If research can have an 'attitude' then this is positive, collaborative and unstuffy. Working with teachers to create and share skills to use space educationally and environmentally. I find Rod Bunn's BCSE http://www.bcse.uk.net/ sustainable schools pamphlet on the desk!
There's sharp debate across the sectors about the expanding use of PPP in Victoria. Good sense spoken by the Rep of the Government Architect at the meeting on the need for a good solid engaging process and care over design.
I can't find an ivory tower in my new Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. The researchers are supported by Clare Newton , Dr Dominique Hes, Dr Sue Wilkes, Prof Kim Dovey and Dr Kenn Fisher alongside partners from industry including- H2O architects, McBride Charles Ryan, Mary Featherston Design and Hayball Leonard Stent. Most are at the meeting and some are old friends from my first visit in early 2006. Partners also include Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (Note the name change) and the Victorian Government Architects Department.
We are staying in Fitzroy with friends from NOW architecture. In June 2008 I visited their projects at Malvern Valley Primary -- sustainable school with large studio spaces with four/five/six classroom spaces off it and Westbourne Grammar hospitality and science blocks. Both projects have a respect for the user that is special. The designer's knowledge for teaching and learning shine through. Whilst we are with them the Westbourne Grammar science block renovation wins a prestigious sustainability award at a swanky do in Sydney. We drink Shiraz together at their home in Melbourne. Their friendship and warmth is the welcome we need as a family as we deal with trying to lease a place to live. We've never had to gather on a pavement with twenty- odd others to inspect places and then be vetted by estate agents.....Weeks later I'm still waiting a call back from someone called Margie Hawker.
Malvern Primary:
Westbourne Grammar
Meet folks from Catholic Diocese of Parramatta http://www.parra.catholic.edu.au/ to catch up on their projects. Talk of need to engage with teachers about the use of space and an approach to culture change that is sensitive but moves people. They quote a 'Heppell' at me -- the story about dentistry having changed, but not schools! That 'old' whisperer Stephen gets everywhere....The present Diocese Executive Director (and his teams) have been pushing boundaries and spaces from Oak Flats School (in Wollongong) that I saw in 2006 to now at Stanhope Gardens ( in Parramatta). Glanville Architects are on that journey too- http://www.cgarch.com.au/
Invited to participate in a 'Crit' of a student project at the Faculty. What's a Crit? Is it like being an Estate Agent ?
In fact, this is the last of fifteen student contributions to the design of spaces. Student, Kate Sutton's is an uplifting example of sensitivity to the aims of the foundation and use of materials. Her space is made entirely of cardboard and takes inspiration from the work of Shigeru Ban, the paper church -- http://www.designboom.com/ , the Artek Pavilion -- http://www.inhabitat.com/ and the Tea House -- http://www.dezeen.com/ . The Cardboard House by Stutchbury and Smith is also an influence. This space can be left 'unfinished' including the cardboard furniture to be finished and customised by the pupils. We all have a bit of a chat about durability and fire resistance. I nearly fall off my special 'crit' chair when Kate quotes paper pioneers, Westcliff on Sea Primary and the Westborough After-School Club.
It's a world of pioneers from Alice Waters Edible Schoolyard in the States to Collingwood College in Melbourne.
Lunch with Professor Kim Dovey. This is a two hour privilege and tour of a broad horizon. Kim's book, ' Framing Places- mediating power in built form ' published by Routledge in 1999, uses an analysis of spatial structure, how meanings are constructed and (lived ) experience to almost decode built environments. His work builds on and develops those that analyse space from our homes to the architecture of the Reich and the changes in the English Country house. It's a useful spatial syntax analysis that some have brought to an analysis of school design.
The shape of space does not happen by accident, nor does its uses or how it makes you feel as a person big or small. Or, as Oscar Wilde once apparently said; 'It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.'
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