Architecture

If any practice has good reason to celebrate, it’s Pinch. The London-based design studio, founded by husband and wife Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon, has officially been in business for 15 years. And what better way to commemorate the anniversary than with the launch of six products at the 2019 London Design Festival? This new furniture collection represents a coming of age for the studio and also throws the spotlight on its recently opened Ebury Street showroom. It’s somewhat of a watershed moment for Russell and Oona, who have made a name for themselves through a singular commitment to refined detailing, exquisite craftsmanship and high-end materiality, as well as an unmatched respect for the interiors their pieces will eventually occupy.

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Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon are celebrating 15 years since the foundation of their London-based design studio.

“Even though we design things for different spaces, we believe space is the real luxury,” explains Oona, who is the studio’s creative director, alongside Russell, the designer. “And in thinking about how a product will inhabit a space, we’re all about lightness of touch, because space is important and you don’t want to suck it up for no reason.”

The couple’s design process begins with a discussion springing from their collective imagination and quickly moves to Russell sketching with pencil on paper, and model making. His 1:5-scale models typify the studio’s commitment to crafting by hand; they convey a stylistic minimalism that’s rendered with architectural rigour. This sensibility is especially evident in the new collection: the Christo four-poster bed is all the more resplendent for its pared-back theatricality, and the true beauty of the Rodan dining table is found in the way the solid base champions the inherent qualities of either European oak or American walnut. These two pieces embody the studio’s penchant for elegant forms and colours, for finding a balance between simplicity and complexity.

Progressing their design language so that they may more clearly articulate their ideas is what motivates Russell and Oona, along with consideration for the end user. “We can all be guilty of over-designing things, especially in a crowded market that outwardly values conceptual layering, but I don’t think that’s what people want,” says Oona. “They want gentleness and poise in a piece of furniture that’s definable, without it being something that’ll visually knock them over the head.”

Certainly, the Roubel sofa follows this approach. With its understated but glamorous interpretation of the Chesterfield style and coupling of traditional and modern aesthetics, it’s the studio’s strongest statement to date. Russell and Oona collaborate with 14 makers and crafts-people across the UK and Europe to produce their furniture; this commitment to craft shows, and the new collection is exemplary in its level of artisanal skill. Each product is unfalteringly well resolved, not to mention highly covetable.
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The Victorian government is looking for public input on a 10-year strategy for social and affordable housing, releasing a discussion paper for consultation.
The strategy, which outlines principles for public housing, community housing and private affordable housing is a part of the $5.3 billion Big Housing Build package announced in the 2020/21 budget. A hallmark of that big-spending announcement was a concerted move away from public housing, that is housing owned and managed by the government, to community housing managed by independent community housing providers and other forms of affordable housing, which can be owned by private businesses.

The discussion paper notes that while social housing (public and community housing) is the core response within the strategy, a range of complementary affordable housing options are needed to respond to the different circumstances of people who need some form of lower cost housing.

“There is a chronic shortage of affordable private rental properties across the state, and there are very few dedicated affordable rental homes available that can provide an alternative to, or pathway out of, social housing for those that need it,” the paper states.

A number of core principles are set out in the discussion paper. Social and affordable housing should put “people at the centre,” so that it is designed and delivered in a way that is responsive to the needs of different people, including those who face challenges in addition to affordability, such as disability, family violence or mental illness. There should also be “shared action and accountability” across government, within the community housing sector, and with other housing stakeholders. Initiatives should have a focus on “maximizing value,” relying on data and evidence to deliver the best outcomes and value. And housing should be built for sustainability, including being climate adapted, water and energy efficient and incorporating best practice design to ensure they are built for the future.

Housing minister Richard Wynne said the strategy would outline a blueprint for the future of the social housing system – “encompassing the diverse views of stakeholders and the community.”
“There will be a focus on bringing together stakeholders from across the community housing, private and community services sectors, as well as all levels of government,” the government said in a statement. “Combining their skills, expertise and capacity will help build a more effective social and affordable housing system that can meet the current and future needs of Victorians.”
The Big Housing Build package will deliver more than 12,000 new homes, including 9,300 new social housing homes, replace 1,100 old public housing units and a further 2,900 new affordable and low-cost homes for low-to-moderate income earners. In total that will mean an additional 8,200 social housing units in the system.
Community and stakeholder consultation is open until 9 April. More

The NSW government has approved a state-significant development application for a high-density living and working precinct around the Castle Hill Showground metro station in Sydney’s north-west.
With architecture by Cox Architecture and landscape and public domain design by Oculus, the $1 billion town centre precinct is intended to be “a thriving local mixed-use centre that provides a walkable, lively place enhanced by strong connections to world class transport and the cultural and recreational destination of Castle Hill Showground.”

