What are the biggest challenges when recruiting recent graduates of architecture school? Are students well-prepared for BIM workflows and integrated design? What does the ideal job candidate look like? Creativity or software skills? Engineering or digital mindset? These are some of the questions that Graphisoft asks in its Global Recruitment Survey – Hiring the Next […] More
The Artex kitchen is a timeless feature of the home, designed around a central island bench offering a communal work and gathering space. With a contemporary feel and a natural aesthetic, the Artex kitchen boasts ample surfaces and rigorous lines, which highlight the quality of the materials.
Owner Bill Plastiras was busy managing a successful career in construction when his love affair with Poliform began back in 2003. Now it continues to the present day: in his own home that he shares with lawyer wife Maryanne, and the homes of his extended family.
The sun-filled house shows his strong appreciation for classical elements, functionality and high-performance design.
“We chose Poliform and the Artex kitchen because it’s very elegant and it matches the other quality brand products that we own,” owner Bill explains.
“The kitchen is the centrepiece of our home. The layout not only suits our family activities, but we can have casual drinks and nibbles around the island bench with our guests as well,” he says.
Style is important to Bill in all that he does, as is the the functionality of the products he lives with. On weekends and during holidays, his family love to celebrate and cook together. Leisure time often sees them entertaining in the kitchen, living and dining space alongside their beautiful garden and pool deck.
“I like the detail around the doors and the interface with the bench top in the kitchen. The location and dimension of the kickboard make the cabinets float. I appreciate the attention to detail and the superior quality in Poliform. It’s all very precise details. Other kitchen brands try to copy, but they are not the same.
“Our previous kitchen was a dark veneer, so to lighten it up we went for mainly white cabinets this time. But we do like the Spessart oak veneer and the contrast it gives with the white benches. The Gaggenau oven and microwave oven are also better highlighted in this setting.”
A true lover of design, Bill Plastiras has now even extended his Poliform crush to his son’s home. When his son wed recently, he and Maryanne gave them a Poliform bedroom suite to mark their nuptials. More
In August 2021 Vola launched the RS11 hands-free sanitizer and soap dispenser for commercial spaces. The classic cylinder makes its debut in reception spaces around the world.
The offer of hand sanitizer on arrival at offices, retail and hospitality venues is now a global norm. With the Vola RS11, this experience has been given a stylish new enhancement, featuring Vola’s distinctive aesthetic and discrete elegance.
The starting point for the design was a simple but challenging question, according to architect and designer Torben Madsen, who is also design manager at Link Arkitecktur. “The question we asked ourselves was how do you make a hand sanitizer as invitingly delicious as, say, a bunch of delicately fragrant roses or a crisp bouquet of tulips?”
The RS11 is available in three configurations – freestanding, wall-mounted and table-mounted – to suit any environment, including reception areas, offices and bathrooms. It is adaptable for dispensing hand sanitizer gel and foam soap, and each configuration uses the same sized, well-proportioned cylinder with a one-litre capacity. In line with the Vola design philosophy, all mechanisms are hidden, to give a seamlessly subtle design; wall fixtures are also discrete, to create the slimmest possible cylindrical form.
Explaining the mechanism itself, Torben Madsen points out: “We compressed Vola’s classic, cylindrical shape into as slim and light a design as possible. That allows the cylinder to contain the mechanism that dispenses the contents in atomized form. It also means that it can contain at least one litre, so it doesn’t have to be refilled as often.”
The reservoir references the Vola round-head shower and is designed with the same commitment to durability and continuity, and produced with the same high quality materials. It is easy to clean and refill, helping to prevent accidential damage, and the extruded aluminium cylinder, available in black or white, is resistant to finger marks.
Each configuration of the RS11 is available in the full range of 27 Vola colours, including the eight special finishes from the Exclusive Colour and is powered by four AAA rechargeable batteries. Parts are easy to replace if necessary as they are held in stock by Vola to ensure many years of use. More
Bates Smart’s expressionist design for an office tower in Sydney’s Green Square has been submitted for planning assessment.
Proposed for the intersection of Botany Road and O’Riordan Street, the 17-storey building will become a key focal point of the urban renewal area with its striking form offering a contemporary reinterpretation of the area’s industrial saw-tooth geometry.
