Architecture

A consortium led by Oculus has been appointed to develop an updated master plan for the invigoration and protection of Exhibition Reserve, a key public precinct in Melbourne’s inner north suburb of Carlton. The site of Exhibition Reserve encompasses the grounds surrounding the Melbourne Museum and the World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building, constructed in 1880.
The reserve combines significant heritage buildings and gardens, civic and event spaces, architectural icons and institutions, including Museums Victoria, the custodian of the Royal Exhibition Building and grounds.

The updated master plan will seek to enrich opportunities for public engagement with a mix of integrated landscape treatments, interpretation installations and spaces for temporary structures to support commercial and civic events. It will form part of the review of the Royal Exhibition Building/Carlton Gardens World Heritage Management Plan, currently underway.

The public space must be able to balance day-to-day recreation by locals; heritage and museum engagement by visitors; and active programming by Museums Victoria and event hirers. It also needs to serve as a public thoroughfare for pedestrians and cyclists moving between Carlton and Fitzroy, as well as vehicles servicing events on site at the Royal Exhibition Building and Plaza. A press release from Oculus states that a particular focus of the masterplanning process (in accordance with current World Heritage practice) will be to invite First Peoples’ participation in the process and development of the document.

“Exhibition Reserve presents an unprecedented opportunity to create a dialogue about Australian identity,” said Oculus associate director, Claire Martin. “The development of the master plan will be as much about reframing and connection as it will be about structures and objects.”
The consortium led by Oculus includes Arup, Buro North, Conservation Studio, Finding Infinity, Greenshoot Consulting, Plancost, Right Angle Studio and Warren and Mahoney Architects.
The draft master plan is due to be released to the public later in 2021. More

South Australia’s State Commission Assessment Panel has approved the development of the Entrepreneur and Innovation Centre at Lot Fourteen, the research, business and culture hub taking shape at the site of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital.
Designed by local firm Baukultur, the building will sit next to the Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre designed by Woods Bagot and Diller Scofidio and Renfro. Lot Fourteen is built on the land of the Kaurna people.
Baukultur has designed the building to be viewed “in the round.” It will comprise a podium and tower form, with floor plates shifting on different levels.

“The tower is broken down in its visual mass by a smaller intermediate floor at every third level and the slight shifting of the floor plates between these intermediate floors,” a design statement from Baukultur reads. “It is enclosed with a simple and elegant modular facade that is visually consistent on all building faces while responding to the solar orientation of each elevation.”

“Visual and physical connection and interaction are an important part of its design and the ‘slipped floor plate’ format with interconnecting voids and stairs strike a balance between maximizing horizontal connectivity within each floor and between floors.
“They also bring light down through the building to the ground floor spaces.”
The Entrepreneur and Innovation Centre is partly funded under the Adelaide City Deal, with the federal government contributing $20 million to the project.
The proponent says it will be home to tenants in “space, defence, hi-tech, creative industries and education sectors.”
Oxigen is the landscape architect for the project. Construction is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2021.

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The long-planned demolition of the 1960s modernist Ryde Civic Centre in Sydney has been put on hold after a last-ditch appeal from a seemingly unlikely quarter.
Heritage NSW confirmed on Friday 26 February that it had placed a 40-day stop-work order on the site after developer lobby group Urban Taskforce lodged a request for the building to be given interim heritage protection.
The City of Ryde is planning to build a $108 million civic centre on the site, with Plus Architecture designing the multi-building complex – the New Heart of Ryde – which promises to deliver a “four-fold increase” in community facilities. A report commissioned by council showed 85 percent community support for the proposal. But the Urban Taskforce has criticized the “hypocrisy” of the council in planning to demolish the International-style building, which was designed by Leslie J. Buckland and C. Druce and opened in 1964.

