Architecture

The custodians of the legacy of Robin Boyd, the Robin Boyd Foundation, have launched the Walsh Street Archives: a culturally significant collection of artefacts and treasures belonging to the Australian architect, educator and cultural commentator. Since 2014, a group of dedicated volunteers have collated, catalogued, researched, digitised and conserved relics of Boyd’s life and career […] More

Architect and new parliamentarian Elizabeth Watson-Brown has used her maiden speech to call for an end to privately delivered public infrastructure.
The member for the inner-Brisbane seat of Ryan was elected as a Greens candidate and is only the second representative of that seat not from the Liberal-National Party.
In her maiden speech, Watson-Brown reflected on her more than 40-year career in architecture marked by historic Queensland flood events.
“We arrived at UQ in the month of the 1974 floods. Much of the campus had been under water. Our first project as fledgling architects was to go and document the flood damage to houses. Of course, what we really saw was huge damage to people, to lives. That was heartbreaking, that was salutary. And since then, I have experienced two more ‘unprecedented’ major Brisbane river floods in Ryan.”
Watson-Brown established her own architectural practice in 1981 as one of only a handful of women to do so at that time in Australia.
“Throughout this whole time, whether in my own projects or on government advisory panels and juries, my design and lived values have always been to prioritize the needs of individual people and their community, and the specifics and the environment and the place.
“I have always said to my students and staff, what we’re doing is really important. We’re building the infrastructure of the lives we share. We’d better do it well. We’d better do it responsively and responsibly,” Watson-Brown continued.
The parliamentarian designed the first purpose-built refuge in Queensland for women and children escaping domestic violence.
“It’s these values – prioritizing the needs of the community and the sustainability and amenity of life, of our climate and environment – that I bring to represent my Ryan community in this chamber.”
Watson-Brown was appointed the Australian Greens spokesperson for infrastructure, transport and sustainable cities on 17 June. She told the House of Representatives, “In my career I’ve seen first-hand the problems caused by the belief that public infrastructure should be developed and owned by private corporations.
“This has a profoundly negative effect on our ability to deliver for everyday people and communities.
“My experience of public-private partnerships is that the private is what undermines the benefit to the public, as do planning regulation that favour private developers and profits.
“So I’m here to say that public infrastructure should be in public hands, and that we need a public-led approach to the way we develop our cities.
“This is particularly urgent in the context of the climate crisis – and the inequality crisis [that are] – so closely integrated.
“Australia’s cities actually house about 85 percent of our population and generate the majority of our carbon pollution. Without exception, Australian cities were established at places of great natural resources and beauty. Our reliance on private cars is rapidly obliterating these natural assets with unsustainable outward sprawl and inward traffic congestion and concrete chaos.”
She continued, “The climate crisis, caused by the greed of coal, oil and gas industries, now continually tosses up unheard-of temperatures, floods, fires, droughts and heatwaves.
“Our buildings and cities should protect us from these attacks, but they only make them worse. Urban hardening multiplies flash-flooding effects, while de-vegetation accelerates urban heat island effects that amplify deadly heat waves.
“We must design our settlements to accommodate and nurture everyone to resist natural hazards, but also to allow us to flee safely when the catastrophe inevitably strikes.
“In our last unprecedented devastating flood, whole suburbs in Ryan were trapped – people with nowhere to go, and no help when they needed it most. We need to do better and we need to do it fast.”
Watch Elizabeth Watson-Brown’s full maiden speech here or read it here. More

