Compilation

NZ award entries should go in before August 3rd. Awards Site
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Sustainable Cites has posted the results of a Christchurch workshop: Christchurch regeneration: Resarch and science-based insights (in that pesky word docx format).
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Heritage Victoria wants your opinion on what you think of them! Survey open till 26/8
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11 months old but an interesting read. Campaign Monitor, a Sydney web software company, has abandoned the open plan. Reasons outlined in a 10 foot long post. Flickr photos here.

“If you want to get stuff done, shut the door and you won’t be bothered.”

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There are a host of things to go to at the Victorian State of Design . July 20th to 31st. They also have Design TV, an example of which follows.

Premier’s Design Awards – The Lyon Housemuseum from State of Design on Vimeo.

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Fifth Estate has typed out the full list of last week’s NSW awards winners. 5th Estate

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The State Library of Victoria’s photograph collection is a wonderful thing, but restricted for most of us to gazing at tiny images on their website. You can see many of the orginals at “As modern as tomorrow”, at the SLV until February 2012. Included are snaps by Sievers, Strizic, and Helmut Newtown. SLV
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A tiny but tall apartment tower is to be built on the corner of Little Lonsdale Street and Russell Street in Melbourne’s CBD. Rejected by council for plot ratio and wind reasons, the proposal was approved at VCAT for being bold and effective. Except on a windy day. The Age
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This week’s chat over a cup of tea: Glancey discusses the new Serpentine Gallery with Mr Zumthor, on site and on film. Guardian
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George Monbiot, also at the Guardian, casts an eye at new world planning, and is appalled. “In countries such as Australia, the US, Canada, Spain and Italy, weak planning has ensured that the distinction between town and countryside is blurred. Here you can find the worst of both worlds: a wildly unsustainable, disaggregated urban nightmare, in which infrastructure is stretched across sprawling suburbs, people have no choice but to drive, and anonymous dormitory estates seem perfectly designed to generate alienation and anomie.” Monbiot
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Monbiot seems to have set off a debate at the West Australian today. Max Hipkins, ex City of Perth planning director: “What such “experts” as George Monbiot forget is that Perth is a modern city, developed largely in the era of the motor car….” He then goes on to praise suburban gardens for “keeping down urban heat” and so lowering demand for air-conditioning. That’s a new one. LINK. In another article in the series, Prof. Richard Weller is sounding pessimistic about containing Perth’s growth. “I personally think we’re going to see much more sprawl than you will infill because of the NIMBY factor.. It’s just going to kill it, it’s too hard.” LINK
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Feel like sending some money to an exhibition in Sydney for the Japanese earthquake? From what I can tell, you’ll be supporting the construction of a whole lot of shelters by this bunch: Nouvel, Cox, PTW, FKA, FJMT, TZG, LAVA, Rice Daubney, Sou Fujimoto, Terunobu Fujimori. Emergency Shelter Exhibition
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Lastly, a city in revolt. In Sana’a, Yemen, the streets of the university district have steadily filled with thousands of tents over the last five months, as the political stand off continues. Der Spiegel reckons, “the tent city includes pharmacies and a makeshift hospital, four daily newspapers, auditoriums, a garden and hastily constructed cement memorials for the martyrs.” Der Spiegel

Posted by Peter on 05.07.11 in random debris