The lobby group is relying on the views of former NSW government architect Chris Johnson – who served as CEO of Urban Taskforce from 2011 to 2019 – to support its claim. He notes that the building is “a classic example of the post-World War 2 International Style” with “a dramatic appearance and iconic symbolism as the centre of governance for the Ryde area.”
But the city’s mayor, Jerome Laxale, dismissed the concerns, telling media that Urban Taskforce was only interested in the project because council had earlier rejected plans for two residential towers on the site.
“It is astounding that on the same day developers complain, the state government orders a stop to a project that has the support of 85 per cent of the Ryde community,” he said.
“We will fight this developer-led push. They have no interest in the Ryde community, all they want is our land to build apartments on.”

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The existing Ryde Civic Centre by Leslie J. Buckland and C. Druce.
Image: The City of Ryde
The existing Ryde Civic Centre is not heritage-listed but is notable for its marked similarity with the Peddle Thorp and Walker-designed AMP tower at Circular Quay, opened two years earlier than the council building and now heritage-listed. According to Johnson, “The subtle curve and the gridded glazing pattern of the curtain-wall facade are very similar to the AMP building.” In 2015, SafeWork NSW deemed the civic centre building to be unsafe.
Urban Taskforce’s chief executive Tom Forrest insists his concern is for the building’s heritage value.

“This is the only building constructed in the twentieth-century in the entire Ryde LGA worth preserving – and council are knocking it over and replacing it with a community centre and facilities that have the architectural merit of a concrete toilet bowl,” he said.
“Ryde council has been quick to use heritage as a fig-leaf for NIMBY rejections of private sector development – but when it comes to their own history, they run down the asset then rush for the bulldozers. If a developer did this they would be hung out to dry.”
The demolition of the centre was due to begin today, 1 March. Works will be suspended for 40 days under section 136 of the Heritage Act and, should the Heritage Council find that the building might have heritage significance, an interim heritage order will be considered. More

Balconies will no longer be allowed on apartments more than 40 metres above ground level under new apartment design guidelines introduced by the Victorian government.
The amendments to the Better Apartments Design Standards focus on external amenity and also mandate that the facades of apartment buildings are built from attractive, durable materials. Developers will have to provide green open space for residents and deliver “attractive and engaging” street frontages that are safe and useable for pedestrians and cyclists.

Overall, the goal is to ensure that apartment buildings better respond to changing population trends and contribute to neighbourhood amenity.
“As Victoria continues to grow, these standards will be crucial to ensure that our suburbs, towns and urban areas have high density living that is designed well, with liveability and wellbeing at the heart of its design,” said planning minister Richard Wynne.

“People are spending more time in their homes and are using their apartments as places of work. Having green space and communal areas is vital to the physical and mental health and wellbeing of apartment residents.”

Under the new standard, developments with more than 10 dwellings will have to provide communal space and buildings with 40 or more dwellings should provide a minimum of 2.5 square metres of communal open space per dwelling, or at least 250 square metres for a building of 100 apartments or more. Developments should also provide “adequate private open space for the reasonable recreation and service needs of residents.” For one- and two-bedroom apartments, an eight-metre-square balcony would meet this requirement, while for a three-bedroom apartment, a 12-metre-square balcony would be provided.

The new standards will eliminate “underused, windswept balconies” on buildings taller than 40 metres, however. The government said this would give “more design flexibility so these homes can have more usable space inside the apartment, like winter gardens.” Eliminating these balconies will also ensure that apartments below have better access to natural light.
Another change is that apartment buildings of more than five storeys will need to consider wind impacts to avoid wind tunnelling and to ensure comfortable wind conditions in public areas.
“So many Victorians live in apartments,” said Wynne. “So, we want apartments to be the best they can be.”
The government released a discussion paper and sought public feedback on the proposed changes back in 2019. More

Zero-waste champion Joost Bakker’s latest project, a closed-loop home and urban farm, has opened in Melbourne’s Federation Square, the original site of Bakker’s first restaurant a decade ago.
The self-sustaining, zero waste, productive house demonstrates the potential homes have to provide shelter, produce food and generate energy. The three-storey, two-bedroom home has the capacity to grow and cultivate fruits, vegetables, herbs, fish, mussels and snails, and all in an 87-square-metre footprint. The home also features an aquaponics system, a charcoal tank, a digestor, closed loop shower and water oxygenation system.

