January/February - Australian Institute of Architects

Amid fierce visual competition, it was inthe national pavilions that the architects cameout to play. Within these pavilions, individualcountries addressed the issue of ‘Better City,Better Life’ in their own distinct way, and entryqueues of up to seven hours were notuncommon for the more popular exhibits.With its external walls of Cor-ten steel, theAustralian ImagiNation pavilion acknowledgedthe source of our wealth, yet inside a verydifferent message was presented as plasticcaricatures of Captain Cook lined corridorsthat morphed from stone to surf in the formof Wave Rock (images 8 and 9). As part of theAustralian ‘experience’, visitors were led toa large auditorium to watch an interactivedisplay before being spewed into the souvenirshop to buy ugg boots and macadamia nuts.In an effort to keep up with the Joneses, theBelgian Pavilion had large pictures of Tintinand a chocolate shop, while the Danes hadactually removed the Little Mermaid fromCopenhagen Harbour and placed her at thecentre of Bjarke Ingels’s spiral bike track.The more pavilions one visited, the morecultural overload came to be expected; yetamid the chaos it was one of the simplestexhibits that proved to be the most engaging.Heatherwick Studio’s sublime UK Pavilion(image 12) was created from virtually nothingmore than 60,000 crystalline spines, each witha unique seed from the Millennium Seed BankCollection — at the Royal Botanic Gardens,Kew — cast inside. Here, the message wassimple: look at the role of nature and wonderwhether it could be used to meet the social,economic and environmental challenges ofour cities. 7 The gigantic dandelion moved inthe breeze to the delight of all who witnessedit, and provided a surreal oasis of calm amongits surroundings. At the conclusion of theExpo, the British picked it up and blew,spreading the seeds and their message toprimary schools across China.While the World Expo saw more ‘peoplemeet in architecture’ than did the Biennale, itwould be wrong to think that in 2010 Shanghaipromoted the architecture while Venicepromoted the ideas. At both events, the roleof the architect/curator was vital to the success(or otherwise) of a pavilion, with the mostsuccessful exhibitors able to distill a complexidea into a profoundly simple format, engagingwith the visitor and making them an importantcollaborator on the work. The AustralianPavilion at the 2012 Venice Biennale will seeCreative Directors Anthony Burke (Universityof Technology, Sydney) and Gerard Reinmuth(Terroir), explore the evolutionary forms ofpractice that are redefining the role of thearchitect in an age of economic, social andcultural challenges. With a focus on actualprojects and their impact, the directors willcollaborate closely with Toko Concept Designto transform the pavilion into a ‘space ofengagement’ — which is just as it should be.David BurdonNSW Government Architect’s Office1.2.Footnotes1. Mark Jones, quoted in Anna Jackson, Expo: InternationalExpositions 1851–2010, V&A Publishing, 2008, p.72. Anna Jackson, Expo: International Expositions 1851–2010,V&A Publishing, 2008, p.103. History of the Venice Architecture Biennale: La presenzadel passato, http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/history/1.html?back=true4. Kazuyo Sejima, Official Catalog, Biennale Architettura 2010,p.14. Sejima’s partner in the Pritzker Prize winningSANAA studio, Ryue Nishizawa, accepted the role ofartistic consultant in order to comply with the Biennale’srule that there be only one curator.5. Kazuyo Sejima, Official Catalog, Biennale Architettura 2010,p.146. Kazuyo Sejima, Official Catalog, Biennale Architettura 2010,p.147. UK Pavilion, Expo 2010 Shanghai China: Official Album,Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination, ChinaPublishing Group Corporation, 2010, p.242Parlaying the pavilionAmid the Bicentennial celebrations of1988, Australia found itself in the enviableposition of securing the last of the 29permanent exhibition spaces in the Giardinidella Biennale on land owned by the City ofVenice. With more than a nod to his otherBicentennial project at Darling Harbour, PhilipCox’s pavilion was designed pro bono, and forthe past 23 years this temporary structure has,it must be said, served its purpose well.When the Australia Council recentlysignalled its intention to replace the Australianpavilion in Venice with a permanent structure,Australian architects took notice — after all,the chance to build a 320 square metre pavilionalong the banks of a Venetian canal amid thelikes of Sverre Fehn, Carlo Scarpa, and JamesStirling is a rare one indeed.This chance was, for many, all but lost withthe announcement by the Australia Council inJune 2011 that the new design would result froman invitation-only competition. Public outcry(and lobbying by the Institute) seemed to haveworked when an open two-stage competitionwas launched in August; yet a closer readingof the conditions of entry soon revealed thatit effectively narrowed the pool of entrants tothe original invited few, with the stipulationthat only Australian architects with experiencedesigning a public art space and deliveringprojects internationally were eligible to enter.An architectural competition with onlyone architect on the judging panel, and whichAustralia’s only Pritzker Prize winner, GlennMurcutt, is ineligible to enter, could soundto some like the start of yet another murkychapter in the history of Australian architecturalcompetitions, or a missed opportunity. Was notUtzon’s design rescued from the reject pile?Despite this rocky start, in November 2011,six eminent practices were short-listed from67 expressions of interest: Bud BranniganArchitects, Denton Corker Marshall, JohnWardle Architects, Johnson Pilton Walker,Peter Stutchbury Architecture, and Sean GodsellArchitects. Each will submit a detailed responseto the design brief, as formulated with artists,curators and stakeholders (and endorsed bythe Institute). A winner will be announcedin March 2012. Watch this space.Two faces of the pavilion. 