Women and the Other Domains of Architectural Production

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Sydney Correspondent

Photograph of Florence Mary Taylor, Australia's first qualified female architect Author: Rita Martin, Dorothy Welding and others (created 1920-1955), Source: The State Library of New South Wales

Anuradha Chatterjee, Sydney Correspondent

The launch of Archiparlour earlier this year got me thinking of not only of women in architectural practice, issues of equity, opportunity, and visibility, but also of women’s contribution to the broader discourse of architecture. This involves the realms of curating, writing, managing, and marketing architecture. Taking a documentary strategy as opposed to historiographical one, I mapped the lived experience of my interactions and collaborations with women in leadership positions in Sydney for over a period of six months, in these other domains of architectural production.

From the middle of year, the Australian Architecture Association planned the four-part talk series titled Women Take on Design that featured Archrival (Claire McCaughan and Lucy Humphrey), Caroline Pidcock, Heather Whitely-Robertson, and Annalisa Capurro. The talk series was as interesting as it was successful. It should be mentioned that Australian Architecture Association, which ‘supports discourse and the promotion of architecture in the Australian cultural milieu’, is activated by the energetic leadership of Annette Dearing (Founding Director) and Vanessa Couzens (Volunteer, Architect, Designer, Project Manager, and Editor). The Sydney Architecture Festival brought forth the women in the public life of architecture. The festival was organized, managed, delivered, and marketed by Siobhan Abdurahman (Projects Officer, NSW Architects Registration Board) and Gillian Redman-Lloyd (Events & Marketing, NSW Architecture Awards Manager). The range of talks, tours, exhibitions, and workshops aimed to engage the many interests and capacities of its collaborators and audiences. Jennifer Kwok (Manager, Customs House Sydney), is a designer by training yet a strong thinker in built and visual worlds. She has produced many architecture exhibitions such as as Form to Formless, Remodelling Architecture, Transclimatic to name just a few, and her creative direction and acumen in production was instrumental in my curatorial contribution to Inter-action, the Sydney Architecture Festival exhibition consisting of six independent exhibits. Along similar lines, my collaboration with Ann Quinlan (Program Direction for Architecture, Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW) also informed the curation of BE X Section, also a Sydney Architecture Festival exhibition.

Other key contributors to the Sydney Architecture Festival included Joni Taylor, a researcher, writer, and curator focusing on the transformation of the urban environment, curated The Third Landscape at the Tin Sheds Gallery. Taylor explains: “The exhibition examines the transformative possibilities for regenerating seemingly negative landscapes of the forgotten and the blighted”. As part of the Festival, Annette Mauer, Head of Learning at the Object Gallery, organised a workshop called Building Connections, for teachers and students at the Museum of Contemporary Arts Australia. Mauer explained: “The aim of both the workshop and resource was to make architecture accessible to visual arts teachers and relevant to their teaching the Visual Arts syllabus”. Dearing and Couzens made a substantial contribution to the Festival by organizing the talk by Ken Yeang as well as the planned walks around key public domains in Sydney. Other contributors to the Festival included Aanya Roennfeldt (Gallery Curator, DAB LAB, UTS), who contributed curatorial insights to William Feuerman’s exhibition and talk titled The Mechanics of Visual Perception, and Imogene Tudor, whose co-directorial role in Make Space for Architecture would have been vital to the success of the event, Public Space: Private Interest. Unrelated to the Sydney Architecture Festival but coincident with it was the launch of Kylie Legge’s book Doing it Differently, a well timed publication on urban living and city making, focusing on collaborative consumption (a concept made popular by What’s Mine is Yours by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers).

This piece, which I am sure is full of omissions, suggests the possibility of a more inclusive sociology of practice, which will allow for the expansion of the definition of architectural practice, beyond what is legitimized by the legal status of the architect, such that the other ‘stuff’ that women do can become included in the ‘business’ of architecture. That this is a timely argument is evidenced by the talk recently organized at Tusculum (home of the Australian Institute of Architects, NSW Chapter), What’s your architecture, the multifaceted career path that is an architecture degree. The photographer; the journo; the artists; the builder, which unfortunately failed to acknowledge women’s contributions in this area. This piece itself is imperfect because it does not as yet include women in complementary disciplines of photography, teaching, animation, illustration, graphic design, performance, set design, and so on. Perhaps when the picture is complete, we may even discover fuller participation of women in architectural practice.

