Architecture

Australia’s largest collections of insect, plant and wildlife specimens will soon be located in one “state-of-the-art” facility at Canberra’s Black Mountain.
The science agency CSIRO revealed plans for the National Collections Building, designed by Hassell, in a submission to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works.
To be built within the 37.3-hectare Black Mountain Science and Innovation Park, the building will provide interactive spaces, office areas, laboratories, storage vaults and landscaped areas, and accommodation for 128 CSIRO staff and affiliates.
It will become the home to the bulk of the specimens in the CSIRO’s National Research Collections Australia, which include 15 million specimens in six collections, “representing 240 years of data and approximately 20 percent of all biological collections in Australia.”
The new facility will house the collections that are currently in Canberra, which include 13 million specimens across the Australian National Insect Collection (ANIC); Australian National Herbarium (ANH); Australian National Wildlife Collection (ANWC); Australian Tree Seed Centre (ATSC); and Dadswell Memorial Wood Collection (DMWC).
These collections were currently housed in disparate buildings across the agency’s Black Mountain and Crace sites “in outdated facilities which are no longer fit-for-purpose and present significant ongoing operational challenges.”
CSIRO’s submission notes that bringing the Canberra-based collections into a precinct environment would remove duplicated work functions, standardize workflows and encourage collaboration.
The aim is to “deliver state-of-the-art biodiversity research facilities that incorporate curation, technical, digitization, science and interaction spaces that support and enhance access and use, thus enabling CSIRO and its national and international research collaborators to better deliver science for national benefit; remove operational risk to specimens and guarantee long term preservation relating to CSIRO’s ageing properties portfolio, mitigate any building operational risk to the collection specimens, and guarantee their long-term preservation and security.”
The CSIRO’s collections have origins dating back almost a century. The agency started collecting insects in 1928, before beginning its wildlife and herbarium collections in the 1930s.
In all, the National Research Collections Australia represents the largest specimen-based, continent-wide sample of Australian biodiversity anywhere.
Costing an estimated $70 million, the National Collections Building will need to be approved by the Parlimentary Works Comitee and the National Capital Authority. Construction is expected to begin in January 2022 with completion in mid-2023. More

The South Australia government has released concept designs for a new $1.95 billion Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide.
Designed by Woods Bagot with Bates Smart, Jacobs and UK practice BDP, the hospital will be co-located with Royal Adelaide Hospital and Adelaide Biomed City on Port Road in the central city.
The co-location will “will maximize the potential” of both hospitals, said Woods Bagot associate principal Edwina Bennett.
The new Women’s and Children’s hospital will have 500 treatment spaces, 170 outpatient consultation rooms, 14 women’s assessment service treatment spaces and two air bridge links that will provide direct access to the Royal Adelaide Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit and helipad.
The co-location of the hospital will facilitate the transition of adolescents to adult services.

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The proposed new Women’s and Children’s Hospital by Woods Bagot with Bates Smart, Jacobs and UK practice BDP. Image:

courtesy Woods Bagot

The new hospital will also have improved mental health care facilities and enhanced education, training and research capacities with its proximity to Adelaide Biomed City.
Another bridge over the rail line will allow children and their families to access the Adelaide Park Lands.
“For children, women and their families visiting and spending time at the hospital this offers both a place to play as well as supporting recovery and recuperation,” said Matthew Holmes, global solutions director of health infrastructure at Jacobs.“We have been particularly mindful to maximize the facility’s connection to Country to provide a comfortable and unique health care setting for all users.”
The architects say the design responds to the hospital’s multi-faceted role as a workplace, sanctuary, assembly point, “accidental playground,” and landmark, and have drawn on the design team’s collective experience in a range of sectors to create an integrated health campus.

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The proposed new Women’s and Children’s Hospital by Woods Bagot with Bates Smart, Jacobs and UK practice BDP. Image:

courtesy Woods Bagot

“From the outset, collaboration and innovation have driven our approach to this significant project,” says Bennett. “We’re here as a team rethinking the normal, to deliver a place dedicated to more than health alone.”
The new Women’s and Children’s Hospital will be Australia’s first to use 100 percent electricity for all servies, including heating, hot water and kitchen functions, which will save 2,178 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
South Australian energy minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan the government is committed to a 100 percent renewable electricity grid by 2030, which will make the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital the most sustainable hospital in the country.
““The WCH has been delivering exceptional care to millions of South Australians for more than 140 years and now it will have the facilities to match,” premier Steven Marshall said. More

The South Australian Sports Institute will soon have a purpose-built facility for the first time, with the state government announcing funding for a $49 million building in Mile End, west of Adelaide’s CBD. Designed by local firm Studio Nine Architects, the building will include a strength and conditioning gym capable of accommodating multiple sports and […] More

The ‘iconic’ Indiana Teahouse on Cottesloe Beach is now part of a state heritage place, potentially complicating plans for its redevelopment.
The Cottesloe Beach Precinct was finalized as a heritage place on 7 June, along with nine other culturally significant places including Victoria Quay and the South Fremantle Power Station. The Indiana Teahouse restaurant, which was built in the mid-1990s, is described in the assessment documentation as “an iconic landmark in the precinct that is well recognized by the local and wider community as well as international tourists.”
This acknowledgement comes after the company that owns the restaurant, Andrew Forrest’s Minderoo, proposed knocking down the building and launched a design competition for its replacement.
But, speaking to the local Post Newspapers, a spokesperson for the developer said the heritage listing had been expected and that the conservation management plan (CMP) for the area, produced by the Forrest-controlled Fiveight in April 2021 and endorsed by council, made allowance for the listing.

