Process

The final Process for 2007 will be held this coming Monday night, at Loop as per usual.

It is taking the form of a debate of the topic “Architecture affects positive social change”, to be adjudicated by Michael Roper and argued by Nicola Garrod from Antarctica,  Peter Hogg from Peter Hogg Architects, Tim Stats from MGS, Karen Alcock from Neometro, Daniel Khong from VicUrban and Nigel Smith from Delfin Lend Lease. It doesn’t say who is affirmative and who opposing unfortunately. But I think that this Nigel Smith guy from Delfin Lend Lease deserves credit for bravery.

Monday the 3rd of December, Loop, Meyers Place, 6:30pm

Tarting up the towers

The Victorian Housing Minister, Richard Wynne, yesterday announced competitions to tart up the Footscray commission flats and design new low-to-medium density public housing in Dandenong. The Footscray competition is called Tower Turnaround and the Dandenong competition is called Living Places. They’re approved by the RAIA and the total prize pool is $135 000. Though it isn’t really prize money when you have to work for it, it’s remuneration.

There seems to be a lot of consternation about the ugliness of the towers, people invariably want to knock them down, but even though I don’t disagree about the ugliness, I’m really glad that the Vic Government is going to renovate them instead. Simply because you can house so many people in those tower blocks, and ugly shelter is much better than no shelter. I’m glad too that they’re building more public housing, because everyone is aware of the expense of buying a house, but there are plenty of people who don’t even have the money to rent because rents have gone up so much.

2007 national awards

the winners of the 2007 RAIA national architecture awards have been announced, Victorian winners are (there are too many to lists them all, hence the parochialism):

• John Curtin School of Medical Research – Stage 1 Redevelopment (ANU, Canberra, ACT): Lyons
• Cape Schanck House (Mornington Peninsular, VIC): Paul Morgan Architects
• Yve Apartments (St.Kilda, Melbourne, VIC): Wood Marsh Architecture
• Southern Cross Station (Spencer Street, Melbourne, VIC): Grimshaw Jackson JV
• Manchester Civil Justice Centre (Manchester, England): Denton Corker Marshall
• SOHO Shangdu (Beijing, China): LAB architecture studio
• Eureka Tower (Melbourne, VIC): Fender Katsalidis (Aust) Pty Ltd
• 1010 LaTrobe Street (Docklands, Melbourne, VIC): ARM
• Great Smith Aussie Home (Blackrock, Melbourne, VIC): Cassandra Complex
• Council House 2 (CH2) (Melbourne CBD, VIC): City of Melbourne + DesignInc Melbourne
• Stage One ACE, Kangan Batman TAFE (Docklands, Melbourne, VIC): Lyons
• Park Street House (Fitzroy North, Melbourne, VIC): Robert Simeoni Pty Ltd Architects

a few surprises there. something i find really interesting was in The Age article about the awards: “The cautionary tale of 2007, the jury said, was that the economic boom created a strong market for ideas, and yet perversely also meant quality sometimes suffered in the drive for higher profits.”

this is something i’ve heard from a few people. basically it seems that thanks to a fat, fast economy, there is a push to get things finished really quickly so that the developers can move onto the next project. which is fair enough, but when the buildings aren’t finished properly it’s pretty stupid. it seems that this also stems from the fact that architects are no longer in control of the project, that’s left to project managers at the developer’s end.

i can’t help but wonder if it will come back to bite them on the backside when poorly finished buildings start to show wear very badly, very soon.

but enough of that, congrats to the winners.