The development will include nine buildings, ranging in height from three to 21 storeys and accommodate 13,000 square metres of commercial floor space.
It will also include 4,900 square metres of new public open space, 500 square metres of community facilities and at least five per cent affordable housing for a minimum of 10 years.
“These are plans for The Hills that the local community have been widely consulted on,” said state MP for Castle Hill Ray Williams. “Based on their feedback, we reduced the number of new homes from 1,900 to 1,620.”

The site is bounded by the Castle Hill Showground to the north, Showground Road to the east, Carrington Road to the south and the Cattai Creek riparian corridor to the west.

An urban design framework developed by Cox and Oculus describes how the site of the precinct sits at the top of a ridgeline, making it a prominent marker in both landscape and future built form. “As a government-led place making project in a prominent location, The Hills Showground Station Precinct has the opportunity to continue the commitment to quality amenity outcomes that have been delivered by the Sydney Metro Project and set the standard for… broader precinct renewal in the future,” the architects state.

Overall, the design of the precinct will seek to deliver a “complementary and connected public realm that is anchored by a new civic heart that stitches together the regional recreation networks, local movement patterns and the transport interchange together in a place that is active day and night, weekday and weekend, winter and summer.”
A new park will also provide casual recreation opportunities and form part of a comprehensive network of green and blue spaces.
“This exciting new development in the heart of The Hills will create homes, jobs and outstanding public spaces on the doorstep of a Metro station,” said planning minister Rob Stokes. “It will offer a diversity of housing for people with different lifestyles and open space that will include a park and plaza.” More

A modernist church in Far North Queensland designed by seminal architect Eddie Oribin will be sold by the local parish, prompting the Australian Institute of Architects to launch a bid to have the building added to the Queensland Heritage Register.
The Mareeba Uniting Church, built in 1960, is one a number of church buildings Oribin designed in Far North Queensland. In 2014, it was recognized with the Enduring Architecture prize at Far North Queensland Regional Architecture Awards. The jury described it as “an exquisitely conceived and executed building that has a sense of completeness, from its external brick and timber fabric to its bespoke furniture and religious elements. The church has a sense of enduring quality, and has endured, due to the skilful use of beautiful materials and details that are used sparingly, yet are absolutely suited to their purpose.”

The Uniting Church Australia Presbytery of Carpentaria announced it would sell the building and land because of “the ongoing cost of maintenance” and that it will use the proceeds to re-establish the congregation elsewhere in Mareeba.”

The planned sale has sparked fears the building could be demolished and the Australian Institute of Architects wants to make sure the building is heritage protected. The Institute has submitted a nomination for heritage listing to the Queensland Heritage Council.

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The Uniting Church in Mareeba by Eddie Oribin, photographed by Sarah Scragg in 2014.
Image: courtesy John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland
Queensland architect Don Watson said both Eddie Oribin and the church are highly regarded. “Oribin’s work is exceptional and is outside the normal work that was being done [at the time].”
“The Mareeba church is quite original. It’s quite a small site and the church had very little option but to be square. It’s a glass box with very interesting louvred shading devices that protect the building from early morning and late afternoon sun. It is so very clever,” he continued
“And the way he’s used materials in the most unusual. The brick coursing is not horizontal running at an angle. The building itself has a degree of geometry about it with its angular zig zag walls.

“Oribin was very keen on Frank Lloyd Wright throughout his whole career. There are several buildings done in the late 1950s that are very Wrightian in their imagery and that includes the Mareeba church. Although the detailing is influenced by Wright, the building is by no means a copy.”
Eddie Oribin is a significant Queensland architect who practised mainly in Cairns and has buildings across North Queensland. A number of his buildings have been added to the Queensland Heritage Register, including St Paul’s Anglican Church in Proserpine, which was added in 2013 along with the Mareeba Shire Hall, and the St Andrew’s Memorial Church in Innisfail, which was heritage listed in 2003.

