The World on Paper

Happy New Year!

2011-01-05T22:12:00.004+10:30

New year's greetings from Melbourne! Stay tuned for posts on interesting edifices and architectural details. Amazing architectural marvels with accompanying (and equally) interesting history just abounds.

The Burj Khalifa

2010-01-10T16:35:00.005+10:30

4 January 2010 saw the opening of the world's tallest building, the 200-storey Burj Khalifa (Skidmore, Owings & Merill). The following article by Binoy Kampmark (reprinted from Crikey of the InDaily - Independent Weekly, 8 January 2010) offers an interesting viewpoint on Dubai's living in an age of excess:

Omens of Doom: Dubais Burj Khalifa Tower

It is a colossus, towering over the Dubai skyline. The company behind it claims to have made a successful return of 10 percent. The local paper, the Khaleej Times, did not shy away from hyperbole, seeing the building as an example of human courage and humankind's ability to dream and deliver, giving the world an achievement difficult to surpass.

The Burj Khalifa Tower, renamed in tribute to Dubai's bailout donor, Abu Dhabi's Sheik Khalifa, dwarfs all that have come before it. It is a monstrous compilation of gimmicks in some ways, another addition to the mix of Vegas-styled faux islands, shopping centres and ski runs. Dubai portends to be a place of trickery, entertainment and massive expense accounts. The building itself boasts 200 floors, and rises to 828 meters. It promises to be the home of the first Armani Hotel. Patrons are whisked between floors in elevators at the speed of 18 metres a second. But what does this building suggest about Dubai and the architectural madness that characterizes such efforts?

For one thing, the creation strikes deeply at the apocalyptic language of the recently concluded Copenhagen Climate Change conference. The Sheiks seem less interested in carbon footprints than oil-financed structures of glass and steel. They keep company with architects such as Adrian Smith, the designer of the Burj Khalifa and Cesar Pelli, who gave England the One Canada Square and Malaysia the Petronas Twin Towers.

Dubai suffers, like tyrants, from an overwhelming edifice complex. Its spending complex resembles the efforts of the Pharaohs and their pyramid projects, or those of the medieval Catholic Church: bigger is better, huge monuments to progress, humanity and God. Sometimes, the smaller the state, the more obsessed the efforts in building the Tower of Babel. Megalomania is the classic byproduct of inferiority complexes, often induced by money without sense.

All of these point to a thesis formulated in 1999 by Andrew Lawrence he dubbed the Skyscraper Index. These figures of modernity seem to precede periods of crisis. At low points of the business cycle, these architectural Cyclops seem to rise. The Empire State building was conceived in 1929, the same year of Black Tuesday (October 29) and the onset of the Great Depression. The Sears Tower of the 1970s towered over a society in the grip of stagflation and oil shocks. The monumental Petronas Twin Towers opened in 1997, the year when Asian currencies took a pummeling, humbling Asia's Tiger economies.

In the civilisational sense, this may also be true: the big building, or building project, is a symptom of decay. The American novelist Henry James certainly thought so, though he was thinking of it more in the aesthetic sense. In an economic sense, the great building project tends to forecast ruin. Athens passed quietly into the shade after the building of the Acropolis. Henry VIII of England and Christian IV of Denmark were builders who drained their treasuries, left magnificent buildings, yet failed consistently on the battlefield. The building efforts of the Pharaohs, as Paul Johnson pointed out in 2005, suggest a hubristic tendency that eventually will meet nemesis. The Wall Street Journal (5 January 2010) was confident that such a building mania would not last, sniping at Dubais paltry credentials on economic freedom, rule of law, hard work and sound management relative to such cities as Houston and Hong Kong. Without these, nations and cities alike build nothing but foundations of sand.

Given the precedents set by previous failed civilizations, the omens are not good. Dubai's economy is in a mess. Sheik Khalifa has been generous to the tune of $10 billion. In an age of environmental sensitivities and proliferating green fan clubs, we might well be witnessing a dying breed. When the excitement does die down, the business of preventing Dubai from sliding into oblivion will begin.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lecturers at RMIT University, Melbourne.

Happy new and safe 2010!

2010-01-03T13:40:00.000+10:30

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-28T19:02:00.000+10:30

Christmas has come and gone and I missed posting a holiday greeting. But since we're only halfway through the holiday break, I'll get one in just the same.

To everyone, Happy Holidays! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas spent with family, loved ones and friends.

I'd like to say thank you to those who took the time to read my posts in the past year - even though I haven't been consistent in posting in the last few months.

