Architecture Bulletin: Technology: AI and Architecture

ARCHITECTURE BULLETIN

VOL. 81 / NO. 2 / FEBRUARY 2025

TECHNOLOGY: AI and Architecture

2025 NSW REGIONAL AND NEWCASTLE ARCHITECTURE AWARDS

Architecture Bulletin

VOL 81, NO. 2 2025

Official journal of the NSW Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects since 1944.

The Australian Institute of Architects acknowledges First Nations peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, and skies of the continent now called Australia. We express our gratitude to their Elders and Knowledge Holders whose wisdom, actions and knowledge have kept culture alive. We recognise First Nations peoples as the first architects and builders. We appreciate their continuing work on Country from pre-invasion times to contemporary First Nations architects, and respect their rights to continue to care for Country.

30 An interface for God

Words: Gwyllim Jahn

04 Acknowledgements

08 Elizabeth Carpenter

09 Matida Gollan David Welsh

12 Communicating performance

Words: Adrian Taylor

15 AI and architecture

Words: Alanna Manfredini

17 Computational design and adaptive reuse

Words: Andrew Walter

20 The confluence of Countrycentric design and technology

Words: Craig Kerslake

24 Instant culture

Words: EJ Taylor

27 Museum of Touch: Making museums accessible through technology

Words: Dagmar Reinhardt

34 Computing, craft, climate and Country

Words: Dave Pigram, Iain (Max) Maxwell, Jo Paterson Kinniburgh and Shannon Foster

38 AI in architectural practice

Words: Jeames Hanley

40 The failure of the computational design machine

Words: Matthew Austin

42 Quantifying the quality of Sydney’s urban domain

Words: Mohammed Makki, Jordan Mathers and Linda Matthews

44 Computational design: Next generations and frontiers

Words: Nicole Gardner

46 Past technology can comfort us today

Words: Peeraya Suphasidh

50 Collaborative research partnerships

Words: Ninotschka Titchkosky and Tim Schork

54 Introduction from the NSW Architects Registration Board

Words: Kirsten Orr

56 University of New South Wales

Words: Melonie Bayl-Smith

58 University of Newcastle Words: Nicholas Foulcher

60 University of Sydney Words: Deborah Ascher Barnstone

62 University of Technology Sydney Words: Leena Thomas

64 Western Sydney University

Words: Michael Chapman

2025 ARCHITECTURE AWARDS

68 2025 NSW REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE AWARDS Awards and commendations

80 2025 NEWCASTLE ARCHITECTURE AWARDS Awards and commendations

MANAGING EDITOR

Emma Adams

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE

Matilda Gollan (Co-chair)

David Welsh (Co-chair)

Ben Berwick

Cate Cowlishaw

Jason Goh

Caine King

Kieran McInerney

David McRae

Mark Raggatt

Kawai Yeung

Jessica Van-Young

COMMUNICATIONS AND AWARDS

COORDINATOR

Bella Walker

CREATIVE DIRECTION

Annie Luo

DESIGNER

Andrew Miller

PUBLISHER

Australian Institute of Architects NSW Chapter 3 Manning Street Potts Point, Sydney NSW 2011

COVER IMAGE

New Castle by Anthony St John Parsons. Awabakal Country Photo by Benjamin Hosking

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ISSN 0729 08714 Architecture Bulletin is the official journal of the Australian Institute of Architects, NSW Chapter (ACN 000 023 012).

© Copyright 2023. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, unless for research or review. Copyright of text/images belong to their authors.

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions expressed in articles and letters published in Architecture Bulletin are the personal views and opinions of the authors of these writings and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Institute and its staff. Material contained in this publication is general comment and is not intended as advice on any particular matter. No reader should act or fail to act on the basis of any material herein. Readers should consult professional advisers. The Australian Institute of Architects NSW Chapter, its staff, editors, editorial committee and authors expressly disclaim all liability to any persons in respect of acts or omissions by any such person in reliance on any of the contents of this publication.

WARRANTY

Persons and/or organisations and their servants and agents or assigns upon lodging with the publisher for publication or authorising or approving the publication of any advertising material indemnify the publisher, the editor, its servants and agents against all liability for, and costs of, any claims or proceedings whatsoever arising from such publication. Persons and/or organisations and their servants and agents and assigns warrant that the advertising material lodged, authorised or approved for publication complies with all relevant laws and regulations and that its publication will not give rise to any rights or liabilities against the publisher, the editor, or its servants and agents under common and/ or statute law and without limiting the generality of the foregoing further warrant that nothing in the material is misleading or deceptive or otherwise in breach of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

Matilda Gollan RAIA is is is the editorial cochair, an architect ,and associate at Tzannes.

Ben Berwick RAIA is the director and founder of Prevalent.

David Welsh RAIA is the editorial co-chair, an architect, and director and co-founder of Welsh + Major.

Cate Cowlishaw FRAIA is regional managing principal of HDR’s Australian architecture practice.

Emma Adams is an editor and the editorial and publishing lead at the Australian Institute of Architects.

Jason Goh RAIA is an associate architect at Tzannes.

Annie Luo is a multidisciplinary designer, with a focus on visual identity, digital design and print media.

Caine King RAIA is founding director and principal architect of CKDS Architecture

Andrew Miller is the principle at Miller Design with over 40 years in the design industry.

Paulo Macchia FRAIA is a director in the Government Architect NSW executive team

Bella Walker is the NSW communication and awards coordinator.

Kieran McInerney RAIA is an architect and practice director based in Sydney.

Jordan Mathers RAIA is an associate, urban design at SJB.

Linda Matthews is the co-director of the UTS Visualisation Institute.

Jessica Van-Young RAIA Grad works at a medium-sized commercial practice.

Kawai Yeung FRAIA is a co-founder and director of Kaunitz Yeung Architecture.

Mark Raggatt FRAIA is a Sydney-based director of ARM Architecture.

David McRae RAIA is co-founder and principal of M+M Architects.

Adrian Taylor provides data-driven solutions as the regenerative practice coordinator at BVN.

Gwyllim Jahn is a lecturer at RMIT University and the cofounder of Fologram.

Mathew Austin is a senior consultant in computational design at Aurecon.

Melonie Bayl-Smith LFRAIA is an associate professor in the School of Built Environment at UNSW.

Alanna Manfredini is an associate mechanical engineer at Tesla.

Dave Pigram is co-director of the architecture and innovation practice supermanoeuvre.

Mohammed Makki is an architect, urban designer and course director.

Nicholas Foulcher is a lecturer and head of discipline at the University of Newcastle School of Architecture and Built Environment.

Andrew Walter is iInterim director at Melbourne School of Government.

Iain Maxwell is co-director of the architecture and innovation practice supermanoeuvre.

Nicole Gardner is an architect and director of the computational design program at UNSW.

Deborah Ascher

i s a professor and head of architecture at the University of Sydney.

Craig Kerslake

is a Wiradjuri architect and managing director at Nguluway DesignInc.

EJ Taylor RAIA Grad works at Neeson Murcutt Neille as an architectural assistant.

and

Suphasidh is a licensed member of the Architect Council of Thailand.

is a professor and interim head of school, architecture at the University of Technology Sydney.

Ninotschka

is an architect and innovator and has worked across most sectors and project typologies

Chapman FRAIA is professor and chair of architecture and design at Western Sydney University.

Barnstone

RAIA

Peeraya

Jo Paterson Kinniburgh RAIA is director and cofounder of Bangawarra.

Leena Thomas RAIA

Titchkosky FRAIA

Shannon Foster RAIA is director

cofounder of Bangawarra..

Michael

Dagmar Reinhardt is an architect and associate professor at the University of Sydney.

Tim Schork a professor at QUT exploring the role of collaborative research partnerships.

Jeames Hanley Is the digital technology lead at Buchan.

Kirsten Orr is the registrar and CEO of the NSW Architects Registration Board.

Pictured: Prof. Dana Cuff at 2024 Australian Architecture Conference

Hamer Hall, Melbourne

Photographer: Peter Bennetts

This is my first edition of the Bulletin as President of the NSW Chapter. I am excited and honoured to represent NSW members and look forward to continuing to advocate for better outcomes for the profession and the built environment in New South Wales.

These past six months have been both challenging and reinvigorating – the opening up of very real questions regarding the (de)valuing of our profession, the delight of meeting the amazing pillars of our Institute – our Fellows, Life Fellows and prize winners and appreciating the diversity of our profession through the Newcastle and regional awards and the continued commitment of all of our volunteer experts.

This edition focuses on the influence of technology on our profession, including the new world of artificial intelligence (AI). Naturally, I must begin with the inevitable disclaimer:

I ran this text through AI to check for spelling, grammar, accuracy, and inclusive language. Why not? These tools are available to everyone and using them at a simplistic level is no different from consulting a thesaurus.

We are living in an era of rapid technological advancement. To me, technology represents opportunities for continuous improvement. I feel fortunate to belong to a generation that bridges both the analogue and digital worlds and to have been witness to the benefits that technology can provide. Today, AI stands out as one of the most transformative tools of our time, with a profound role in shaping the future of architecture.

At the heart of this Bulletin lies a fundamental question: How can we harness the power of technology to enhance architectural practice while safeguarding the core values of our profession? As architects, we are attuned to the transformative potential of technological progress, yet we also recognise the importance of responsible stewardship in the face of rapid change.

Significant opportunities are already reshaping how we think and work. For example, digital twins have become invaluable in

understanding the impacts of climate change on communities. AI-powered data analytics enables real-time insights into the effects of climate and the broader environment on urban areas. Mapping allows us to understand the layers of human impact on our world.

As technology simplifies routine tasks and enhances workflows, architects can ideally dedicate more time to designing solutions for the pressing challenges we face today.

Like all new technologies, we must carefully consider the impact on our profession. However, this is not a new concept for us. For instance, I recall a memorable practice note published by the Institute, written around 1986, extolling the benefits of the fax machine and offering guidance on its use – a groundbreaking tool at the time!

To unlock the potential of emerging and existing technologies, we must think beyond optimising traditional processes or advancing building information modelling (BIM). True transformation lies in reimagining the design process itself.

As a profession, it is essential that we ensure technology-driven decision making aligns with ethical principles and prioritises societal wellbeing. Fortunately, these values are already embedded in our work. The Architects Act in New South Wales emphasises our role in fostering a deeper understanding of architectural issues within the community in a professional and ethical manner. Our connection to humanity will always remain central to our practice. This fundamental relationship with the human condition is timeless and irreplaceable.

A project from the recent NSW regional Architecture awards exemplifies this connection. The Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre in Shellharbour, designed by Edmiston Jones, received the NSW Regional Medallion. This modest yet innovative model of care was codesigned with individuals who have experienced domestic, family, and sexual violence. It responds directly to what survivors say is needed to treat their trauma while minimising further harm from the systems meant to support them. Above all, it is a compassionate response manifested in built form.

Architects have always been recognised as innovators and champions of change and the influence of technology, is part of our continuous narrative. ■

Elizabeth Carpenter NSW Chapter President

Architecture and technology are inextricably linked. From its earliest inklings to unfathomable computational complexity, architecture and architects have always embraced technology as a means, an end, and a future for architecture. This edition investigates how technologies in general – not just AI – are shaping architecture.

Examples of how we harness these technologies to undertake critical environmental analyses, or predicting a building’s real-world performance, or utilise machine learning to simulate and predict design scenarios is discussed and explored. Looking at how AI might influence architecture from a non-architect point of view, whether it be generative AI or evolutionary algorithms is explored by Alanna Manfredini, an associate mechanical engineer at Tesla.

Craig Kerslake discusses how utilising technology to embrace and enhance countrycentric design principles might lead to better Connection to Country outcomes, while Dagmar Reinhardt looks at how advancements in digital and tactile technologies might improving access to information more broadly.

EJ Taylor discusses the shifting perceptions of history through a reliance on a “decentralised, digital hoard” and its impact on Aboriginal lore and truth-telling, while Gwyllim Jahn’s article discusses the influence of generative AI on architects more broadly. While these tools become increasingly autonomous, Jahn insists they will still require human creativity on the part of architects and designers to discover and define how this agency shapes the future of practice… at least for now!

How computational technologies can generate productive synergies between designing for climate and Designing for Country is explored by Dave Pigram, Iain Maxwell, Jo Paterson Kinniburgh and Dr Shannon Foster. Some architects have already advanced well down the path of utilising AI and computational design in their practice, as Buchan’s digital strategist Jeames Hanley and Aurecon’s Matthew Austin discuss.

How the algorithm might assist in quantifying quality is a topic that many architects ponder and perhaps even struggle with. Mohammed Makki, Jordan Mathers and Linda Matthews discuss their collaborative research project (between UTS and SJB) which investigated how analysing existing public spaces through the utilisation of a web-based image survey unlocked user perceptions, which may in turn influence the future design direction of our urban realm.

While AI dominates much of the current discussion surrounding technology’s influence on multiple professions, our profession has utilised computational design for decades. Nicole Gardner, director of the computational design program at the UNSW School of Built Environment looks at how our profession might advance our integration of computational design thinking to tackle critical issues such as climate crises, material resource depletion, waste accumulation, carbon production, and our housing and labour shortage.

Non-digital technologies are also part of our architectural arsenal. Peeraya Suphasidh discusses thousand-year-old Thai building technologies that are still being utilised today, positing how “natural origin” technologies might be allowed to permeate and improve the quality of our built environment. To round out the topic, Ninotschka Titchkosky and Professor Tim Schork explore the role of collaborative research partnerships in transforming our industry.

The end of the year also sees graduates emerge from the five schools of architecture based in NSW. The NSW Architects Registration Board is a long-time sponsor of the annual university exhibitions; registrar and CEO Kirsten Orr gives an overview of the NSW ARB’s role, including the awarding of the Architects Medallion to a top graduate of an accredited Master of Architecture course in NSW, accompanied by an overview from each of the five universities.

And finally, this issue celebrates the winners of the 2025 NSW Regional and Newcastle Architecture Awards. A record number of entries saw a wide array of exceptional projects, set across various typologies and scales, showing the breadth of architecture being delivered outside of the metropolitan area. ■

Matilda Gollan RAIA Editorial Committee Co-chair

David Welsh RAIA Editorial Committee Co-chair

David Chatfield

01. TECHNOLOGY

AI AND ARCHITECTURE

COMMUNICATING PERFORMANCE

Words by Adrian Taylor

We are currently experiencing a precarious climate, both in the environmental sense, and economically. The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is risk averse, each in keeping within their respective scopes and expertise. Building codes and local regulations are seen as rules to follow. Deem to satisfy is the path of least resistance; performance-based solutions yield the greatest design flexibility yet are typically avoided.

It is in this climate, architects with a history of hand-calculation and forays into digital experimentation during the 1990s and 2000s have shifted towards a conservative, design delivery first, model. This is not to say we don’t use analytical tools, but they tend to be in the direct service of specific targets.

