Australian Architects Win Awards at the 2009 World Architecture Festival
Three Australian Architects have won prestigious 2009 World Architecture Festival Awards announced in November in
Photograph - Klein Bottle House
Photographer - John Gollings
Sports Category
Award Winner – Allen Jack + Cottier (AJ+C)
Project – Berry Sports Hall
Description - “The centre is located on 60 hectares of lush rolling agricultural land, the majority used for grazing. The centre proper is composed of a collection of early to mid 20th century institutional buildings, within an established landscape of gardens and mature trees.
Primary school children are the predominant users, engaging in various recreational activities. The brief was to design a simple robust multipurpose recreation hall within a tight economic constraint, providing an enclosed area for children during wet weather and evenings.
The site was located on a gentle downward incline of farmland at the edge of the established built area. The building was cut into the hill, reducing its visible scale and grounding it into the landscape. The resulting building has a simple form and scale, similar in appearance to an agricultural farm shed. For longevity and robustness, heavier solid materials were used, relating to the adjacent site buildings of masonry and concrete.
From the centre proper down to the new building, access can be gained by stairs or the accessible path, which gently cuts across the downward incline within an array of native grasses and trees. The path terminates at the building entry where the cutting has been extended to create a lush oval of grass, surrounded by pastoral grasses and a grove of evergreen trees, which are planted to screen the western sun. Roof rainwater is harvested to irrigate the landscaped areas.
Prefabrication was utilised for a cost-effective high quality result, consisting in a combination of precast concrete walls, self-spanning composite roofing and structural steelwork. This enabled an accelerated program, outstanding quality and cost control. Hence, the finished building falls within the client’s original budgetary constraints.
It was decided to transform the heavy off-form concrete by perforating the walls with an array of ‘starlight’ holes, thus giving an otherwise hard-line structure a playful edge and a new found lightness and life. Internally, the holes provide:
• excellent daylight, in conjunction with the heat reducing skylights, reducing the need for artificial lighting,
• abstracted views to the lush countryside,
• shafts of sunlight which change in intensity and colour throughout the day.
In the evening, the light source is reversed. The building itself becomes a glowing array of starlights reminiscent of the country sky above. A restrained pallet of materials and colours has been used to bring focus to the play of light created by the starlights.
The concrete walls have been used to assist ventilation and comfort. In summer the higher section of the northern wall (above the ground) is used to create heat, which in turn produces a thermal chimney effect.
The roof ventilators extract the high-level hot air, drawing cooler low-level air through the louvers. This heat is tempered by the deciduous trees planted along the north façade. In winter the roof vents can be closed to heat the hall. This, combined with effective roof insulation, maintains the building at a comfortable temperature throughout the year.”
Allen Jack + Cottier also won the 2008 Australian Institute of Architects (NSW) Public Architecture Award and the 2008 Blacket Award for Regional Architecture for this project.
New and Old Category
Award Winner – Choi Ropiha in conjunction with Perkins Eastman and PKSB Architects (William Fellows)
Project - TKTS Booth/Redevelopment of Father Duffy Square
Description – “The new TKTS booth and the redevelopment of Father Duffy Square create a new center for Times Square, one of the world’s most popular and iconic destinations. The project began in 1999 with an international design competition (initiated by Theatre Development Fund and sponsored the Van Alen Institute) to re-design the popular TKTS booth at the heart of Times Square. While the competition brief simply requested designs for a small scale architectural structure to replace the existing ticket booth, Australian firm Choi Ropiha reframed the problem as one requiring a broader urban design response to invigorate and provide a center for Times Square, and won the competition.
The Choi Ropiha scheme for the project emerged from two very strong instinctual responses to the problem:
A belief that a conventional building in Times Square would undermine the powerful spatial character of the place;
A recognition that as one of the world's great gathering points and a focus of urban theatre (both literally and metaphorically), Times Square had nowhere for people to sit and enjoy the passing show, no arrival marker, no place for a Kodak moment.
Choi Ropiha’s design solution was a series of red resin steps rising from ground level atop a steel frame to form both a roof for TKTS’s operations and a grandstand where TKTS patrons and visitors alike could pause to take in the 'theatre' of Times Square whilst creating a built form that is 'un-building like.' It was a stroke of genius that expanded the focus of the project and ultimately led to a complete reconsideration of the plaza and examination of how this project could energize the urban environment of Times Square.
In 2001 Theatre Development Fund commissioned a feasibility study. Perkins Eastman was brought on board to evaluate the Choi Ropiha scheme. The firm developed several approaches and from those a final design which was informed and inspired by the original concept but also used a distinctly 21st Century set of approaches: glass would now be employed as the TKTS Booth’s sole structural component for the steps and the TKTS Booth itself would be a free standing within the glass enclosure. Theatre Development Fund then joined with the Times Square Alliance and the Coalition for Father Duffy. Led by the Times Square Alliance and supported by the City of New York, this consortium of private stakeholders undertook a larger project: the creation of a new TKTS booth and a newly designed plaza.