Wishing everyone a new year filled with more joy and blessings!

Mea Culpa

2008-10-06T17:06:00.008+10:30

I have been neglectful of this blog for over two months that I don't know where to begin. But with so many things that happened in the last 11 weeks or so, I should have plenty of 'blog' material. The pressure!

August saw a trip home - a 10-day visit to the family, among others, to be godmother to my second nephew - Miguel Pedro. As always, it is wonderful to be with the family and see my nieces and nephew - they now number 7! September brought in a change in my resident status DownUnder (Oi! Oi!).

Apart from the overseas trip, I also made a couple of interstate trips (yes, up goes my CO2 emissions!). I have been swamped with work deadlines and morever, preoccupied with career plans. Such pressure!

Interesting two months though with everybody(?) on tenterhooks with the Wall Street meltdown, the US economic recession and its global impact. Following on to my last post, September also saw the release of the Garnaut Climate Change Review Final Report.

But all is well. I hope to put in my two cents' worth on these interesting current events. Stay tuned.

To tread on Earth lightly...

2008-07-24T00:10:00.012+09:30

This past week Australia is abuzz with "Think climate, Think change" with the government's release of the green paper, Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme following the release early this month of the draft report of the Garnaut Climate Change Review, a commissioned review to examine the impacts, challenges and opportunities for climate change in Australia.

The public responds to tangible environmental problems (Matthew Warren, 2008). Unlike other environmental problems such as those associated with the use of plastic bags which have been given much focus because of its visibility, climate change has been harder to sell and be accepted by the wider public because anthropogenic emissions, by its nature, are invisible. However, as Warren (2008) indicated, putting a price on greenhouse emissions will certainly get the public's attention.

Albeit missing that crucial bottom line of the cost implication on cutting the country's greenhouse gas emissions through the implementation of the emissions trading scheme, surprisingly, even with the limited and/or lack of understanding of how ETS works, latest national poll indicate a 67% support for carbon pollution reduction.

With certainty, the biggest impact of the ETS on households will be rises in the cost of energy and fuel from 2010. Estimates predicted electricity costs would rise by 16 per cent and gas by 9 per cent. "The Government wants those price rises felt so we are encouraged to phase out use of carbon-producing goods and services." Under the scheme, Australian motorists are given five years notice from hereon of the impending price impact of carbon pollution reduction scheme on petrol and that motorists should prepare for this by shifting to smaller cars and driving less.

With humans as comfort-seeking creatures, almost all of our daily activities would create carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. So, unless we live in caves and never gather around fire for warmth, we have a carbon footprint. Australia has the second highest carbon footprint after the U.S., a reflection of the ubiquitous energy-hungry lifestyles.

By comparison, the U.S. average is 21 tonnes, New Zealand is 13 tonnes, and Japan is 10 tonnes. The average Australian household of 2.5 people has a 14.6-tonne carbon footprint which equates to an average Australian contributing approximately 6 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere per year.

Using C02 emission calculators available online: Carbonify.com and Carbon neutral, I have worked out my impact on the environment. To my disappointment, in the last three years, I averaged 47% more than the national average at 8.16 to 8.82 tonnes of CO2 per year!

Household waste: 1.22 tonnes (13%) = 8 trees
Food emissions: 2.6 tonnes (29%) = 16 trees
Vehicle travel: 0
Air travel: 4.08 tonnes (46%) = 25 trees
Energy use: 0.92 tonnes (12%) = 6 trees

Following the rule of thumb that on average, 6 trees are needed to offset 1 tonne, I would need 40-53 trees to offset my impacts on the environment!

How to tread lightly on Earth? Being aware that offsetting should be seen as a last resort, am I willing to cut down on activities to reduce my emissions contribution?

Client vs Architect

2008-06-29T16:13:00.005+09:30

As seen at Part IV.

Adelaide's Art Deco

2008-06-22T23:40:00.007+09:30

This morning I took part in a walking tour of art deco architectural highlights of Adelaide CBD hosted by the Art Deco Society - Adelaide Chapter.

The tour revealed a number of architectural gems tucked away in the city's side streets. Notable and my favourites are the Laubman and Pank Optometrists and Gritti Palace, Bank of South Australia, Fletcher Jones Building and the Gilbert Place Apartments.

Architectural examples of this early 20th century international movement have always held some fascination along with the Bauhaus style, Arts and Crafts Movement and Art Nouveau.