Architecture as a discipline has had a complicated relationship in both education and practice with analysis and simulation. Prior to modern computers, hand calculations for structural sizing or solar access were commonplace, and part of an architect’s common knowledge and everyday practice. Depending on design sensibilities, such calculations could form the basis of a design determining the structural grid, or a solar envelope.

The introduction of digitally enabled tools has presented a significant increase in the granularity of simulations and calculations. This provides results without complete

understanding of the underlying calculations. Is the suite of digital tools available considered common to architectural practice? Certainly, while the rigour of the building industry may have improved, the growth in complexity has led to tools becoming a specialist knowledge.

RISKS AND RESPONSIBILITY

The modernisation and relentless pursuit of specialisation throughout the AEC has shifted priorities for the individual architect or designer to a narrower, design, and delivery focused scope. Though analysis skills have not atrophied from the discipline, the responsibility has shifted away from the conventional architect. I’ve heard firsthand of professionals hesitating to employ or respond to analyses performed in house due to concerns of liability. Points 4.4 and 4.5 of the NSW Architects Code of Professional Conduct stipulate an architect must operate within their knowledge and advise

clients where specialist knowledge is required. Where assessments of the performance of a proposal lay in this arrangement is unclear. The Architects Accreditation Council of Australia determine an architect’s core competencies. They include a range of environmental callouts ranging from site analysis to lifecycle carbon. For instance, PC 28:“Be able to draw on knowledge from building sciences and technology, environmental sciences and behavioural and social sciences as part of preliminary design research and when developing the conceptual design to optimise the performance of the project.”1

In Australian architectural practice, builds are analysed primarily by experts external to the practice. Consultants assess design and provide an interpreted result, usually in the context of alignment with building codes, local regulations, or stakeholder expectations. Checking the ACCA PC’s explanatory notes gives room for pause: “Buildings contribute to environmental impacts (energy use, carbon emissions, waste, water consumption, etc) across their entire life cycle…This (PC) would also be demonstrated through exploring specialist consultant environmental modelling examples to identify relevant environmental sustainability project criteria”.

I am not suggesting the profession should either relinquish or take on the mantel of assessing performance of every kind. Instead, we should consider what can be performed ourselves so that analysis is accessible during the entire design process. Even if we turn to experts for confirmation of our suspicions.

ANALYSIS AS EVIDENCE

The requirements for building performance from federal regulation and local governments must be evidenced through analysis. Tests for a building’s suitability have turned into shorthand tests, typically, strict and binary in outcome. In NSW, the most common types of solar analysis aim to represent single points in time, typically during the winter solstice. These are sun-eye views (views from the sun), shadow analysis, and for the brave, sun hours analysis. Sun hours presents perhaps the most direct user feedback of: ‘can I see it? Yes/no.’ It, being the object, space, or architectural element which if visible, is receiving direct sunlight. Though easy to perform, duration of sun exposure, area of coverage and light intensity are not easily derived from this method.

For the case of the Apartment Design Guide (ADG), a standard specific to residential design in NSW, they provide specific targets for time and total area covered for solar access. There is some poetic licence on how to calculate, meaning peer review testing can arrive at surprising results. Common between each is a focus on a very narrow portion of the year. A virtual worst case, but cares little for the qualities of architecture in a broader sense, in terms of amenity across the year and quality of light. If this test alone is sufficient, what opportunities are we missing?

ALL COLOURS ARE FALSE COLOURS

The architectural rendering in its current meaning, a photo-realistic image that is fundamentally computer generated, is often mistaken as a truthful representation of the building once complete.2 Renderings are employed as communication tools for design intent but are also used to help assess the qualities of light. Though some contemporary visualisation tools boast real-time rendering, they cut corners in fully simulating the true performance of light. Which corners are cut is a glaring issue as we must be able to compare results. To compare, we need a standard, in the case of lighting, that is the Radiance Engine. The Radiance engine was first published in 1985 by Greg Ward, later becoming free and open source.

Despite not receiving any significant update since 2016, has become an industry standard for architectural lighting analysis.3 Several contemporary analysis tools employ the Radiance Engine such as Pollination Cloud or Climate Studio, and thus either can be used for achieving third party certification such as a Green Star credit. They also, more importantly, provide a way to compare design options.

The results from the engine can be used to determine lighting quality, and represented through a range of mediums, the first as mentioned before is the pseudophoto-realistic, and its partner, false colour. In this mode of communication, we trade out tones of timber and concrete to simulate their real-world counterparts for a rainbow that indicates absolute lighting levels.

Neither is any more true or correct than the other. They provide another view into the same information. Where contemporary rendering provides a look and feel, false

/ COMMUNICATING PERFORMANCE

Words by Adrian Taylor

→ Adrian Taylor provides data-driven environmental solutions as the regenerative practice coordinator at BVN. For over ten years in practice and academia, Adrian has developed and applied digitally enabled design processes to open new approaches to old problems. His research and development in generative design, robotic fabrication, interactive media, and environmental analysis allow him to unlock regenerative opportunities for real-world architectural projects.

colour speaks more objectively about the results. The data being prioritised is the lighting level, beyond what’s possible with the naked eye. The methodology for creating the base information is what’s agreed upon fundamentally, how we represent it for use in the design process is up for exploration. Looking back to the examples with NSW’s ADG, or at national scale Green Star, these promote a specific application of tools that prioritise compliance rather than curiosity. How we may prompt investigation or experimentation within the use of digital tools.

CURIOSITY OVER COMPLIANCE

Of the many one-stop-shop environmental analysis suites available, Ecotect may sound familiar. Though by no means simple, it provides a comprehensive range of tools. Though Ecotect has been discontinued, it lives on via its author, Dr Andrew Marsh, who has since rebuilt many of the features. Some tools were developed simply to help communicate how analysis was being performed. Marsh reflected: “I often find myself trying to explain the concept of shading masks – typically over the phone which is never easy. Thus, I thought I’d try both demonstrating and illustrating the basic ideas in an interactive web app.”4

The use of tools designed for end-user comprehension aim to illustrate the causal relationship between inputs and results. This is not to suggest all tools must fully expose their inner workings. However, inviting the operator to lift the lid of a black box fosters technical literacy and confidence in the results. If applied to the design of public space, we may favour certain times of day for distribution of ground floor amenity. Does the cafe get sun during bottomless brunch?

What about the playground after school? If not, move them, or change our massing. My personal endeavours have been to help close the gaps between technology and designers. Efforts to make outcomes simple and approachable can yield less understanding and trust. Instead, bringing tool users along for the journey so they can interpret results, interrogate their design proposals, and confidently negotiate their decisions with stakeholders. We must try and keep pace with the ever-marching progress of tools and building technologies. Our capacity to inform and back design decisions is directly affected by literacy in tools that enable performance solutions. Leading to climate responsive, fit for purpose, and of course beautiful architectural outcomes. ■

Notes

1 Architects Accreditation Council of Australia (2021) National standard of competency for architects: Performance criteria. https://aaca.org.au/nationalstandard-of-competency-for-architects/performancecriteria/

2 W J Mitchell (1994) The reconfigured eye: Visual truth in the post-photographic era. MIT Press.

3 GG Roy (2000) A comparative study of lighting simulation packages suitable for use in architectural design. Murdoch University.

4 A Marsh (2011) Real-time site analysis, https:// andrewmarsh.com/blog/2011/05/03/real-time-siteanalysis/ Accessed October 28, 2024.

AI AND ARCHITECTURE

Words by Alanna Manfredini

The last two years have been filled with articles about AI and the way it is going to change everything we’ve ever known about working life. In many of these articles there are paragraphs about how it is going to take millions of jobs, but few explain what AI can and can’t do or specifically how it will change specific fields. For architects, AI should be considered an incredible tool. Today machines are still far from being advanced enough to eradicate the need for skilled professions, but they can be used to greatly improve productivity and allow architects to spend their time doing the more creative and interesting things.

AI, or artificial intelligence, is not actually intelligence and, despite what science fiction tells us, doesn’t involve computers thinking or aspiring to take over the world. Instead, there are two main types of AI relevant to most occupations.

The first is generative AI. AI models are fed billions of pieces of data and use probability to guess what the most likely output is when given an input. This means if the model is fed the phrases “I have learned”, “I have sat” and “I will draw”, it infers that there is a higher likelihood of the word “have” following “I” than the word “will”, and, based off the inputs, there is no chance of the word “dog” following “I”. ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) do this on a massive scale based off

the billions of examples of writing the model has been trained on. Similarly, when using generative AI on an image, the model infers that when given a set of pixels that look like a single headlight, it knows there is a high likelihood of a second headlight being next to it, and, if there are two headlights, the object is most likely a car. It’s essentially a form of pattern matching.

The second type of AI relevant to architecture is called an evolutionary algorithm. With this, the model is given some parameters, for example the strength of a building material and that the design cannot weigh more than 250kg. AI can then make a preliminary design, check how it performs against those parameters, and then iteratively create new designs until all the parameters are met.

/ AI AND ARCHITECTURE

Words by Alanna Manfredini

→ Alanna Manfredini is an associate mechanical engineer at Tesla.

As the name suggests, this is effectively a super-fast natural selection in a simulation.

Architecture is an excellent example of a field which can use AI as a tool to greatly improve the results while still retaining the human touch necessary in every creative field.

There have already been many exceptional AI assistants that have been created for many jobs and I see architecture as being another area which can be greatly improved by adding an AI assistant. An intelligent assistant will be able to mimic the workflow of each individual architect or practice to reproduce the repetitive, grunt work that needs to be done on every project. This could potentially be creating draft responses, including professional advice, coordinating each phase of construction, and architects’ responsibilities to clients. Having an assistant that doesn’t make mistakes allows architects to focus on the important aspects of the design process. Naturally this gives architects more time to either focus on details or finish the work faster. Being able to produce new, well-designed buildings in a short period of time could be a step to solving the current housing crisis.

While AI assistants are rapidly improving, and can already handle emails and simple tasks, one which can mimic drafting and more complex tasks are still in our future. However, AI is already being used to assist with creativity in projects such as those seen on the website Parametric Architecture. Architects can put prompts such as “design a beach house in the style of Dali” into generative AI. The algorithm then creates renderings of unique architecture. That being said, since AI is completely reliant on the data it is given, using the algorithm in this way cannot truly produce innovative designs. If society started relying more and more on the ideas created by these algorithms, architecture would start to look the same, rehashing old architectural ideas, raising questions of copyright in design.

One way AI could be used to improve architecture is using evolutionary algorithms to create optimal designs for structures. Famously, about a decade ago, Boeing used evolutionary algorithms to design the structure for the inside of their plane walls with the instructions to optimise for strength and weight. The AI produced a unique design which was reminiscent of the structure inside bones; a feat which shows that the algorithm was able to optimise in much the same way nature has over millions of years. In architecture, these algorithms could be used to maximise airflow or heat dissipation between rooms.

On the other hand, since there are so many parameters that go into an AI, it is impossible to really understand the decisions the model is making and why. While incredibly efficient, if there are any mistakes in the input or the parameters, it is very difficult to check whether the design is actually safe. Without humans supervising each step of the design, the algorithm can’t be relied upon to ensure the building meets regulatory codes and standards. AI is having an incredible impact on all jobs and architecture will certainly not be left out. There are many positives to standardising and removing the repetitive work between projects and improving the speed with which designs are created. It can also be used as inspiration for generating unique forms to optimise for certain parameters. It is vitally important, however, that architects maintain human creativity in every design and not allow AI to dictate the next generation of buildings, and, more importantly, as AI is still young, make sure it is not making any unsupervised decisions for important structural issues or anything that could have catastrophic outcomes. ■

Words by Andrew Walter

COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN AND ADAPTIVE REUSE

Often, the decision to demolish and start anew, or to retain and repair, is made based on intuition or observation rather than thorough analysis. As architects, our judgement can be swayed by the allure of creating a new vision for the future.

However, as we face an increasingly uncertain environmental future and the rising costs of construction, it is imperative to examine more closely what we already have and prioritise reuse and repair over replacement. Viewing existing buildings through a data-driven lens and utilising advanced tools to inform our decisions enables a more objective approach, moving beyond reliance on subjective assessments.

Computational design, taken to the next level, involves the use of algorithms and parametric modelling to generate insights or designs based on predefined parameters. While computational design has become a standard tool in most architectural practices, automating aspects of the design process or facilitating rapid exploration of options, its use for datadriven decision making is still less common. Applying these tools to evaluate existing buildings before a project begins enables architects to determine the best way forward –socially, financially, and environmentally –rather than delivering solutions that merely respond to current brief.

The potential for computational analysis is vast and can significantly benefit architects

willing to invest time in machine learning systems or software. But a key question remains: Will architects do the work to analyse existing buildings using machine learning or will this be another domain where consultants take the lead?

EFFICIENT ANALYSIS OF EXISTING BUILDINGS

Understanding the opportunities and constraints of an existing building traditionally involves manual methods like site visits. Incorporating machine learning into the process can enable architects to quickly analyse vast amounts of data about existing buildings. This level of data-driven analysis offers insights far beyond those provided by visual inspection alone. For example, developed and trained machine learning algorithms can analyse the materials used in a building and suggest which can be retained or repurposed. Unsupervised learning algorithms, such as clustering techniques, can classify materials based on their age, strength, or environmental impact. Tools like TensorFlow allow multiple levels of abstraction, enabling architects to choose the level of complexity that best suits their needs.

/ COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN AND ADAPTIVE REUSE

Words by Andrew Walter

All existing buildings differ in their material make up, methods of construction and how well they have been maintained. Machine learning algorithms can help in speeding up analysis of the suitability of a building for being repurposed. On a recent project we used machine learning to analyse and validate assumptions for the existing materials in an un renovated warehouse that was to be converted to a commercial office space. In this two-storey building the timber flooring was largely intact and the supporting steel work had been standing for over a hundred years. The ideal outcome was to retain this existing character; however, after detailed analysis using machine learning that considered the material age, visible condition of the materials, local past and future weather conditions, existing building use profiles alongside associated cost factors, a clear understanding of the material qualities was determined. It was clear the existing materials were at the end of their lifespan and the algorithm confirmed they did not meet current building regulations despite their beauty.

The analysis of the existing materials early in the design process allowed the project team to inform the client and adjust our architectural design response, influencing how this building would be repurposed. In this instance, speed and depth of analysis from machine learning saved the project time and provided a clear indication of both the potential and true cost of the adaptive reuse of this heritage building.

ADAPTIVE PARAMETRIC MODELING

In adaptive reuse projects, parametric design tools like Grasshopper (for Rhino) or Dynamo (for Revit) allow architects to generate multiple design variations based on specific constraints, such as structural limitations, building codes, or planning regulations. For instance, in the adaptive reuse of an industrial building, a parametric model could adjust the layout to maximise natural light while maintaining the structural integrity of the building.