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The Indiana Teahouse.

That CMP details how perceptions of the building have changed over time. Built in 1996 to designs by architect Laurie Scanlan, the restaurant was based on the Centenary Pavilion which graced the site from 1929 to 1983 and was intended to be reminiscent of the early British colonial architectural style.
Cottesloe Beach Precinct was added to the State Register of Heritage Places in 2004 with “Interim” status, its statement of significance noting “While the Indiana Teahouse represents the continuation of a historic use, the present building has little significance.”
That statement was amended in 2018 to read, “The Indiana Teahouse is an iconic landmark in the precinct that is well recognised by the local and wider community as well as international tourists, and is the most recent manifestation of the distinctive tradition of built form in this location on the beachfront.”
The CMP, authored by Perth firm Element, explains this change in perception was in part due to the rise of social media attention on the building, which peaked in 2012 when American pop star Taylor Swift came to the city.
The authors note that Swift had mistakenly thought the building dated from 1910, writing in her diary, “We went to this restaurant right on the beach called Indiana. It was built in 1910 and looked like an old fancy hotel. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve been with old world arches and moldings, antique tables and big French doors opening out to views of azure blue ocean.”
This glowing review, the CMP authors noted, was picked up and not corrected by the local media, contributing to the building’s status as a tourist attraction.
The CMP also noted the teahouse’s inclusion on a list of Perth’s most iconic works of architecture published in Fremantle Press’s 2019 book Built. In that book, Western Australian architect Tom McKendrick states “In the architectural world, we’re not usually into things designed to look like they were built in an earlier time. But architecture has to be about more than bricks and mortar. It’s always site specific, about the building’s interaction with the public and with history, the part it’s played in Western Australian life. Indiana is a prime example of that … it’s more than what it’s made of.”
With the finalization of the Cottesloe Beach Precinct heritage listing, any redevelopment of the teahouse will have to be sympathetic to the beachfront’s heritage values.

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Proposal for the redevelopment of the Indiana Tea House site by Durbach Block Jaggers Architects with Ohlo Studio and Aspect Studios.

A scheme designed by Durbach Block Jaggers, Ohlo Studio and Aspect Studios won the design competition for the replacement of Indiana Teahouse, however, it only received 10 percent of the public vote. Minderoo Group (now Tattarang) decided not to proceed with the jury’s decision and instead went back to drawing board with other design options.
Fiveight head John Meredith told Post Newspapers the firm would continue working with the Town of Cottesloe to deliver the best outcome for the site.
“We have heard the people of Perth loud and clear,” he said. “They want us to deliver a new chapter for Indiana and we’re going to make this happen.” More

A state-significant development application has been submitted for the first of three towers to be built above Crows Nest metro station on Sydney’s lower North Shore.
Designed by Woods Bagot as part of the Crows Nest Design Consortium, the tower at Site C of the over-station development will be the smallest of the towers at nine storeys, compared to the 17- and 21-storey towers planned for sites B and A, respectively. Providing 3,100 square metres of office space across seven levels, it will sit above the eastern entry for the metro station, facing the intersection of Clarke and Hume streets.
Across all sites, the station’s built form will read as a modestly scaled two-storey brick-clad structure, responding to the material character of the surrounding area.
The tower at Site C will seek to extend this “resolute and sculptural” materiality vertically.
“The brick base is extruded to the envelope to form a simple rectangular prism compatible with the scale of similar brick buildings in Crows Nest,” state the architects.

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Crows Nest OSD Site C by Woods Bagot and the Crows Nest Design Consortium.

