Sydney

Anuradha Chatterjee, Sydney Correspondent

On 14 March 2012, Michael Neuman (newly appointed Professor of Sustainable Urbanism, at the Built Environment, University of New South Wales) delivered the Fifth Annual Paul Reid Lecture in Urban Design: ‘Sticks and Stones Will Make My Bones: Durability in Design’. The lecture set out to interrogate the following questions: How do we know when a city is truly sustainable? Is it even possible for cities in a global age to be so? How can professional practices retool to be sustainable urbanisms? Urbanists design forms, traditionally. Yet in nature as in cities, humans, other species, and ecosystems live, evolve, and adapt through processes. There were three aspects to the lecture: material sustainability; sustainability as similar to the thermodynamic system; and the city as a sustainable system.

Neuman explains that ‘sticks and stones’ are the natural materiality developed over time, ‘make’ is what designers create and produce, and ‘bones’ are the infrastructure that supports everyday life – ideally synthesized into one. Durability is connected to sustainability principles such as resilience and flexibility. Hence, using ‘natural’ materials like wood, bamboo, iron, or steel is sensible, because these materials can be reprocessed, have low life cycle cost, acquire other qualities over time, are resistant to heating and cooling as they have evolved from nature. Using the image of a cliff face, Neuman argues: “Form is understood as the interaction between nature and culture. In nature, processes convert flows to form, and in culture, processes convert materials into meaning.”

Neuman then goes on to explain sustainability through the laws of thermodynamics. He argues that urban practice and theory is spatial only and it does not engage time. While it does engage the theory of thermodynamics, it only does so partially. It thinks only of conserving energy and matter, entirely bypassing the concept of entropy (irreversible dissipation and decay of matter and energy over time). Hence, the inability to grasp the constant input that cities need to maintain life, proportional to the size and complexity of the city. Neuman advances a (new) view of sustainability based on flows – natural, topographical, human, digital, information, financial, and so on. Flow and form are in a constant bi-directional or reciprocal relation, evident in the manner in which nature sustains itself. Neuman states: “Flow determines form. Form follows flow.” He suggests that by using the thermodynamic concept of entropy and rate process theory, sustainability can be mapped using a formula such that it is a measurable and objective practice.

Neuman then uses the analogy of the tree to explain sustainable urbanism, which is when cities are understood as systems. The tree is regarded as the paragon of ‘permanence and continuity’, as the archetype of the web of life. Neuman suggests that trees are ‘open systems connected to other open systems’, complex yet resilient, a repository of knowledge and intelligence. ‘Sustainable urbanism is networked urbanism’, argues Neuman, because they are open and interconnected networks (of processes and not just forms).

The lecture presents ideas that are innovative, complex for the right reasons, applicable to a range of scales, from the material choice to infrastructure. It is objective and at the same time aspires to better design and planning practices. Rod Simpson’s closing of the lecture brings out the idealities in Neuman’s propositions against the conservative business models in current practice, which disallows quick or palpable change. Simpson also suggests that facts generated by formulas can gain agency only through informed political processes, activism, community engagement, and communication, and that it is only through these complementary processes that sustainable urbanism can even begin to become a reality.

WAN would like to introduce you to our new Sydney Metroblogger is Dr Anuradha Chatterjee, a Sydney-based architect, academic, and writer/critic. Anu has taught at University of New South Wales, University of Tasmania, University of Technology Sydney and University of South Australia, where she has contributed to theory courses and design studios at BArch and MArch Levels. Some of her key research interests include theoretical and cultural history of vision, architectural surface, and its design implications; emergent practices in Australia and Asia; and dress, body, textiles, and architecture. Below is her first post for WAN.

On 28 April 2012, a quiet Saturday afternoon in the Surry Hills Library, inner city Sydney, is vitalized by the talk ‘Small Spaces/Big Ideas’, delivered by architects Christopher Polly and Sam Crawford, organized by the City of Sydney and presented with the Australian Institute of Architects (represented by Andrew Burns). The premise of the talk as noted by the City of Sydney is: “In a period of diminishing land availability, living small becomes a necessary and logical way of life”. The talk is also pertinent for other reasons/trends such as the shift towards designing and delivering compact cities in Australia; reducing the ecological footprint; domestic downsizing by empty-nester Australians; and the demand for affordable (and rental) housing for a wider demographic in Sydney.