In the Philippines, particularly Manila, Art Deco is associated with American colonial architecture. This architectural style flourished when the country was an American colony. Buildings that I fondly remember include the Metropolitan Theatre and Far Eastern University. However, a number of the buildings were destroyed in the Second World War or have been demolished.

In Adelaide, impressive examples that remain almost in their original designs include cinemas, residences and commercial buildings.

Edifice with character

2008-05-25T13:17:00.005+09:30

This building at the corner of Gawler Place and North Terrace in Adelaide is one of my favourites. Still in use, the building houses office suites mostly of the medical profession. It is a pity that the external appearance is compromised by the installation of window type air conditioning units.

Built it 1913-1914 by the South Australian Company, the Gawler Chambers is a five-storey office building, which is symmetrical in design. It has a red brick facade, with cement dressings, and the main entrance is finished in Murray Bridge granite and freestone. The building is eclectic in style, containing classical and Tudor Gothic features. There is a castellated parapet over a central projecting section that forms part of the entry porch at ground level. The interior contains cedar work that was transferred from the South Australian Company's former building to their offices on the western end of the first floor of Gawler Chambers. There are internal piers and beams of reinforced concrete. The foyer of the building has been altered, and there are some other minor alterations to the interior.

English and Soward were the architects of the new building, Gawler Chambers, which was built in two stages. The first stage, the eastern side, was completed in November 1913 and the second stage, the western side, in March 1914. Originally Gawler Chambers was four storeys with a Val de Travers asphalt covered flat roof. In 1935 another floor was added to the top of the building. The balconies on the 3rd and 4th floors were removed in 1965.

Design engineers awarded the contract was the South Australian Reinforced Concrete Co. with John Monash as chief engineer.

Gawler Chambers is heritage-listed due to the its association with the South Australian Company which played a central role in the foundation of South Australia, and established many industries and enterprises, including whaling, banking and pastoral enterprises. This building is one of few surviving tangible reminders of the Company, which was actively associated with the site for over one hundred years, in an earlier building from 1842 and in Gawler Chambers until 1945. The Chambers, through its association with the South Australian Company, has an important link to the early development of South Australia.

Reference: Aussie Heritage

Architecture in Shoe Design

2008-02-03T12:25:00.000+10:30

I was amused by DesignNotes' comparison of one of the shoes in this year's Gucci collection to building design and architecture. I was reminded of this short film on the design of Nike shoes.

This Gucci Newton high heel peekaboo bootie is part of Gucci's 2008 spring summer collection. They certainly look like a piece of architectural art - streamlined design with the sleek patent black leather evoking fluid motion, elegantly embellished with the understated light gold back and with stature to boot with those pencil thin 4-1/2" heels.

Even with the whopping price of US$795, these Gucci's with killer heels are in popular demand.

Women and their shoes:
"High heels let you cheat at the gym. In the time it takes you to slide your feet into a great pair of heels, you not only get great-looking legs, you also get a butt lift of approximately twenty-five percent. What exercise equipment can beat that?" - Leanne Banks (2005)

*images as seen at DesignNotes and Zesty Perspective.

Design Methodology

2008-02-02T23:21:00.000+10:30

I have been asked to design my sister's first house and in doing the design sketches, I found myself thinking about my thought / design process in coming up with schematics for any design project. It has been over six years since I designed something (architecturally speaking). The last design project I was involved in was in 2001 before I decided to enter graduate school and work on the PhD research - albeit still within the discipline of architecture. Even though, I have been working in an architectural firm for the past two years and have been part of a design team, my role in design projects is essentially collaborating with the design architect in terms of providing essential background material for the design solution, sustainability research and clarifiying / expounding the project brief.

Doing the initial schemes for the house, I was amazed at how the concepts I had toyed with the last few weeks took on a concrete orthographic form on paper. Having practiced and worked on predominantly residential projects for 10 years prior to graduate school, I was familiar with the design norms, code requirements, etc. But having been more research-oriented and on a totally different subject area in architecture, I didn't think that the commonsense 'design' rules I learned which have guided my design process and framed my methodology would come into play so naturally. Michael Surtees wrote a similar thing about his design process in graphics design, "the sketch of a logo may have only taken a moment to draw, but it took 25 years of observation to get those five seconds of inspiration".

In a similar vein, recent collaboration with another design team within the practice, I was reminded of this passage from Matthew Frederick's 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School (2007): "Being process-oriented, not product driven, is the most important and difficult skill for a designer to develop ...[and] being process-oriented means [among others], seeking to understand a design problem before chasing after solutions."