Machine learning can further optimise these design variations by analysing factors like thermal performance, energy savings, and

Adaptive re-use of an existing building using machine learning algorithms

occupant comfort. This real-time feedback on performance metrics, such as energy consumption, structural stability, and material costs, allows architects to refine designs for both aesthetic and functional purposes. For example, when reconfiguring a heritage building into contemporary office space, a machine learning powered computational design tool could dynamically adjust the floor plan to meet evolving requirements for space efficiency, safety standards, and environmental goals – all while preserving the original character of the structure.

Predictive analysis for future adaptability

Adaptive reuse projects must consider potential future changes in building use or occupancy. Machine learning, particularly predictive analytics algorithms, can help architects design buildings that are flexible and resilient enough to adapt over time – an essential step as we increasingly prioritise long-term resilience and sustainability in construction.

Forecasting building performance through machine learning models, such as time-series analysis (using algorithms like recurrent neural networks), can predict future building behaviour based on past data. This can help architects optimise building design for long-term use. Autodesk Insight, in combination with TensorFlow, forecast longterm energy use and thermal performance trends based on data generated by Insight. Other tools like IES Virtual Environment are also available options for performing these tasks.

BUILDING A DATA-DRIVEN FUTURE

To effectively assess adaptive reuse projects, architects must have a deep understanding of the existing conditions and potential of a building. Machine learning tools allow us to communicate project constraints and goals with greater confidence and precision, ultimately leading to improved sustainability outcomes. To fully realise the potential of existing buildings and design for a sustainable future, these new tools must become a standard part of the architectural toolkit and not be outsourced.

It is crucial that we improve our literacy in the variables that influence our projects. Helping our clients understand these parameters so that we can collaboratively innovate for a more sustainable future by leaning into the building environments we already have. ■

Notes

Hilary Egan, Clement Fouquet and Chioke Harris (2023), Machine Learning for Advanced Building Construction, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), https:// research-hub.nrel.gov/en/publications/machine-learning-foradvanced-building-construction

Kari Alanne and Seppo Sierla (2022), An overview of machine learning applications for smart buildings, Sustainable Cities and Society, Vol 76, https://research.aalto.fi/en/publications/ an-overview-of-machine-learning-applications-for-smartbuildings

Luke Mckenzie (2021), Using machine learning to ‘green’ our buildings, https://www.aurecongroup.com/insights/machinelearning-sustainable-building-design

Alireza Fathi and Rui Huang (2021), 3D Scene Understanding with TensorFlow 3D, https://research.google/blog/3d-sceneunderstanding-with-tensorflow-3d/

→ Andrew Walter is iInterim director, Melbourne School of Government and professor of International Relations at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.

COUNTRY-CENTRIC DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

Words by Craig Kerslake

Australia’s First Peoples live a relational cultural framework binding us to the natural world and each other. Lived experience is not an abstract philosophy, shaping communities and world views. Deep, enduring connection to Country – nature and humanity existing in mutual reciprocity – requires individuals to be responsible for the wellbeing of Grandmother Earth and others in our roles as Custodians. Australia continues its truth-telling journey and reconciliation, Indigenous understanding’s potential to reshape broader non-Indigenous Australian stories, creating more inclusive futures, vernacular in character and ecologically self-perpetuating.

AN AGILE CHANGING LANDSCAPE

Indigenous Australians display agility in adapting to shifting environmental landscapes, enduring ice ages, navigating rising and falling sea levels, fires, floods, and our old people continuously adjust their ways of living, resilience stemming from an all-encompassing relationship with the natural world, a relationship deep and intertwined feeling as if nature itself has sung us into belonging.

Belonging is not land ownership in the Western sense, but an existential and philosophical worldview positioning human beings within nature, not above it. To belong to Country recognises human life as one thread in a vast ecological matrix, where individuals are responsible for the wellbeing of others, human and non-human, where ideas of

Topographical map curtesy of QGIS mapping systems showing the Snowy Mountain River songline from Tarangal – Mount Kosciuszko to Turemulerrer – Twofold Bay

personal assets or property are incongruent with complex systems placing the collective and natural world at existence’s centre.

REIMAGINING DESIGN THROUGH

A COUNTRY-CENTRIC LENS

Incorporating this worldview into contemporary design, particularly architecture, a significant thinking shift is required. Rather than liberating individuals, often the case in Western design thinking, architects and designers must prioritise a Country-centric understanding of place, abandoning notions of buildings and structures as isolated entities, seeing them as integral parts of an interconnected social ecology.

Traditionally, Elders spent years with young people, teaching them to read landscape, interpret lores, and understand their responsibilities within this system. Ways of learning not confined to specific time or place but embedded in every aspect of traditional life. In modern contexts, where knowledge has been fragmented or lost to colonisation, many Indigenous communities are working to piece together old ways.

THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN COUNTRY-CENTRIC DESIGN

Technology plays an important role in helping architects and designers work from Countrycentric perspectives. In the absence of walking Country, we can reimagine this songline journey through sophisticated mapping systems like GIS. Replicating the songline journey can be achieved by replicating a digital twin of the topography. Undulations of the landscape comes to life with vectorised models. These programs allow us to switch off roads and infrastructure and see through into the natural landscape casting alternate priorities to view the landscape through. One particular mapping QGIS allows us to visualise the mountains, valleys, creeks, rivers and lakes. Through this, we are able to recreate the essence of the water journey and migratory patterns.

Sitting with Uncle on the NSW South Coast, he spoke of the songline from Eden up into the Snowy Mountains and how his people would regularly walk this Country. An air of mystery filled the room. How did they know where they were going? What did they eat and why did they take on such a daunting journey.

Left National songline story, kinship and language groups diagram by Craig Kerslake, Wiradjuri architect 2023

/

COUNTRY-CENTRIC DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

Words by Craig Kerslake

Looking through geo-referenced Aboriginal site archives, we overlayed this with typography and could quickly visualise the ridgelines that provided walking tracks, valleys where old people found game, water and tools. Technology allowed us to join dots along numerous ridgelines traversing the terrain, that may have been markers, carved scar trees and directional navigation markers.

Topography aside, we can enrich education and understanding by using Indigenous language – made accessible through plug-ins incorporated into computer aided drawing programs to facilitate use of traditional words within our cultural mapping.

From a broader view, we capture the interconnected quality of Yuin journey through Country, reframing worked site to be understood as part of The Bundian Way – a songline path which spans from coastal Twofold Bay in Eden inland to Mount Kosciuszko Snowy Mountains – a meeting place which forms part of a cyclical passage of kinship and seasonal travel.

TECHNOLOGY AND COUNTRY: A NEW HARMONY

For some Indigenous people, digital technology’s rise is seen as a threat to the relationship with nature, a force pulling individuals away from the physical world and into the digital realm. But some see technology not as an antagonist but as another tool that, like so many others before it, can be adapted and integrated into Indigenous ways of expression. The digital twin becomes a meeting place revealing old stories and ways of living, validating what Elders say, cementing their stories and facilitating clear ways to represent the story of place.

For Indigenous architects and designers, technology offers new ways to express their deep connection to Country. For nonIndigenous architects and designers, and for clients, project stakeholders and the general public, allowing First Nations knowledge to translate with clarity and impact.

Allowing for broader and more precise understanding of our natural world and social ecology, topographic mapping captures water flow through landscapes, showing small, ephemeral creeks connecting larger rivers and brackish flood plains flowing to sea. Digital tools help architects visualise and communicate natural systems and design buildings responding to, rather than dominating, surroundings.

Right

Interconnected – artwork by Craig Kerslake, Wiradjuri architect, 2020, depicts an interconnected landscape

SONGLINES AND MAPPING THE LAND

Technology assists design by reimagining ancient songlines and pathways First Peoples have followed for tens of thousands of years. Songlines are not just physical, but cultural maps carrying knowledge of where to find food and water, ceremonial sites, where one language group’s land ends and another’s begins. Overlaying digital maps with cultural artefacts and topographical data, architects can reconstruct ancient routes and understand landscape once again, enabling an understanding the specific relationship that our site has to a broader network.

Carved scar trees may signal travellers have entered another language group’s territory and must seek entry permission. Landscape becomes a living document, guiding human behaviour and ensuring the natural world is respected. Digital technology, when used thoughtfully, brings these stories to life, creating bridges between old ways and a misinformed modern world.

A BROADER PERSPECTIVE: ZOOMING OUT TO SEE THE WHOLE

In designing from Country-centric perspectives, first zoom out – at national or global scales. Reframing site meaning within broader ecological and cultural contexts, not just the immediate environment, architects can consider a site’s fit into the larger system, something Indigenous people always understood, as they have seen themselves as part of an interconnected songline, taking responsibility for everything beyond the self-biosphere.

When rivers are sick, so are people who rely on them. When land flourishes, so too does the community. Understanding mutual dependence brings lightness and weightlessness to individuals, grounding us in larger stories not just about our survival but entire ecosystem’s wellbeing. Reminders are beyond self-pursuits and have responsibilities to care for that system. Designing from a macro understanding, we must orient thinking to immediate sites and become part of a larger relational context.

CONCLUSION: RELATIONAL FUTURE

Ultimately, Australia’s First Peoples offer powerful alternatives to individualistic, humancentric worldviews dominating contemporary design approaches. Deep connections to Country remind us of our part in the natural world. Technology evolves, growing opportunity to embrace it, not capturing spatial boundaries, but reconnecting blurred lines between nature and humanity though Indigenous spatial intelligence. By adopting Country-centric approaches to design and architecture, we create spaces honouring our social ecological systems, fostering more sustainable, inclusive, and relational futures, creating belonging and identity.

→ Craig Kerslake RAIA is a Wiradjuri architect who draws upon his cultural heritage community of Aboriginal people’s knowledge referred to as Country. He is managing director at Nguluway DesignInc driving innovation in forming spatial design and architectural form with a unique expression. His cultural overlays draw design thinking to the unexpected and provides positive outcomes focused on Aboriginal centred qualities, spatial unity and scales of social engagement.

INSTANT CULTURE

Words by EJ Taylor

‘Yes, this portrait, it tells a history. But it does not live the present. It speaks of our people past as though there is no cultural present, no expected future.’ 1 As architects, we hoard cultural information: maps, drawings, books, stories, pictures, notes, letters, sketches. We hope that through our analysis, this information can be meaningfully composed, and that together, our collected fragments can speak to a relevant culture or history in built form.

Over time, of course, we have moved away from physical contact in accumulating our hoards of information. This task seems much better left to the often-chaotic sprawl of the internet. To upkeep together, we share a decentralised, digital hoard, with a size beyond our comprehension – instant information, instant inspiration, instant culture.

It’s not unknown that the study of Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander cultures has a troubling history. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, much of what was known about many Aboriginal groups had been narrated by untrustworthy nonIndigenous anthropologists. These authors often wrote of Indigenous peoples as pieces of unclaimed history, rather than with Indigenous peoples as diverse, living cultures.

What then, when such information of troubling ethical origin reaches the uncontrolled digital realm for all – and specifically, for architects – to instantaneously access during the design process?

Daisy Bates, a self-taught anthropologist who conducted fieldwork in the early 20th century across Australian deserts, was once recognised as a pioneer in the study of Aboriginal Australian groups. Bates was often mentioned among great Australian women as an iconic national figure. Her studies remain an unparalleled (and frequently singular) ethnographic source on several Aboriginal Australian groups, specifically for those of the Western and Southern Australian deserts. In recent decades, Bates’ popular and academic reputation has come under interrogation. Her accounts of Aboriginal groups revolved around the notion that they were primitive and passing; she led a negativist philosophy and believed that Aboriginal extinction was inevitable; her writings repeatedly made exaggerated and unfounded claims of cannibalism among Aboriginal groups. 2 Even during her time, many academics regarded her works as not “seriously anthropological”,3 and “as baseless as they are revolting”.4

To this day – and despite shifting perceptions of her legacy – Bates’ writing remains prevalent and easily accessible to those on the internet looking for information about specific Aboriginal groups. This prevalence is driven by algorithms that define the internet: the results that pop up when you search specific terms are organised by their relevance across the entirety of our digital sprawl. If you were to search Noongar culture, or Aṉangu symbolism, the results will likely be inundated with information derived from the fieldwork of Bates.

While we can place trust in results authored by Aboriginal Australian peoples and their respective cultural authorities, how we navigate to an authentic and lived truth in the chaotic digital environment is rarely considered. We scarcely interrogate cultural authenticity on the internet and place a blind trust in anonymous contributors: to many, simply having information is enough. If our hoard of analysis was to unknowingly carry some of the negativist ideas Bates portrayed in her fieldwork, then we are playing a part in introducing outdated philosophies into the built environment.

This issue is not specific to the case study of Bates. Charles P Mountford, an amateur anthropologist of the 20th century, published Nomads of the Australian Desert in 1976. Shortly after its publication, its sale was prohibited after legal action from Pitjantjara Council. The book contained culturally restricted information about the Pitjantjara peoples, who were unaware their culture would be shared widely to all – their rites have specific gender, age, and initiation-based conditions.5 To this day, copies are still available from rare book merchants, and scattered

excerpts are not difficult to come across on the internet when researching Pitjantjara culture.

None of this is to discourage the involvement of Aboriginal cultures and peoples in the design process at all: instead, these case studies reveal a limitation in digital technologies in presenting authentic and lived Indigenous experiences. Aboriginal lore and truth-telling are concepts not built into the internet. Thankfully, our institutions are getting there – most Australian libraries and museums have frameworks to ensure Indigenous perspectives are heard in their digital catalogues6 – but by in large, it is up to us to proactively search out genuine relationships with Aboriginal peoples and cultures.

In 1961, Sibyl Maholy-Nagy wrote that “Cultural memory touches on something in man that is older and more durable than his immediate presence, something that moves him because in it he meets his immortal alter ego.”7 It is not until we learn from our Indigenous peoples and cultures that our architecture starts to move and breathe with our ancestors. Culture will never move at the pace of our digital sprawl: instead, as architects, we can only slowly and respectfully listen. ■

→ EJ Taylor

Drawing from their Yuin heritage, EJ believes the inception of architecture should first learn from First Nations practices and sustainability, viewing architecture as a delicate, precise craft of pieced together histories and cultures. They have been recognised on the shortlist for the 2024 RAIA NSW Undergraduate Medal and the 2025 AA Unbuilt Prize. EJ was recently been published in the academic journal BlakOut and currently works at Neeson Murcutt Neille as an architectural assistant.

Notes

1 Linda Kennedy, “Face the Irony,” in Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture, eds. Kevin O’Brien, Rebecca Kiddle and Patrick Stewart (Oro Editions, 2018), 197.