Building Livable Cities: Ideas Symposium

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Pallavi

When architecture is both beautiful and ethical, it invites belief. So said Paul Goldberger in Why Architecture Matters. While the term beautiful can be subjective, the term ethical is inclusive, true to local context, equitable and ecologically viable. The Building Livable Cities Symposium held in Mumbai this week exhibited the same sentiments by almost all the speakers. The symposium was timely as India stands at an inflection point of transition to urbanization where we need to come up with our definition of aspiration and through that the articulation of the built spaces of tomorrow. The speakers were an eclectic mix of architects, urban practitioners, researchers and educators, everyone exploring answers to issues like open spaces, relevant architecture, transportation, policies and good governance.

Yehuda Raff, a spatial planner from Cape Town Partnership, South Africa kickstarted the event with his talk. He described his sense of perceived similarities between India and South Africa in urban spaces. He felt that Indians have an amazing sense of work ethic which is missing in South Africa. His point on South Africans lacking creativity is worth making note of. Indians have been engaged in creative pursuits for a long time in history and that makes our country culturally rich and vibrant, thus the cues for urbanization are different from what one may have in a charter city like Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Jeffrey Raven, Director and Associate Professor of Master of Architecture in Urban + Regional Design at NYIT School of Architecture and Design, spoke of architecture that responds to climatology and how forms, direction and materials should be considered to leverage local climate, wind and solar energy.

Raj Janagam, founder of Cycle Chalao has been striving to implement a program to encourage bike-sharing riding program. He shared his successes and failures at making the program work in the cities in India. Perhaps there are larger issues to be resolved before bike sharing will become truly possible. The automobile industry that has infested Indian cities will not be easy to thwart and overthrow but it needs to be done before benign habits of urban living take over.

Teresa McWalters, a researcher studying incremental growth and self-made architecture in Mumbai spoke about the functioning of organic urban sprawls, although I felt there was romanticizing of settlements and frugal economic mode of trade. Representation of aspirations through someone else’s eyes can be misleading and biased. Do people living in those squats not aspire for things to be different, cleaner, and more functional? Juxtaposed with new egotistical skyscraper architecture which affects them positively or negatively? Isn’t it the case of severely opposing aspirations bumping roughly with each other rather than coexisting peacefully?

Ethan Kent of Project for Public Spaces (PPS) started off with a very basic observation which is at the heart of problem. “If you plan for cars, the city is going to have cars.” If we don’t want cars as our only mode of transportation, we will just have to build that idea into our very fabric of urban daily living. One line that stuck in my mind was: “We keep celebrating very narrow idea of architecture and it has become about a building and not about clusters or communities.”

Other speakers included Jay Narayana (Gateway Planning in Texas), Caroline Lobo (Orcutt Winslow in Phoenix) and Marci Cohen (Commissioner of the District of Columbia Zoning Commission), who all covered the ideas of political will and good governance in improving cities, urban renewal of decaying or under-utilized pockets and how we can incorporate fun in our urban spaces if we apply ourselves.

Coming together and having a dialogue that facilitates the generation of ideas and looking at our cities in more ways than one is rewarding and it renews your passion in the field of architecture. Building Livable Cities Symposium was one such event.

Thank you to The Urban Vision team for such a wonderful interactive session and for bringing professionals from various walks together. Architecture is about everything and to understand architecture you have to understand many forces that drive it, shape it. Hence, folks from multi-disciplinary backgrounds form for a more vibrant outcome in design and architecture.

Places and people: Journal in Transit

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Pallavi

If you haven’t heard about the unfolding of India’s shining tale yet, you are probably not listening enough. It is probably the singlemost fictional story which many are selling. Not that India is not shining with this newly liberalized state of policies but its bathing only perhaps 5% of its population with its glory.

My recent trip to New Delhi just enforced my belief that India is anything but shining for the rest of the 95% of its population which lives right under a shadow cast by this light.

