THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
cinema of REproduction, Melbourne
Project Statement
The cinema of REproduction in Melbourne is intended to serve as a focus for Victoria's emerging film culture. The major program is to be an independent gallery for the production and exhibition of film. The intention is to bring both the process and end result into the public realm so that the public can engage, participate and understand the full gamut of film, from conception to final product. The objective of the project was to investigate the use of cinematic techniques and film syntax as a way of reading and perceiving the city and as a way of generating architectural space with the intention that the building is informed and structured by the filmic experience of the city itself.
Jury Comments
Lewis Hunt has developed a scheme that synthesises building use, space and technique with the character of its Melbourne CBD site.
The program includes traditional cinema, exhibition/gallery spaces, production and service areas which have been organised around a principal public space. His intention is to bring the process of production into the public realm.
The principal space is developed as an outdoor cinema/entry/circulation space, linked to a pre-existing pedestrian lane, and thus used by both specific users and general public. The building aesthetic and interior has been developed as a metaphor for “film” (a series of “screens") that are located both in response to the plan and the rhythm of the Melbourne grid.
The scheme is complex, complete and beautifully rendered. However, the CAD technique in some instances suggests the reliance on the building as an object rather than the emphasis on spatial experience and urban integration that is explained in the text.
Although general plan arrangements are resolved, there is some concern over various room relationships and upper level circulation. The character of the public room between the two cinemas is questionable given the major space is elsewhere.
The jury applauded the student's tenacity with such a complex urban program.
The experience of use of the building has been clearly articulated with the various episodes influenced by scale, material qualities, light and user activity. The jury felt that this scheme was the most outstanding submission, explaining various architectural issues at an urban and human scale, and it has been awarded the BHP COLORBOND Steel Award.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
mediaThekmelbourne
Project Statement
mediaThekmelbourne is a proposed centre to bring together the production and consumption of digital media. The facilities for the public exhibition of mediated art will include auditoria, external broadcast screens, media booths and immersive capsules. The building is conceived of as a series of pods clipped to an assemblage of three overlaid structural systems. It is sited on Melbourne CBD's Southern edge, alongside the Yarra, reclaiming a cut away piece of the river bank.
The project explores such ideas as hypertext to organise pedestrian circulation, spatial conditions of digital environments, and architecture as an interface for engaging with digital processes.
Jury Comments
Eugene Cheah's design for a MediaThek in Melbourne is an ambitious project which explores the intersection between architecture and virtual reality. It attempts to provide architectural elements such as circulation routes, glass enclosures and building boundaries with tangible forms that invoke something of the indeterminacy and complexity of virtual reality. In so doing it raises but does not answer the question: can we depict or experience virtual reality in orthodox architectural forms?
The building is sited on an under-utilised, expressway-defined site in downtown Melbourne, provides spaces for the production and viewing of digital media using conventional forms such as a theatre, and circulation walkways, as well as newer elements such as viewing booths and smaller work spaces.
All these components are supported by a complex lightweight steel framed structure system derived from box towers; bow framed columns and beams; and small steel postal frames.
Eugene Cheah's work to combine this array of programmatic, architectural and constructional elements into an experimental and complex whole is noteworthy and the presentation is powerful, absorbing if sometimes cryptic. It wouldn't be possible to conceive of this building in anything other than steel. For its demonstration of the theoretical potential of steel framing this project has been awarded the BHP Steel Design Prize.
In their discussion of the mediaThek, the jury considered some issues such as entry and access, car parking, servicing and circulation to be underdeveloped in relation to the work's more obvious attributes, but not to a degree that would suggest it would not qualify for the prize.
THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Nieuw Holland: Zuytdorp Institute
Project Statement
The brief for the studio was to provide a center of learning for Maritime Archaeology. The building was to contain a lecture theatre, a library, archaeological laboratories, workshops, offices and accommodation for staff and students. The focus was on a particular shipwreck, the Zuytdorp in 1712. A garden was to form part of the scheme.
In response to this I have conceived a Storm Garden based on the actual wreck and wrecksite. A place that comes alive in a storms and huge seas. The building was conceived from the fragmented remains of the ship pounded by incessant seas and evokes shipwreck.
Jury Comments
In this project by Corey Jones the question of 'architecture as metaphor' in contrast to the experiential nature of siting and material were obviously pre-eminent in its architectural development. The brief was to create a facility for maritime archaeology which drew formal reference from the shipwreck of the Zuytdorp which foundered during the eighteenth century. The site, an extremely exposed coastal landscape of Western Australia, is transformed into an intricate storm garden locating the building sculpturally in the manner of the wreck.
The jury was very impressed by the form-making of the landscape/building relationship. They were intrigued by Corey Jones' evocative descriptions of the workings of the garden and by the depth of knowledge displayed concerning architectural elements. The jury also applauded the project's textual and graphic qualities. On the other hand there was a feeling that the metaphor of the shipwreck had dominated design decisions related to program and interior to the extent that the building has flaws in its circulation, accommodation and exposure. However, important as they are, such scruples do not diminish the sophistication of the architectural resolution and the jury awarded a commendation to this submission.
THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
House of Screens
Project Statement
Lot 100 was chosen from a number of sites offered. A small, narrow lot, it has a slope that drops away dramatically to form part of the Kings Park scarp on Mount Eliza.
The objective was to design the optimum number of dwellings for this location. Students had to push the limits of the existing Residential Codes and the pervading Mount Street Precinct Code. The location of the site between the Parliament House and the river further restrained any building heights.
Jury Comments
The jury enjoyed the challenge of deciphering this highly esoteric project. It is a sort of graphic essay in generating architectural form by “mapping” a site's history. This leads to an architectural design process but stops short of the presentation of an architecture. This elaborate process tends to become an end in itself at the expense of a comprehensive [and comprehensible] depiction of the building's exterior form.
There are some engaging ideas with hints of post-Scarpian detail and cross-sectional possibility. It is full of unrealised ideas that could easily be developed in a number of ways. Like many of the submissions Cullen's work is highly significant more for what it suggests than what it actually presents.
THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND
Queensland College of Art
Project Statement
The Queensland College of Art (QCA) joined Griffith University from the TAFE sector in 1991. The proposal to relocate the College to Southbank in Brisbane's CBD will place the QCA in close proximity to the University's existing inner-city campus, the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. The College program encompasses such diverse functions as Photography, Design, Art Theory, Fine Art, Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art, Film and Television, Animation, Gallery and Library.
This proposal for the QCA responds to fundamental issues like the relevance of urban buildings in a landscape setting, and the development of a teaching facility in the vicinity of the Brisbane CBD. The QCA design encompasses a large translucent roof that floats above a campus community. The composition of the College is one of creating private teaching courts within the public realm of Brisbane's Southbank. All student services in the college have been placed within one level (up or down) of ground level, serves to foster a student community in contact within the wider public environment of the area. This was achieved by creating a series of private and public courts which step down the site, with the most public (entrance area) being located at the higher end and the most private (loading bays) being found on the lowest levels. All publicly accessible areas like the Library, Theatrette, QCA Gallery, Student Gallery and Administration can be accessed after office hours for public engagements, while students of the QCA only access all other areas within the building.
Jury Comments
This project is one of two finalist designs for the Queensland College of Art. In this case James Davidson has developed a powerful, over-arching roof form floating across all of the college accommodation. The Jury, whilst interested in this approach, felt that there were areas left unresolved or overlooked. For example, although the large roof relates to the distant city view, there is no depiction or consideration of the immediate context which design of the big roof approach would imply.
To balance this the plan offers a number of interesting spaces which attracted the jury's interest, and led to further discussion.
THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND
Queensland College of Art
Project Statement
The project title is 'Queensland College of Art'. The brief for this project is to provide a new location for the existing College of Art currently located at Morningside. It will require approximately 11 000 square meters to house the number of students anticipated to attend the college within the next five years. This is a diverse, multi-purpose building with many varied requirements within the brief.
The design objective here is to construct a building, that while being on such a large scale, does not prevent people from being able to relate to each other, and to the rest of the building and site as a whole. There are also the large scale urban issues to deal with of making connections with the greater contextual area. This is particularly important as this site could be considered to be one of the 'cornerstones' of the city.
Jury Comments
Jeremy Haldane's College of Art reveals an intriguing plan resolution of teaching and studio spaces to create a strong central courtyard. At the same time the designer has broken the program down into its constituent parts into a clear arrangement.
In other respects though, such as the elevations, architectural form and architectonic expression the scheme seems to stop at a diagrammatic stage, somewhat short of full development.
RMIT UNIVERSITY
Grounds on the Horizon: Gallery and Gateway to the Botanical Gardens
Project Statement
To increase the status of the Botanical Gardens a program for a combined Gallery and Gateway to the Gardens was developed as a multi-layered experience of the contemporary nature and history of the site and environs.
The desire in this project is to develop a layered 'building park', where the distinction between what is landscape and what is building becomes ambiguous, and where the view and gardens are the domain of the occupants of the building.
This building is firmly embedded in the ground, indeed its large roofscape is an added and artificial layer of the ground. A space to be occupied by the walker, picnicker, gallery viewer, researcher and garden wanderer; it is an 'outdoor room' connected to the gardens and itself by unfolding/enfolding balconies and ramps from the interior of the exhibition gallery, the botanical research rooms, theatre, library or the gardens restaurant. The interior domain of the building is an interplay between art, space and research facilities, thought out of the 'experience of place and region'.
Jury Comments
In the way it works and combines building surface with ground surface this project could be described as an exercise in topographic architecture.
The radial form gives the plan an 'explosive' graphic quality plan and seems to imply a more dynamic architecture than might be expected in a buried building. The jury felt the effects of such a plan could only be experienced as internal spaces, but considered those presented less than satisfying.