All waste from the site is used to power the house and grow nutrient-dense produce and building materials have been selected for their healing or recyclable properties. The walls, floor and ceilings are made from a straw-based, fire-resistant panel called Durra Panel, which uses the hollow stalks leftover from harvesting wheat and other crops – one of the world’s most common waste products.

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The Future Food System installation at Melbourne’s Federation Square by Joost Bakker.
Image: courtesy Miele
For Bakker, this is his fifth iteration of his “greenhouse” prototypes, which included the world’s first zero-waste restaurant Silo by Joost in 2012.
“I want this to be a catalyst for greater sustainability and self-sufficiency in urban settings,” Bakker says. “I think in the future, we will all live like this.”
Chefs Matt Stone and Jo Barrett, formerly of Oakridge Winery, will live in the house for the duration of the installation. Known for their zero-waste experimental dishes, Stone and Barrett will spend their residency at the house planting, harvesting food and showcasing the ingredients with on-site dinners, prepared using Miele’s energy-saving appliances.

After the home’s stint at Federation Square, it will be packed up and moved to regional Victoria, where it will then serve as home to Bakker’s retired mother. “When she came through the house, she looked around and said ‘Oh, this will be easy to maintain,’” Bakker laughs. “Most people freak out about all the work there is to do.”

Greenhouse by Joost, supported by Miele, is open at Federation Square until June. Check out the website for more information about tours and dining experiences. More

Minjerribah, also known as North Stradbroke Island, lies between Moreton Bay and the Coral Sea, 30 kilometres east of Brisbane, Queensland. The lack of a bridge connecting the island to the mainland presents multiple challenges to the construction process, but for those who overcome them the rewards are generous: ancient landscapes, pristine beaches and a wildlife population encompassing beach-going kangaroos and migrating humpback whales. “Straddie” resonates deeply with those who live and holiday here, as it has done for the Quandamooka people for tens of thousands of years.

Corymbia tells the story of a site passed down through family lines and acquired by Nick and Margaret to enjoy as a weekender with their two teenage sons. With time, it will transition into a place for their retirement. The original shack was once the centre of extended family gatherings on the island and the memories of this tradition continue to be honoured in and around the new house, which occupies the same footprint as the old. In the design of the new house, Brisbane-based architect Paul Butterworth, whose own childhood was shaped by sand fishing and surfing on Straddie, has layered architectural imagination with personal experience to further explore and celebrate the ceremonies of camping and the traditions of island life.

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A central “living deck” for dining, lounging and gathering is used like an annexe to a tent.
Image: Christopher Frederick Jones
The house is conceived as a series of sheltered platforms designed to formalize occupation in the vegetated dunes that rise up from Cylinder Beach. To best capture a northern aspect, the house is pushed to the southern boundary, forming a defensive edge to close-by neighbours. A deep verge to the north provides a heavily vegetated foreground to the horizon. Between the verge and the house, a “great room” is formed in a clearing. This sun-drenched patch of lawn enables the site to adopt the flexibility of a campsite, encouraging an ease of movement around the house and garden. Local kangaroos are reportedly familiar with the sanctity of this resting place and are regularly spotted here, “lolling on the grass,” says Paul.

The rituals of island life have influenced the architecture as much as the site’s position and aspect. This is evidenced on arrival, where a formal address has been traded for a landscaped arbour that acts as both passageway and privacy screen to the house and lawn. Stone walls, a paved path and an outdoor shower cleverly structure this passageway as an antechamber to the beach house while also servicing the washing of bodies, surfboards and fishing paraphernalia. With raw and robust materials, this arrival sequence reveals a respect for the ceremony of beach going and espouses a barefoot informality. Over time, maturing landscape will obscure the house from the street and the stone walls will become the only visible fragment of this humble shelter in the bush.