2 Bob Reece, “‘You would have loved her for her lore’: the letters of Daisy Bates,” Australian Aboriginal Studies, no. 1 (2007): 51-70, https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/ informit.715729098717482.

3 Ronald M. Berndt and Catherine H. Berndt, The World of the First Australians: Aboriginal Traditional Life - Past and Present (Aboriginal Studies Press: 1991): 536.

4 ed Strehlow, “Foreword,” in The People in Between: The Pitjantjatjara People of Ernabella, ed. Winifred Hilliard (Hodder & Stoughton: 1968).

5 Heather Moorcroft and Alex Bryne, “Intellectual Property and Indigenous Peoples’ Information,” in Australian Academic & Research Libraries 27, no. 2 (1996): 91, https://doi.org/10.1080/00048623.1996.10754962.

6 See Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Library, Information and Resource Network (ATSILIRN) Protocols (1995), adopted by Australian institutions: https://atsilirn. aiatsis.gov.au/protocols.php.

7 Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, “The Future of the Past,” in Perspecta 7, no. 1 (1961): 66, https://doi.org/10.2307/1566867

Above

Daisy Bates, as seen through her digital legacy. Illustration: EJ Taylor (of photo: State Library of South Australia, SLSA: B 6799)

MUSEUM OF TOUCH: MAKING MUSEUMS ACCESSIBLE THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Words by Dagmar Reinhardt

Museums have long served as cultural guardians, preserving and displaying collections of artworks, artifacts, and specimens that give insight into human history and the natural world. However, most museums prioritise the preservation of these objects, often enclosing them in glass vitrines and restricting direct physical interaction to protect fragile, lightsensitive, or irreplaceable items.

While this approach ensures the longevity of artifacts, it can also inadvertently exclude blind and low vision (BLV) audiences from fully engaging with exhibitions. For these individuals, the traditional visualcentric-museum experience becomes inaccessible, disenabling any meaningful cultural and historical connections.

The research project Museum of Touch (2023-) seeks to address this challenge by leveraging advancements in digital and tactile technologies to make museums inclusive for all. The project focuses on creating touch models – three-dimensional (3D) representations of museum objects – that enable BLV individuals to explore, understand, and connect with artifacts through tactile experiences. This approach embraces the multisensory nature of human perception, recognising that touch, sound, and even smell often play as significant a role as vision in understanding the world around us.

The project integrates emerging

technologies, particularly digital scanning and 3D printing, to create tactile models of museum objects and specimen. Increasingly, museums are adopting digital scanning to create online repositories of 3D models, allowing audiences to explore collections virtually. By transforming these digital models into physical, touchable objects, the Museum of Touch bridges the gap between virtual access and real-world interaction. For BLV individuals, tactile information is a vital mode of processing spatial, structural, and narrative details. Unlike sighted individuals, who perceive an object holistically before focusing on specific details, BLV individuals explore objects piece by piece through touch, gradually assembling a comprehensive mental representation. High-quality tactile models provide these audiences with a deeper understanding of the forms, patterns, and stories embedded in museum artifacts. For example, tactile models can illustrate predatorprey dynamics through representations of sharks and teeth or explain mathematical

MUSEUM OF TOUCH: MAKING MUSEUMS

ACCESSIBLE THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Words by Dagmar Reinhardt

growth patterns by comparing corals and trees. Collaborative development and prototyping play a significant role for actively involved BLV people, both children and adults in the co-design and testing of tactile objects. This participatory approach ensures that the models are not only functional but also engaging and meaningful for their intended audiences.

Prototypes have included tactile maps, 3D-printed chairs with embedded information, and scaled-up models of intricate details that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Key strategies developed by the research group include:

– Developing workflows for 3D scanning and printing: These workflows can be adopted by other museums and educational institutions to create their own tactile models.

– Integrating multimodal elements: Combining 3D tactile models with audio guides enhances the storytelling experience, offering layered levels of explanation that cater to diverse audiences.

– Prototyping hyperartifacts: These

multifunctional furniture pieces integrate visual, tactile, and Braille information, fostering collaboration between sighted and BLV individuals.

– Sharing open-access resources: By uploading models to platforms like Sketchfab, the project extends accessibility and knowledge dissemination globally.

– Designing educational toolkits: These kits include 3D models, activities, and exercises for use in museums and classrooms.

– Creating a user manual for BLV-friendly museum design: This includes advice on website accessibility, navigation strategies, and the implementation of touch stands.

Blending technology and design is another aspect of the project and one of its contributions: the development of hyperartifacts as tangible, multifunctional objects that integrate various sensory inputs. The Museum of Touch adopts Universal Design, emphasising equitable, simple, and

The Chau Chak Wing Museum, the University of Sydney

intuitive use for diverse audiences. By integrating tactile and visual narratives, the project not only makes museums accessible to BLV individuals but also enhances the overall visitor experience. This approach encourages empathy, understanding, and awareness of different sensory experiences, ultimately promoting more inclusive attitudes and behaviours.

The collaborative initiative involves partners from multiple institutions, including the University of Sydney’s School of Architecture, Design and Planning, Monash University, the Chau Chak Wing Museum, and international organisations such as the Institute for Blind and Partially Sighted (IBOS) in Denmark. Funding from the Alastair Swayn Foundation International Grant 2023 has supported the project, ensuring that its outputs remain free and open-source. Resources, including 3D models and a comprehensive report, are available online, providing museums and educators worldwide with the tools to adopt and adapt these strategies. By making these resources publicly accessible, the Museum of Touch aims to inspire broader adoption of tactile technologies and inclusive design practices across cultural institutions. Museums have a unique opportunity to reimagine accessibility, not just as a compliance measure but as a chance to enrich the visitor experience for everyone. By embracing the potential of touch and

tactile narratives, museums can break down barriers, foster inclusivity, and create spaces where all individuals – regardless of sensory abilities – can engage with and learn from the artifacts of our shared history. The Museum of Touch demonstrates how technology can drive this transformation, offering a blueprint for museums to become more inclusive, engaging, and exciting for all audiences. Through collaboration, innovation, and a commitment to accessibility, the project not only opens doors for BLV individuals but also sets a new standard for the future of museum design. ■

→ Dagmar Reinhardt RAIA is an architect, researcher and associate professor at the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, the University of Sydney. As a practising architect, her built works, competitions and installations are widely published and have received numerous recognitions and awards. Reinhardt’s research focuses on human-centric design at the nexus of acoustics, robotics and accessibility. Reinhardt’s funded research projects explore museum accessibility and the ARC DP24 research Accessible Playgrounds for Blind and Low Vision Children and their Parents/Carers.

Note

See: https://sketchfab.com/muse- umfortouch/ models, and the report is downloadable at: https:// alastairswaynfoundation.org/research/museum-for-touch/

AN INTERFACE FOR GOD

Words by Gwyllim Jahn

I teach a university design studio and at the end of semester, I ask students to write a reflection on what they have learned. Most of them submit nearly identical text with the same banal platitudes and hollow hyperbole. I identified it immediately: Slop. Generative AI is so good at writing recognisably banal content that we had to name it. Slop is the miasma of sameness, an aesthetic and literary regression to the mean, a generic numb blandness that is suddenly everywhere from Instagram to student essays.

I don’t blame the students: it’s easier to ask ChatGPT to write their reflection than it is for them to do it themselves, and they can get on with doing whatever else they feel is more important. After all, isn’t this the Keynesian promise of AI? But why doesn’t writing a reflection with ChatGPT produce more creative and meaningful text rather than just more of it?

All of us should admit that just five years ago, the capacity of computers to create images, text, audio and video indistinguishable from those authored and created by humans would appear to be one of the most transformative technological achievements in our history. Because most people use generative AI to produce human-like output through a human-like-chat interface, it is all too easy to anthropomorphise the underlying technology.

From chastising ChatGPT for misinterpreting a request we couldn’t quite articulate, or showering praise when we receive a response

that returned only advertisements from Google. However, this anthropomorphisation is paradox ically inhibiting the capacity of these chat bots to be useful tools in creative processes like design.

As an example, when asking ChatGPT for ten random unique ideas, we expect them to respond like a human. However, what is actually going on is not a creative process but a probabilistic one. We get a string of text that is most likely to follow our input within the vast corpus of examples that the model is trained on, rather than ten truly unique ideas. The generated text might at first appear unique, but if we make the same request a second or third time, patterns within the generated responses typically reveal themselves. Generating ideas with ChatGPT instead requires creativity and inventiveness on behalf of the human prompting the model, and thus the same quick request for a reflection on a studio by a group of students tends to produce the same response, over and over.

REPLICATION AS TRAVESTY

Nick Cave lamented in a sublime blog post that songs written by ChatGPT language models could never produce anything beyond replication because this requires lived experience. Writing a good song, he argues, is “an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past”.1 People can draw on this lived experience to lend a unique insight into a particular question or problem, and this in turn leads to inventive and creative ideas that feel left-field or out-of-domain. On the other hand, Geoffrey Hinton, a scientist who invented the algorithm that allows neural networks to efficiently learn from large collections of data, warns that while humans learn linearly from their lived experience, the intelligence of large language models will eventually supersede our own because they can learn from millions of interactions and data points in parallel2. We are beginning to see this prediction play out in domains where the correctness of model responses can be easily verified and training data can be generated at scale automatically, with OpenAI’s state of the art O1 model capable of PhD level reasoning in mathematics, programming, and physics. However, in subjective domains like personal writing or

emotional understanding, this same model does worse than those released two years earlier. This is because while it is possible to automatically generate an almost infinite number of math or programming problems and solutions to train models on, the same is not the case for high-quality examples of creative writing. Furthermore, optimising for response accuracy necessitates avoiding hallucinations: probable but factually inaccurate responses to questions. This unfortunate nomenclature further anthropomorphises a deterministic algorithm in a way that suggests some underlying but entirely absent imagination.

Benchmarked performance in domains without easy verification appears to have flatlined for the foreseeable future, and merely asking these models to write a new Nick Cave song or studio reflection will keep producing slop. However, there are still many opportunities to utilise these same models within design processes. While most people interact with generative AI through chatbots, software developers access the same models using application programming interfaces, or APIs. In this context, the generative AI model can be run in parallel thousands of times, or called in sequences that generate, rank, select, verify,

Left Naturesnap: a generative photography game developed by students at RMIT

Words by Gwyllim Jahn

and execute prompts automatically. These programs allow even relatively small language models to integrate with other software and perform a wide range of tasks that would be tedious or impossible through a chat interface. Current generation language models are too slow, expensive or prone to error to be used to automate most knowledge work. However, designers and creatives might benefit from building tools using language model APIs to better explore ideation processes like trial and error, cause and consequence, reflection and critique, depth and breadth search and anything else that does not rely on 100% accuracy to produce meaningful and useful creative output. Developing interfaces that treat language models as tools or operating systems rather than as friendly assistants might help us to rethink the application of generative AI within design.

So where is innovation with user interfaces for generative AI happening?

and anything else required for the specific goals of the design process or application.

PARAMETRICALLY GENERATING PROMPTS AND PERFORMING COST COMPARISONS IN RUNCHAT

Software developers can enforce schemas in the response of language models in order to generate geometry rather than creative text, and this opens up broad possibilities for architecture and design. Massing geometry or parametric models can be generated from text descriptions, reducing the labour and expertise required to manually model parts of buildings. One could imagine applications that extend the idea of Make Real to translate sketches to 3D geometry, or that begin to resolve geometry to satisfy / AN INTERFACE FOR GOD

NatureSnap, a game developed by students at RMIT, explores how image generation models can be constrained to 360 panoramas that are then interacted with spatially. This in turn makes the creative process of working with language models more akin to exploration and alleviates the slop-inducing writer’s block associated with text prompts. Maggie Appleton’s Language Model Sketchbook3 showcases several concepts for user interfaces to better enable language models to assist with writing tasks. Instead of requiring writers to engage in a back-andforth conversation with a language model, Maggie’s Daemons operate as personalities that passively critique text as it is being written and offer additional sources or suggestions for improvements. Runchat, a node-based editor for web-based applications developed by the author, can also be used for exploring concept designs by making interactions with language models parametric. Runchat allows users to define not only prompts for language models but also relationships between these prompts, enabling branching logic and regeneration of entire conversations from a single input. By encouraging users to think about interactions with language models systemically rather than as a chronological conversation, the conceptual role of the language model changes from that of a conversation partner to that of a tool. Language models in Runchat are used to generate or critique design concepts, check for specific conditions, call external APIs, interpret images, format data

Language models can also extend existing user interfaces or invent them from scratch to suit a concept specified by the creator. Steve Ruiz, the developer of a sketching app called TLDraw, went viral with an experiment called Make Real in which screengrabs from a sketch canvas could be sent to a language model and used as a wireframe for implementing the same idea with functional HTML and Javascript.4 Because only a screengrab and text prompt is required as the input to the language model, this idea can be replicated anywhere from CAD software to a photo of a sketch on a napkin. Websim, a one-day hackathon project developed by an anonymous author most likely as a joke, takes this idea further to generate entire functional websites and user interfaces from only a fictional url.5 Websim enables users to suspend disbelief and role-play the existence of an entirely generated internet, and this generated internet has in turn found a growing community of real users. What differentiates Websim from other generative AI Slop is nothing more than the interface. Websim sites are not static SEO marketing pages generated by ChatGPT but live, editable and explorable points in a vast latent space of creative possibility, navigable by clicking one imaginary url after another. Websim proves we can do more with generative AI than a blank chat box, and it is up to designers and creatives to transition from users of generative AI to creators with generative AI – developing applications and interfaces that use language models as tools for exploring creative processes and ideas.

GENERATING FURNITURE FROM SCHEMAS IN RUNCHAT

multiple constraints defined by large corpuses of text such as building codes, standards or briefs. These same applications could be run in reverse, identifying where standards are not being applied correctly or where alternative solutions are possible, in the same fashion as Maggie’s Daemons. Language models are also effective role-players and could be used to simulate communities of stakeholders to assist planners with forecasting and decision making. An application like Websim could be used to describe design concepts and explore their implications over time or in space. These concepts represent exciting opportunities for architects and designers to shift from a paradigm of optimisation over known-andmeasurable constraints that has prevailed since the Industrial Revolution, to tools that begin to automate more subjective and abstract processes. These tools will become increasingly autonomous, acting in the world on behalf of user requests. However, creativity will not be a corollary of agency, and it will require human creativity on the part of architects and designers to discover and define how this agency shapes the future of practice. ■

Notes

1 Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files, https://www. theredhandfiles.com/chat-gpt-what-do-you-think/ [Accessed at 25/11/2024]

2 Stephen McAleese, Geoffrey Hinton on the Past, Present and Future of AI, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ zJz8KXSRsproArXq5/geoffrey-hinton-on-the-pastpresent-and-future-of-ai [Accessed at 25/11/2024]

3 Maggie Appleton, Language Model Sketchbook, or Why I Hate Chatbots, https://maggieappleton.com/lmsketchbook [Accessed at 25/11/2024]

4 Steve Ruiz, Make Real, The Story So Far, https://tldraw. substack.com/p/make-real-the-story-so-far [Accessed at 25/11/2024]

5 Daniela Vorkel, WebSim.AI: No-Code Revolution — Weaving Immersive Web Experiences with AI-Powered Simulations, https://medium.com/@daniela.vorkel/ websim-ai-no-code-revolution-weaving-immersive-webexperiences-with-ai-powered-simulations-39d869a7aaee [Accessed at 25/11/2024]

→ Gwyllim Jahn is a lecturer at RMIT University and the co-founder of Fologram, an internationally awarded design research practice and technology startup developing software for designing and making in mixed reality. Fologram’s clients are leading researchers, designers and artists using mixed reality to explore new applications of traditional craft and digital fabrication.