I got out of the new Indira Gandhi International Airport (designed by Woodhead) and was received by a driver who was pre-scheduled for me. A young boy who didn’t look more than 18/19 years of age, slender and undernourished. Walking along towards the car, he reached out for my bag without looking up. I declined, saying ‘It’s not heavy, don’t worry’. His subservient demeanor was something he has perhaps accepted and internalized as part of what comes with living on the fringes. He didn’t speak much and only answered in monosyllables to my queries on distance and travel time while navigating through Delhi roads and landscapes that appeared less chaotic and more green.

Image courtesy: Woodhead

Next, I embarked on to a glitzy Taj Palace at Sardar Patel Marg. The hotel is a little old and looks a worn-out now but still carries the grandeur that Taj has made their reputation in the luxury section worldwide. Later, inside the restroom, after washing my hands I was accosted by a short, thin young girl, staff of Taj, with a ceramic tray carrying a neatly folded napkin with a purple flower on the side. But it occured to me while taking the napkin that I might as well had just picked it up from the stack myself, did I really need her assistance?

The question that surfaced for her was if this was what she really enjoyed doing, offering guests hand towels on a tray with a flower and slipping in a ‘thank you’ and remaining inside that enclosed space of a restroom during all her working hours. Maybe that luxury of preferences hasn’t crossed her mind.

While heading back to Mumbai, I was a bit rushed and nervous to miss my flight that all thoughts and obeservations had vanished.

But entering Mumbai, I had one last  enduring meeting of the day with my cab driver, who to my surprise was a woman. Something unusual on Indian soil. Being tired, I kept quiet and just wanted to observe her mannerism driving her cab on Mumbai’s ruthless traffic and road conditions. But it was not to be.  With that she launched into her saga.

She was a mother of two young kids and looked quite young and her voice carried a trace of frustration. She takes care of a family of four. Her husband died abruptly about 4 years ago in a road accident. Until then she was a housewife but that event triggered her to look for work which will give her income to survive. She went on to lament that she makes about 300 to 400 INR on a decent day and about 600 to 700 INR on rare better days. But there are days, like Mumbai Bandhs and festivals when people don’t go out much resulting in drying up her daily wages completely. And those days get difficult to manage. Being a woman driver has its own perils, she mentioned. But she went on to say, she is sending both her kids to school that will ensure better days in future. Amen to that.

These are perhaps India Shining’s step-children who can see the light from a distance but not glow in it. These are India’s misfits who haven’t been able to transition successfully into the wealth camps of rapid urban development. They have either failed or at best remain displaced far away from opportunities that could have trickled down to them as well with an inclusive system.

Long Island Modernism 1930-1980

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Sharon

I just finished writing a piece for another publication about two Frank Lloyd Wright buildings that are facing threats. One is the David Wright House in Arizona, a house Wright designed for his son that features a spiral plan, which presages the Guggenheim and is said to have influenced it.  The other, The Bachman Wilson House in New Jersey, is a wonderful example of Wright’s Usonian houses.  The David Wright house, which was facing demolition, was happily purchased by someone who plans to restore it to its original splendor.  But the Bachman Wilson house remains at risk, awaiting a buyer, which, when identified must move the house to another location as its current site is subject to recurring flooding.   All of this is leading to a point.  Those of us who are privileged to write about architecture for a living, owe a great debt to the buildings we write about.  Without them we would have little if nothing to say.  But our role is not just to report on buildings that are next the flavor of the week, icons in the making if you will. Rather it is to educate and to elevate the dialogue.  As part of this, we need to put on people’s radar buildings that are truly special and worth saving.

With Sandy behind us, I shudder to think what may have become of the marvelous collection of experimental houses that were built on Long Island in the period of  1930-1980.  That part of New York was especially hit hard by the storm and many buildings there have been reportedly wiped out.   While I don’t know what if anything has happened to these buildings,  I do take comfort in the fact that I have a record of this fabulous period of architectural production, thanks, in part, to Caroline Zaleski, who recently penned a book for Norton publishing called Long Island Modernism.

That book is a comprehensive and invaluable survey of the adventuresome architecture that sprung up on Long Island from 1930 to 1980.  It is also 333 pages of sheer inspiration and delight.   What I like about it are the fascinating tales of how these buildings came to be, the marvelous stories not only about architecture but about the risk-taking patrons who pulled out all the stops in the name of architecture.  For mid-century architecture buffs it’s a must read and a must see as the book is generously populated with photographs, many of them original, as sadly some of these structures have been insensitively altrered while others no longer exist.  Still, it was here in the sleepy seaside hamlets of Long Island, which then were largely dotted with farmland, that many of the most famous architects of the day got their start or at least did their more experimental work.