Perhaps a segue into another discourse but not really off on a tangent, what are these commonsense rules? How do these rules become entrenched in a designer's psyche or consciousness?

Again, DesignNotes pointed to a fitting post with an education bent - from an essay by Lorraine Wild, ‘That Was Then, and This Is Now: But What Is Next?’ in Looking Closer Four: Critical Writings on Graphic Design (2002).

Although refering to graphic design, Tod Roeth's How to be schooled, elaborated on the text above and is most certainly applicable to the architectural design process: "if a person wants to be the author of thoughtful, professional, and effective ... design then they must draw on their ability to exercise some real foresight, critical thinking, and common sense if they want to be ... designers."

Roeth adds, "...good designers need to first be human beings with a lot of – literally – common sense. Designers need to be students of all corners of their culture’s playing field. Designers need to have a sense of business. Designers need to have a sense of politics. Designers need to have a sense of stereotypes. Designers need to have a sense of religion, philosophy, current events and history. Designers need to have a sense of urban lifestyles, agrarian lifestyles, and minority lifestyles. Designers need have a sense of conservative viewpoints. Designers need to understand liberal viewpoints."

"Designers need a lot of common sense. In short, effective ... designers need to be able to be sensible and conscious of different viewpoints, and different styles of language (verbal and non-verbal) within their culture and the types of mindsets that speak them. Furthermore, ... designers then need to draw from their body of knowledge and experience, and employ it to cleverly, shrewdly, and creatively solve the problems graphic designers are challenged to confront."

"And that common sense is free to all who have the passion – or at least, the wherewithal – to seek it, but priceless when obtained."

Christmas-New Year Weather DownUnder

2007-12-30T19:03:00.000+10:30

The temperature forecast for New Year's Eve is a sweltering 41 degC. Right now, temperature in Adelaide is still hovering at a dry 39 deg C.

As seen at ScienceWoman:

Happy New Year!

Have a Merry Christmas!

2007-12-23T22:19:00.000+10:30

"FAITH is [t]he substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

Merry Christmas everybody and good wishes for the coming New Year!

*Adelaide Arcade, Rundle Mall

Frank Gehry in The Simpsons

2007-07-21T20:59:00.000+09:30

Frank Gehry designs a cultural centre for Springfield. The Simpsons - Season 16, Episode 349: The Seven-Beer Snitch (First aired: 3 April 2005).

A parody of design process. I'm a fan of this episode. It never fails to bring out a good laugh. Check A Daily Dose of Architecture and David Teoh's blog for screen shots.

Leonardo Da Vinci's Journal

2007-06-21T22:13:00.000+09:30

Perhaps the most expensive 'journal of ideas', Da Vinci's Codex Leicester is on display at the Chester Beatty Library. The 500-year old "ideas jotter" showing some of the great scientific and philosophy ideas which are still in use today, was bought by Microsoft founder Bill Gates for $31m (€23m) in 1994.

Read more: Shane Hickey. Image from Independent.ie.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Duncan House

2007-06-17T17:42:00.000+09:30

Duncan House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Illinois in 1957 was dismantled and reassembled in Pennsylvania.

Photo by Justin Merriman for The New York Times.

Women in the industry and sustainability

2007-06-06T21:54:00.000+09:30

"Females have excelled in sustainability because it was, until very recently, not a mainstream path to professional success--and therefore an area that those with [a presumably masculine] thirst for power and recognition avoided."

Read more: Green Design, Female Values

Touch Screen Technology

2007-06-06T21:32:00.000+09:30

As seen at Golf's blog.

Live Earth on 7.07.2007

2007-05-06T00:25:00.000+09:30

This coming July will be the 'Live Earth' Concerts: 7 concerts across 7 countries in 1 day for the environment (New York, Rio de Janeiro, London, Johannesburg, Shanghai, Tokyo and Sydney) to combat global warming.

Spearheaded by Al Gore, “In order to solve the Climate Crisis, we have to reach billions of people. We are launching SOS and Live Earth to begin a process of communication that will mobilize people all over the world to take action,” Gore said. “The Climate Crisis will only be stopped by an unprecedented and sustained global movement. We hope to jump-start that movement right here, right now, and take it to a new level on July 7, 2007.”

