Catch up time

It’s been another busy week about the land, and in my office. And I’m way behind. So here are a few bits and bobs that I have accumulated. If you want to see what is accumulating, the facebook page is where a lot of it seems to land. Post something there yourself).

Berlin documentary on SBS Australia This takes us behind closed doors in one complicated city.

Nestle workers need more sun 42% of the Sydney office workers at Nestle found to be vitamin D deficient.

Victorian Urban Design Charter Yes, apparently we have one. It has been around since the start of last year.

Six Flags Just to get an image into this post, here is a quite special little tour of an abandoned amusement park in New Orleans, on the eve of its demolition. It was vacated after Hurricane Katrina. The spooky tune by godspeed you! black emperor helps to complete one eerie picture.

Whare Māori A comprehensive look at Māori architecture, in five half hour parts. Thank You Māori Television and Rau Hoskins!

Melbourne Open House List was released a few days ago.

ARM go TV continued Is this the first architect’s self-doco first in Melbourne? definitely the forst completely yellow one. It is a four parter, but ( here’s part 1 if you missed the earlier post)

The Age lunches with Victorian State Government Architect Geoffrey London They have dumplings. On houses: “The old Victorian terrace house was terrifically adaptable as a type; it seems there needs to be a contemporary version of that. A lot of contemporary houses are walls around functions, whereas the old terrace houses were simply a series of rooms.”

FOA DOA Foreign Office Architects is no more. The directors have gone their separate ways, with almost identical websites.

AJ Writing Prize Closes at the end of the month. You need to be under 36 for this one. Presumably if you are over 36 you’re already well-known and successful…

Grattan Institute report Apparently there are some huge gaps in the market – not enough apartments and semi-detached houses are being built.

A competition please Openhaus have a petition going asking that the mooted new Venice Biennale pavilion for Australia be subject to an open competition. Simon Mordant, commissioner for 2013, says, “We’re not looking to build something architecturally outstanding but something that works for the artists.”

And lastly for tonight, earthquakes.

Picturing ‘Home-for-All’ “is an appeal launched by Toyo Ito, Riken Yamamoto, Hiroshi Naito, Kengo Kuma and Kazuyo Sejima to the international community of designers in order to stress the importance of the architecture for emergency and rescue.”

Red Zone Christchurch was recently divided into four coloured zones. The 5000 houses in the red zone are to be purchased by the government and demolished, as the land under them is no longer suitable for building. Then there’s the Orange ‘hold’ zone, where they’re waiting and seeing.

Posted by Peter on 26.06.11 in random debris