Architects working on the Island at that time include such luminaries as Wallace Harrison, Frank Lloyd Wright, Antonin Raymond, Marcel Breuer, Richard Neutra and George Nelson along with lesser known names, such as Shogo Myaida who were no less talented then their more famous colleagues.

Zaleski dug deep into the archives of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities and logged countless miles on her car traipsing Long Island to locate the buildings included and to speak with neighbors and relatives, when the original owners were not available, to compile these marvelous building biographies that unfold with such panache and clearly make the case that this was a great time for architecture!

Sabarmati River Front Development

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Pallavi

Most of the urban developments ideally anchor on one central idea of a public space and that can be ecological or economical driven around which then subsequent developments spin off, setting the rhythm of what may arrive. Mumbai is devoid of such centrally thought out single anchor and thus it gives you multiple, scattered and non-cohensive entities in urban forms. Sabarmati River Front Development is in sharp contrast in what is happening or rather not happening in Mumbai’s urban development mumbo-jumbo. I had the opportunity to learn about Dr. Bimal Patel’s Sabarmati River Front work in Mumbai during World Architecture Day. It is socially relevant and inclusive which is evident in several examples he showed of completed work and what he envisages in time to come.

River Sabarmati is important to the city’s urban ecology and has been long acknowledged that appropriate development of the riverfront can turn the river into a major asset; improving the quality of environment, ecology and life in Ahmedabad.

HCP Design Planning and Management Pvt. Ltd.

The Environmental Planning Collaborative (EPC) was commissioned to prepare a comprehensive feasibility study to develop a 9 km stretch of the city’s riverfront. EPC provided development management services to Sabarmati River Front Development Corporation Limited (SRFDCL) until 2002. During this period its mandate was to direct and monitor all the preparatory work. Since then HCP Design Planning and Management Pvt. Ltd. (HCPDPM) headed by Bimal Patel has been responsible for the project’s urban, master plan and architectural design.

Public spaces cannot be privatized. Public spaces cannot be exclusive. Mumbai, with certain convoluted system, managed to do both, pretty ruthlessly.

Thus, Sabarmati River Front Project due to its very nature and aspiration remains multi-dimensional public asset which will not only create thriving citizen-centric networks of parks, promenades, bazaars, cultural hub but also work as a structure that will ecologically enhance the city and its people’s relationship to the river. It is one of the most robust urban renewal project that India is witnessing, keeping context and local culture intact without walking all over it.

HCP Design Planning and Management Pvt. Ltd.

The ongoing process of the project is premised on these following steps methodically. Firstly, it is to reclaim land, cleaning up existing contamination to the river and then on to build flood protection wall and laying grid of sewage interceptors that will prevent any further contamination. The sewage lines will carry untreated mass to augmented treatment plant and slum dwellers have been relocated to built communities of modest housing.

Next, the project provided 11.5 km long pedestrian promenade at the edge along the banks of the river. The promenade is very well connected to proposed streets with wide sidewalks inclusives of bicycle paths which both encourage walking and cycling, basic of basic amenities which have been stripped away from Mumbai residents.

Ongoing and future work includes promise of culture centre, museums, sports facilities, trade fair grounds and open air markets. All of this will enhance Ahmedabad’s local living conditions for residents and experience of tourists. The simple joy of being able to walk along the river bank, to sit in a garden and enjoy the serene beauty of the river is now a reality through Sabarmati River Front. The project is currently ongoing, but several parts of the projects are open and being used by the public and the reclaimed space is home to events such as the kite festival.

Transformation through urban renewal in a cohesive manner is possible and only way forward if we were to avoid fragmentation and isolated growth spurts and communities can thrive and benefit from inspirational project like Sabarmati River Front and that is the lesson Mumbai cannot turn oblivion to.

HCP Design Planning and Management Pvt. Ltd.

Project Details:

Client: Sabarmati River Front Development Corporation Ltd., Ahmedabad

Site Area: 200 hectares

Year of completion: 1997 – Ongoing

Images: HCP Design Planning and Management Pvt. Ltd.