The tower will sit atop a solid masonry base with arched openings, recalling the brick arches of industrial buildings. The building form will be split down the middle to create a covered north-south link between Transport Place and the Green Square Railway Station and a pocket park to the south. Retail tenancies and corner cafes will help to activate this link and the surrounding public domain.
Bates Smart describes in planning documents how a “naturally ventilated social heart” constructed of timber will sit between the two distinct workplace volumes, visually suspended above the through-site link.
For the facade of the tower proper, vertical and horizontal shading fins in striking red oxide again recall the area’s industrial past.
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Green Square office tower by Bates Smart.
“We have reinterpreted the masonry [of the old factory buildings] into a contemporary masonry material, GRC,” state the architects. “The glazing is protected from solar gain by a brise soleil of 600 mm horizontal and vertical members at 1.8m centres. Their regular repetition visually links to the utilitarian character of the industrial buildings, without resorting to mimicking the form and details.”
Landscaped roof terraces from level 10 to 16 will create biophilic connections to nature for the office workers. The project’s landscape architect Turf Design Studio notes that the proposed planting incorporates a strong cascading theme that will soften the top corner edges of the building.
“Flashes of red are incorporated to reflect the microclimatic condition of hotter drier conditions toward the top of the building,” the landscape architecture firm notes. “Grey green / glaucas foliage is also utilised to further reflect microclimatic conditions.”
Bates Smart won a City of Sydney Design Excellence competition for the project earlier in the year.
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A model of the Bates Smart’s Green Square office tower.
The practice’s director Philip Vivian noted at the time the potential of the project to become a landmark in a changing suburb.
“The city fringe location, alongside the connection to Green Square’s train station, provides a unique opportunity to create a fringe precinct that invigorates its context and sets the precedent for the workplace of the future,” he said.
Developed by Toga Group, the $141 million project will deliver 28,751 square metres of office and retail space, along with end-of-trip facilities. The development application is on public exhibit until 17 Septemebr. More
The Victorian Health Building Authority has released designs for a new $59.5 million day rehabilitation facility at Bendigo Hospital. Designed by Clarke Hopkins Clarke, the Bendigo Hospital Rehabilitation Centre will include a hydrotherapy pool and bring together outpatient rehabilitation, allied health, dental, mental health, renal dialysis, breast screening and diabetes education services. Bendigo Hospital Rehabilitation […] More
The Western Australian government has announced it will invest $875 million to create thousands of social housing homes across the state. The government will establish a new $750 million Social Housing Investment Fund which includes $228 million allocated to short-term projects and $522 million to deliver new homes in 2022-23. As well, the government plans […] More
i2C Architects has been appointed to design a two-level community hub in the Western Sydney suburb of Vineyard. Located on the corner of McGrath and Windsor roads, the hub will include a childcare centre, a community playground, a gym, a car park, two food and beverage outlets with an oversized alfresco area, and a range […] More
Townsville City Council has approved Conrad Gargett’s design for a new home for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the first stage of the wider Hive development.
To be built opposite the Reef HQ aquarium in central Townsville, the five-storey office building will have a gross floor area of 6,472 square metres and incorporate a mixture of office space, retail and service industries, with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority as the main tenant.
A shared pedestrian and vehicular laneway will also be constructed, providing access from The Strand through to Flinders Street.
Townsville deputy mayor Mark Molachino said the development would be a welcome addition to the eastern end of Flinders Street.
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Hive stage 1, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority office by Conrad Gargett.
“There’s no doubt that this end of Flinders Street has been ready for development for some time and I am delighted that this project is coming to fruition,” he said.
“Council’s planning team have undertaken a thorough assessment of the application and given it the green light, subject to a number of conditions covering issues such as landscaping, car parking and footpath upgrades.”
With masterplanning by Conrad Gargett, the Hive development is a multi-stage “placemaking” project covering around 18,000 square metres.
Future stages may include a concert hall and convention centre; renovation of the state heritage-listed Queen’s Hotel; a new hotel; residential apartments; office space; facilities for tertiary education, marine and tropical science research, tourism, and medical and allied health; and an Indigenous art gallery.
The developer behind the project, Gleeson Group, will tender for a builder for the project in the coming months, with construction expected to begin in mid-2022. More