1. Painted fluorescent citrus in 2008for Abundant Australia’s array of architectural models. Photo:Claudio Franzini. 2. The pavilion in 2010, lightwashed with Nowand When’s 3–D stereoscopic imagery. Photo: David Burdon.HolidaymakerThe memoir of an architectturned-carpenter,‘on the tools’to build a tiny tower of dreams.The much-anticipated summer holidays in ourhousehold begin with our three sleeping sonsbeing carefully carried to the family car for apre-dawn departure. We head north along thetwisting Pacific Highway towards our favouritebeach house on the mid-north coast of NewSouth Wales.If we’re lucky, we’ll get a clear run outof Sydney and be well past the twistedangophoras of the Hawkesbury River beforeany other limbs are stirring in the back seat.Not long into the drive, the ManningRiver appears, and with it, tall forests beginto press in around the highway, revealinga landscape that was once commonplacealong the mid-north coast — mature standsof blackbutt, flooded gum, tallowwood andspotted gum — towering into the optimisticmorning skies.In this part of the world, the northernrivers drain the eastern flanks of the GreatDividing Range into the Pacific Ocean, forming— over many hundreds of millennia — deepvalleys and steeply inclined habitats in whichhave evolved some of this continent’s mostmagnificent trees.Local places with names such as CedarCreek, Bloodwood and Millers Road describethe industries that grew, like mistletoe, inthese east coast forests, and hungrily devouredvast areas within mere generations of thetimber-cutter’s arrival.It was into one of the remaining timbermills near Nambucca — with a sustainablyharvested queue of mature trees being fedinto its terrifying blades — that I coastedat the end of our last summer holiday, topurchase half-a-dozen blackbutt 4-by-2sin 6-metre lengths. Rough-sawn fromthe trunk and dripping with clear sap, thesegolden beams were fastened to the roof racksfor the long journey home, back to Sydney.For six hope-filled months the prized beamswere stowed among the rafters of a boatshedby the harbour as the timber steadily reachedmoisture equilibrium in its new environment.They were originally intended for theconstruction of a veranda, but the nowbeautifully seasoned timber was hastilyredeployed by the urgent demands of oursix year old (and his younger co-conspirators)for a cubbyhouse in the backyard. With only asimple not-to-scale sketch as our constructiondocumentation, the cubbyhouse was builtover a couple of enjoyable winter days.The drop saw and power drill releasing thelocked-in forest aromas with each deep sliceand penetration of the wood’s tight grain.Mercifully, the project was unencumberedby the usual rigours of my normal professionallife — development applications, valuemanagement sessions and buildinginformation models — though constructionwas accompanied by a constant stream ofcommentary from my enthusiastic young‘clients’. They were all too keen to occupy theirspecial space, and its key internal dimensionswere sized directly from their eager bodies.Joists recovered from a demolishedbuilding nearby were commandeeredto make the floor. Arm lengths ofspotted gum offcuts from the sameregion as the blackbutt(salvaged from a largeproject years prior),were neatly arrangedinto a balustrade ofbattens. A sheet ofmarine-grade plywoodformed the cantileveredseating brackets, perfectlysized for little legs.Dowels of Tasmanianoak were driven in as treenailsbonding our beams to posts. Whitecedar plywood provided a soffit to oneof the roof planes; with the roof itselfsheathed in a mix of clear and opaqueprofiled sheet to offer shade from thenorth and views into a tree canopy tothe south. The complete structureopens up to the breeze and picks upsunlight in ways that appeal to anarchitect’s eye.Of course, materials are more thanmere shelter from the elements, or barriersfor security. Natural materials echo theenvironments that create them: the alchemyof the soil, the rainfall and the climates of theirorigin. They are the words through whicharchitecture can be read as a compositionin harmony with the story of a landscape.Now adorned with our sons’ growingcollection of found coastal objects — abaloneand oyster shells, crayfish carapaces, nativeorchids, sea sponges and pieces of whale bone— this most modest, and personal of buildingsis a place of retreat, play and imagination forour children, and a nostalgic reminder of ourown east coast holidays past.Luke JohnsonPrincipal, Hassell12 Architecture Bulletin January / February 2012Architecture Bulletin January / February 2012 13