Sam Crawford noted that Australia has largest house size in the world (243 sq m, a figure sourced from Simon Johanson’s article in Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Australian homes still the World’s biggest’, August 22, 2011). Crawford mentioned examples of people experimenting with reducing house sizes in the US, Denmark and Japan, to foreground the key distinction between expectation and need. Using examples of his own projects, he demonstrated that more space could be achieved on small lots and within older existing houses, like his own house built within the existing shell of a Queen Anne house.

Elliott Ripper House/ Haines House, Christopher Polly Architect. Photos: Brett Boardman

The key design principles of this approach were identified as spilt levels to create different spaces creating the feeling of more space; the use of different materials to create the effect of spaciousness; designing multi-functional spaces like the staircase landing at ground level that is extended into a seating space, or the low window sill of a large south facing window used as a kids play area, or the integration of bookshelves and storage spaces along staircase walls. It was also noted that the smallness of the house demands a careful consideration of acoustical buffers.

Christopher Polly discussed Elliott Ripper House (161 sq m), Haines House (115 sq m), and Darling Point Penthouse (100 sq m) – all small dwellings, which explore design strategies like the use of elements stretching across one space to another; creating adaptable spaces, through the use of internal building elements such as folding metal panels that can be folded back or folded out to increase or decrease room sizes. Central to creating the impression of space was light, both artificial and natural. Polly noted that this was achieved through a choreographed arrangement of strip windows on the exterior wall and on the internal walls to allow light to flow between rooms – an experience further augmented through the use of reflective white surfaces.

A short and an interesting talk, Small Spaces/Big Ideas was attended by built environment enthusiasts, most of them not even architects, and complemented by the presenters’ enthusiasm in responding to ‘lay’ queries as well as more searching, discipline specific questions. This, I think, was a very positive outcome of the profession’s recent consciousness of communicating ethical and urban concerns informing practice to seek and sustain legitimacy and meaningfulness of architectural practice against the needs and expectations of multiple stakeholders in the built environment.

That is what I like about the big metropolis of Sydney: the contradiction. While we are still discussing the potential for a new $1bn hotel project in the Bangaroo area, the City of Sydney has announced that two large properties on William Street are destined to become affordable accommodation for artists and creatives. The buildings are to include showrooms, warehouses, offices, stores and one-room apartments, to create spaces where the artists can work and live. The first supporter of the initiative is Lord Mayor Clover who has said: “Sydney’s creative culture attracts people to live, visit, work and invest here – but there’s no creative culture if artists can’t afford to live and work.”

Credit: Jake Ryan

Sydney is not new to this kind of initiatives. If we think of the many places in Surry Hills and Chippendale, as the building in 151 Foveaux Street that houses firm such as Ian More Architects, Lawton Design and Collins and Turner Many of these buildings are old warehouses renovated to create this vintage style studio that perfectly matches the artistic environment.

So what is new? This time the location is William Street at five minutes walking distance to the CBD, where the cost for sq m is really high and the building usually housing offices of big companies. Just last year the same initiative was realised in Oxford Street, where the City of Sydney approved the project to create a new Cultural and Creative hub.

This area from more than a couple of years is involved in an action plan to improve and promote the Oxford Street Cultural Quarter, characterised for its designer shops, fashion outlets, iconic book stores and to represent the border between Surry Hill and Darlinghurst. The Oxford Street tenants include Scale Architecture, The Fortynine, Rouse Phillips Textile Studio, the Oxford St Design Store, He Made She Made, Province and Platform 72, as well as multimedia and arts organisations.

Credit: Parramatta City Council

Sydney, supporting art does not mean just increasing the space to help young creatives to develop their activities, it also means re-launching the future of a whole district. That is the case of Parramatta: a suburb of the city, not really famous to tourists and foreigners, but well-known by local residents as an unsafe area of the city.

The Trade & Investment Art Department of the New South Wales Government in collaboration with the Parramatta City Council launched the project Pop-Up Parramatta on 2010, offering training and support to develop the entrepreneurial and business skills of artists in the area; at the same time the initiative creates connections between artists, local communities and the business sector. The idea of the New South Wales government is ‘recognise that the creative industries can drive economic and urban renewal’.

That is the first sign that Sydney will be a city to keep an eye on over the next few year, not for the archistars that are working on its ground or the money invested in its development, but the contradictions. That is the first sign that can show that a city is lively. Many ideas, many voices, many interests as long that all aspects are still playing, building the city will be such as good game!

With this article I finish my time with WAN as Sydney blogger because I’m starting a new experience as intern in Architectural Review, but it is not the end of my collaboration with WAN.

Can the architecture stimulates the 5 senses? That is the challenge of the London firm Toogood Studio who are collaborating with Penfolds, an Australian wine producer, to create a temporary wine bar in Sydney.

