Saturday, August 1, 2009
saving heritage buildings
Two issues in Melbourne this week - the Myer Emporium project and the Windsor Hotel project - are relevant to a discussion of adaptive re-use of existing, heritage listed (or not) buildings. The Windsor Hotel proposal looks to be a well thought out project that will inject new life into a tired but cherished building. The Windsor is first and foremost a hotel and this proposal will ensure that it will remain so, albeit in a contemporary form. Necessarily the scale of the new component will be larger than the existing building but then, when the Windsor was built, it no doubt overpowered its neighbours. And the city has grown in scale across the board also since then. The architectural detail and form of the new components are such that they will be readily discernible from the old. Remember the Burra Charter? A good outcome. On the other hand the demolition of the art-deco facaded Lonsdale street building next to Myer's to widen Caledonian Lane for service access seems crude and poorly considered. All the program requirements for the project could possibly have been met and this building incorporated in the project if the will was there. But the writing (literally) was on the wall as this building has been allowed to deteriorate over recent times. It was never to be part of Myer's 'grand plan' it seems.
So in the one week, we have two textbook cases of how to respect and re-use heritage buildings - one appropriate and one less so.
So in the one week, we have two textbook cases of how to respect and re-use heritage buildings - one appropriate and one less so.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
parabolas
I was looking at the pattern cast across the ceiling by some below ceiling mounted lights. Parabolas. Like a dolphin's snout, or water flowing around a rock in a stream. Natural shape. I then looked around the rectilinear room the lights were in. Shame the built environment can't be as elegant as the natural. Why did this come about? Why is everything square? What if the first brick maker made a parabolic brick? What a different world. The tyranny of the tee-square!
Friday, July 10, 2009
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Wednesday, July 8, 2009
sprawl
I don't understand why it is considered incorrect to suggest that isolated poorly designed boxes on unusable small parcels of land is a poor model for urban development?
Why is it incorrect to propose an urban reality that is rich in experiences beyond a car-based trip to a privately owned, air-conditioned mall? Suburban experience can be rich and rewarding and most Australians are products of suburban upbringing, particularly the decision makers, and arguably are none the worse for it. I confess to sharing this history.
But those were days when the outer suburbs were at worst about an hour by train from the central city and where schools were at most a half hour walk from home (kids had legs then and could walk to school). A time also when there were corner shops. A time when the suburb was modelled on some ideal of 'village' life albeit with more space between the 'cottages'. But this all falls apart when the 'village' corner shop is a mall, 30 minutes drive off, full of the same franchise shops found from Darwin to Dandenong. And when the closest school is two postcodes distant. When most income is dedicated to operating two cars and paying off an outrageous mortgage overblown because the house is too big, the land too expensive and the house buyers' market is distorted through external forces (hand-outs and investors' tax breaks).
The current suburban model is incorrect because it focusses on the simple idea of detached houses dropped in the middle of a not-too-big and not-too-small piece of dirt with little concern for amenity or sustainability let alone quality and richness of life. It focusses on the house as a product not as part of a system.
What is the value to society in creating swathes of housing without access to community services and public transport? How will we deal with the personal dispossession that will be fermented out on the edges? We see the results of social neglect now in established suburbs closer to urban activity centres.
So here we are one decade into the 21st century and almost forty years after the first oil shock still developing urban forms that were not even working well when 'fossil energy'* (i.e oil and coal) was more abundant let alone now when we should be utilising 'current energy'* (i.e renewables).
And this sprawl takes over prime agricultural land and water catchments and wildlife habitat. It is as if the Monty Python team have taken up strategic urban planning ! I don't find it the least bit humorous.
* Peter Droege The Renewable City
Why is it incorrect to propose an urban reality that is rich in experiences beyond a car-based trip to a privately owned, air-conditioned mall? Suburban experience can be rich and rewarding and most Australians are products of suburban upbringing, particularly the decision makers, and arguably are none the worse for it. I confess to sharing this history.
But those were days when the outer suburbs were at worst about an hour by train from the central city and where schools were at most a half hour walk from home (kids had legs then and could walk to school). A time also when there were corner shops. A time when the suburb was modelled on some ideal of 'village' life albeit with more space between the 'cottages'. But this all falls apart when the 'village' corner shop is a mall, 30 minutes drive off, full of the same franchise shops found from Darwin to Dandenong. And when the closest school is two postcodes distant. When most income is dedicated to operating two cars and paying off an outrageous mortgage overblown because the house is too big, the land too expensive and the house buyers' market is distorted through external forces (hand-outs and investors' tax breaks).
The current suburban model is incorrect because it focusses on the simple idea of detached houses dropped in the middle of a not-too-big and not-too-small piece of dirt with little concern for amenity or sustainability let alone quality and richness of life. It focusses on the house as a product not as part of a system.
What is the value to society in creating swathes of housing without access to community services and public transport? How will we deal with the personal dispossession that will be fermented out on the edges? We see the results of social neglect now in established suburbs closer to urban activity centres.
So here we are one decade into the 21st century and almost forty years after the first oil shock still developing urban forms that were not even working well when 'fossil energy'* (i.e oil and coal) was more abundant let alone now when we should be utilising 'current energy'* (i.e renewables).
And this sprawl takes over prime agricultural land and water catchments and wildlife habitat. It is as if the Monty Python team have taken up strategic urban planning ! I don't find it the least bit humorous.
* Peter Droege The Renewable City
heritage
I wonder why we are so concerned with preserving our past but seem incapable of preserving our future ?
Why is it that in considering a proposal for a new building or for adaptation of an existing building, the bias will be towards preserving the old often at the expense of adaptation that may include sustainability features that in time will help preserve the planet?
This is not just limited to the ridiculous bun-fights over rainwater tanks and solar collectors in so-called 'heritage overlays'. Why do we keep entire suburbs of poorly constructed and designed housing stock which does not relate to the environment?
Why are we so keen on continuing past mistakes and imposing energy, water and land use liabilities on future generations?
Why are the edifices imposed on this land and which represent an invasion of the land more important than the land itself?
If you cannot effectively drive a car by using the rear-view mirror, why do we construct our human habitats by looking backwards?
Which point in time should we set in aspic? What's wrong with imagining a future? In the same way that there will be no economy on a dead planet, what is the value of preserving a heritage that imperils the future? Who will be left to admire the glorious past?
Why is it that in considering a proposal for a new building or for adaptation of an existing building, the bias will be towards preserving the old often at the expense of adaptation that may include sustainability features that in time will help preserve the planet?
This is not just limited to the ridiculous bun-fights over rainwater tanks and solar collectors in so-called 'heritage overlays'. Why do we keep entire suburbs of poorly constructed and designed housing stock which does not relate to the environment?
Why are we so keen on continuing past mistakes and imposing energy, water and land use liabilities on future generations?
Why are the edifices imposed on this land and which represent an invasion of the land more important than the land itself?
If you cannot effectively drive a car by using the rear-view mirror, why do we construct our human habitats by looking backwards?
Which point in time should we set in aspic? What's wrong with imagining a future? In the same way that there will be no economy on a dead planet, what is the value of preserving a heritage that imperils the future? Who will be left to admire the glorious past?
Saturday, July 4, 2009
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