 

World Architecture Day Mumbai

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Pallavi

You will always stumble on inspiration when you least expect it and somehow that inspiration will revive your eroding faith and will turn you hopeful again. Unexpected, my experience was exactly that, when I attended World Architecture Day on Monday 8 October here in Mumbai. All the speakers talked about a city of the past when Mumbai was Bombay, a city of hope, vibrancy and opportunities which has come to degrade in such ways that somehow hope has gone missing. I came back satisfied and rejuvenated, with an urge to do more.

Mostly all the talks, especially the ones by Professor K.T.Ravindran, Vikas Dilawari, Bimal Patel and Christopher Benninger tackled some of the most basic issues plaguing Indian cities.  But they all have, through their exemplary work, tackled these problems head on, fearlessly. They all talked about reincarnation of the city with urban renewal and regeneration.

Dr. Bimal Patel’s work on Sabarmati Riverfront in Gujarat is etched in my mind. He has changed the paradigm of public space and continues to do so with his exemplary work. Its enduring, inclusive and socially relevant with the context very much in forefront.

Architect Vikas Dilawari’s conservation and preservation in the built environment of several communities in Mumbai has rightfully earned him many accolades, with examples of years of persistence and dogged determination.

Architect Christopher Benninger is now working very closely with the Government of Bhutan in having a feasible urban plan which will be worth its while in facing forces and challenges in coming years while going through urbanization. He remained utmost humble, extremely funny yet profound all the way.

Almost all of the speakers spoke of major issues of decongestion, affordable housing, open spaces and public spaces, inclusive slum rehabilitation while keeping them within the context of the city realities with respect to rapid urbanization of India.

The coming together of architects and built environment fraternity without a commercial aspect attached to it was the first of its kind in Mumbai. There was passion, honesty and only true speaking of their minds. It was truly a celebration of architecture and aspirations that all of us carry and will continue to do so to claim our cities. It was a day to remind us that architecture is one of the core professions and architects will remain key drivers in economic growth, supporting aspirations and nurturing the innovation of city dwellers. World Architecture Day left me inspired in more ways than I can explain in words and I hope to carry this message forward to others in days to come.

BE | X-Section Real Needs | Imagined Solutions

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Sydney Correspondent

Anuradha Chatterjee, Sydney Correspondent

As the curator of BE | X-Section Real Needs | Imagined Solutions, the UNSW Built Environment’s Exhibition for the Sydney Architecture Festival, it was interesting to showcase student projects from a range of Built Environment discipline degree programs that demonstrate shared awareness of social responsibility, collaboration, innovation, and most importantly an interdisciplinary knowledge base. These qualities, orientations, and attitudes contribute to the making of the UNSW Built Environment design students as intrepid graduates of global citizenship who understand and engage with the complexities of working with others in seeking creative solutions to real needs and issues identified by communities.

Real World

BEOutThere! electives capture the Interdisciplinary Service Learning in the Faculty of Built Environment, as they are carried out in collaboration with community partners with the expressed aim of exposing students to challenging social issues and considerations. In 2011 and 2012, key projects included: North Penrith Plaza – Designing a Digitally Enabled Public Domain; Northcott Project; Schools Project (Crown Street Public School, Ungarie Central School, and Tullibigeal Central School). The outcome and merit of these electives is the discernible and compelling nature of the interactions and the engagement evidenced in student reflections. Likewise, the significance of real world, industry-linked projects also informs Integrated Low Carbon Living Project. Delivered as a team based collaborative project between students from BE and Faculty of Engineering students, the studio presents the opportunity to design the Material Science and Engineering Building, UNSW with attention to low energy, passive design strategies design with zero net-energy and zero net-water consumption as the goal.

Southern Cross Packaging Awards, Musa Noor

Social Inclusion

Student works in the Socially Responsible Packaging demonstrate a range of approaches to packaging – the liminal and the most intimate threshold between the user and the product. The projects address contemporary issues of safety, convenience, and access by synthesizing aesthetics, functionality, and ethical response. Inclusive Architecture progresses a similar argument that inclusive design (also known as universal design, design for all, user-centred design, human-centred design) “is no longer a niche or unimportant endeavour”. Student projects which suggest inclusive redesigns of key twentieth century buildings demonstrate that architectural merit is not irreconcilable with these goals.

