globally recognised for design excellence, receiving the Award of Excellence by Modern Healthcare; the Award of Merit by Healthcare, Design and the Overall Winner Award in the Interior Design category of the Design & Health International Academy Awards.

01. The soaring atrium

allows light to fl ood into

public space.

02. Sheet metal ceilings

continue the aesthetic

from external elevation

and animate the ceiling

plane.

03. Programmatic boxes

shift in plan to

invigorate the internal

elevation.

04. Colourful kitchen

and breakout spaces are

comfortable and

functional.

LOCATION: Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Campus, Camperdown, NSW / TOTAL GFA: 45,000sqm / COMPLETION DATE:

November 2013 / CLIENT: The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse at RPA / ARCHITECT: HDR Rice Daubney / ARCHITECTURE PROJECT

TEAM: Ron Hicks, Alessandro Filippi, Mark Shoolman, Peter Kouvelas, Julia Sutcliffe, Graham Reynolds, Kylie

Stynes, Francesca Fava, Scott Gould, Vanessa Zakrewski, Steve Agnew, Sandra Stewart, Sandee Stanley, Paul

Brodala, Sergio Azevedo, Simon Grimes, Vanessa Hawkes, Joanne Pignatelli, Russell Goldstein, George Exinakas,

Jane Carthey, Monish Sarkar, Wendy Yeung, Wun Liew, Joshua Edwards, Anthony Raad, Medhi Blanchard, Linda

Sukkar, Enzo Guddemi, David Hart, Colin Ross, Matina Rajbhandari, Rashi Prashar, Catherine Loker / INTERIOR

DESIGNER: HDR Rice Daubney / CIVIL ENGINEER: C&M Consulting / ELECTRICAL, MECHANICAL AND HYDRAULIC CONSULTANT

AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER: Sinclair Knight Merz / COST CONSULTANT: Rider Levett Bucknall / CIVIC CONSULTANT:

C&M Consulting / HERITAGE CONSULTANT: Connybeare Morrison / FACADE ENGINEER: Aurecon / STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: SCP

/ LANDSCAPE CONSULTANT: Oculus / BUILDING REGULATIONS AND ACCESS CONSULTANT: Philip Chun & Associates / FACADE

CONSULTANT: Surface Design, Aurecon / TRAFFIC ENGINEER: Arup Traffic / WAYFINDING: Minale Tattersfield /

BUILDER: Brookfield Multiplex



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FEATURE Stanton Kroenert

022

DYING WELL IN HOSPITAL

What does it mean to die well? Attitudes to death vary greatly depending on culture. Many ancient (and not so ancient) cultures believed that death in battle was a good

death, while some cultures believe that suicide can be a good death. In others, a good death was dependent on status. In Greek, the phrase eu thanatos – literally ‘good death’ – means dying well in a painless manner, whereas kalos thanatos means dying beautifully in an exemplary manner, a concept that is closer to the present day mainstream idea of a good death.

Death in the early Middle Ages was a public ceremony carefully organised along shared social protocols. Death was to be awaited in bed with children present and the clergy called on to assist with an orderly death scene. During the second part of the Middle Ages, death became more connected to the individual salvation of one’s soul, and thus called for strictly regulated preparations following the Ars Moriendi. These documents contained very clear prescriptions about the moment of death that represented the passage to another world, and how it should be publicly orchestrated in the room of the dying.

In the late eighteenth century there was a quantum shift. Doctors had gained more control over dying than the clergy and even the dying person themselves. Death was no longer depicted as a passage to God, but rather as a naturally occurring event. Death came to be seen as a failure of medicine, thus justifying the practice of subjecting patients to a range of medical interventions to stave off death.

The public mandate has remained that the extension of life should be pursued at virtually all costs, with a focus on quantity, i.e. length of life, rather than quality. Even though the preservation of life is seen as being sacred, where we die is not treated with the same reverence. Until the 1950s, people generally died at home. Now, over half of Australians die in hospital. Despite the fact that hospitals are the backdrop for the most dramatic moments in our human existence, including birth and death, hospital rooms often are designed like a cheap motel room; easy to clean and as generic as possible. Patients and their visitors should not have to spend their last moments in a setting that is uncomfortable, industrial and cold.

