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brisbane death-throw

info
edited November 2008 in architecture
<p>Stumped as to why Brisbane is beginning to inherit Victorian shite architecture up here First it was DCM with the George Street vertical turd</p>
<p>Next it was ARM with the Queen Street horizontal turd</p>
<p>Then Wardle couldn't help himself - but seems to be getting his fingers burnt at Milton station</p>
<p>Now bloody Lyons are trying their hand on the Mater Hospital - started by digging a hole into a local hill - a turd hole</p>
<p>All wrapped up with second rate local firms here who are flat out documenting - wishing they could design</p>
<p>Will post images shortly - just so you know I am not just a one-eyed lunatic queenslander If last year's RAIA awards were anything to go by It is proof that there is more than enough talent to take care of things here Without importing second rate work from babyboomer big names</p>
<p>[moved into architecture forum 23/11. P]</p>
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Comments

  • hairdresser
    edited November 2008
    fair worry info.
    bris/vegas has a good local trip going down.

    i recall reading x-pres lyon give DH a backhander over the bris library in 07 national awards.
    can't remember where exactly - newspaper or journal - must see if i can find it.
    was along the lines of - usually domestic architects can't do a public building.

    saw this on a recent trip to melb. fitzroy somewhere.
    commercial architects shouldn't do houses?
  • sod
    sod
    edited December 2008
    <p>[xxxxxxxxxxx]. he shouldn't sledge, his strike rate is way to low.</p>
    <p> </p>
    <p>[edit by admin]</p>
  • hairdresser
    edited November -1
    blue blood?
    draughting service genes judging by the family tree.

    bit of a shame for brisbane.
    they were a lyons free zone.
  • info
    edited November -1
    Nice image HD
    I always thought the purpose of the Grid was less defence and more about wher to put your toilet.
    Therefore ironic to see Lyon's housing/turd above ground

    HD - 2007 wasn't Carey's year. Stuffed Venice Biennale, earnestly tried to be a friend of the Aborigines and attempted to discredit Donovan Hill's Zelman award - if you didn't laugh, you would cry. His attempt at housing above shows that commercial scale specifications don't translate to domestic scale ... just careless really.
  • sod
    sod
    edited November -1
    hd fair point on lyon - the sense of entitlement with that lot is probably the repulsive thing.

    on the strength of that pic you would have to say some architects shouldn't do anything.
  • simon seasons
    edited November -1
    I'd just like say that hd's pic shows an example of pure facadism. design by style and nothing else. you all seem to hate it and so do i, so what is your problem with my effort to promote a method of design that would prevent such 'horizontal' excretion. remember before you all start your attack that form following function is not a style. it is a method.
  • hairdresser
    edited November 2008
    if it were facadism - it might support your views. but its not.
    western movie sets are architecture fit for purpose.

    this is just a tedious building?
    It starts from the glass front door. no regard for the civility of saturday mornings and dressing gowns.

    I have heard info - that 08 may have been the icing for lions.
    Not doing the extension on their award winning Docklands Tafe.
    probably some domestic architects were what the client was looking for.

    @ Sod - born to rule was probably the description you were looking for.
  • sod
    sod
    edited November -1
    if mid scale residential is beneath them they should have handballed it to a more desperate practice. maybe they were chasing something bigger.
    reminds me of the inner city public housing in the early eighties - doesn't make commercial sense to be so modest in an aspirational market.
  • hairdresser
    edited November -1
    right on sod - the housing bar is high.
    which makes L's award comments doubly smart-arse.

    maybe the bar will get higher with tafe colleges and hospitals?

    @info. whats this about the assimilator trying to be friends with the aborigines?
    I got the impression he well and truly screwed the merrima people on venice?
  • simon seasons
    edited November -1
    it's facadism, but it is in a subgroup of iconographic architecture. yes it is tedious to the point of predictable and glass front doors are uncivilized but can anyone place its iconographic pedigree. what is it meant to mean? i am guessing digital motherboard references but why?
  • info
    edited November 2008
    HD - getting off topic, but going by the previous forums/links more Paternalator than Assimilator. He is not letting those Aboriginal boys lead any agenda - housing or Venice. Used himself as the PR for the indigenous housing conference, and used Markham as the scape goat via the Venice dinner. A Brisbane contact in Conrad Gargett + Lyons confirmed Lyons tried repeatedly to get the Merrima/O'Brien guy to come and work for them on the turd hole - but O;Brien quietly shut the door (he's too nice to tell them to f*?k off).