This British firm is not new to working in the international market and with famous clients, from Kenzo to Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen. The event has just terminated last week in Sydney in the glamorous location of Walsh Bay (16th March to the 5th of April), but the second stop of the travelling wine bar will be in Melbourne for 5 weeks through July.

The project The Blocks is a mix of good food, chilled atmosphere and refined design, Toogood create something that is between an interior design project and an art object. This interesting collaboration is between the elegant British design firm and the emerging bubbling arts Australian contest composed by Stevie Fieldsend, Samuel Hodge, Kit Webster, Katherine Huang and Haines & Hinterding.

The British design studio crossed the ocean to show its abilities in this new adventure to take the design to another level that is not just interior decor, but interconnection with art, customers and feelings. The elegant Spade chairs and tables by Faye Toogood look perfectly mixed with the other artworks to the point that one almost doesn’t want to use the furniture for its primary use!

The restaurant works such an interactive game, where you have to allow your senses to guide you along the five steps of the tour. Every block represents different kinds of wine, perfume and aroma, and is characterised by a different artwork: wood totems, photo galleries, coloured diamond suspended from the roof, a variety of abandoned objects apparently without any connection between them and aura pictures.

Particularly smart is the lighting design which creates an atmosphere that is a mix between the spot illumination of an art gallery and the open glare of a restaurant, with grape-shaped lamps collected in metal wires above the tables to capture the attentions of the visitor. The use of coarse materials stimulates the touch sense in an experience that did not leave any details without thought. Keep track of the travelling wine bar by checking the events programme here.

The new season in Sydney promises to be very busy with art, design and architecture events. Over the past few years, Sydney has improved immeasurably in the number of open spaces and opportunities to talk about emerging and experimental architecture and design.

To open the season in the beginning of March was Green City 2012, that instead of organising conferences exclusively for design professionals, decided to direct the events at the city dweller, organising workshops and activity spaces to better educate the public’s awareness of environment problems.

This is exactly what Sydney is doing: organising large scale events that bring the people closer to their city. That happens in Vivid Sydney which will ‘switch on’ its lights from 25 May until 11 June. Every year the event proposes a mix of concerts, light shows and experimental exhibitions and this year beyond the lights show in Circular Quay will be Urbanscreen, the Germany creative firm that is going to lighting the sinuous shapes of the Opera House.

One event that looks particularly interesting is Sparc Design 2012 (31 May – 2 June), a mix of interactive display, high quality images and texts that guide the visitor around the exhibition. At the first sight it looks like a close exhibition for design professionals, but on the last day (Saturday 2 June) the event is open to the public for free, with workshops and activities for kids.

Vivid Sydney is housing Our generative ecology symposium by Billy Blue’s Design College (1 June). The aim is get together the academic and industry worlds to share, exchange and discuss ideas. On 8 June, during Vivid Sydney, the Sydney Architecture Festival is going to present the topic for this year – Beyond Boundaries – asking ‘What would you do if you were Mayor for a day?’ to open the discussion about the future of the metropolis. This will be an invite-only event, but the results will be shown during the Sydney Architecture Festival (24 October – 4 November).

From Thursday 26 April to 14 June, Sydney Open presents a series of talks, study groups and walking tours starting with Talks: House. The event will provide a good opportunity to discuss the development of the Australian housing market over the past few years.

No events preview could be complete without mentioning the 18th Arts Biennale which will be held 27 June until 16 September. It will probably not have the same importance of many others around the world, but will be a good way to review the contemporary art status in Australia.

Unfortunately less promoted compared to the others events is Smarts House 2012 (13 – 27 April) produced by the City of Sydney. It is a youth arts festival to show the works of young people between 15-26 years old in the areas of visual arts, design, film, performance arts and music. A good stage for young talents with few money in their pockets but a lot of ideas on their mind. It is an interesting way for youth to approach the art world and enjoy the parties organised in this occasion around Chippendale.

For more information about these events please click here.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) is reopening this week on Thursday 29 March after almost two years of works and AUD$53m spent for the redevelopment. The project is the result of a collaboration between the Sydney-based studio Sam Marshall Architect and the New South Wales Government Architect’s Office.

The new project, with its 4,500 sq m increase almost doubling the size of the existing museum, is destined to become the major cultural centre for contemporary art and education in the city. The museum building was originally designed by Government architect W.H. Whithers in 1939 and was completed in 1952.