The project also raises issues of scale: firstly, it resumes public space in close proximity to a sacred monument and secondly, within the confines of the building itself, the size and nature of spaces seems excessive.
QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
media lab-brisbane
Project Statement
An Incubator for ideas in the emerging media/virtual industries. Major cities must engage with global networks to benefit from the information economy. The project proposes such an enterprise on a redundant railway yard close to the Brisbane city centre. A place for people to meet face to face, experiment with the hardware of the future, contemplate and effect outcomes and participate in world-wide interaction. It requires accessible highly serviced spaces of various configurations and sizes that can accommodate today's ideas and be adaptable to unforeseen opportunities. The building is an extrovert, it makes and interacts with public space.
Jury Comments
Hang Chung Ling's project is sited over a new bus lane. It displays a rational planimetric response to site boundaries as well as effective functional and architectural interaction with the subject road.
In spite of these obvious strengths the jury expressed concern at the diagrammatic character of the design's three dimensional form and what appeared to be insufficient presentation of the scheme in aspects other than the plan.
DEAKIN UNIVERSITY
Trans-Sedentary Travel
Project Statement
The design brief focuses on the proposed rail link between Melbourne and Tullamarine Airport. Students identified five points of connection, providing a rail station and additional programs at each location. This project investigates the rail station located at the Tullamarine Freeway and Western Ring Road intersection.
The design objective seeks to understand various levels of movement occurring within the environment, their relationships and the potential to inform the architectural process and language. Notions of the transient and the sedentary: the physical movement of the body and the body at rest, contained within a moving object are explored.
Jury Comments
This project boldly explores the possibility of placing a new train station in the centre aisle space of Melbourne's Tullamarine Freeway. Although it is not a new idea, the resultant attempt to integrate road and rail transport modes opens up all sorts of possibilities for further work. The jury thought this opportunity hadn't been fully extended after attainment of the initial thesis.
The largest building on the site is a long shed with window openings incised into its skin to reflect the human eye's perception of form at speed. The resultant enclosing form is varied and unusual with regard to the orthodox form of train stations, but does not address the materiality of its architectural form. This abstraction reduces an understanding of the scheme's spatial qualities.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
The Alley Gallery
Project Statement
The 'Alley Gallery' is intended as an 'active' container for the exhibition of student work. Rejuvenating a desolate laneway between the Architecture and Old Commerce buildings at the University of Melbourne, the gallery aims to provoke interaction between students and an institution that seems to have historically considered architecture as a static container for service and learning, with little emphasis being bestowed upon the individual. It is intended that the gallery promotes a creative engagement between itself and students, comprising a level of flexibility and potential for spatial manipulation, allowing exhibitors the opportunity to modify and redefine the environments within which their work is to be perceived; empowering through use.
Furthermore, this project aims to realise such ideas within the context of a site with obvious spatial 'limitations' and regulatory constraints. As such, the principle objective of the Alley Gallery is to fuse disparate forces influencing design into an efficient and meaningful reality, and in doing so aims to reinforce the notion that the separation between container and contained should no longer be relevant; form and function must become interdependent, infrastructure and space must unite.
Jury Comments
Paul Porjazoski's project has explored the potential of rejuvenating an insignificant laneway within the University of Melbourne. In this project a combination of gallery function and circulation has created a memorable junction between two existing buildings, the Architecture and Old Commerce buildings. Art work would be dynamically displayed on the central opaque spine that splits and dominates the figure of eight circulation path. To increase flexibility operable openings have been positioned at the centre to allow through passage. Even when work is not displayed, the architectural experience of light, shadow and translucency would be marvellous.
However these notations have not been fully realised. The jury had reservations about the constructional technology used to reconcile the need for enclosure with the attempt to give the building an autonomous form. It was thought that the potential of this clever idea was limited by the resolution of structural and material tectonics. Notwithstanding these criticisms the jury thought that this project was a sophisticated insertion which literally made something out of nothing.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
Information Technology Research Faculty[Incubator Centre] Melbourne
Project Statement
The project represents an opportunity to bring the Melbourne University IT faculty and a variety of groups involved in diverse areas of IT research, into the one location and exploit the benefits of co-location in promoting a cross-pollination of ideas and research.
While functioning as a university faculty of post-graduate research, the centre's dual role as an incubator centre is to assist and develop IT start-up companies within the faculty to a commercialisation stage ensuring a rapid growth and turnover of the centre participants.
The project exploits and promotes a dialogue between these diverse groups by threading active and passive public spaces through the building to facilitate interaction, chance views and adjacencies between groups and functions.
Jury Comments
This project, sited on opposite corners of a street junction proposes a smaller, heavily sculpted pavilion with a larger, bulkier research building on the opposite corner.
The scheme's strengths are its powerful use of graphic design and the development of some engaging architectural forms, at the macro level.
On balance, however, the jury were dissatisfied with detail issues such as the lack of architectonic quality in the images and the jarring presentation of the building in its context.