    But back on topic - TAFE seems to be a sitting duck here in Qld
    Am wondering if the CG + Lyons is just an entry point for Lyons
    To get their their sticky hands all over it ...
    Wouldn't be too hard either - just need to get past the shite Project Services have been pushing out up here
    ALthough wouldn't be a bad thing - Mr Lyons would meet his Qld equivalent - Mr Raynor
    Now that would be worth paying a ticket for

    Seems there are more Victorians circling up here than Kiwi roofers - something is up
    I am planning to go to the Emirates shortly myself - will miss the next implosion unfortunately
  • info
    edited November 2008
    Been checking out Perth/WA too

    Seems they have a few of the same conga-line turning up for a few jobs
    Lyons for TAFE
    ARM for the Arena (although it seems R is leading this one - and it's pretty damn tasty - so maybe ignore this reference)
    Surely et al are sniffing around
    Not surprising I guess
    Vic GA/London has convinced the WAers (and Vics) that Melbourne is the centre of 'Design' - that is why he left presumably (not because of Govt change?)
    See http://www.theage.com.au/national/designs-on-a-thriving-city-20080704-31xe.html?page=-1

    Going by the shite Vic stuff here in Brisbane - London is way off track - and Perth is next to find out
    Unless the next generation of WAers make a move and break the circuit...
  • hairdresser
    edited November 2008
    can't really imagine the x president being anything but a big bwana at "his" conference.
    must be after something if he is courting the aborigines.

    Looked obvious that London bailed before he got necked and parachuted into Vic.
    says how political the job is hey.
    Whats this R in ARM thing like?
  • sod
    sod
    edited November -1
    http://www.dhw.wa.gov.au/pertharena/images.html

    nice companion to the MRC - can you really distinguish the R from the M?
  • sideburn
    edited November -1
    While we're on ARM and Perth:

    http://www.archmedia.com.au/aa/aaissue.php?issueid=200805&article=5&typeon=1

    hmmm?

    Donaldson and Warn had a cracker back in the day i seem to remember...where the city was read like a suburban block with the river foreshore as the front lawn.

    Not too long ago, someone put a cute little knome on it with bells round its neck.

    ...Then some Cox came along and parked a big hummer down there...but the kids still managed to play cricket around it.

    The owners then got rich all of a sudden by digging holes in other peoples back yards and decided to subdivide the block and sell it out to the victorians!
  • simon seasons
    edited November -1
    hmmm? cannon up your main street would fix a lot of your gripes. nice to read you all talking civilly now though. wasted enough of my time here. bye.
  • hairdresser
    edited November 2008
    thanks for link sod.
    not as enthusiastic as info
    but no functional expression - not a stadium really to be seen.
    thats a change from the likes of Cox and Jackson.
    (less boring than K. Hill - good mate of xSGA - he got the cream job in perth?)
    - your probably right sod - no difference - its all one combined limb.


    I saw that foreshore thing sideburn. ARM's melbourne docklands masterplan looked "interesting" 10 years ago in renderings too. the reality is now observable.
    perth (xSGA) decision to commission arm must have meant the west was out to compete with melbourne in the global tertiary economy. made em blind to everything else. Vic "pinching" London shows the vicco premier was on to them.

    got to say - the old perth foreshore had its charms. be sad to see it go for that.
  • info
    edited November -1
    Good link Sideburn
    Can't believe you others aren't taken by the brazen explanation of the use of the 'circle' at the waterfont
    According to R it welds all cultures together - therefore it is an appropriate instrument of design
    Am sure the local Aboriginal people would be relieved to be represented by the circle - in lieu of any other history the site is part of ......
    I think Paternalator is catching on amongst the baby-boomers

    The arena - I didn't look closely enough
    So the previous reference should stand
    Can't see how you could play tennis in it - multiple squash games definately
  • hairdresser
    edited November 2008
    @ info - the circle creates extra perimeter of valuable waterfront land.
    like vic. docklands it is a parade of standard industry building types + traffic engineering + gold coast marinas - and does not equal swan river/aborigines/ordinary people.
    probably even drives up land value in south perth - creates a view of nothing.

    the XSGA probably would not see it/himself that way.
    he'd be paternally influencing development rather than understanding he'd assimilated opportunism. baby boomers are a bit touchy on being THE conservative generation. ha ha ha.

    @ sideburn - looks like all the hole digging and subdividing game is up for a while.
    the viccos/sandgropers might have to get back to doing some architecture.
    ------I need em with $ in their pockets to pay for haircuts.
  • hairdresser
    edited November -1
    @ sideburn.
    this the donaldson warn?
  • sideburn
    edited November -1
    hd - yep, that's it. there's more coverage of it in 'crossing midfield'.