The Association of Consulting Architects (ACA) has released its national salary report and analysis for 2022, finding the gender pay gap is still a pertinent issue across the profession, and some architectural students are still paid below the award rate.
The perennial study of workplace conditions gathers data on 31 different roles within the architecture profession. The ACA said in 2022 it received its highest participation rate yet, with 235 practices reporting 2,907 staff.
Pay ranges within role categories varied greatly, with the highest paid architects earning on average 4.5 times more than the lowest paid architectural staff.
In a concerning revelation, 7.8 percent of practices are currently paying their students below the award rate. However, only 36 percent of practices revealed their data concerning students, meaning this figure was pulled from only 77 reports.
The gender pay gap for architects still persists, with men paid more on average in all but two of the nine different level categories.
At the new associate level and registered architect up to three years, men and women are paid the same, and for new director/principal level, pays were demonstrably similar.
However, for the remaining six categories, men’s salaries were found do be significantly higher on average, with the disparity widening at the experienced director/principal level.
The gender breakdown across all staff in the industry revealed a split of 39 percent women and 61 percent men. This divide was less prominent at junior levels, while moving up the hierarchy, men in senior roles increases dramatically with four times as many men at director/principal level than women.
The survey found that of the respondent practices, more than 29 percent reported that they had offering a salary increase between 3 and 5 percent, which was marginally less than the 2019 survey.
The proportion of practices who reported that they had increased salaries by the CPI or less decreased from 53 percent in 2019 to 43 percent in 2022.
The highest reported increase was within the 6 to 10 percent category, with 23 percent of respondent practices offering this salary increase compared to just 9 per cent in 2019. The 11 to 20 percent category increased by almost double the number reported in 2019.
The survey found that in 2022, larger practices had higher pay rates, particularly for employees in senior and director or principal roles.
The survey also found the percentage of practices offering staff bonus benefits had dropped dramatically this year, with almost 60 percent of practices offering no bonuses compared to 40 percent in 2019.
The full 2022 National Salary Survey report is available to ACA members. More

The Victorian government has appointed Eplus Architecture to design the $23 million revitalization of the Wilsons Promontory visitors precinct and accommodation hub. Wilsons Prom – the southernmost point of mainland Australia – is a national park in an Aboriginal cultural landscape, and a popular visitors’ destination for its rugged coastal scenery, its native wildlife, and […] More

Cox Architecture has designed a tower in Adelaide’s city centre set to become the world’s tallest timber hotel. To be located at 187 Victoria Square, the proposed tower will sit behind and on top of the existing building also known as Beacon House, which has been described as Adelaide’s first post-war skyscraper. Covering 31 storeys […] More

The 2022 Vivid Design Awards were held at Decoration and Design on 14 July, celebrating the achievements of emerging and early-career designers of furniture, lighting and objects. As Australia’s longest-running competition for emerging designers, the Vivid Awards have helped to bolster the careers of many designers, including Nicole Monks, Edward Linacre, Adam Markowitz and Dale […] More

Available to any member practice with no more than ten full-time staff, the 2022 Architeam Awards are now open for entries as of 25 July, celebrating the best of Australia’s small, medium and emerging practices that might otherwise be overlooked in larger awards programs. The awards recognize Architeam members’ contribution to the Australian design community […] More

The disused rail yards in Sydney’s Redfern is set to be transformed into a new mixed-use precinct under plans developed by Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW).
On 26 July, TfNSW released a rezoning proposal to provide 110,000 square metres of residential and commercial space and in it the acreage for technology and innovation industries as well as new public space and social housing.
The land, owned by the Transport Asset Holding Entity, has inaccessible public for around a century and presents an opportunity to create a new multi-use precinct.
An urban design framework for the Redfern-North Eveleigh Precinct, developed with Bates Smart and Turf Design Studio, reveal a vision to create a residential, entertainment and technology hub on the edge of the CBD.
The draft masterplan targets the “Paint Shop” area, one of three sub-precincts within the Redfern-North Eveleigh Precinct, named after the 135-year-old red brick workshop where trains were overhauled until 1988.
TfNSW envisions the Paint Shop precinct will act as a gateway to Sydney’s emerging tech precinct within Haymarket and Central Station.

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Concept designs for the Paint Shop precinct in the Redfern-North Eveleigh Precinct. Image:

Bates Smart

The plan involves the adaptive reuse heritage workshop buildings, like the eponymous 6,000-square-metre “Paint Shop” building, to create 450 new affordable and diverse homes in buildings up to 28 storeys.
The state government has set a target of 30 per cent diverse housing, half of which must be social and affordable housing, which Minister for Cities Rob Stokes said is “triple the Greater Cities Commission’s baseline target”.
“The Redfern-North Eveleigh precinct is a ten-hectare parcel of inner city public land that has been off limits to the public for more than a century and provides the perfect place for a new city-shaping precinct,” Minister Stokes said.
“We’re transforming the old rail yards by restoring and protecting their heritage value, building new homes and offices while creating more than 14,000 square metres of public space, including a new town square and public parkland.”
The revitalisation will follow the upgrades to Redfern station, which will help to create a connected centre and mixed-use development for living and working.
The rezoning proposal is on exhibition for public comment until Thursday 25 August 2022. Detailed planning on the Paint Shop precinct cannot be completed until the rezoning process has been carried out. More