The museum is located in Circular Quay in the spectacular frame of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House and, like many of the art galleries opened in the last few years, will give residents a lot to talk about. When the project was first proposed the Sydney Morning Herald described it as a ‘Rubik’s Cube’ and was critical of the design, suggesting that the new form was too different from the original volume.

I had the opportunity to speak to the architect, Sam Marshall, and asked him: You said that your project is intentionally different from the building on the side, but what is the link that connects the two volumes?

“The new building takes a lot of queues from the old building but then puts them in place is a different way. The old building is a series of big boxes as is the new, but the very strong by symmetry of the old which intentionally expressed the might of the previous building owner, is random in the new to express an institution that is inclusive and creative. The old building is small pieces of natural stone while the new is natural but huge panels of precast glass reinforced concrete. The old has traditional windows as holes in walls whereas the new allows views into and out of the building by pushing and pulling the volumes apart. There are many more such correlations.”

Actually I think that the discussion about the contrast between the old and new sections is a little bit dull and reduces the problem of the architecture to just the shape of the building, especially in a city like Sydney where the best architecture is born from  experimentation. What could be a better example of architecture if not the close neighbour of the MCA, the Opera House?

That does not mean having to justify every kind of project but simply focusing the attention in the city where we are working. Even if Australia has always been very influenced by Europe, we do not forget that the background is still different and the weight represented from the architectural heritage is not the same.

Hopefully the new opening could give better cues of analysis of the project such as how the people use the space, the flexibility of the space to housing different kinds of exhibition and if the building has successfully fulfilled the brief.

Next weekend, to celebrate the official opening, the museum is going to organise a series of workshops, performances and lectures. Furthermore new exhibitions are going to open their doors, such as Marking Time with the works of 11 Australian and international artists, The Clock by Christian Marklay and for the first time. The MCA also dedicates an entire floor to a permanent exhibition by more than 170 Australian artists in Volume One: MCA Collection.

If you are walking around Darlinghurst it is worth dropping into the Whole Meal Café at Taylor Square to view the free photographic exhibition realised after a one day photographic competition organised by DARCH, the NSW division of the National Emerging Architects and Graduates Network (EmAGN) of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) and Fraser Studio in December 2011.

The exhibition was opened on 23rd February and shows the competition-winning works among others. The winner was Felix Rausch of Choi Ropiha Fighera Architects, Miki McBride and Stephanie Hughes of SJB Architects shared joint second place and in third place was Barbara Busina.

The exhibition was also being held under the scaffolding at the Central Park construction site, in front of the UTS Tower, but had to be closed last week due to adverse weather conditions. This location was quite unexpected but matched perfectly with the urban style of the pictures. The scaffolding became the base structure for a small open-air urban art gallery.

The initial competition entrants were invited to respond to architect Robin Boyd’s ‘The Australian Ugliness’, a text which opened up groundbreaking debates about design, the nature of the architect and urban planning in the 1960s: “The Australian ugliness is bigger and better here… There is beauty to be discovered here, natural and artistic, the trouble is that it must be discovered.”

This initiative represented an opportunity to analyse how the new generation of architects see the city with its contradiction of colours, lights, materials and styles, and stimulate new debates about Sydney. It is significant that the photos in the Central Park exhibition were displayed on the wall of one of the buildings destined to be a landmark development in Sydney. One can view this as a sign that the young generation of architects in Sydney are being fairly represented in the city, despite recent speculations.

In fact the EmAGN is going to organise another competition this year to promote the work and the capacity of young architects around the country. The exhibition will run indefinitely from 23rd of February at the Whole Meal Cafè, 6 Flinders St, Darlinghurst, Sydney.

Durbach Block Jaggers in association with BVN

This week I met with Mitchell Thompson from architecture firm, Durbach Block Jaggers to talk about their project that won an international competition for the UTS Thomas Street Building, borne from a collaboration with BVN. The building will house many services for the UTS Science Faculty. Durbach Block Jaggers Architects is a Sydney-based architectural firm with a small team that have worked together for over 10 years. Their practice is focused especially in residential and public/commercial projects.

Describe the concept of your project in three words?
Animated, connected and flexible.

What do you think was the key that allowed at your project to be the winner in the competition?
We think that perhaps the competition jury identified with the design’s combination of an emotive and memorable form with a rational and flexible functionality.

The building is located in front of another major scheme, like Central Park. What will be the connection between two projects that will considerably change the image of Sydney?
There is no deliberate link between our proposal and the new development called Central Park. Broadway road itself is a major buffer between the development and the university. The ‘Alumni Green’ is really a bit like UTS’ version of Central Park in New York. Our intention is to enhance and protect this space and so we imagined our new building as a grove of trees at the edge of a beautiful green. It is our hope that the fine grained and variegated façade combined with its organic form will be evocative of this idea.