COMPUTING, CRAFT, CLIMATE AND COUNTRY

Words Dave Pigram, Iain (Max) Maxwell, Jo Paterson Kinniburgh, and Shannon Foster

This article explores the productive synergies between design for climate and design for Country, and the ways that computation can contribute meaningfully. Our context is a world experiencing multiple crises (climate, biodiversity loss, equity) and a discipline (architecture) that has historically reinvented itself by embracing the transformative potential demanded (and offered) by such challenges. We frame these lesser discussed use cases of computation via three case studies: a robotic re-enactment of a place-based craft, a system of earthcast vaults, and a pavilion constructed from minimally processed tree forks.

We position our supermanoeuvre+bangawarra collaborations, which are culturally led by Dr Shannon Foster (D’harawal eora knowledge holder and traditional owner), as hopeful moves towards an Architecture with Country1, wherein we attempt to hold the multi-dimensional physico-spiritual entities of Country as agents, within a compromised context (competition timelines, colonial briefs, designated locations).

GADI-DJUGAMA

Gadi-Djuguma is a proposal for a large-scale public sculpture, a supermanoeuvre+bangawarra collaboration with Indigenous artist Lucy Simpson (Yuwaalaraay).

From the Dharawal-eora, Gadigal and Dharug word for dilly bag – Djuguma positions an ancient and culturally specific stitching

technique as a multi-scalar interlocutor: articulating the specific local entanglements of cultural practice, language, being, creative action, collectivity, and intergenerational sustainability with Country. The work offers a feminist perspective of the Djuguma and the nature of holding the objects, stories, knowledge and language of place. On Gadi Country, women are the keepers of knowledge and are culturally responsible for its sustainable transmission to future generations through concomitant practices of making and sharing – whereby ancestral stories are disseminated, as string is twisted, and artefacts unfold. It is the double-twisted looping technique of the Djuguma that differentiates it from cultural practices and woven objects found in other regions of Australia and is an example

of the way that craft tacitly couples Country with material, cultural expression, and technique within an open, creative, and skilled system. Algorithms, like story, hold knowledge. Here, the twists of the Djuguma are emulated within the generative logics of code (Python programming language). Beyond geometry, our computational framework also choreographs the linear displacements and rotational movements that attempt to replicate the Aunties’ fingers through a Kuka KR120HA industrial robot arm equipped with a linearactuated gripper end effector and interfaced to a floor mounted collet-gripper and rebar cutter. Figure, form and process entangle in a hopeful forgery of cultural practice. The resulting stitches, envisaged in copper, mild steel, stainless steel, and bronze rod, aggregate into rings that figuratively suggest a future where we might tie cultural stories and architecture together with Country.

GIBBAGUNYA:

SUPERNATURAL VAULTS

Earth breathes, albeit at a lower frequency than we do. Slow, deep living vibrations. Breath of Country fans the misguided urban heat islands of subdivision development. In the hottest (and getting hotter) part of Sydney during a climate

emergency, how might earth-coated alveoli nested under the surface of Country open up the capacity of Country to breathe and for people to shelter among the inhalations. Such spaces increase a city’s passive survivability (an urban equity concept championed by UTS professor Leena Thomas). GibbaGunya means a rock or stone home and was part of a competition proposal for Bradfield Central Park completed by supermanoeuvre+Bangawarra within a broader collaboration with Arcadia Landscape Architecture whereby cavelike spaces afford the possibility to retreat into shade and cool during heat waves.

In the design, an interconnected chain of thin shell vaults forms indoor/outdoor spaces constructed from sprayed earthformed concrete which retains layers of soil on its surface. Concrete is responsible for approximately 8% of global carbon emissions. Conventional approaches to concrete formwork privilege labour-cost-reduction yielding significant material and embodied carbon overuse (often over 70%). Deploying structurally informed doubly curved geometries and on-site earth as the formwork for thin sprayed concrete2, the project radically reduces embodied carbon, concrete and waste. Once cured, the earth-mound formwork is excavated

Left Perspective view of GadiDjuguma in situ

/ COMPUTING, CRAFT, CLIMATE AND COUNTRY

Words by Dave Pigram, Iain (Max) Maxwell, Jo Paterson Kinniburgh and Shannon Foster

leaving an imprint (colour and texture): a trace of Country that celebrates the strata, the geological layers and the story of sediment and erosion over deep time. Minimising the impacts of extraction beyond the immediate site follows the fundamental Aboriginal ethic of Caring for Country and especially avoids disrupting the Country of other nations3. The removed earth is redistributed atop the vaults creating a second set of elevated public landscapes that increase biodiversity, canopy cover, thermal efficiency and contribute a myriad of systemic benefits provided by plants. The outcome contributes steps towards an architecture that creates not just on Country but with and within Country.

WADIWADI: TREE-CANOPY BIFURCATIONS

Operating through the framework that Country provides, the Wadiwadi prototype assembles minimally-processed, locallyharvested tree forks and demonstrates the potential for the careful use of super local material streams. The forks here, were sourced from the sacred Dharawal peacekeeper Boo’angi, aka Eucalyptus Punctata [Grey gum] endemic to eastern New South Wales. Extractive colonial forestry practices

privilege uniformity. Unique, sacred peacekeeper trees are converted into standardised rectangular profiles by discarding approximately 60% of the timber, including 100% of the forks. Timber construction typically employs one of two connecting strategies: relatively complex carved joints or generic steel connectors. The first is labour intensive while the second is carbon intensive. Using naturally grown forks for all bifurcating joints leaves only simple straight connections while taking advantage of natural grain alignments and the impressive structural performance inherent in trees. Honouring the whole of the tree, by caring for parts that are currently wasted, cares for Country and the sacred nature of the peacekeepers.

Wadiwadi employs a digital springs model to hang a network of Y-shaped tree-fork models selected from an inventory of scanned pieces. Using a genetic algorithm framework, outcomes are assessed for structural performance, kink-angle, and wastage. A process literally repeated thousands of times with promising outcomes bred with each other in an approach based on evolutionary improvement. Any project’s ultimate form can be inextricably anchored to Country through the geometry of the underlying

Right

Y-shaped tree-fork models. : supermanoeuvre with UTS AFRL, Ling Kit.

Far right

Gibba Gunya earthen vaults. Doug and Wolf Visualisation.

tree forks, each indexing the soil, wind and geological qualities of their place, as well as the sacred nature of each component.

Our collaborations point to the possibility that computation, despite its unlikely artificial and high-tech underpinnings, has the potential to offer a valuable medium through which design can reacquaint itself with matters of culture, material and Country through its ability to encode craft-based knowledge and to support operating with increasing orders of material volatility.

However, computation like any methodology that has emerged from the upper echelons of privilege, can’t deliver listening and cultural sensitivity inherent in human collaboration. This is the place where the future of Indigenous-computational collaborations will either become something truly extraordinary or, if not enacted with cultural respect and co-design, mere tokenistic cultural inputs for an algorithm. As a collaborative team we are hopeful that we can serve mattering, respect and care while we simultaneously counter the need to homogenise material in the industrial economy, and point to a return to making places, spaces and objects that provide a better fit for people, purpose and planet. ■

Notes

1 S Foster and Paterson Kinniburgh, J (2018). Architecture with Country. Presentation to the Myer Foundation Placemaking Symposium, Melbourne, VIC.

2 Unlike the recent example by Juniya Ishigami, these earth-cast forms were to be realised as sprayed thin-shell vaults, not massive volumes cast in-situ with flat tops.

3 This ethic mirrors Mahatma Gandhi’s challenge to Laurie Baker to build only with materials within a fivemile radius (8 kilometres) from a given project’s site. The contradiction inherent in the distant extraction of concrete ingredients is acknowledged by the authors as yet unsolved.

→ Dave Pigram invents new design and material systems to produce memorable experiences and climate positive outcomes. He is co-director of the architecture and innovation practice supermanoeuvre and associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney. A pioneer in algorithmic architecture and robotic fabrication, his work has been widely exhibited internationally.

Iain (Max) Maxwell is an architect, educator and researcher known for design-led approaches to decarbonising construction. He is co-director of the architecture and innovation practice supermanoeuvre and associate professor at the University of Canberra. His work is in the permanent collections of the FRAC Orleans and the Powerhouse Museum.

Jo Paterson Kinniburgh is director and co-founder of Bangawarra. Former director of Education for Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Landscape Architecture at UTS, together with Shannon, she has led Connecting with Country undergraduate and Masters design studios since 2015. Descended from people enslaved under colonisation, she dedicates her work to honouring Country.

Dr Shannon Foster is a D’harawal-eora (Sydney) Knowledge Keeper, Sydney Registered Traditional Owner, and director and co-founder of Bangawarra. An interdisciplinary creative practitioner focusing on research, development and delivery of Indigenous cultural design, Shannon is inspired by her Elders to work for generations of Knowledge Keepers who will emerge after her.

AI IN ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE

Words by Jeames Hanley

To date, the use of AI within architecture practices has largely centred around image generation and visualisation. The fascination with AI-driven image generation tools such as Midjourney is understandable. They provide immediate visual representations of concepts, enabling quicker iterations and fostering creativity.

However, AI’s capabilities extend well beyond visualisation, boosting efficiency and productivity to revolutionise many aspects of the business and practice of architecture. Regardless of the size of a practice, AI can be harnessed to streamline design and delivery, freeing up time for the creative work that only humans are capable of.

SPEED UP INFORMATION GATHERING

Off the shelf, web-based AI products such as ChatGPT and Copilot can search the web for information to assist with tasks such as generating text for reports and submissions or be trained on specific sources finding regulatory specifications. Training an AI tool means telling it where to look for something. An example is a ChatGPT assistant I have trained on the National Construction Code (NCC) standards. Ask: “I’m designing a stair for a Class 9 building with a floor-to-ceiling height of 3200mm. What do I need to take into consideration?” The NCC assistant will instantly return the relevant information alongside links to the source, saving time and helping to ensure compliance.

Off-the-shelf AI tools can be downloaded locally and trained on company-specific data to securely deliver tailored outputs. For example, train Microsoft Copilot on your internal business documents. Whether HR policies, project management protocols or quality assurance processes, Copilot can make these resources immediately accessible to all staff in real-time. This reduces delays and fosters a more informed workforce.

Members of the digital transformation team at Buchan

More valuable, is the use of AI tools to leverage a practice’s knowledge bank. Working on a new sports facility? Ask the question, “What are the five biggest sports projects we have delivered?” The trained AI tool can find the projects, then go on to provide specific information on each. This is a revolutionary way to make the years of experience and expertise embedded in a practice accessible to all staff. AI visualisation tools can also generate images using only the practice’s projects rather than drawing on unfiltered content.

The best way to deploy safe, secure, and cost-effective AI to access digital assets is to download Large Language Models (LLMs), train them on proprietary business data and run them locally within your secure IT environment. This offers a higher level of security than a web-based product, enabling staff to interact with the AI tool through a custom-built locally installed desktop user interface.

AI tools can greatly assist with the efficient creation of accurate documentation. They can automate the generation of technical drawings and specifications and be linked to REVIT families, speeding up repetitive tasks. They can tailor design recommendations to specific client preferences and requirements.

AI can perform building code analysis and compliance checks and automate defects reporting and ordering. This has great potential for reducing the risk that architects are increasingly burdened with by feeding data directly into BIM models to share responsibility more equitably with consultants and contractors.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR

AI is a tool and like any technology, it has challenges and limitations. All work and data should be checked by a human – people remain responsible for what is created, not bots. Ensure your AI assistant is designed to be transparent in its decision-making processes so that architects understand how it arrives at its answers and trust its recommendations. For example, including citations. Your outputs are reliant on the quality of the data your AI tool is trained on. Ensure your data is high-quality, relevant, and up to date. Be vigilant about potential biases in your AI models. The tool may be trained on projects that have a different brief to the one you are working on, for example, the climate, the dominant transport mode, the materials selection, or aesthetics.

Prioritise robust data protection measures to safeguard sensitive client information and intellectual property. Be aware that AI is an energy and resource intensive tool. High-level data processing and image generation uses large amounts of power and water, which has ESG implications. I anticipate that there will soon be tools that can quantify AI’s environmental impact. All technology needs to be used responsibly – don’t use AI when there’s something else that can do the job, like a simple calculator.

AI technology has fast become integral to the practice of architecture, as complementary to human creativity and expertise. Our industry has a great opportunity to reshape the way we work by the thoughtful application of emerging technologies. It is critical for architects to take an active role in developing the AI tools that will help to shape the built environment of the future – one where intelligent data use through robust AI implementation will define success. Embrace AI and reap the benefits. ■

→ Jeames Hanley Is the digital technology lead at Buchan, specialising in integrating innovative technologies into architectural practice. With a passion for leveraging AI to enhance efficiency and creativity, Jeames leads initiatives that redefine traditional workflows for a smarter future.

Note

NCC ChatGPT assistant is freely available to anyone via this link.

THE FAILURE OF THE COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN MACHINE

Words by Matthew Austin

We are 10 years on from the first stable release of Grasshopper3D; arguably the visual programming interface that has had the biggest impact on the way architecture is not only produced but designed. Within this time, the discipline of architecture has given rise to a new type of specialist, the computational designer, focused on the use of programming interfaces to make solutions that not only solve complex problems but drive innovation, efficiency, and automation.

These solutions are often bespoke and project specific, meaning that any form of efficiency gain is counteracted by the time and resources invested to create said solution. It is thus a desirable outcome for computational design (CoDe) to find opportunities to create a legacy of their work by scaling these solutions across multiple projects, further by making them usable to non-computational designers these machines could be applied without the restriction of specialist skills to operate. In short, it has been part of the project of CoDe to design these machines to share the fruits of its specialisation with architects to bring positive change to practice. However, architectural practice has changed very little in its uptake of these machines. Why has CoDe failed in the packaging and publishing of these machines to non-computational designers? There are many valid reasons for this, however, here I will focus on just one.

