Architecture

Three Indigenous textile artists from the Northern Territory have teamed up with South Australian furniture and product designers to produce a series of chairs that offer a new way of engaging with Indigenous material culture and storytelling.
Showing at the Jam Factory in Adelaide from 9 October to 28 November, the Rekkan / Tamuwu / Nyinakati: Sit/Sit Down exhibition features contemporary furniture upholstered in textiles designed by the artists. But this isn’t about simply draping textiles onto existing furniture forms; instead, an iterative design process saw the symbolic textile designs shape and inform the structure of the chairs, complementing and continuing the artists’ traditional stories.

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Raylene Bonson X Daniel Emma.

One of the pairings is Ndjébbana–Kuninjku textile artist Raylene Bonson from the Bábbarra Women’s Centre in Maningrida with Daniel To and Emma Aiston of the design studio Daniel Emma. Bonson specializes in the linocut printing technique and is known for her designs depicting ancestral stories and ceremonial objects, particularly the lorrkkon (hollow log for burial ceremony), the kunmadj (dillybag) and the mandjabu (conical fishtrap). She was mentored by her late mother, Nancy Gununwanga, a senior textile artist at Bábbarra Designs and a founding member of the Bábbarra Women’s Centre. Bonson’s silkscreened wubbunj (paperbark canoe/makassan boat) fabric design was inspired by the story of her partner’s father, who travelled with other men from Nakalarramba across the river to Djomi and, upon finding fresh water, settled on the land that became Maningrida. Inspired by and keen to reflect life in and around Maningrida, Emma Aiston and Daniel To have designed foldable utilitarian loveseats that celebrate “the transportable nature of wubbunj and the thought that this is something that can be moved around and used with relative ease.”

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Keturah Nangala Zimran X Caren Elliss.

Another creative pair is Luritja–Pintupi artist Keturah Nangala Zimran from Ikuntji Artists in Haasts Bluff and designer Caren Elliss. Nangala Zimran creates bold, strong and bright textile designs and the fabric she has selected for this project features contrasting colours that depict sand hills and puli puli (rocks) in the landscape. In designing the form of the armchair, Elliss was attracted to the bold, strong and bright graphical nature of the textile design. Resonating with the intergenerational stories of Keturah, her mother and grandmother, Elliss responded the fabric by focusing on curves, particularly those found in the movement of the wind in the sand hills and the shape of the rocks in the landscape. The circular form of the armchair and footrest enclose the sitter in a way that suggests being enveloped by Country/. “I wanted the furniture to act as a visual anchor, a boulder-like form on which to wrap Keturah’s work and story around, providing a 3D interpretation and a continuance of the visual cues and movement found in Keturah’s work,” Elliss says.

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Roslyn Orsto X Dean Toepfer.

Finally, Roslyn Orsto from Tiwi Designs in Wurrumiyanga teamed up with furniture and lighting designer Dean Toepfer. Orsto is known for her ochre paintings on canvas and paper which she creates using the wooden comb technique. Her punarika (waterlily) textile design celebrates the presence of waterlilies in the lakes ponds, rivers and running streams of her homeland as well as the integral role that the plants play in her community as both bush medicines and sources of nourishment. Toepfer has created two armchairs with a minimalist aesthetic that depict Tiwi lore relating to the use and stories of punarika. “The first chair represents the calm and nurturing lakes and ponds where waterlilies provide bush medicines and food, while the second depicts the fire that the elders and traditional owners create to calm the Rainbow Serpent that rises if the waterlilies are taken without her permission”, he says. “Both chairs depict the balance and harmony that the Traditional Owners managed for millennia.” More

Cult presents Nau 2021 – the newest collection from its Australian design brand Nau. Comprising furniture and lighting by a collective of Australia’s most renowned designers, Nau 2021 features a comprehensive outdoor range, a locally crafted flat-pack furniture series and an edit of functional, refined designs for both the home and the workplace. Designed and […] More

BQE Software Inc., which provides management software for architecture and engineering firms, has announced the appointment of Victor Limongelli as its new chief executive officer. Victor joins BQE after a 20 year career managing technology and SaaS companies. “I am thrilled to be joining BQE as it builds upon an impressive foundation of serving architecture […] More

Sydney could follow cities such as Paris, Copenhagen and New York that are reclaiming polluted urban waterways as swimming spots.
The City of Sydney has set out a vision for a “swimmable harbour,” releasing speculative designs by Andrew Burges Architects for swimming spots at Beare Park, Pirrama Park and Glebe foreshore. The tantalizing renders show a number of options to get people swimming in the city’s famous harbour, including a floating platform pool reminiscent of New York’s long-mooted Plus Pool, a pontoon design similar to one placed in a Paris canal, and a simple roped-off area. The council commissioned Andrew Burges Architects – one of the designers of Gunyama Park Aquatic and Recreation Centre – in 2019 to develop some options for urban swimming infrastructure, as a way of showing off what could be possible in “iconic parts of Sydney Harbour.” But these swimming opportunities could only be realized if the water quality of the harbour is improved.
“Greater Sydney Harbour is one of the world’s greatest harbours and is a state, national and global asset,” said Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who spoke on the topic at Sydney Water’s Innovation Festival on 18 October.