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With skylights and gill-like windows, the bathing spaces give the illusion of being outside.
Image: Christopher Frederick Jones
In deference to the hot, humid climate and vernacular traditions of Straddie, the beach house is cloaked in a lightweight envelope of fibre cement sheet and rough-sawn weatherboards. Large openings that hinge out and stack away help to dissolve the sense of enclosure. At the centre of the plan a double-height room or “living deck” is imagined in the tradition of an annexe to a tent or caravan: open to the outdoors and used flexibly for dining, lounging and gathering. Flanking rooms benefit from the climatic regulation of this tall central volume, which draws cool breezes through the plan and expels warm air at high level to maintain passive thermal comfort.

Materials and finishes are curated to amplify the client’s brief for a “refined camping-like experience.” On the ground floor, the transition from the duckboard edge of the living deck to the kitchen on the opposite side of the plan is cleverly expressed in the spacing of deck boards. As the gaps between the boards close, a sense of enclosure is introduced to the otherwise fluid, open-plan spaces. Only the bedrooms are considered truly internal, an idea reaffirmed by plywood-lined walls, ceilings and floors. The cocoon-like atmosphere of these most private spaces is a counterpoint to the bright openness of the living deck, sitting room and kitchen, which are designed to bleed out into the landscape.

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Corymbia by Paul Butterworth Architect.
Image: Christopher Frederick Jones
While Corymbia is deliberate in celebrating the modesty of camping, it simultaneously embraces the luxury of experience that comes with enhanced connections to nature. This notion is manifested most intensely in spaces reserved for bathing. Here, richness abounds in the sensory experience of sunlight pouring down from skylights above and of views of the bush and sea, framed by windows that open out like gills. Considerable effort has been invested in capturing the essence of Straddie life in these places of reflection and pause, and the pay-off is reaped in the memories shaped by days spent here.

Pitching a tent will surely offer shelter but the pleasure of camping comes with having a deeper appreciation for the ways in which people gather together, find refuge, manage thermal comfort and connect with nature. The key to re-creating a camp-like atmosphere is not to remove luxury but rather to reveal the richness in a natural experience over and above that of the constructed experience. Corymbia does this, with a humble intelligence and genuine deference to the land, the sky and the sea. More

“Our design creates a new common ground for the University, the Hospital and the Charles Perkins Centre, while respecting the site’s historic significance as a gathering place,” said Benjamin Gilmartin, a partner of DS+R. “The landscape rises to encompass shared facilities for research and learning, branching out into a three dimensional network of open spaces connected at every level from inside to outside.
“At the heart of this network is the Upper Wakil Garden — a multivalent and dynamic reinvention of the campus quad. A ‘cleave’ within the upper volume of the Susan Wakil Building draws light down into the Garden throughout the year, while its interlacing circulation acts as a connective tissue between academic workplaces and clinical spaces within.”
The building accommodates seminar rooms, clinics, workspaces, a rehabilitation gym, a 350-seat theatre and a library. The architects have also designed a series of informal study and collaborative spaces.
The building is bisected by a central atrium. “The key to success and longevity of this building is its principles of designing with nature – drawing light, views, and ventilation, allowing visual transparency across the facilities, designed for active circulation and socialisation with an emphasis on stairs over lifts – creating a healthy workplace and a place of learning of the future,” said BLP principal Raj Senanayake.
The building’s two parts – teach and learning facilities and research workspaces – are delineated through two distinct facade treatments. The upper levels housing workspaces are clad in a facade shading system which the architects say resemble a textile, while the lower levels are clad in horizontal ceramic panels and aluminium screens.
The building is one of the first project to be completed after the university introduced its Wingara Mura Indigenous design principles. The landscape design, by Arcadia Landscape Architecture incorporates the cycles of healing and reflects the Gadigal people’s approach to healing.
“In many ways this environment contributed the unique response to place and building type that became the winning scheme,” Senanayake said. “At the same time, we had to negotiate the challenges of early online collaboration platforms that have now become part of the everyday practice of architecture.”
The building was made possible by a $35 million donation from the Susan and Isaac Wakil Foundation, which was the largest ever gift the university had received.
University of Sydney Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson said, “The opening of the Susan Wakil Health Building during this once-in-a-century global pandemic could not be more timely as it highlights the importance of an agile, innovative and resilient health workforce and the need to think differently to meet the health challenges of our time.” More