Oribin’s own home and studio in Cairns won the Enduring Architecture Award at the 2013 Queensland Architecture Awards. He also lends his name to the building of the year award in Far North Queensland.
Watson said he was alerted to the upcoming sale of the church site by architectural historian Cameron Logan at the University of Sydney. He worked on the heritage nomination in collaboration with Queensland chapter of the Institute’s heritage committee and Laurie Jones with input from Lisa Daunt, Richard Stringer and Shaneen Fantin, supported by materials from the Oribin collection held the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland.
The church told local media that “the decision to close the church and sell the land and adjoining buildings was prompted by a number of factors, including the expansion of a nearby roundabout, noise and changes in gatherings due to COVID-19.”
Watson said he would like to see the building retained for public use. However, Mareeba Shire Mayor Angela Toppin has ruled out acquiring the site. More

The long-mooted Powerhouse Parramatta development has been approved by the NSW government and construction will kick off in the coming weeks.
Designed by Moreau Kusunoki and Genton, who won a design competition for the project in 2019, the museum will include more than 18,000 square metres of exhibition and public spaces. It will be the first complex to be classified as a NSW cultural institution to be located in Western Sydney, and the state government expects it to attract 2 million visitors each year.

“Powerhouse Parramatta is the largest cultural investment since the Sydney Opera House and planning approval marks a transformative cultural moment for the communities of Greater Sydney and NSW,” said Powerhouse Chief Executive Lisa Havilah.
“We are excited to be embarking on building an internationally significant museum that will connect young people and communities with our Collections and tell stories of ingenuity and innovation.”

Moreau Kusunoki and Genton’s design consists of structural steel lattices that will minimize the building’s weight and carbon footprint. The lattices will transition to structural timber at the top of the building, “giving the impression that the building is dissolving into the sky.”

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Powerhouse Parramatta by Moreau Kusunoki and Genton.

The development of a new Powerhouse Museum in Parramatta has been plagued with controversy since the NSW government first announced it would sell the existing Powerhouse site at Ultimo in order to fund its relocation to western Sydney. But in July 2020, the government backflipped, deciding to keep and renovate the Ultimo building instead of selling it to provate developers, with the Parramatta museum to be built as a complementary new site.
The proposed site for the new museum in Parramatta also came in for criticism, competition design brief necessitated the demolition of the Victorian Italianate villa, Willow Grove, and a complete row of seven terrace houses built from 1881, St George’s Terrace. The NSW branch of the construction union, CFMEU, placed a green ban on the site in 2020, in support of the community campaign to save the buildings.

In response to public pressure, the location and design of the museum was tweaked to retain St George’s Terrace and it was decided that Willow Grove would be dismantled and rebuilt at a new location within Parramatta North.
Powerhouse board of trustees president Peter Collins said the museum would be working closely with Infrastructure NSW through the construction phase. “Powerhouse Parramatta will be a ground-breaking contemporary museum that will set a new benchmark in how museums engage and reflect their communities,” he said.
“Powerhouse Parramatta will be our flagship museum and will sit alongside Ultimo, Castle Hill and Sydney Observatory to provide extraordinary cultural benefits for our communities – Australia’s very own Smithsonian for our globally renowned Collection.” More

Woods Bagot and New York firm Shop Architects have won a design competition for a $1.5 billion office tower in central Sydney, at 55 Pitt Street.
The competition jury, which included NSW Government Architect Abbie Galvin, SJB director Adam Haddow and immediate past national president of the Australian Institute of Architects Helen Lochhead, was impressed by the “soaring yet seductive” tower design.
The site of the tower, on the land of the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, was part of the Sydney Harbour foreshore landscape prior to colonization. Woods Bagot and Shop Architects’ scheme seeks to weave this history into their design for the lobby and entry hall, “using cascading water features, lush landscaping and Indigenous narratives.”

“Our proposal brings to the forefront a next generation building centred around a sense of belonging and place dictated by guiding principles of Country, an activated sense of community connections, a workplace environment focusing on new return to work principles,” said Woods Bagot CEO Nik Karalis and Shop NYC partner William Sharples in a statement. “It will be a performative, expressive and breathable tower.”

