International
design competition for a new cultural
complex on the edge of Melbourne's business
district, based around a contemporary
reinterpretation of the 19th century
European wintergarden.
This
scheme examines conditions for architecture that
question the orthodoxy of easily read discrete objects
in space, and seeks to question the relevance of
existing notions of object and landscape, figure
and ground.
Proposition
is for a civic project that can be represented
as an icon or postcard image which does not rely
on a 'grand scale'
As
with all our projects, it seeks to re-examine
the assumptions of what the elements that describe
an architectural vocabulary consist of The site
is treated as a base for potentiallyunending inscriptions
of many histories of the city within the framework
of a patterned mat, which resonates between camouflage
and ornamentvisually
linking many different surfaces and
objects into an apparent whole
A
design competition for a new visitor centre to complement
existing historic buildings on the site where the
catholic nun Mary MacKillop worked.
We
investigated what we called 'reviewed
typology', by looking at Australian examples
of the plywood house, verandah and cloister models
and seeking their reinvention through a series of
architectural techniques concentrating
on the buildings surfaces.
We
are concerned with architecture as
cultural pursuit, as against the technological
reinterpretation of modernism of many contemporary
practices. Our projects are unashamedly engaged
with local culture and ideas, the projects are instigated
through rigorous research into
existing conditions, local histories and issues.