Sydney CBD, Local Government and Shires Associations Photo Database Project

Urban Orientations

The Intersection: Redevelopment of the SEU School of Architecture Building and its Landscape brings together students from three programmes (architecture, interior, and landscape) to make sense of the tectonic, landscape and interior conditions of the Southeast University and the School of Architecture as a cultural and historical phenomenon, to inform redevelopment proposals. In contrast, it is the post traumatic urbanist lens that informs the Landscape Urbanism for the Shattered Garden City: Christchurch. The fractures caused by natural disasters insert not only irreconcilable ruptures but also the opportunity for the new. Fittingly then, the students explore possibilities for city’s open space system and for vitalizing that with the proposals for an urban arena with sport or performance facility, facilities for both having been extensively damaged across the city. Interior projects in the City of Sydney need to maintain an orientation to urbanism. Taylor Square Bicycle Hub is one such project, and the student projects demonstrate unique and meaningful approaches that seek translations of the figure of the bicycle as 1) a mechanical assemblage and meticulous orchestration of parts; 2) bicycle as generative of movement systems, motion, travelling, and energy; and 3) bicycling as a social sport that not only activates the urban area but also highlights the uniqueness of the site.

Dust rising from collapsed buildings immediately after the earthquake

Generated by students in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, the exhibition demonstrates shared commitment, knowledge systems, and capabilities. BE | X-Section reveals that unlike the technological, formal ingenuity and production orientation enabled and rewarded in many architecture and design schools across the globe, socially responsive design and architecture in its attention to authenticity emerges out of vital creative engagements between built environment designers and many people – it emphasizes intent over form, process over outcome, shared knowledge over individualistic expertise and action over representation.

Interactive Surfaces and Modelled Environments: Sydney Architecture Festival at Customs House in Sydney

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Sydney Correspondent

Anuradha Chatterjee, Sydney Correspondent

This year I have had the chance to guest curate Inter-Action – the Sydney Architecture Festival event at Customs House Sydney, opening on 24 October 2012. The exhibition builds upon Customs House’s profile in nurturing explorations in the fields of digital visualization and technologies evidenced in past exhibitions such as Form to Formless, Remodelling Architecture, Transclimatic, and the Green Void, to name just a few. However, Inter-Action is not one but six exhibitions – Hypersurface Architecture [Redux] by Bachelor of Architectural Computing Students and Staff; Sydney from all Angles by Tim Vyse and Sam Westlake of Jane Irwin Landscape Architect; Virtual Warrane II by Brett Leavy; Real/Virtual by Peter Murphy and Real Serious Games; Model City by Frasers Property Australia and Sekisui House Australia, and UTS; and Open Agenda featuring winning proposals by Sibling, Tina Salama, and Robert Beson.

Draft Design of Euphonious Mobius Wall with Customs House in the Background: Rebekah Jo Araullo, University of New South Wales

The focus is on many disciplines (beyond architecture) that contribute to the making of the built realm. These include architecture, performance, art, and installation (Open Agenda, Hypersurface Architecture), architectural computing (Hypersurface Architecture), landscape architecture (Sydney from all Angles), web interface design (Sydney from all Angles), urban design, (Model City), digital visualization, and virtual environments (Virtual Warrane II, Real/Virtual). The curation of the exhibitions needed to attend to the agendas and practices shared by these different disciplines. What emerges as the key strands are: 1) Collaborative creation of knowledge, space, and experience; 2) Response to the city and its urban environment; 3) Crafting spatial and formal representations, both physical and virtual. The six exhibitions engage these strands in distinctive ways.

Hypersurface Architecture [Redux] is the design of an interactive media wall installation (composed of two walls – Halo Wall and the Euphonious Mobius) based on physical pixels, working thereby between the virtual and the real, attempting to generate an ‘infusion of form with media and media with form to work between the two’. The interactive aspect in Sydney from all Angles is achieved by embedding QR codes into a graphic map of Sydney highlighting recently designed key public domains, linked to a website, which allows a continual and democratized engagement with as well as the curation of the experience of the public realm. Virtual Warrane II uses gaming techniques and technologies (complemented by solid archival research) to provide a way of inhabiting the past and participating in the landscapes of the Gadigal people, demonstrating constructed and built occupations prior to and underlying European settlement.