The TKTS building reflects a long collaboration between Perkins Eastman and the world’s leading glass specialists, Dewhurst McFarlane and Partners. Its visual elegance belies tremendous structural complexity: 28-foot, laminated glass stringer beams support red-tinted glass treads between glass load-bearing walls—all stronger than a comparable structure in steel. Cutting-edge technology was integrated throughout the lighting and mechanical systems as well. LED arrays beneath the steps create buoyant luminescence underfoot. Five geothermal wells circulate a water/glycol mix 450 feet below Broadway and back again through heat exchangers that cool the interior in summer, warm it in winter and even keep the staircase ice free.
The construction process also utilized state-of-the-art techniques. The team’s strategy was to prefabricate as much as possible for quick assembly on site. An America’s Cup yacht builder constructed the inner ticket booth’s rigid, fiberglass shell off-site. Within hours of delivery, builders craned it into place, where it now shelters the booth within its glass case beneath the stairs. Likewise, the skid-mounted, pre-fabricated mechanical system took just hours to drop in.
Completing the transformation of Father Duffy Square itself was the work of William Fellows (of William Fellows Architects and now with PKSB Architects). Fellows transformed the public space of the square to allow for increased pedestrian traffic and more prominence for Father Duffy’s commanding statue. The basic intention was to take back the center and reorient the pedestrian to encompass the entirety of Duffy Square. Fellows eliminated superfluous elements, redesigned the pavement in a neutral palate and extended two knee-high walls from the building’s southern base to orient pedestrian traffic from the outer margins to the square’s center and ultimately up the red glass steps where views of the world’s greatest show await.
The success of the project is a testament to the fact that through good design and a commitment to the public realm, a variety of client groups—public, private, and commemorative organizations—can come together to achieve richer outcomes. Through this effort, the function and the identity of the TKTS Booth has been expanded and its position strengthened as a key New York destination for tourists and local theatergoers alike. The project is a triumphant example of how the interests of private stakeholders can dovetail with a bold and engaging project at the heart of the redevelopment of a significant public destination.”
Choi Ropiha also won the 2009 Australian Institute of Architects Jorn Utzon Award for International Architecture with this project.
House Category
Award winner – McBride Charles Ryan
Project - Klein Bottle House
Description – “This holiday home is situated in heavily treed sand dunes directly behind 16th beach at Rye on the Mornington Peninsula, only two hours from Melbourne. There was in this home to be the sense of arriving at a natural and built environment which was unique and in complete contrast to the owner’s city home.
We began with the idea of the spiral, an acknowledgment of the end of the weekend journey to the beach. An Australian icon, McIntyre’s 1950’s Snellman House came to mind. As the project developed we carefully considered where the building should be located, its relationship to the prevailing winds, and possible points of entry, topography and vegetation. Subjected to numerous distortions, the topology of the spiral gave way to the topological classic The Klein Bottle.
We were keen to remain topologically pure, to distort the shape as need dictates but not to appear to sever this form. We were attracted to the idea of the origami version of the Klein bottle, not just because it was able to be approximated in cement sheet (the resonance with the ubiquitous 1950s fibro shack was compelling) but both because of its beauty and the perversity of an origami Klein Bottle. To accommodate ‘rooms’ within the bottle we thought of them like objects inserted (the ship) within the bottle.
The mathematician’s complex topological surfaces like the Klein bottle are appealing to us and many architects. They look like the new architecture of the computer age, and hold the promise of new form and spatial sequence. Radically they merge the floor, wall and ceiling, inside and outside. The fact that there are so few examples is evidence that they are actually almost impossible to achieve in reality. In this project, the Klein bottle was the perfect fit to the constraints of the site. Once adopted, the shape of this building had something of a life of its own, the genie was out and she was difficult to temper. The development was intense, the serious pursuit of joyful nonsense. The result we think is a unique shape and internal space, an unexpected entry sequence and series of new relationships between the traditional components of the home. The process was also a reminder that architecture does not spring naturally from place, and yet it is the beautiful abstract idea, that when carefully selected and developed can suddenly seem as natural as the tee tree that surrounds it.
The building required extensive use of 3d software for both its development and eventual execution. The building is largely steel framed, the complexity of which required our office to develop representations for use in the shop drawing and production process. The building is a lightweight structure largely clad in cement and metal sheet, incombustible and lightweight these materials meet stringent fire overlays. The building harvests water, is double glazed and the large cavities between the external and internal cladding allow packing with bulk insulation. The central courtyard adds cooling and cross ventilation, Windows are hardwood, Flooring bamboo and artificial lighting selected for its efficiency.”
McBride Charles Ryan also won the 2008 Australian Institute of Architects Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture with this project.