“The brick envelope is spliced to create portals evocative of the vertical rhythm of the Blue Gum High Forest… The brick portals are designed to visually ‘clasp’ an assemblage of glazed modules both flush and variably projecting to animate the façade whilst providing a sense of tangible occupancy linked to street life.”
These projecting bay windows will also offer interesting views of the street from the offices. The architects note that the building has been configured with the core distributed along the northern party wall to optimize access for natural light and outlook to local streets, Hume Park and the village beyond.
Though much of the rooftop will be given over to the plantroom functions – since the metro station prevents the provision of a basement plantroom – there will be landscaped rooftop along the west, south and eastern perimeters open to building tenants. The rooftop will incorporate raised landscaped planters below brick-lined portals with three integrated seating alcoves.
Along with Woods Bagot, the Crows Nest Design Consortium includes Oculus, SMEC, Robert Bird and NDY.
The detailed design and construction application for the tower is on public exhibit until 19 July.
NSW planning minster Rob Stokes approved concept designs and building envelopes for all three towers in December 2020. More

Five young teams from across the Asia Pacific have been awarded LafargeHolcim Awards’ Next Generation prizes for “visionary concepts” that advance sustainable design.
Winning first prize, worth US$25,00, was Soledad Patiño, a student of architecture and urban design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design whose project “brings social and economic legitimacy to waterfront districts of Mumbai through a new network of sustainable infrastructure.”
The second prize winner, Mumbai architect Lorenzo Fernandes, also focused on India’s largest city, envisioning an “acupunctural design intervention to improve the sustainability of Mumbai’s informal settlements.” Second prize was worth US$20,000.

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From the second prize winner Lorenzo Fernandes’s entry.

Third prize (US$15,000) went to Bangkok architect Dolathep Chetty of the practice Architects 49 House Design Limited, who developed a proposal “to tackle the coastal erosion and ecosystem threats in the northern Gulf of Thailand while promoting sustainable fishing and tourism.”
The fourth prize was awarded to two teams, which each received US$10,00. One went to Gani Wiratama, Nicholas Rodriques, and Rionaldi Gunari, students at the Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung, Indonesia, for a project that “upgrades vernacular river sanitation systems in Jakarta to reconcile ecosystems with the local community.” The other went to architect Divya Jyoti, of Pune-based practice PMA Madhushala for “A multifunctional green facade system implemented in Pune coherently responds to environmental, cultural, and economic concerns.”

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Third prize winning design from Bangkok architect Dolathep Chetty.

The LafargeHolcim Awards aim to promote sustainability in the construction sector, noting that buildings accounts for 40 percent of both energy and material consumption worldwide and that “in view of climate change and diminishing resources, new approaches are needed along the entire value chain of the construction industry.”
Every three years, the competition is held in five world regions and then globally, with the prize money totalling US$2 million. A total of 4,742 projects from 134 countries were submitted for this year’s awards. The Next Generation category and is open to participants up to 30 years of age.
“Many of the entries that we discussed had provocative ideas that were both thoughtful and forward-looking,” said Nirmal Kishnani, professor of architecture at the School of Design and Environment at the National University of Singapore and head of the jury for the Asia Pacific region.
“We were preoccupied with a few questions: How is this an intelligent assessment of a problem? How is this an insightful solution? How is this specific to the challenges of the region?”
For more on the winners, head here. More

An Australian architecture practice and architecture school have unveiled what they’re calling “the world’s first robotic 3D-printed air diffusion system,” a design which could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector.
Developed by BVN and the UTS School of Architecture, Systems Reef 2, or SR2 for short, replaces the steel typically seen in ducted air conditioning systems with recycled plastic. It also replaces square corners with aerodynamic curves and large vents with fine pores.
Designed to fit into existing air-conditioning units, SR2 has already been installed in BVN’s own office space in Sydney.
In a statement published by the university, BVN co-CEO Ninotschka Titchkosky said that when assessing the environmental performance of the building the focus was often limited to the materials or structure.
“At BVN we are also mindful that the electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems inside a building contribute up to 33 percent of the total carbon cost of a typical office building,” she said.

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Systems Reef 2 is the “world’s first robotic 3D-printed air diffusion system.” Image:

UTS School of Architecture

“This means if we are to be serious about reducing the carbon impact of building design, we have to also rethink how we deliver air in buildings. This new system – SR2 – is really about this. It’s 3D-printing air.
“98% of all buildings are existing, therefore if we are to address climate change we need to adapt and reinvent our existing buildings to ensure they remain relevant”
Manufactured at UTS’s Advanced Fabrication Lab, SR2 is robotically 3D-printed and computationally designed, and so the system is adaptable and customizable.
To design team programmed an industrial robot to strategically place thousands of tiny tailor-made pores in elongated tubes that slot together to create a networked system, said UTS associate professor Tim Schork from the School of Architecture at UTS.
“Rather than dumping air at routine intervals across a floorplan, this design distributes the air evenly: meaning that there is a more consistent air temperature and flow and nobody needs to sit under the cold draught of a high-powered vent,” he said.
The system’ distinctive organic curves are based on detailed computer modelling to reduce energy loss and encourage air flow.
“Air doesn’t move in right-angles, so it’s not logical to design an air distribution system with square corners,” said Schork.
The technology will be officially launched at BVN’s studio and via live stream on 24 June. More

A six-level skin cancer treatment and research centre will be built on Melbourne’s St Kilda Road under plans submitted to the City of Melbourne by Alfred Health. The Victorian Melanoma and Clinical Trials Centre will sit on the western edge of The Alfred Hospital at 545 St Kilda Road and is envisioned as a “world-class […] More