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The Beare Park proposal by Andrew Burges Architects.

“However, its waters have also been home to industry and pollution – most sediment contaminants entered the Harbour prior to 1970, when industry practices were poorly regulated. While we have seen some improvement, our harbour is continually threatened by possible adverse impacts of population growth and development. It is also susceptible to the impacts of climate change including high rainfall intensity and resulting catchment runoff.”
Moore said it would take a whole-of-government effort to clean up the waterways so they could be used for recreation, but that council would play its part to make it happen through stormwater management initiatives, and through its collaboration with Sydney Water.
“Our focus on water recycling and stormwater management is a key ingredient in improving the quality of water in the Harbour,” she said. “The city is reducing stormwater pollution entering into the harbour by installing and maintaining stormwater treatment systems such as Gross Pollutant Traps (GPT), raingardens, wetlands and swales in our stormwater network. The City’s 250 raingardens and 47 GPTs prevent hundreds of tonnes of litter from entering our waterways.”
The potential swimming spots are all at sites where the council has led harbourside renewal projects that have protected access to the water.
At Pirrama Park, the council said, a pool would require only minimal infrastructure along the existing harbour edge to allow for swimming, while at Beare Park, there wouldn’t be much need for infrastructure to be built at all.
“Swimming in the harbour is no pipe dream,” said Moore. “Cities around the world are turning to their natural harbour assets rather than building more infrastructure. Copenhagen spent 15 years transforming its harbour from a highly polluted waterway to a swimmer’s paradise where wildlife is thriving. Once a polluted industrial port, Copenhagen city now invites people to swim in its waterways and enjoy a clean and thriving aquatic environment.” More

The $2.2 billion, 3,000-home Ivanhoe housing estate in Macquarie Park, north-west Sydney is taking shape, with a development application for the next stage of development on public exhibit.
Stage two of the massive development, masterplanned by Bates Smart and Hassell, involves three distinct lots, with buildings in each of them designed by different architects.
Designed by Cox Architecture with landscape by Hassell, Lot C4 will feature a 17-storey social housing tower with 216 social units, a 24-storey market tower with 268 units, and four market townhouses of three storeys each. Cox explains that the buildings play an important role in the transition from the urban character of the housing estate to the natural Shrimptons Creek nature corridor.
“The tower massing has been crafted to respond to two separate conditions, the north-western most tower responds to its more urban context and is more orthogonal in nature, while the south-eastern tower responds to Shrimptons Creek and is more organic in nature,” the firm says in planning documents.
Lot C3 comprises a 16-storey residential tower designed by Fox Johnston with McGregor Coxall. It sits closer to the centre of the masterplan, looking over the central village green. Fox Johnston describes how the tower is split into two distinct forms to break up the bulk and allow for the inclusion of communal landscaped spaces dubbed “forest rooms.”
The village green sits within Lot C2, along with a community centre with a “social enterprise cafe,” a pool and a gym. Chrofi and McGregor Coxall were recently announced as the winners of a design competition for this lot, which will sit at the heart of the estate. The various uses occupy a single-storey, linear built form that wraps around the central park and creates an active relationship with the village green.
The NSW Land and Housing Commission first submitted a development application for the overall project in 2018. It is being delivered by the Aspire Consortium with developers Frasers Property Australia and Citta Property Group, on behalf of the commission. The project has been criticized for its relative lack of social and affordable housing, and concerns have been raised over density.
Construction on stage one started in 2020. More

Designs for two more train stations in Melbourne have been unveiled, designed by Wood Marsh, with landscape architect Tract Consultants.
Bell Station and Preston Station in the city’s north, delivered as part of the state government’s wide-ranging level crossing removal program, will offer improved amenity and connectivity on the Mernda Line.
Both stations will be splashed with a purple pigmentation to stand out and give the line a unique identity, while the two designs will take separate approaches to capture the qualities of the local landmarks of each site.
Bell Station will respond to the typical post-war roof forms of the surrounding houses.
“It interested me that post-war housing stock is heritage listed in Darebin,” said Wood Marsh director Roger Wood. “So we decided to condense an abstraction of an aerial of photograph of the roofscape of the surrounding area and then cast it in concrete and lifted it onto the facade of the building to create the building’s texture.”
Pastel coloured acrylic panels will activate the interior spaces with reflections and refractions during the day, while a band of glazing at the top will bring light onto the platforms.