Sydney from All Angles Draft of Graphic Maps: Tim Vyse and Sam Westlake, Jane Irwin Landscape Architect

The theme of modelling is explored further in Real/Virtual which compares miniaturization (city model), wire frame visualization, and stereo videos and panoramas of the city, highlighting technologies of visualization and different ways of creating navigable worlds. Model City is a display of physical models of key public precincts (under construction) in the City of Sydney, and it allows people to interact with the emerging public domains. Open Agenda (initiative of the School of Architecture, UTS) is an ‘annual competition aimed at supporting a new generation of experimental architecture. Open to recent graduates, Open Agenda is focused on developing the possibilities of design research in architecture and the built environment’. The winning entries this year by Sibling, Tina Salama and Robert Beson explore other ways of conceptualizing architecture from participation to performative spatiality to the architectonics of atmosphere.

What started off as a challenge (bearing the risk of becoming eclectic), worked out to be a genuine opportunity. Inter-action sustains the identity of each exhibition, allowing the spatial opportunities inside Customs House to suggest rather than emphasize synergies. In deploying different forms of interactive installations; modelled realities, pasts, and futures; and the speculation of the futures of architectural thinking, Inter-action celebrates the anticipation of the post-disciplinary in architectural thought. This is the emergence of new ways of knowing and doing, which is more than a simple convergence of different disciplinary knowledge systems.

For more information see: www.sydneyarchitecturefestival.org

Carrot or Stick? If everyone wants to achieve the goal why isn’t it smoother getting there?

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Guest Contributor

William Poole-Wilson, Principal at Pringle Brandon Perkins+Will

Most people in the architecture and design industry will agree that sustainability is important. More than half of the world’s population live in urban areas and more than a million people move to cities across the world every single week. With this said, cities already use around 75% of the world’s energy and emit up to 80% of harmful greenhouse gases. Even climate change deniers (ever-dwindling in number) don’t deny that the earth’s natural resources are finite.

So if everyone wants to achieve the goal of better sustainability, why isn’t it easier to get there? It’s certainly not down to lack of incentive. We have carrots dangled before our eyes in the form of better public reputation and recognition, kudos among peers and stakeholders, and even the possibility of a speedier journey through the planning system , not to mention long-term financial benefits and the rather less tangible but extremely real opportunity to help preserve our planet. Meanwhile sticks are often brandished to force companies to comply with building regulations and compliance codes, while instituting penalties for low performance. Examples range from the Kyoto Protocol and the government’s 2020 carbon reduction targets to more elaborate schemes like the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme.

There are three main reasons why we’re not progressing as quickly and smoothly as we hope: lack of communication, ignorance about the possibilities, and ignorance about the financial cost. I touched on communication in my previous post about Occupant Engagement and here I’d like to talk about a highly ambitious attempt to address the ignorance issue.

Through education we can achieve behavioural change, and behavioural change is a fundamental necessity in addressing not only sustainability issues at design and build but also in on-going operation. The most sustainable building in the world will fail to perform to expectation if it isn’t used as intended.

On 29th September, The Crystal opened to the public. Undertaken by Siemens with Pringle Brandon Perkins + Will as the lead consultant and interior architect, the awe-inspiring building is London’s newest landmark and the world’s first centre built with the sole purpose of developing urban sustainability knowledge.

The Crystal. Image: Edmund Sumner

Following £30 million in investment by Siemens, the 6,300 sq m facility is now home to Siemens’s global Center of Competence Cities, a team of multidisciplinary urban experts encouraging improved sustainability through research, partnerships and collaboration.

Standing proudly on the waterfront of Royal Victoria Docks in East London – the centre of London’s new Green Enterprise District – the Crystal is also the world’s largest exhibition space given over to the future of cities. There are 2,000 sq m of interactive learning covering building technologies, air quality, power and water supply, waste, healthcare and sustainable mobility.

It’s also a conference centre with a cinema screen and 270-seater raked auditorium. It is, in short, a huge think tank for a brighter, safer, more sustainable future. You can even recharge electric vehicles here too.

And a building to educate the world on sustainability needs to shine a beacon of fossil-fuel-free light itself. Originally intended to reach BREEAM Excellent, it became the world’s first building to attain both BREEAM Outstanding and LEED Platinum ratings over the course of the project.