Design methodologies have been well researched and understood. For example, the UK Design Council’s Double Diamond claims to be “a simple way to describe the steps taken in any design and innovation project, irrespective of methods and tools used.”

Double Diamond. UK Design Council.

It is unlikely that a designer shown the UK Design Council’s Double Diamond will not infer that it somehow magically represents their education, thinking, and ways of working, despite them having never seen it before. However, design within the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is different. There are clients, builders, engineers, project managers and a plethora of other collaborators that have their own preferred ways of working, and thus these practices have a real-world effect in the way that architecture is produced.

Architects have become experts at practicing design within the waterfall methodology that their collaborators prefer. The waterfall methodology aims to lockdown as much as possible about a project as quickly as possible, after all it is easier to collaborate, manage and cost things if they are already defined. This is commonly done through project phasing where the scale and detail of the design iteratively increases in scope. However, each phase acts as a gate requiring certain outcomes and requirements to be defined so the project collaborators can then move on with implementing the design in a timely fashion. The reason why architects have become adept at working within this practice is because it gives clarity about what is being built, when and how much it will cost.

In contrast CoDe is a software development practice. This comes with processes and ways of working that help it to be efficient, cost effective and successful. While writing short programs that solve problems is one thing, the long-term design of CoDe machines requires much longer time frames, ongoing maintenance, and thus appropriate methodologies to support it. The most common of these methodologies are called agile – where a solution is iteratively developed over a series of sprints, slowly improving the quality of the outcome. The outcome, like all design, emerges from the design process. And here lies an underlying failure of the CoDe machine. Agile methodologies that allow for the design and development of CoDe machines – finding the requirements of a usable product – are at odds within the waterfall methodology, meeting and delivering a set of pre-defined requirements. This is not to say that CoDe machines cannot be developed, they can and have, but they are often built within skunkworks and then leveraged on projects when complete, rather than being developed from within the fiscally motivated processes that sustain

small- to medium-scale architectural practices. Therefore, CoDe and its promise of positive change has been stifled by the very realities of the practice that gave birth to it. How then should CoDe move forward? In this author’s opinion, it is time for CoDe to embrace the schism between architecture and software practice and focus on developing itself as a foundational collaborator with architectural practice. An architectural practice is not a software company. However, CoDe is! CoDe’s desire to allow its efforts to scale across multiple projects needs to occur within the mastery of its development practices not necessarily within the context of architectural production. It needs to master Git version control, repositories, library development, and documentation so the solutions created for projects can more seamlessly find their way into future projects and ease collaboration with other computational designers. Just like a BIM manager maintains BIM standards and models health for the efficiency and benefit for architectural practice, computational designers need to work together to maintain a useful and collaborative code base where individuals can be onboarded like any other project in architectural practice.

However, ironically, Grasshopper3D and visual programming with all its success in making computation accessible within architectural practice, falls short in its ability to be iteratively developed and built up itself. It’s spaghetti code requires too high a cognitive load on a computational designer for another individual or even the scripts author after a couple of months to understand its inner workings. Thus, visual programming, for the most part, leads to a reinventing of the wheel, preventing growth and maturity within computational design practice. Visual programming stunts the ability for architectural projects to have any meaningful legacy within the practice of CoDe, while the other aspects of architectural practice continue to evolve.

The mission to make computation accessible to non-computational designers via CoDe machines has failed spectacularly; something made more evident by the successful uptake of artificial intelligence within AEC practice. CoDe machines have clearly become a red herring on how CoDe can best cement itself as a core part of architectural process. Instead, the focus should lie in specialisation and work on distilling practices that make development more efficient and beneficial than worrying about useability by the masses.

→ Matthew Austin is a senior consultant in computational design at Aurecon. Previously Matthew worked as an academic and a computational designer in architecture. His research interests include computational geometry, design thinking and glitch aesthetics.

QUANTIFYING THE QUALITY OF SYDNEY’S URBAN DOMAIN

Words by Mohammed Makki, Jordan Mathers and Linda Matthews

Over the past decade, one of the most effective tools for solving complex design problems with conflicting goals has been the evolutionary algorithm. Simple in its premise, it mimics evolutionary principles to create design solutions that optimise for specific goals. However, this algorithm will only do what you instruct it to – it follows a set of programmed rules and won’t deviate from them.

To communicate with the algorithm, you need to speak its language – and the language of an algorithm is numbers. For example, to create an algorithm that generates beautiful designs, you need to first quantify what beauty means numerically. This presents a challenge when attempting to optimise for something as subjective as the feeling of a space.

While we strive to design and build urban spaces that bring value to communities, the definition of urban quality is incredibly rich, diverse, and most importantly, unique to each individual. Every person’s understanding of urban quality varies, whether shaped by experience, intuition, historical context, or personal interest.

Imagine, for instance, your favourite local place. Is it your favourite because of the size and shape of the buildings, the colour of the materials, the cooling effect of trees? Or have you never really thought about it but just know that it feels good to be there? For most people, the definition of urban quality is jargon-

free and refreshingly simple – a subconscious understanding that “this place is nice. I like it.” Our research aims to tap into that subconscious understanding, offering a relatively simple mechanism to quantify community opinions. But the data itself is only part of the solution. The more critical question is: what do we do with this information? How can we use it in an effective, measurable, and trackable way

to inform our design processes and create better, more inclusive spaces for our communities?

Quantifying Quality, a collaborative research project between UTS and SJB, identifies which characteristics of place are most important to the community and how these could shape approaches to place/community-based urbanism.

We focused on the analysis of existing public spaces through the use of a web-based image survey that represented varying urban typologies, from across different locations in Sydney. Participants rated each image based on comfort, safety, ambience, beauty, and character. The results were clear – Oran Park was mostly disliked, while Darling Square was loved. Maroubra performed poorly, and Ed Square was highly favoured. Our task was to uncover the reasons behind these patterns. We analysed the images using various advanced digital tools, such as medical imaging software and image segmentation algorithms, identifying the urban characteristics that influenced people’s responses. Spaces with more visible sky, narrow sidewalks and heightened vehicular activity tended to receive poor responses, while those with a blend of traditional and modern facades, earthy colour palettes, rich vegetation, and varied ground materials were favoured.

This was the data we had been seeking. With precise quantities of each urban characteristic defining a successful or unsuccessful image, we now had the numbers needed to communicate with the algorithm. Now that we can quantify the quality of a space, we can also optimise it.

We applied this knowledge to an urban superblock in central Sydney, programming the algorithm to optimise various design

variables, such as the location of open spaces, pathways, vegetation, and ground materials. The algorithm produced 5000 design solutions in just 10 hours, each one adjusting the variables to achieve the best results for beauty, ambience, safety, and comfort. The top-performing solutions optimised their target quality objectives by 90-100%, resulting in urban spaces that clearly echoed the best-performing images from the survey. Throughout this project, we identified four key findings that could be used by all designers to ensure high-quality place outcomes:

– The value of an image in design; images are used every day to communicate design with the community. These images have much greater value than just a visual description.

– Variable demographics are important; correlations between different demographics highlight that places need to be more thoughtfully designed to be inclusive of all people.

– Community can play a bigger part; the evaluation of public space can be heavily driven by the community from the start, rather than a post-justification exercise.

– Design controls can be more inclusive; public space quality can be defined by far more factors than just sky view and sunlight access.

Quantifying Quality is not an exhaustive research project but a first step in understanding how the quality of spaces can be better informed and driven by the community the spaces are built for. We hope that this research can be developed further to inform systemic change in the way places are considered, designed, and analysed. ■

→ Mohammed Makki is an architect, urban designer and course director of the School of Architecture undergraduate program at the University of Technology Sydney, with expertise in the application of evolutionary computation in design. His research, which spans evolutionary and algorithmic computational theory, explores alternative approaches to designing the urban fabric using algorithmic and biological systems. Mohammed has developed Wallacei, one of the leading software on the application of evolutionary computation in architecture, used in academic and industry institutions worldwide.

Jordan Mathers is an associate, urban design at SJB. He is particularly intrigued by the role technology plays in the future of cities, researching and implementing data-driven design methodologies in urban design.

Linda Matthews is the co-director of the UTS Visualisation Institute and associate head of the School of Architecture at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Most optimal scheme created with the use of generative design software visualised in a 3D model

A generative AI image

COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN: NEXT GENERATIONS AND FRONTIERS

Words by Nicole Gardner

When I jump in an Uber at UNSW, I am often asked what it is I do, and occasionally, whether I am a student.

After politely explaining that I am an architect, design researcher, and director of the computational design program in the School of Built Environment, I then typically get asked: what’s computational design? It’s a fair question. A computational designer is a relatively recent specialisation and job title within the architecture, engineering, and construction sector.

Moreover, computational design is a dynamic expertise that is continually evolving in step with often rapid advances in digital and computational technologies. Looking back, the year 2007 was somewhat of a turning point for computational design. Around this time, computational design began appearing more frequently in books and scholarly discourse. In niche areas of academia and the profession, 3D modelling software and computational methods were already being used to define, generate, and digitally fabricate complex geometric forms in variable and customisable ways. In a range of architecture schools globally, the 3D NURB-based modelling software Rhinoceros (more affectionately referred to as Rhino) was gaining popularity and fanning the well-established trend for geometrical adventurism. Rendering and animation software and plugins for Rhino (with catchy names like Flamingo and Bongo) also provided a wider

range of designers with more accessible tools to create high fidelity and immersive 3D visualisations. But the Rhino plugin Grasshopper that was beta-launched in late 2007 empowered designers in new and different ways. Namely, the Rhino/Grasshopper double act enabled many more designers with little-tono computer programming expertise, or coding craft, to generate, control, and optimise complex geometric forms based on algorithmic logic and by using parameters and rules as constraints.

Although far from the only computationally based tool of its type, Grasshopper’s tight integration with Rhino, its visual programming interface, and its opensource nature are features which distinguished it from similar products and contributed to its wide appeal among designers, educators, and students. In many ways, parametricised design modelling software opened a gateway to understanding computational methods

and the benefits of systematic and dataaugmented approaches to analysing and solving complex design problems. In the School of Built Environment at UNSW, the undergraduate computational design program adopts a wider view of computational design as an integrated ecology of digital tools and computational methods. The program scaffolds skill development in visual programming and text-based programming to enable the instrumentation of data for analysis and optimisation in relation to project specific constraints and environmental metrics, as well as to leverage the possibilities robotic and digital fabrication and assembly.

In the final year graduation project, students collaborate with organisations from the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector to apply and test their computational design skills on real-world design problems. This provides an important opportunity for bi-directional knowledge exchange between students and the AEC sector. Engagement with AEC collaboratorsis critical for fostering students’ understanding of industry and organisation design process problems and friction points, and conversely for helping AEC collaborators to stay up to date with innovative digital technologies and computational methods. Over the last decade, the computational design graduation projects have spanned a diverse range of topics from design and production task automation and the creation of data-augmented optimisation and design decision support workflows to explorations of new material and fabrication processes.

This year’s graduating cohort have developed computational design workflows for parametric acoustic simulation and optimisation for interior design, integrating and communicating urban heat data in an immersive 3D virtual reality (VR) environment, automating thermal resistance analysis of wall types, and data standardisation and validation in building information model (BIM) projects using a Python library and YAML programming language. Several student projects also addressed designto-fabrication process innovation for 3D printing structurally optimised complex forms in earthen materials, multi-planar 3D printing, and integrating 3D scanning, photogrammetric processes and 3D printing for building component repair. And of course, numerous students engaged with machine learning tools and techniques. This includes the use

of existing tools such as Microsoft Azure AI Studio for AI-powered image segmentation analysis, using and developing an application programming interface (API) for scraping user-generated big data for aspect-based sentiment analysis in urban site research, and applying machine learning techniques such as Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) to automate floor plan generation based on existing Revit project data. Finally, a human-robot interaction (HRI) project this year explored the use of a facial recognition system combined with an algorithm-driven emotion classification to train a robot to mimic human emotions.

Technology developments in cloud computing, big data, and machine learning have paralleled escalating and accelerating climate crises, material resource depletion, waste accumulation, carbon production, and housing and labour shortages. These forces are also collectively driving market demand for digital transformation across all industries. For the AEC sector the shift to evidence-based and data-augmented design processes and production services is critical. Computational design methods and tools can and are being steadily integrated into architectural design and production processes to push and pull relevant internal and external data, and to enable modes of design automation, simulation, analysis and decision support in far earlier stages of the design process and where critical decisions are often made.

To paraphrase architectural historian and theorist Mario Carpo1, while architecture’s first digital turn changed ways of making, this more recent and second data-augmented digital turn will change ways of thinking and designing. Put another way, while the architecture profession has to date invested in the digital uplift of extant design processes, now is the time to invest in the integration of computational design thinking and methods to help us grapple with ever more wicked design problems. Additionally, a view shared by Carpo and many others is that the next frontier of computational design must “deal somehow with the delivery of actual buildings”.2 ■

Notes

1

2

→ Nicole Gardener is an architect, design researcher, and director of the computational design program at the School of Built Environment at UNSW.

Carpo, Mario (2017) The Second Digital Turn: Design Beyond Intelligence, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass.

Carpo, Mario (2024) “Generative AI, Imitation Learning, and the Automation of Tacit Knowledge”, A+UArchitecture and Urbanism Magazine

PAST TECHNOLOGY CAN COMFORT US TODAY

Words by Peeraya Suphasidh

Works of architecture provide us with an experience of space, materiality, and time, all of which speak directly to the human senses and are deeply intertwined with our collective and individual understanding of the environment. These sensory experiences are crucial to our development as individuals and as a society.

In Thailand, I retraced an old technique of building with rammed earth, with the conviction of its value to the local building industry. Although the technology was prevalent for thousands of years, it has been disregarded for its labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of manually compressing earth. I relearned this construction technique with our local builders, allowing them the instinctive mastery of the expertise through trials.

Specimens of earth were collected from different parts of the country to create shifting shades and hues to the building’s expansive facade. The building’s structural elements are designed in reinforced concrete columns and beams, since rammed earth is not a certified load bearing material in Thailand.

The construction of Chonburi as a rammed earth building challenges normative limitations inherent in the local context. It was a positive outcome achieved through collaboration, developing a technique which otherwise may have been forgotten.

The material expressions are created in a collaborative process between hands and tools,

Bangkok Apartment Architect: Suphasidh Architects Build: Studio Na Craft. Photo: Pornpanit Intapat

Bangkok Apartment, Thailand. Architect: Suphasidh Architects. Build: Studio Na Craft.

Photo: Pornpanit Intapat

Words by Peeraya Suphasidh

marking their distinctive qualities. The process and the materials involved are remembered as imprints in the layered rammed earth walls. The laborious process begins as experiment and is later mastered by a dedicated team of craft persons.