Brett Draffen, Chief Investment Officer for the developer, Mirvac, said the design team had responded carefully and creatively to the brief.

“55 Pitt Street is an exciting opportunity to create a sustainable and future-focused premium grade workplace that respects and celebrates its place within the context of the Sydney CBD,” he said. “The winning entry was outstanding and exceeded the jurors’ requirements, with the podium’s seamless integration into the urban landscape at ground level, as well as its ability to redefine the Sydney skyline.”
The tower will front Pitt, Underwood and Dalley streets and will include around 60,000 square metres of office and retail space. The proponents say it will contribute towards the revitalization of the Circular Quay precinct. More

A multidisciplinary team led by Kerstin Thompson Architects has been appointed to develop a masterplan and design framework for the redevelopment of the Supreme Court of Victoria.
The team, which also includes PPP, Umow Lai, Veris, Andy Fergus and Bryce Raworth, has been tasked with developing scenarios to demonstrate how the court’s heritage buildings in Melbourne’s CBD could be modernized, expanded and adapted to support the court’s future needs and balance urban design, heritage, architecture, workplace and jurisprudential requirements.

The masterplan will encompass six sites in Melbourne legal precinct, which includes the Supreme Court of Victoria on the corner of William and Lonsdale streets, and the adjacent Court of Appeals and Old High Court buildings.
The Supreme Court is part of a complex of buildings collectively known as the Melbourne Law Courts. The building’s design is the result of a competition conducted by the Public Works Department in 1873, which caused a scandal among the architectural fraternity when architect A. L. Smith and A. E. Johnson won the competition, when Johnson was on the judging panel. Detailed drawings of the building were conducted by J. J. Clark and P. Kerr.

The building took 10 years to construct and the first sitting was held in February 1884. The building is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.
“The Law Courts are architecturally significant as an example of the Renaissance Revival style on a very grand and imposing scale, with a severity befitting its function. The boldness of planning and massing and the mannerist details are highly characteristic of the work of the architect AE Johnson,” its statement of significance reads.

“The Law Courts are architecturally significant for the excellence of the carving of the Tasmanian freestone and the Malmsbury bluestone base. Additionally significant internally are the very elaborate moulded plasterwork on walls and ceilings, and the robust detailing of the benches, Judges’ canopies, and cedar panelling.

“The Law Courts are the largest court buildings in Australia to be built to a single design, and the planning solutions for the separation of different groups of courts was unprecedented.“The Law Courts are […] significant for its origins in a design competition in 1873 that scandalized the architectural profession, due to the close professional relationship between one of the assessors, George Johnson and the winner Alfred Smith.

“It was the largest single building project in the country at the time and one of the last public building projects before the depression of the 1890s halted most building works across the State until the turn of the century.”

The building is square shaped in plan, with each street facade measuring 85 metres. It has one court at each corner and four more courts along the north and south wings as well as administrative offices and judges’ chambers, all enclosing a circular courtyard. The Supreme Court Library sits at the centre of the courtyard.

According to the heritage statement of significance, “The design is reputed to be based on the design of James Gandon’s Four Courts building in Dublin, following a suggestion to Smith and Johnson by Chief Justice Sir William Stawell.”
A Strategic Asset Plan 2016–2031 developed by Court Services Victoria found that the “Supreme Court infrastructure is no longer fit-for-purpose with insufficient and inadequate facilities resulting in significant issues including safety and security, demand, functionality, condition, compliance and risk of failure.”

It also identified opportunities to “Develop and construct a new purpose-built Supreme Court within the precinct, ending the campus model of Supreme Court infrastructure [and] develop alternative uses by the Supreme Court and related institutions within the precinct (educational, support, professions) for the existing Supreme Court historic buildings.”
Kerstin Thompson, design director of Kerstin Thompson Architects said, “We appreciate the civic importance and heritage significance the Supreme Court of Victoria represents – within its sites but also within the legal precinct and within the city of Melbourne as a keystone of civic infrastructure and as an interconnected campus.”
Kerstin Thompson Architects’ team also includes director of projects Kelley Mackay, senior associate Toby Pond, and associate Michael Blancato. More