I remember a similar much-publicised event for the environment held in April of 1995 in Washington, D.C. (Earth Day 1995). One of the artists who performed in that concert was Kenny Loggins and his song 'Conviction of the Heart' (once called by Al Gore as the 'unofficial anthem of the environmental movement') still hold true:

What were the promises caught on the tips of our tongues?...
One with the earth, with the sky
One with everything in life
I believe we'll survive
If we only try...
How long must we all wait to change.
This world bound in chains that we live in...
It's been too many years of taking now.
Isn't it time to stop somehow?
Air that's too angry to breathe, water our children can't drink
You've heard it hundreds of times
You say you're aware, believe, and you care, but...
Do you care enough
To talk with Conviction of the Heart?

I can't help thinking if we really seriously take the issue of Mother Earth needing our help (and not just for political gain).

Sydney Harbour Bridge

2007-03-18T22:00:00.000+10:30

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, now heritage-listed, celebrates its 75th Anniversary.

Whenever I get the chance to visit Sydney, I always get goose-bumps when I see the bridge through the airplane window. The 'Coathanger' Bridge in Sydney's Darling Harbour never fails to amaze me. A design and engineering marvel!

I took the photos above in July 2006.

Amazing photos are available in Halan's flickr album. Read up on some interesting facts about the Bridge in the culture and recreation webpage.

Architecture

2007-02-20T22:27:00.001+10:30

Uploaded by 22nd.

The World of Books

2007-02-20T21:10:00.000+10:30

This funny video "Introducing the Book" reminded me of Henry Petroski's Book on the Bookshelf (1999) which gives a captivating account of the evolution of the physical design of books from stone tablets, the papyrus and the format we are most familiar with, the spines. This fascinating read made me appreciate books more. Reading a book is still one of life's great pleasures. Nothing beats that tactile experience of turning pages while nose deep reading a book.

Respect the Architects

2007-01-06T12:32:00.000+10:30

Respect the architects
Uploaded by la-mjc

Living Down Under

2007-01-03T10:18:00.000+10:30

Interesting article from CNN Online (01 January 2007)

Chundering through rooland

Summer in Australia wouldn't be complete without a trip to one of the country's famed beaches.Take your togs or cossies, your esky packed with amber fluid and maybe a dog's eye for a snack. Bend the elbow too much? Stop off for a long black, a short black or a flat white to make sure you don't end up a few kangaroos (roos) loose in the top paddock.

Translation: Take your swimwear and cooler box full of beer and a meat pie to eat. A bit too much to drink? Have a small or large black espresso coffee or a white coffee to make sure you are fully compos mentis when you get home.

Welcome to the Australian vocabulary.

Beyond the stereotyped "G'day" (hello) of souvenir T-shirts and "Crocodile Dundee" movies, are many words rich in tradition that define the Australian identity and give continuity to the variety of voices and experiences that shaped the country's history. As a tourist they are fun to hear, but you'll need to learn them if you plan to call Down Under home. Under planned new citizenship tests designed by the government to bind a nation of immigrants to common values, would-be Australians will have to demonstrate they know the meaning of mateship, having a go and dinkum. Symbolizing the resourceful comradeship at the heart of Australians' self-image, mateship is a close bond of friendship, having a go means a willingness to try anything, while dinkum means genuine or true. Assuming you pass the tests and move to Australia, you'll probably find yourself flat out like a lizard drinking, that's extremely busy, from the hard yakka or labor of your new job. If you get time for a beach picnic try not to let the heat and beer make you chunder or vomit in the dunny, that's toilet.

If one word can perhaps symbolize the development of the Australian vocabulary, it could be chunder. Legend has it that the word hails from the time of the British ships that transported convicts to the new colony of Australia. It was a 12-month trip on stormy seas -- a prescription for sea sickness. The convicts were housed in bunk-like beds, where they generally ended up when feeling ill. Anyone on the top bunk who was about to vomit would yell "watch out under" to warn inhabitants of the lower bunks of the impending delivery. As with most Australian slang, the original phrase got shortened over time, and watch out under became chunder -- or so the story goes.

Watch out for rorts

Setting up home in Australia will require a stop at a manchester shop. Manchester is what the locals call bed linen, because Manchester, the northern British industrial city and one-time center of the cotton-spinning industry, was the main source of bedding for Australia's early settlers. They'll also sell you a doona -- a bed quilt usually filled with feathers and called a duvet in other countries. If you want it delivered, you'll get a docket (receipt) to show the driver.
If you're hungry after shopping, pick up a lamington -- a square cake made of sponge rolled in chocolate and sprinkled with coconut, supposedly named after Charles Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington and governor of Queensland state from 1896 to 1901. The cake may have originally been made either in an image of the baron's favored hats, or as a way of using up left-over stale sponge. Either way, it's said the baron hated them.