    ...not quite as i remembered but at least there's not a circle in sight!

    i'm recalling the booze infused descriptions from former employees - northbridge as the kitchen lean-to and back yard, wellington st as the bedroom, hay and murray st's as the living room, st georges tce as the front facade and the foreshore as the front yard...

    something about the scale and attempt to link north - south in the scheme that seemed good for its time but the old west ain't what it used to be.

    $4.50 for a coffee!

    dread to think how much a haircut costs.
  • hairdresser
    edited December 2008
    yeah - found it in old rag called backlogue at the bottom of the mag. rack in the salon.

    there is an intense description with it by DW. it accords with the boozy description but is in more
    "respectable" words. its clear they were worked up about it. XSGA should have got them on the job.

    I've been to perth - the railway line was like the river on the other side back then. still like that?
    this was a sound scheme.

    there is a don't come monday scheme for same comp in the rag.
    - its an if in doubt grid it out number - from their post Rossi/Graves pre malevitch/DL phase.
    indicates how these dudes deal with the style shifts that accompany economic cycles.
  • sideburn
    edited November -1
    your memory serves you well hd re: river-like rail line.

    sinking it was back on the agenda about 2005 when the backyard holes started coming up trumps...an attempt at more open plan living!

    not sure where it's at now.
  • hairdresser
    edited December 2008
    @ info.

    looks like the old fireplace leaning vicco JWA got his arse kicked?

    http://www.news.qut.edu.au/cgi-bin/WebObjects/News.woa/wa/goNewsPage?newsEventID=22799

    so when will the viccos get a brisbane architect working in their f'n great design capital?
  • miles
    edited November -1
    @info who's the wilson with jack and jill? i thought o'brien was on the sidelines to jump in with them as design director after markham cut his holiday short.
  • hairdresser
    edited December 2008
    wilsons are old school brissy firm.
    did haul arse buildings in the 60s.
    neat little church (?) in dark brick parked down near the freeway somewhere near the rugby stadium last time i was in brisbane. prob. still there. hard as fcuk late 60s early 70s.

    wilsons are the technical experts and the army to crunch it?

    sounds good - brissy boys band together and fend off the usual vicco train with (wanker?) melb firm as a locomotive. info will be stoked.

    whats the markham story?
  • info
    edited December 2008
    @HD/miles - good news for Brisbane and QUT and DHA + Wilson. Wilson Architects is a family business - now run by the more than capable Hamilton (more here: http://www.wilsonarchitects.com.au ) - not the NMBW fella. Not sure why the M3 boys got in bed with Wardle - massive fcuking mistake that was. Although rumour has it Wardle was insisting on exclusive access from sub-consultants - a massively dumb fcuking mistake in this town. Didn't see any talent in the schemes coming from Architectus (another commercial box) or the eyebleeding Woods Bagot entries.

    @miles - what have you heard? Markham/O'Brien were seen hanging around DHA a couple of weeks ago - but haven;t heard anything else.
  • info
    edited November -1
    @HD - oh yes - very stoked with the result - still sporting the hangover from the celebration a couple of nights ago. THere is enough talent in Brisbane to do this work - definately better than that trying to nudge in from Victoria/NSW. So very glad that QUT was not sucker punched...
  • info
    edited November -1
    Probably unfair that I'm punching Vico's up here - its NSW's turn. Given that NSW's Cox Raynor have been stitching up projects here for well over a decade it is only fair to share the pain. Let's begin with the monstrosity that is the Brisbane Convention Centre and end with the current Tank St pedestrian bridge. Back around 2000 CRA completed the most vulgar looking pedestrian bridge between Southbank and QUT - even the river tried to flush it away. Now, in some in-Joke on Southbank, CRA are now doing a bookend-type-broken-scissor-like-excuse-for-a-bridge at the western end of SOuthbank (masterplanned by our good friends DCM). THe good news is that it isn;t landing in between GOMA and SLQ - which was one of the original intentions - and a nice way to enter into 2009.
  • hairdresser
    edited December 2008
    least u got one great bridge.
    so has sydney.
    + hobart.

    cox style is more contextural to melbs.
    less a matter of architects working in cities they didn't attend kindergarten in and more what city they might be politely pointed to? advisory panel in canberra and work permits?

    JWA ought to be kept behind the dog fence where the work makes a positive contribution.
    more ARM required in sydney - a few beach houses on the pittwater - gumboots against rising sea levels? + sam marshall should definitely be sent to melbourne - the man for accountant's arts axis.
    i'd like to see WM take on brisbane. be good at sunshades - no?
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