Contextualising knowledge takes time and tremendous effort; requiring that all stakeholders understand the construction methods This project points to the fact that there are many traditional methods and materials for heat mitigation in the face of climate the crisis. How these materials and techniques may be implemented where most needed remains an immense challenge. The causes of worsening climate conditions are rooted in industrialisation and the battle between human advancement and redundancy. Can we omit the manufacturing process and allow things of natural origin, nonmanufactured, to return to our realm of living while at the same time redefining the quality of our built environment?

In the complete renovation a residential apartment in central Bangkok, the aim was

Above and right (far page) Bangkok Apartment. A mixture of lime and earth helps to mitigate humidity

Right

Chonburi Multi-Purpose Building

The building’s rooftop faces the ocean, while the rear facade addresses the low-rise provincial town

Right page (far page)

The sunken ground level takes advantage of the cooler temperature

Bangkok Apartment Architect: Suphasidh Architects Build: Studio Na Craft. Photo: Pornpanit Intapat

not to merely enhance its aesthetic appeal, but also to seek innovative ways to address the challenges of heat and humidity in order to improve thermal performance and comfort level. To achieve this, a mixture of lime and local earth serves as the base material for both wall surfaces and cupboard fronts, providing textures with varying granularities. Of this surface material, 120 square metres absorbs and releases a modest amount of humidity from the interior air, modulating a level of comfort to the indoor environment. The strategic use of massive stone pieces as interior elements, totaling roughly 800kg, along with a study room desk weighing 325kg, serves dual purposes, functioning as practical furniture like desks, bedside tables, and living room coffee tables, while also offering themselves as thermal masses.

During the night, when mechanical air conditioning is utilised, the stone absorbs and retains their lower temperature. In the early morning, when the air conditioning is off, the stored coolness is slowly released, contributing to a balanced indoor climate. This intentional integration of passive thermal regulating

mechanisms through the use of natural elements not only optimises temperature profiles within the living spaces but also serves as visually and functionally appealing design elements. By re-examining building elements and methods, I believe we can collectively imagine a version of innovation and technology in the context of extreme temperature fluctuations and economic uncertainties. Together such methods can develop a framework to imagine how progress, technological advances, and beauty might take shape, allowing a performative approach to materials and methods in the tropical, developing world context, even where growth is challenged and hardly overcome.

A vision for the future where progress happens and is equally acknowledged at every location, that each specific culture and climatic zone warrant their own idiosyncratic responses to shared challenges in the global climate crisis. Natural climatic design innovations from the developing world can return and inspire transformation of the developed world. ■

→ Peeraya Suphasidh is a licensed member of the Architect Council of Thailand and holds a post-professional Master in Architecture II from Harvard University (2020). She has practiced and researched in the US, Japan, France, and Thailand on various international projects.

COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PARTNERSHIPS

Words by Ninotschka Titchkosky and Tim Schork

Within the last three decades, the professions of architecture and construction have faced many challenges – rising costs, low productivity and AI have significant impacts. The challenges and pace require us to think and act differently. Deep-rooted beliefs about architecture and the system we operate in often hold us back from being able to tackle these issues.

What is required is the far-reaching transformation of our current practices including new approaches to business models, design, materials, and construction. Collaborative research partnerships between practice and university can accelerate the development of transformational pathways to deal with these big challenges and ensure architects can capture the value of this change.

Innovations in architecture practice have always been closely linked to societal, environmental, economic, and technological change. Now at the start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, encompassing the advent and convergence of exponential technologies including AI, robotics and blockchain, while experiencing the impacts of climate change, affordability, and skills shortages.

The key difference to past challenges is the velocity of change and the extent to which foundational governing, environmental and societal systems are being disrupted, including global world order. It is apparent that

what is required to address these challenges is not small incremental change, but a radical shift in mindset and a fundamental rethinking of existing and long-established design and construction practices.

The building and construction industry is one of the largest industry sectors worldwide, and in Australia it equates to 8% of

Systems Reef by BVN and UTS. Photo: Courtesy BVN

our national GDP. However, it remains one of the least digitised sectors and productivity is declining. Furthermore, the building industry has a devastating impact on the environment, contributing 39% of global carbon emissions. It is one of the largest consumers of natural resources and energy, one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, and one of the major producers of waste. The problem extends beyond design and construction and encompasses a one-way business and production model – a linear economy – which involves extracting natural resources to make products that are used for a limited period, before being discarded as waste.

While we have adopted some new approaches and digital technologies in some aspects of our profession’s day-to-day business, in contrast to other industries, this uptake and transformation has been slow, and most of our construction processes have hardly changed in the past century.

Over the last 50 years the design and construction industry has become more segmented, and our influence is declining. This segmented system was developed as a risk transfer model, with the belief that by ringfencing each part of the process, (or the contributing parties), it would reduce risk and increase profits. What this has actually done, is stagnate innovation. Due to segmentation, innovation is inevitably blocked somewhere along the process, because the value of innovation cannot be captured across the entire process which means the risk outweighs the reward. The system in which we operate is fundamentally broken and cannot support what is now needed – whole systems thinking.

The extent and complexity of the challenges we face as architects today requires an innovation and investment mindset for practice to be able to match the pace of change and increase our influence. We can no longer rely on projects to drive innovation; practices need to embed innovation into their strategic plans and allocate funding and resources to meeting these goals.

Collaborative research partnerships between practice and university can accelerate the development of transformational pathways. Rather than seeking to bring all expertise in house, research collaborations allow businesses to accelerate the rapid transfer of emerging technologies, materials, and methodologies from labs into real-world applications. This can

lead to quicker adoption of innovations, at a lower cost, like 3D printing, smart materials, and green building technologies and construction innovation and commercialisation opportunities. Partnerships provide access to high levels of talent and give researchers the opportunity to work on practical problems with high levels of impact that matter to society and industry.

In 2021, we launched Systems Reef, the world’s first robotically 3D printed air system. Systems Reef is designed to transform the HVAC industry and demonstrate the benefits of artificial intelligence, large scale 3D printing, new materials, and circularity. It is the result of a collaborative research project between BVN and the Transformative Technologies Lab in the at UTS with support from industry experts.

The limitations of existing steel duct systems were identified by BVN through their extensive experience in commercial buildings and workplace design. The UTS team had expertise in robotics and a passion for circularity. The collaboration was formed to explore the possibilities of fully digitised workflows and robotic manufacturing with new low carbon materials to replace steel ducting. In addition, Systems Reef solves issues of productivity, increases efficiency on site and improves health and safety.

Systems Reef has had global coverage and won significant awards. BVN’s studio was used as a living lab and provided the basis for the real-world application for design and prototyping. Companies that partner with research institutions often gain a reputation for innovation, sustainability, and quality, which can improve their standing in the market. Academic institutions benefit as well, as their research gains validation and wider recognition.

Most importantly, the research has opened a commercialisation pathway for Systems Reef, which is currently being pursued. This means new ways of capturing value for our creativity rather than solely relying on the fee for service models. Developing new ventures, products and services that help solve key challenges for the industry can establish architects as entrepreneurs who create opportunity rather than merely service others. In order to move beyond the segmented system we currently operate in, and to increase our agency and impact, we must value innovation as a strategic priority. Collaborative research partnerships offer an accelerated pathway to achieving high levels of innovation and impact.■

→ Ninotschka Titchkosky the recent past co-CEO of BVN, one of Australia’s largest architectural practices. She has worked across most sectors and project typologies, including complex, world-leading projects, such as the new Atlassian Headquarters, Sydney. Three decades of architectural practice are foundational to her deep understanding of the industry and the urgent need for transformation to address issues of environmental impact, cost, productivity and digitalisation.She is focused on the possibilities that advanced technologies, circularity and new business models provide in accelerating this transformation.

Professor Tim Schork explores the role of collaborative research partnerships in transforming the industry.

02. UNIVERSITY EXHIBITIONS

Photo: Andy Roberts

NSW ARCHITECTS REGISTRATION BOARD

Words by Kirsten Orr

The NSW Architects Registration Board (NSW ARB) is a long-time sponsor of the annual NSW university exhibitions. These exhibitions showcase work from graduating Master of Architecture students (featured in the following pages). They offer a unique glimpse of the future of architecture through the fresh perspectives of the next generation and provide valuable insights into architectural education and emerging trends in practice.

There are now six architecture programs accredited by the NSW ARB across five NSW universities. Western Sydney University is the newest addition, having graduated its first Master of Architecture cohort in 2021. Nationally, there are 22 universities teaching architecture through 29 accredited programs.

One of the strengths of Australia’s architecture profession is its nationally consistent accreditation procedure administered by the Architects Accreditation Council of Australia (AACA). Accreditation is a peer review process in which a nationally comprised panel of architects and academics independently assesses each architecture program against relevant performance criteria (PCs) from the 2021 National Standard of Competency for Architects (2021 NSCA) and makes a recommendation on whether, and for how long, a program should be accredited. The architect registration boards in each state and territory are the accrediting bodies for the programs in their jurisdiction and are

The 2024 Architects Medallion was awarded to Chloe Gesler, University of Newcastle.

Photo: Courtesy NSW ARB

guided by the panel’s recommendations.

The accreditation process requires architecture programs to map their teaching to the PCs and to provide examples of the lowest pass student work. There are 12 PCs that are only ever tested in the context of university accreditation. Without exception these relate to architectural design – the application of creative imagination, the ability to integrate technical requirements and critically evaluate conceptual design options, and the exploration of three-dimensional form and spatial quality. Competence in architectural design is not tested again post-graduation in the Architectural Practice Examination that leads to registration as an architect. This is why the annual university exhibitions are so important.

The 2021 NSCA identifies the skills, knowledge and capabilities required for the general practice of architecture in Australia and its introduction proclaims that, “Architectural design – a creative endeavour combined with the capacity to realise and deliver built projects – is at the core of the profession of architecture.”

Three of the four units of competency in the 2021 NSCA include the word “design” in their title and approximately one-third of the total 60 PCs mention design in some way.

Architects have the skills to provide holistic design thinking about the built environment at all scales of density. We are the custodians of the quality of the neighbourhoods that people live and work in, with the skills to ensure amenity, efficiency, safety and security, and sustainability. Our design skills differentiate us from others in the industry. And it all starts at university.

That’s why everyone should have at least one university exhibition pencilled into their calendar annually. These exhibitions

present the best of the best and illuminate the variety of teaching approaches to equip graduates with the necessary higher-order skills, creative and innovative mindsets, and practice-based research skills to become competent architects. If you didn’t attend this year, make it priority for November 2025.

The work on display reveals an increasingly complex skillset expectation of architects. This includes grasping the heritage, cultural, and community values embodied in a particular site and project, understanding and embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ aspirations to care for Country, applying emergent knowledge in building sciences and technology, environmental sciences and behavioural and social sciences, complying with the National Construction Code, and integrating information relevant to environmental sustainability over the lifecycle of a project.

Since 1924, the NSW ARB has awarded the Architects Medallion annually to a top NSW graduate of an accredited Master of Architecture course who has achieved distinction both in a particular subject area at the final level and generally through the two years of the course. Past winners have gone on to play significant roles in the profession. In 2024, the Architects Medallion was awarded to Chloe Gesler of the University of Newcastle at an event hosted in June at NSW Parliament House to celebrate the achievements of the most recent cohort of 362 newly registered NSW architects. The Medallion is custom fabricated for each winner to a 2017 design by Cox Architecture. ■

→ Dr Kirsten Orr is the registrar and CEO of the NSW Architects Registration Board, responsible for the operation of the Architects Act 2003 and effective governance and regulation of more than 6000 architects in NSW. Kirsten’s career has spanned architectural practice, leadership roles in the university sector, and highlevel appointments to all major Australian government and professional bodies regulating architects, the education of architecture students, and the accreditation of architecture programs. She was a professor of architecture and Dean at the University of Tasmania from 20162018 and before that was associate head of the School of Architecture at UTS.

Custom fabricated to a design by Cox Architecture

UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Words by Melonie Bayl-Smith

Job ready graduates, it’s a phrase known to roll off the tongues of university executives, elicit fiery debate and endless eye-rolling among academics and educators, and prompt impassioned pleas by practitioners about the academy needing to seriously address the future of the architectural profession. At the University of NSW School of Built Environment we take the concept seriously – but probably not in the way that might be expected.

Given the incredibly and increasingly diverse nature of the architectural profession, to create job ready graduates means to equip students with a range of tools and knowledge so that they can navigate the profession and the complex contexts within which architectural practice operates.

The imbuing of an ethos, of purpose and of disciplinary language and vocabulary – not just digital modelling skills and a knowledge of construction details – is key to contemporary architectural education. When you consider that the typical M.Arch student of today will (hopefully) still be practicing in the year 2064, the demands made on professional practice education to wrestle with and teach the future of practice are not insignificant.

Given the ever-changing nature of architectural practice, professional practice subjects – in previous decades routinely deemed the most dull, dry, and uninspiring of the lot – have now become critical to delivering integrated and purposeful architectural

APEN Symposium. Photo: RM

education. This is not only in terms of framing and communicating the nature of current day and indeed future practice, but also for the all-important accreditation of courses under the 2021 National Standard of Competency for Architects (NSCA).

Professional practice subjects across Australian accredited courses are attempting to cover somewhere between 17 and 20, 2021 NSCA Performance Criteria – and there are 43 Performance Criteria required to be covered across all course offerings of a M.Arch program for accreditation purposes. So professional practice – usually delivered across one or two subjects – is carrying 40% of the accreditation load.

This increased interest in what professional practice education brings to architectural education, and how it can be a compelling connector between the academy and the profession, became the catalyst for the formation of the Architectural Practice Educators Network (APEN) of which I am the founder and current Chair. APEN’s purpose is to share knowledge and research in architectural practice, support the ongoing development of innovative, quality pedagogy regarding architectural practice, and to strengthen links

to other subject areas within the broader architectural curriculum. Our members include educators from across every accredited program in Australia and soon New Zealand.

Since the first APEN meeting in June 2023, momentum has grown such that the network group organised its inaugural symposium, Practice Matters, held in November 2024 at the UNSW School of Built Environment.

This event brought together academics, educators, and practitioners to explore the intersection of professional capabilities within the architectural curriculum. The symposium highlighted innovative pedagogical practices and discussed opportunities for contemporary architectural education to better prepare graduates for professional success.

Speakers and panellists were drawn from both practice and academia and engaged in presentations across nine sessions covering topics as broad as ethics, integrated design studios, research in practice, cultural security, and the future of architectural practice.

With more than one hundred people in attendance, comprising academics, educators, practitioners, students and others from the broader profession, the symposium was deemed a success, particularly in terms of attracting a diversity of attendees, presenting a range of ideas and positions on practice, and offering stimuli for collegial conversation, debate and future research.

