After an interrupted year in 2020, Melbourne Design week is back with its largest program to date with an 11-day festival of exhibitions, talks, films, tours and workshops.
Exploring the theme “Design the world you want” the program of more than 300 events celebrates the diversity of Australian design and architecture. Here, we round up some of the architectural highlights, from speculations on a self-sufficient future city to opportunities in the suburbs.
A New Normal
This project led by Finding Infinity challenged a group of Melbourne architecture practice to imagine an entirely self-sufficient city through a series of installations and talks. The practices include John Wardle Architects, Clare Cousins Architects, Grimshaw, Fender Katsalidis, Hassell, Kennedy Nolan, Wowowa and Six Degrees, Edition, Ha Architects, Dreamer, NMBW and landscape architect Mark Jacques with Finding Infinity principal Ross Harding.
Home made: Reinventing how we live in Melbourne
Fri 26 March 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Inspired by uniquely Australian innovations in housing from the past decade, this exhibition explores the alternative ways in which sustainable housing projects are realized. The exhibition presents a number of projects, both built and unbuilt, that represent a variety of financial, design, development and shared-living arrangements. The projects include Nightingale Housing, Assemble, Property Collectives, Tripple and Third Way.
Designing a legacy
Sat 27 March 7:30 pm – 8:40 pm
Comedian Tim Ross will present a cinematic live show that integrates films, humour and tours of some of Australia’s most significant modernist houses. The show explores how these architectural gems have endured, passed on from family to family.
After the Australian Ugliness
Sun 28 March, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Robin Boyd’s The Australian Ugliness is regarded as a modern Australian classic. Now, more than 60 years after it was first published, the National Gallery of Victoria and Thames and Hudson will launch a new tome that explores Boyd’s book through new critical and creative writing, as well as photography by David Wadelton and drawings by Oslo Davis. The book will be launched at the Walsh Street House, headquarters of the Robin Boyd Foundation and the event will also include a panel discussion by Ewan McEoin, the NGV’s senior curator of contemporary design and architecture, Naomi Stead, professor of architecture at Monash University, author Vanessa Berry, and Thomas Lee, senior lecturer in design studies at University of Technology Sydney.
Wolf Prix: Architecture Must Blaze
Sun 28 March 2:00 pm – 3:26 pm
Part of the Melbourne Design Week film festival, this screening will the Australian premiere of the 2019 documentary on Coop Himmelblau founder Wolf Prix. The title of the film comes from a 1980 manifesto written by Prix in which he declared “Architecture has to be cavernous, fiery, smooth, hard, angular, brutal, round, delicate, colorful, obscene, lustful, dreamy, attracting, repelling, wet, dry, and throbbing. Alive or dead.” The film, directed by Mathias Frick, explores his life and work as urban planner, visionary, provocateur and cross-thinker.
Aalto.
Aalto
Mon 29 March 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Directed by Virpi Suutari, the 2020 documentary Aalto explores the work of Finnish architects Alvar and Aino Aalto. The film is a cinematic love story of the a “charismatic and fascinating couple” and the work that they created together, which included not only buildings but also furniture, lighting and decorative objects.. It is narrated by experts and includes and features never-before-seen archival footage. NGV senior curator of international decorative arts and antiques Amanda Dunsmore will present a special introduction to the film prior to the screening.
Archipitch for social housing of the future
Tue 30 March 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
As Victoria embarks on $5.3 billion program to create 12,000 social housing units, this event challenges seven Melbourne architecture practices to live-pitch their ideas for social housing to a panel of leaders in the sector. Each team will have three minutes to present and at the end of the session, the panel will pick a winner.
Kerstin Thompson Architects: Encompassing People and Place
Tues, 30 March, 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Launching her new architectural monograph, Kerstin Thompson will present a number of public and community projects – including Town Hall Broadmeadows and the redevelopment of the Jewish Holocaust Centre – that explore the theme of “cultural memory.” The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Virginia Trioli, in which Thompson will be joined by an academic, a stakeholder and an artist collaborator who will offer different perspectives on procurement, community consultation, and the design process.
Shared-value cities.
Shared-value cities
Wed 31 Mar 11:30 am – 1:00 pm
This public symposium will explore ways to design critical infrastructure to meet the needs of growing cities, including cultural infrastructure, transport, carbon positive and regenerative communities and smart learning environments. The event is presented by Grimshaw and panellists include Andrew Cortese and Tim Williams from Grimshaw, Stephen Todd, design editor of the Australian Financial Review and Marcus Westbury, founding CEO of Contemporary Arts Precincts.
AA Prize for Unbuilt Work
Wed 31 March, 6:00 pm
Architecture Media and the Melbourne School of Design will present an exhibition and panel discussion of the shortlisted entries to the 2021 AA Prize for Unbuilt Work. The exhibition launch will be followed by a panel discussion on how schematic ideas can provoke real world solutions to contemporary challenges. The panel will include jurors Katelin Butler (editorial director of Architecture Media) and Rory Hyde (MSD associate professor of architecture) along with the prize winner Julian Anderson of Bates Smart and two shortlisted entrants, Lauren Garner of Kerstin Thompson Architects and Jacqui Alexander of Alexander and Sheridan Architecture.
AA Prize for Unbuilt Work. Picture: proposal by Bates Smart.
Trajectories: Home
Wed 31 March 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Six architects from five practices will come together in a round-table discussion about their residential projects, particularly those that have been commissioned since the start of the pandemic. The architects will discuss the shifts that they have seen in the design and occupation of homes and their visions for home life in the future.
A cinematic vision: The architecture of Howard Lawson
Virginia Blue will present a talk on prolific Melbourne architect Howard Lawson, famed for his highly dramatic Beverly Hills apartments in South Yarra. Blue is currently writing a book on Lawson and has uncovered fascinating new information through her archival research. The talk can be watched on Public Records Victoria’s Youtube channel throughout Melbourne Design Week.
A new suburban ambition
The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns have placed renewed focus on the suburbs and the future of what the suburbs could become. This series of events, including a public lecture, exhibition and workshops, explores the opportunities to remake the suburbs, housing alternatives through various state-government run competitions, and design investigations into both the past and future of suburbs.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