Generating 20% of the building’s electricity, two thirds of the roof is covered in PV panels; the remainder is a green roof consisting of plant species proven to sustain local wildlife. Ground-source heat pumps supply 100% of the building’s heating needs and most of its cooling. Eighty-four percent of hot water is enabled through the PV and heat pumps. No fossil fuels are burned here at all.

The Crystal is also ready to be connected to the smart grid, and the BMS is central to all building operations (heating, cooling and ventilation; lights and blinds; sensors that detect occupancy levels; safety features; and even an outdoor weather station), collating data from 12,000 control points.

Not a drop of water is lost throughout the building. Rainwater is harvested and recycled or reused – 90% of potable water demand is technically possible through treated rainwater alone. One hundred percent of blackwater is treated and reused for irrigation and flushing lavatories. Of course, there’s a dedicated waste recycling area too.

The Crystal’s office space is designed to use on average 83kWh/m2/year (less than 50% of the energy use of comparable office buildings) and generate 65% lower carbon emissions too. And all this created on a tight schedule in a waterfront city location.

Buildings like this show what is possible – and can encourage us to think more sustainably across everything we do.

Tadao Ando’s Mumbai Visit

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Pallavi

Architect Tadao Ando had visited Mumbai a couple of months back and unfortunately, I had give his lecture a miss. But this event and the visits of architects from elsewhere have generated an interesting mix of debate in the architectural fraternity here in India. More on this a little later.

Tadao Ando is a Japanese architect whose work has been primarily in Japan and his volume of work carries a distinct style specific to him. He is highly regarded for his extensive contribution in the field of architecture and has bagged several notable prizes. His style of creative use of lighting and maintaining natural settings giving a Zen kind of outcome are hallmarks to his work.

The most unforgettable example that comes to my mind is of Church of the Light in the City of Ibaraki, Osaka which Paul Goldberger in Why Architecture Matters explained about as ‘a simple rectangle of smooth concrete, sliced through by a freestanding wall set a fifteen-degree angle to the rectangle, as if it were a huge panel that had been swung on hinge’.

He explains his reaction of being in Church of the Light as something transcending a spiritual quest. And while experiencing religious buildings he mentions something profound on the effect that Architecture and built environment can have: “Ultimately this is a space that has been created to tell us that for all we know, there is something we do not know, something that we will never be able to know.”

Church of the Light by Tadao Ando

Recently in India, few notable Indian architects have been opposing the entry of foreign architects as it threatens their work share which they think should ideally belong to them. Now, this is both disturbing and conservative in my view. Ideally, let there be a fair competition to strive what is best for India. We can’t claim ownership of territories in a globalized world. This also limits excellence.

Let the stakeholders have a sound process in place of deciding and ultimately figure out what is best for them. How can we force it top-down? I see it as a great opportunity for the built environment in India to improve and excel their local practices in terms of quality, process and outcome. We are currently sitting on a huge deficit of skilled workers in built environment and we cannot afford to reject the talent pool that is coming to India from other parts of the world. Instead, we have well laid out policies which are inclusive in job generation for Indians and foreign workers and drive towards quality.

With what the world is today, where major chuck of opportunities lie with developing nations, it will be quite natural for businesses to go towards the source of opportunities. Either the gates are closed or shut. Partially open gates are still open gates. And this is the message Indian Community of Architects is sending out to the world, ‘that we do see the need of your expertise but we feel threatened by your competence and hence our reluctant approach in welcoming you’. We are being tyrannical in our approach here.

Tadao Ando was in Mumbai looking for an opportunity in architecture and he will probably be working with Godrej Group on a residential project. But that is all there is to it so far.

But given the current architecture scenario, there is so much scope for architecture and design work that we don’t have to hoard and mark territories. There is room for local architects, foreign architects and hybrid architects much the same. Whatever those terms have come to mean. I say this because I do not understand their correctness in this architecture context in our eroded identity where we have come unstuck from our roots, for better or worse, we don’t know yet.

What we lack is a vision of a overall city, a holistic urban plan, our architectural aspirations. Once we have that cleared, the rest of the smaller pieces of this jumbled puzzle will be easier to put together.