Is there the risk that the Broadway area will be just a patchwork of projects that celebrate the architect but without any relation between them?
Good architecture will always intelligently acknowledge its neighbours and ensure that the whole is more than just the sum of its parts.

What is the approach when you have to work in the middle of other big projects, of architects with such strong personalities as Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry…?
Strong architecture creates a context that deserves and demands a response that strives to emulate the architectural and urban ambition but not their form.

Last week, The Daily Telegraph reported that Barangaroo Central is likely to house a new hotel and casino complex. The plan is thought to cost $1bn and be developed by James Packer’s casino group Crown. The announcement of the new project has again opened up the controversial discussion about the planning of the Barangaroo area, which over the last years has involved developers, architects, politics and city dwellers.

The building will be situated in one of the best locations in the heart of Barangaroo, between the already well-known South Barangaroo areas designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners in 2009 and developed by Lend Lease (whose buildings are now under the assessment regime of the NSW Government’s Department of Planning and Infrastructure) and Headland park in the north, designed by Johnson Pilton Walker, in association with Peter Walker and Partners who won the international competition for the master plan in 2009.

For this strategic location near Sydney CBD, the 350 room hotel/casino could enjoy the amazing panoramic views over the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and Darling Harbour. The centre is going to house a high-end shopping area, multiple restaurants and a resorts pool on the rooftop. The complex is focused to appeal to and increase the proportion of local and international high end clientele and especially create a marked increase in the number of Asian tourists. The new casino will be located almost in front of the Star, the second biggest Casino in Australia, placed in Pyrmont just on the other side of the Harbour.

The discussion about that new building is surely just in the beginning; the interests at stake are really high in an area that is one of the more lucrative in Sydney. Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, reminded those involved that in accordance with the city plan, Barangaroo Central is reserved for civic, education and recreational use. But on the opposite side, the NSW Premier Barry O’Farrel is supporting the project considering it ‘an exciting proposal which could add extra life to Barangaroo, give Sydney another world-class hotel, generate jobs and boost tourism’. [The Sydney Morning Herald 27 February 2012].

Following the debate over the last few days, it is sad see that the architecture and urban planning do not play a large part in the quarrels over the realisation of the scheme. At this point does not really matter if the project will be realised, where it will be located or the percentage that will devoted to public space, but how could that could be influencing the urban city fabric? In a city where many factors are coinciding together – big money, big clients, multicultural contest and opportunities for experimentation – why that does not spark off a real analysis about how we can enhance the new Sydney?

On the corner of Omnibus Lane and Ultimo lane, preparations for the opening of the construction site for the Business School Dr Chau Chark Building in the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Broadway Campus by Frank Gehry and Partners are underway. The 16,000 sq m of the Business School is comprised of 11 floors and will cost around $150m. The building have two distinct facades: in the east face Gehry tries to reflect Sydney’s heritage architecture thought the use of coloured brick. The bricks are set to form a folds and curves with a rough textured fabric. The west facade is to feature a large piece of glass to vertically ‘break’ the building and reflect the neighbouring architectural fabric.

Gehry’s plan arose from an idea to create vertical stacks of office floors resembling a tree-house with cracks in between, creating a place for focused research and cross-disciplinary interaction. The design seeks to incorporate and interact with its surroundings. Natural sunlight will flood in through the large, specially positioned windows and glass panels at the street level try to create a feeling of transparency and openness.

Like every Frank Gehry project around the world, the UTS Broadway Campus has been followed by many discussions about the extravagance of his design. Actually I think that it would be so much more superficial to just talk about the shape of his buildings, instead of analysing the reasons that every time raises a dust around his projects. We cannot deny the fact that it doesn’t matter if the project is liked or not: the shape, the material, the interaction with the city. The reality is that the projects of Gehry always call the attention of the media.

It is likely that this is exactly the result that UTS is looking for; increasing its international fame enormously after this project, in the same was that Bilbao has altered in reputation over the last 10 years thanks to Gehry. One project is capable of starting the regeneration of a whole city. Even if the other projects by Lacoste, Marshall and Durban Bloch + BVN could be create a real dialogue with the city and answer the real needs of the people that will live these spaces, probably the first link that we will have in our mind about UTS Campus will be the Gehry’s building. Because architecture like every other art form is often polemic.