A new health education and research building has opened at the University of Sydney. Designed by Billard Leece Partnership and Diller Scofidio and Renfro, the building is the first completed project in Australia for the New York practice.
The Susan Wakil Health Building brings together students from medicine, nursing and allied health and is also co-located with the Royal Alfred Hospital and Charles Perkins Centre as part of a new health sciences precinct at the Camperdown-Darlington campus.

The design team created a conceptual masterplan for the precinct that includes a number of potential future buildings, with the Susan Wakil Health Building at the northern part.
“We imagined four paths converging at a quad space in the middle, creating a raised central space that would be shared among them,” said Benjamin Gilmartin, a partner of DS+R.

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Susan Wakil Health Building by Billard Leece Partnership and Diller Scofidio and Renfro.
Image: Brett Boardman

The raised landscape, with the Upper Wakil Garden at its heart, acts as a shared public space for students, staff and the members of the public accessing the clinics within the building.

The landscape also separates the building programmatically. Below this lifted ground plane are the learning and teaching spaces, while workplaces and research facilities are located above.
“An important part of the brief is creating spaces for bringing people together, largely because the building combined departments and faculties that were previously on separate campuses,” said BLP principal Raj Senanayake.
The public, common areas of the building – collectively dubbed “the cleave” – are used as “connective tissue” throughout the building, allowing access between indoors and outdoors and joining all levels to each other.
“The commons that form this vein through the building is glassy and transparent and offers much exposure visually between indoors and outdoors as well as spaces to literally step out onto balconies and terraces,” Gilmartin said.

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Susan Wakil Health Building by Billard Leece Partnership and Diller Scofidio and Renfro.
Image: Brett Boardman
The building accommodates seminar rooms, clinics, workspaces, a rehabilitation gym, a 350-seat theatre and a library.
“The traditional tiered lecture theatre was seen to be a very important event space,” Senanayake continued. “We made this space more inviting by balancing the technology demands of a space like this with views and natural light, which is quite unusual for a modern lecture theatre. The library that you see as you enter the building is multi-level and is really the heart of the student commons in the building. It has lots of social spaces.”
The building’s upper and lower parts are delineated through two distinct facade treatments. The upper workspace levels are clad in a facade shading system which the architects say resembles a textile, while the lower levels are clad in horizontal ceramic panels and aluminium screens.

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Susan Wakil Health Building by Billard Leece Partnership and Diller Scofidio and Renfro.
Image: Brett Boardman
The building is one of the first projects to be completed after the university introduced its Wingara Mura Indigenous design principles.
A key feature of the landscape design by Arcadia Landscape Architecture is the paving pattern that represents an interpretation of historic waterways that were central to the life of the Gadigal people of the area. The design also incorporates “cycles of healing” and reflects Gadigal approaches to healing.
The re-introduction of lost vegetation, such as native turpentine tree – will eventually create a canopy that will establish a datum line from the public areas at the Upper Wakil Garden. The canopy will further delineate the upper and lower parts of the building.

“The planting that is integrated into the surrounds are either plants that were traditionally used for weaving techniques and/or collected for food and by the local Gadigal people,” said Alex Longley, director of Arcadia Landscape Architecture.
The practice’s Indigenous landscape strategist, Kaylie Salvatori, consulted with the Indigenous artist Judy Watson on the design direction of a sculpture in the garden, juguma, which takes the form of a traditional woven vessel. It represents a typical net bag used by the Gadigal people for gathering plants

The building was made possible by a $35 million donation from the Susan and Isaac Wakil Foundation, the largest ever gift the university had received.
University of Sydney Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson said, “The opening of the Susan Wakil Health Building during this once-in-a-century global pandemic could not be more timely as it highlights the importance of an agile, innovative and resilient health workforce and the need to think differently to meet the health challenges of our time.” More