Or try an Anzac biscuit, named after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACS) who fought in the First World War and whose grit, courage and consummate mateship are imprinted on the national consciousness. A hard biscuit typically of oatmeal and coconut with syrup or treacle, some say it was made by women at home to send to soldiers on the killing fields of France and Gallipoli in Turkey. Others say the name did not appear until after the war.Sweets or candies are called lollies in Australia, and they don't have to be iced, as the word would mean in Britain.

Of course it's not all sweetness in any country.

In Australia you'll want to avoid a stoush, that's a fight but with the 'ou' pronounced as in 'ouch', with a larrikin or troublemaker, where you might suffer a Larry Dooley or a beating, derived in part from the name of a boxer famous a century ago. And watch out for rorts, that's frauds or con tricks. Unless of course it's only a furphy -- a rumor. This word is derived from World War One battlefields where rumors traveled with the carts bringing water to the soldiers in the trenches. The carts were made by the Australian company Furphy.

Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)

2006-04-17T15:57:00.000+09:30

"The way in which knowledge progresses, and especially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustfiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests."

"As we learn from our mistakes our knowledge grows, even though we may never know - that is, know for certain."

- Karl Raimund Popper (1902-1994),
from the Preface, First Edition 1963

Geometrical Theory of Gravitation (1915)

2006-03-14T23:57:00.000+10:30

A haiku on Albert Einstein's (1879-1955) theory on gravity, General Relativity (GR):

Cherry blossoms fall
at light speed through curved space-time
and land with a thud.

-David Bader,
One Hundred Great Books in Haiku ( 2005)

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

2006-03-14T23:32:00.000+10:30

A haiku on Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) Principia:

Cherry blossoms fall
with Force equal to Mass times
Acceleration

- David Bader,
One Hundred Great Books in Haiku ( 2005)

People : Built Environment : Comfort

2006-01-26T20:29:00.000+10:30

People adapt to as well as modify their environments to achieve comfort. Historical evidence demonstrates ever changing human habitation patterns that are suggestive of tendencies towards adaptation of the surrounding context rather than "human self-adaptation".

"...there is man's habit of changing his environment rather than changing himself. Faced with the changing variable (e.g. temperature) within itself which it should control, the organism may make changes either within itself or in the external environment. It may adapt to the environment or adapt the environment to itself."

And thereupon,

"Man, the outstanding modifier of the environment, similarly achieves single-species ecosystems in his cities, but he goes one step further, establishing special environments for his symbionts." - Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Gregory Bateson (2000)

With the technologies of the modern world, dependence on mechanical systems in the built environment became the norm. Air conditioning technologies for example, have transformed what is regarded as 'normal' building in many different parts of the world. These services dictated the building's interior environment that as a result, the indoor climate created by the building's physical envelope has little or no relationship at all with the outside. The need for comfort brought about an indoor climate revolution wherein indoor climates are converging:

"hot environments are being cooled while cold indoor environments are being heated."- Threats and Defences in the Built Environment, Elizabeth Shove (1995)

To revel in the road travelled

2006-01-26T12:38:00.000+10:30

Piled Higher and Deeper, 8 June 2005

Emblems of understanding how buildings and their use interact

2006-01-26T12:12:00.000+10:30

"We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us." (Winston Churchill, 1924 and 1943) and "Form ever follows function." (Louis Sullivan, 1896)

First we shape our buildings, then they shape us, then we shape them again - ad infinitum. Function reforms form perpetually. - How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand (1994)

Heritage Matters: Emerging Architecture

2006-01-25T22:23:00.000+10:30

"A house within a house"
From a pigsty to a showroom
Pfalz, Germany

FNP Architekten (Stuttgart)
Prizewinner, 2005 AR Award for Emerging Architecture

A crumbling 18th century structure with a new lease on life.
AR Award

Tomorrow's doctrines

2006-01-23T00:17:00.000+10:30

"History is often a series of expedients that grow into dogmas - today's pragmatism becoming tomorrow's doctrines..." - Stanley Karnow (1990)

Aphorism: Pathway Unravelled

2006-01-22T13:43:00.000+10:30

Michael Leunig, The Age

On megalomaniacal dreams

2006-01-22T13:21:00.000+10:30

"...architecture is a dangerous profession because it is a poisonous mixture of impotence and omnipotence, in the sense that the architect almost invariably harbors megalomaniacal dreams that depend upon others, and upon circumstances, to impose and to realize those fantasies and dreams." - Rem Koolhaas (1996)