Shifting towards an emphasis on regenerative, healing surroundings for patient recovery, Woods Bagot is creating built environments that encourage health and recuperation, while adhering to patients’ clinical needs. Our current research looks at how design can create a positive environment for staff , visitors and, most importantly, patients. Using evidence-based design principles, we want to create spaces that allow patients to spend their last moments with dignity.

The question is: Is there a way of designing a patient bedroom that will support a good death? And how can we know what is important to someone who is about to die? To answer this, we interviewed 10 patients in their last days of life to fi nd out what they most wanted in their fi nal moments. Questioning end stage patients was crucial, as it provided a true refl ection of what was truly important at the end.

A standard set of questions was asked: What are the things you dislike most about your room? What are the things you like? What would your ideal setting be for your fi nal moments? Would you like to be in your own private room, or with another patient? Do you like talking with other patients? Do you feel you have control over your

environment? Are there things that interrupt your sleep? Do you like the view out of your window? Do you want to be outdoors? Do you like having visitors in your room? Do you want to go home?

The answers varied, but there were some recurring themes. While patients generally wanted to die at home, there was fear of being in pain and/or concern about leaving bad memories for loved ones. Resoundingly, patients wanted to be surrounded by familiar people and things.

Patients said that they want privacy, but at the same time they do not want to feel as if they are alone. Even though they knew they were about to die, they did not want to be reminded of it all the time. They said they didn’t like feeling they were not in control of their space. They wanted to be comfortable and pain free, and to be able to sleep. They wanted access to fresh air and to be surrounded by beauty.

With this in mind, the design challenge was to create a hospital room that responded to these challenges: to provide a room that could support a good death.

Based on the feedback, one of the key criteria was that the room should be familiar – familiarity is one of the most appealing things about the idea of dying at home. With this in mind, we set out to design a room, not just as a room to die in, but as a room for the entire spectrum of health care, from birth to death. This would allow the patient to go to a place that could look and feel the same every time they went to hospital, building familiarity. While it is impossible to reserve one room per person over the course of a life, we came up with the idea of a universal room where the design principles can be transferred and replicated irrespective of which part of the hospital (or which hospital anywhere) treatment takes place.

To enable patients to feel a sense of familiarity even within a clinical environment, we came up with the idea of a series of large, fl at, digital screens designed to display familiar environments, faces or objects – from a video of your garden at home, to family photos, or an image of the view just outside the room on a sunny day (even if the present day is overcast). Given end stage patients may have trouble sitting up or walking around, a screen built into the ceiling would accommodate these patients.

So patients are not reminded that they are dying, medical information is provided to hospital staff on an additional fl at screen behind the bed. Nurses can also supervise the patient from an adjacent room with a vision panel, minimising intrusion. Visitor space for family and friends to sit, do homework or even sleep has been provided and an outside area off ers the opportunity for fresh air and a connection to nature. A medical panel on the exterior wall also supports patient mobility and fl exibility of care.

To demonstrate how this room could look and function, we created a virtual reality version in which the client can experience the space like a fi rst person video game. Concepts described above were shared with the interviewed patients before they passed away, receiving very positive feedback.

Approaching health architecture from the point of view of the patient is vital to creating spaces that not only support a patient returning to a state of health, but also allow them to die well too. Our research and design methodology has been fundamental in helping us understand what people really want in their last days, and has been invaluable in our thinking about design for health more generally.

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A grate selection for a grate match.

Phone 1300 653 403

Website stormtech.com.au

ARCHITECTURAL GRATES + DRAINS

Narrow Profi leLevel Threshold DesignSingle Gradient FallEffi cient Water RemovalAward Winning Design

Drainage Solutions for Health Care Facilities.

Stormtech’s linear drainage solutions and unique vinyl clamp offer seamless

integration for uncompromised access.

Stormtech linear drainage systems conform to the strict accessibility

requirements of the Australian Standard, Access and Mobility Code (AS 1428),

whilst ensuring superior drainage fl ow.

View our complete selection of Accessible Drainage Solutions and product

applications on the Stormtech website, or call for more details.

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http://stormtech.com.au



SaphirKeramik™ allows a new language in ceramic design, where precise, thin-walled shapes and tight edge radii are possible: A high-tech material at the core of new design.

A REVOLUTIONIN CERAMIC DESIGN.

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WorldMags.net

http://www.laufen.com



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