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Preston Station by Wood Marsh, with landscape architect Tract Consultants.

The design for the Preston Station takes inspiration from its proximity to the Preston Markets, with its facade resembling a barcode used by the market vendors.
“We started with a black facade that is pleated,” said Wood. “Then we’ve scanned the barcode in vibrant colours so when the carparks empty, there’s still a sense of the marketplace vibrancy about the station.”
By lifting the railway, the project will create new landscaped open space, designed by Tract, reconnecting the neighbourhoods and providing new areas for recreation below the railway and between the two stations.
A motif running through this space will be a modern interpretation of Wurundjeri shield markings, developed in collaboration with a number of Wurundjeri Aunties and WSP, which will run the entire length of the project along a viaduct, casting shadows onto the rails.
The landscaping will also include spaces for yarning circles and plantings for weaving as well as food sources that can be harvested by the local Indigenous community.
Construction on the stations is now underway. More

The National Gallery of Victoria is accepting submissions for the 2022 edition of the NGV Architecture Commission Competition from Wednesday, 20 October.
The annual commission is selected via a two-stage national competition, in which architects or multi-disciplinary teams are invited to submit a design that is “thought-provoking, issues-led, relevant and resonant and that can, in a non-didactic way, facilitate or instigate conversations, dialogue, immersion, or reflection.”
The 2021 commission, a pink pond installation designed by Taylor Knights in collaboration with artist James Carey, will open in November.
The gallery said that design proposals “can be many things,” including a performance space, a work of speculative architecture, a landscape intervention, a place designed for playful interaction, or an immersive space for reflection.
“While titled an architecture commission, it is an important ambition of this annual site-specific commission that it continues to offer the opportunity for architecture to be enacted in the broadest sense,” a statement from NGV reads. “To this end the gallery specifically invites design proposals that promote collaboration and multi-disciplinary thinking. Proposals should demonstrate the capacity of design to actively engage the community.”
The first stage of the competition calls for anonymous “high level design proposals,” of which up to five will be chosen to proceed to a paid second stage.
The five shortlisted submissions will be further developed and refined in stage two, for presentation to the competition jury. The jury will select a winner, who will be commissioned by the NGV to complete the design development and delivery of the 2022 NGV Architecture Commission.
The 2022 jury comprises Don Heron (chair, assistant director exhibitions management and design, NGV), Amaia Sanchez-Velasco (lecturer at the School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney), Linda Cheng (editor, ArchitectureAU), Michael Banney (founding director, M3 Architecture), Mel Dodd (head of Department of Architecture, Monash University), and Rachel Nolan (founding director, Kennedy Nolan).
Registrations for the competition are now open. More

A fermentation hub that could produce everything from cheese to booze will be built in northern Tasmania, now that local not-for-profit Fermentasmania has secured $7.5 million in federal funding.
Part factory, part laboratory, part tourist attraction, the 1,800 square metre facility will be designed by architecture firm Cumulus and landscape architect SLBA Studio and will be located 10 kilometres northwest of Launceston. The idea is that it will support local fermentation start-ups making a range of different products by providing low-cost access to specialized equipment, research, and education.
“Our collaboration with Fermentas has been essential to solving the complexities of the space, which needed to house highly prescribed production processes while still providing an accessible and engaging public face,” said Cumulus associate Jet O’Rourke.
The public areas will be designed so that visitors can get up close and personal with the fermentation process, with visible fermentation vessels, equipment pipes, and production zones. The screening along the facade has been “playfully lifted” at the corners of the building, giving way to full glazing to give passers-by a glimpse into the inner workings of the hub.

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The landscape plan by SBLA Studio.

The roof, which follows the alternating contours of the facade, creates a second level housing specialized plant equipment necessary for the different fermentation processes.
“As the site lies along the West Tamar Highway, we had to consider a design that would invite curiosity from people driving by,” said O’Rourke. “The shifting facade lifts the veil on the traditional ’big shed’ structure, opening the space and connecting the interior to the landscape.”
The landscape design features sculptural planting that references moulds, yeast cultures and bacteria, as if viewed under a microscope.
Some the plantings will look like champagne bubbles and the paving patterns will be designed to resemble bacteria on an agar plate. There will also be productive garden areas where visitors can source native and exotic plants to feed into the fermentation production process inside.
“We worked closely with Fermentas and botanist Pippa French, who will continue to collaborate with us on how the landscape can celebrate the wonder that is occurring within the building,” said SBLA Studio creative director Simone Bliss.
Construction of the facility will begin this year with completion scheduled for 2022. More