It also became incredibly clear that there are many in our architecture schools who care deeply for our students and the profession – that job readiness is not ignored or disputed. With great enthusiasm for the 2025 edition of the symposium already afoot, there is hope that this gathering might prompt us all – practitioners, academics, industry leaders – to better communicate what we do, why we do it, the value of our work, and why architects matter. ■

→ Melonie Bayl-Smith LFRAIA is an associate professor in the School of Built Environment at UNSW ADA and is the director and nominated architect of Bijl Architecture. She recently finished as the NSW APE Convenor, serving the NSW ARB and the AACA for seven years in this role.

Cultural Security Session. Photo: MBS

UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE

Words by Nicholas Foulcher

The Red Pen exhibition, hosted by the University of Newcastle School of Architecture and Built Environment (SABE), marked the culmination of a transformative year for the class of 2024. Held at two iconic venues – Newcastle City Hall on 22 November and Tusculum in Potts Point on 27 November – this year’s exhibition showcased work that is both deeply personal and powerful, reflecting SABE’s commitment to architecture with impact.

The exhibition symbolises the iterative and reflective nature of architectural practice. It evokes the designer’s hand as it critiques, refines, and reimagines – identifying challenges, proposing solutions, and interrogating thought processes. This cyclical journey embodies the nonlinear path toward thoughtful design, mirroring the students’ own explorations of architecture’s transformative potential.

Throughout the year, the class of 2024 engaged with pressing global and local themes, with Newcastle and the region providing a rich context for their inquiries. Here, global issues like energy transition, climate justice, and social inequity are vividly played out. From housing models to sustainable practices, energy-conscious design, decolonisation, and connection to Country, students explored how architecture can reimagine Australia’s regions while addressing the challenges of our age.

At the heart of SABE’s pedagogy is a commitment to regional urbanism, collaboration, and criticality. Students are encouraged to situate radical and speculative design practices on real sites and live projects, developing the creativity and innovation necessary to face complex scenarios. This year’s exhibition exemplified these principles, featuring projects rooted in care for Country, environmental stewardship, and the pursuit of equity and social justice. Some standout projects: Somewhere to Go by Kinga Vidor, reimagines public toilets as dynamic architectural interventions, elevating these overlooked spaces into celebrated, inclusive environments that highlight dignity and care. In In Ore, Jack Olive critiques the environmental toll of resource extraction, using immersive narratives to confront the disconnection between exploitation and ecological stewardship. Syahmina Zulkepli’s

AKAR: Cultural Continuity Through Revival of Vernacular Design is a deeply personal exploration of identity, memory, and belonging. By revitalising Malaysian vernacular architecture, it challenges colonial legacies and positions traditional knowledge systems as drivers of cultural empowerment and environmental resilience. The Anti-Museum by Gizelle McKinnon disrupts conventional heritage narratives, integrating Indigenous memory and architectural interventions to reframe the colonial histories embedded in Newcastle’s built environment. Collectively, these projects exemplify how architecture can critique the past, empower communities, and inspire sustainable, inclusive futures.

The Red Pen exhibition also reflected SABE’s vibrant and inclusive community. With a legacy of fostering connections and mutual care among students and staff, the discipline equips its graduates not only with technical skills but also with the empathy and resilience needed to make a difference.

As the students step into the profession, Red Pen serves not as a conclusion but as a beginning – a call to action to continue refining, questioning, and designing for a better world. This exhibition reminds us that architecture, at its core, is about more than buildings; it is about creating spaces that nurture our shared humanity, honour our connection to the land, and inspire a future filled with possibility. ■

→ Nicholas Foulcher is a ecturer in the School of Architecture and Built Environment and head of discipline – architecture and program convenor – Bachelor of Design (Architecture).

Left Red Pen, University of Newcastle, School of Architecture and Built Environment

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Words by Deborah Ascher Barnstone

2024 has been a terrific year for the University of Sydney School of Architecture academics and students. Some of the highlights included Dr Michael Mossman and Professor Donald McNeill who were awarded for their project, Indigenising the Built Environment, by the Australia Research Council’s Discover Indigenous grant program. The research project will examine the National Standard of Competence for Architects criteria for measuring the efficacy of efforts to improve consideration of Country and Indigenous culture in design.

The school launched its second Rothwell partnership naming the distinguished Japanese practice Atelier Bow wow Garry and Susan Rothwell as Chairs. Momoyo Kaijima, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, and Yoichi Tamai spent a couple of weeks at the school, working with architecture students on a project that used hand drawing as a means of understanding the urban context. They collaborated on a day-long symposium that looked at contemporary regional and urban challenges and gave a public lecture to a packed audience at Carriageworks.

Professor Claire Zimmerman from the University of Toronto spent three weeks in residence as the second Penelope Visiting Professor in Architectural History during which she conducted seminars with HDR students and staff and gave several lectures on a variety of topics.

Hand drawing as a means of understanding the urban context, University of Sydney. Photo: Adrian Thai.

Graduates had great success in the Australian Institute of Architects annual student awards: Jiayi Li won the Master Graduate Medal; Chiyuan Li won the Undergraduate Medal; Pierre Dallais won the Architectural Technologies award; Katrina Jelavic won the Architectural Communications award; and Jacob Levy won a Commendation for the Brian Patrick Keirnan Prize.

Sydney University student talent was on display as Master students, Madeleine Gallagher, Poppy Brown, Kangyun Kim, Paris Perry, John Suh and Catherine Taylor, won the New South Wales Government Architect’s Pattern Book competition in the Student Category, a project to develop a design template for innovative and adaptable

homes. In further successes, recent graduate Chiyuan Li and current students Alexandra Courtney and Madeleine Gallagher have been named semi-finalists in the 2025 AA Unbuilt Award competition out of 79 submissions.

The year closed with festive celebrations and the annual industry Crits and Grad Show on Tuesday 26 November in the Wilkinson Building. The building was packed to overflowing with students, their families and friends, and staff, and teeming with energy making it feel as if things are returning to normal post COVID. ■

→ Deborah Ascher Barnstone is a professor and head of architecture at The University of Sydney, School of Architecture, Design and Planning.

Left and far left

The annual industry Crits and Grad Show, University of Sydney.

Photo: Maja Baska.

UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY SYDNEY

Words by Leena Thomas

In its unique colocation of architecture, interior architecture, and landscape architecture disciplines, UTS enables new and critical ways to rethink our approach and ethical responsibility to the built environment and its inhabitants, human and more than human. Through our teaching, research and engagement, we strive to be a catalyst for change focusing on design excellence informed by three primary societal concerns: Climate change: Decarbonisation and biodiversity; Inclusivity: Designing with Country and decolonisation; and Equity: Urban transformation and housing affordability.

With over 1500 incredible students, 41 academic and professional staff and 200 additional individuals drawn from practice and industry who join us as tutors, all committed to the project of the school and future of the industry, 2024 has been a busy and successful year for the school. The Master of Architecture gained its five-year accreditation as did the Master of Landscape Architecture, with our landscape program also celebrating 10 years at UTS this year. We bid farewell to Professor Daniel Barber and Dr Alex Seo thanking them for their valued contributions. I was appointed Interim Head of School from July 2024. Our architecture discipline course directors are Brooke Jackson and Dr Mohammed Makki with Nathan Etherington supporting while Mohammed was on sabbatical.

Hand drawing as a means of understanding the urban context, University of Sydney.

Photo: Adrian Thai.

This year we welcomed Matte Ager McConnell proud Wiradjri man, and professor of practice, Emily McDaniel curator and artist from the Kalari Clan of the Wiradjuri nation in Central New South Wales, as well as Michael Ford, Dr Jasper Ludewig, Faid Ahmed, Tom Woodhead and Robert Champion as continuing academics at the school. Designing with Country has become intrinsic in our ongoing learning, with a conscious commitment by the school to incorporate a considered method for respecting and Connecting with Country across the curriculum, building continuing relationships with First Nations People and their extended communities, and extending a forum for truth telling. In Autumn we ran our first all-Indigenous-led Masters studio instigated by Associate Dean of Indigenous Engagement Alison Page, with Marni Reti, proud palawa + Ngāti Wai woman, and MacKenzie Sadler, proud Wiradjuri man, and Matte Ager-McConnell, proud Wiradjuri man – all UTS alumni. In other highlights, two postgraduate cohorts travelled to Seoul and Japan, thanks to the generosity of the Seidler Architectural Foundation Global Climate Studio Grant scholarships. Our public program Solidarity, directed by Dr Endriana Audisho, welcomed a diverse range of guests, and explored questions of spatial, social, and intergenerational justice in the built environment through a combination of public lectures, roundtables, film screenings,

and knowledge-sharing events. Solidarity culminated in the 2024 end-of-year show, Collective Futures curated by Jacqueline Tran, Julia Ramos, and Malak Al-Faraj to celebrate the accomplishments and shared visions of both graduating and non-graduating students. Showcasing 280 projects from 560 students, the show attracted over 1000 visitors on opening night and was a testament to the collective energy of the UTS architecture community.

A few of the notable achievements by academics include top honours at the 2024 Australian Urban Design Awards (led by Mohammed Makki with SJB), pioneering Defense technology through ASCA (led by Dr Linda Matthews), rethinking decarbonisation (Gerard Reinmuth with Terroir) and reimagining the National Sculpture Garden as a living gallery with the National Gallery and CO-AP Holdings (Robert Champion). Congratulations to Professor Emily McDaniel, who with Dr Michael Mossman, and Jack Gillmer-Lilley will present HOME at the Venice Biennale, blending Indigenous knowledge and architectural innovation. Congratulations also to Master of Architecture students Cheera Montriwat and Neha Kayastha, winners of the Think Brick student prize for their project ReFraming and Monika Krncevic and Niousha Zendehdel Arjaghi, who presented in the 2024 CAADRIA Conference, Singapore. ■

→ Leena Thomas iis a professor and interim head of school, architecture at the University of Technology Sydney.

Left and far left End-of-year show. Photo: Andy Roberts.

WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY

Words by Michael Chapman

In 2024, the Master of Architecture urban transformation program at Western Sydney celebrated our third batch of graduates, drawn from one of the most diverse architecture programs in Australia and the world. Our cohort across the two programs is representative of over 50 language groups with a pedagogy that is embedded within the vast cross section of Western Sydney, directly addressing the social and spatial issues emerging in the region.

In 2024, our students undertook studio projects across the full expanse of Western Sydney, with studios exploring the urban condition of Harris Park, Mount Druitt, Toongabbie, Westmead, Parramatta, Bankstown, Concorde, Lidcombe, Auburn, Rydalmere, Granville, Werrington, Rosehill, St Marys, Blacktown, Wentworthville, Cabramatta, Canley Vale, Fairfield, Granville, Merrylands, Guildford, Burwood, Ashfield, Summer Hill, Penrith, Prospect, Liverpool and Campbelltown. WSU student, Amanda Eessa was also shortlisted in the student category of the NSW Government Architect’s Pattern Book competition developing a delicate project for a complex site in Edmonston Park, embodying issues of cultural diversity in the built environment.

In February, the school hosted the second Powerhouse Urban Transformation Summer School, supported by Holdmark and focussing on improving the urban amenity of Mount Druitt CBD. With the support of

Mount Druitt Exhibition, PEIH, Parramatta. Photo: Michael Chapman.

Blacktown City Council, our students visited recent architectural projects across the Local Government Area, including works by ARM, Sam Crawford Architects, Carter Williamson, lahznimmo, Eoghan Lewis, McGregor Coxall and culminating in the symposium and exhibition Becoming Blacktown, which was held in Parramatta in March.

The WSU student group Beyond Architecture continued to grow, managing a vast range of student engagement activities across the year, as well as hosting and curating the WSU Student Exhibition at the Parramatta Town Hall. Through the Powerhouse collaboration, the architecture discipline hosted talks by Moreau and Kusunoki, Genton and Gabriele Duarte from OMA, which accompanied visits from Peter Stutchbury, Andrew Burges, Marlon Blackwell, David Kaunitz, Philip Thalis and many others who have supported our programs.

This year, WSU ran its first Indigenous Studio in the Master program, led by Vesna Trobec, Rob Meyerson and Parisa Ziaesaeidi, taking 15 students to the ancient cultural landscape of Budj Bim where they undertook a semester long project, learning immersive

techniques for designing with Country.

Not far from our home, the WSU Indigenous Centre of Excellence, led by Sarah Lynn Rees with JCB, Peter Stutchbury Architecture, and others is due to start construction in 2025, as a landmark project for both the university and the region, and especially its Indigenous communities.

Our Urban Transformation Research Centre was heavily engaged in research projects across Western Sydney throughout 2024, successfully securing funding for a research project developing solutions for mapping and modelling urban areas prone to flood, fire and heat extremes, an industry training program supporting modern methods of construction, as well as an impact award for research taken into prepay issues for electricity in Indigenous communities. Additionally, our students explored and digitally archived the modernist masterpieces of Vann Molyvann in Phnom Penh in an NCP-funded cultural exchange to Cambodia while also undertaking an extensive project to record the forgotten water reservoirs of Sydney through a collaborative and ongoing project with Sydney Water.■

→ Michael Chapman is a professor and chair of architecture and design at Western Sydney University.

Above Student site visit to Lyons WSU Bankstown Campus.

Photo: Michael Chapman..

Left Summer school visit to ARM, BEST, Blacktown. Photo: Michael Chapman..

NSW REGIONAL AND NEWCASTLE

ARCHITECTURE WINNERS

| Photo:

2025 NSW Regional Architecture Awards

MEDALLION AWARD

Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre, Shellharbour

Traditional Owners

Wodi Wodi People, Dharawal Country

Architect

Edmiston Jones

Builder

Corporate Interior Projects (CIP)

Wellington

Photo Louise

JAMES BARNET AWARD

High Tide House

Traditional Owners

Arakwal Bumberlin People of the Bundjalung Nation

Architect

Ware Architects

Builder TWIL Constructions

Photo Rory Gardiner

VISION AWARD

Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre, Shellharbour

Traditional Owners

Wodi Wodi People, Dharawal Country

Architect

Edmiston Jones

Builder

Corporate Interior Projects (CIP)

Photo Louise Wellington

High Tide House

Traditional Owners

Arakwal Bumberlin People of the Bundjalung Nation

Architect

Ware Architects

Builder

TWIL Constructions

Photo Rory Gardiner

COMMERCIAL ARCHITECTURE

AWARD

Hotel Marvell

Traditional Owners

The Bundjalung Nation of Byron Bay – Arakwal People, the Minjungbal People and the Widjabul People

Architect

HGA Studio

Builder Rawcorp

Photo David Chatfield & Peter Tanevski

EDUCATIONAL ARCHITECTURE AWARD

New Boarding House, Yanco Agricultural High School, SINSW

Traditional Owners

The Wiradjuri People

Architect ARM Architecture

Builder Zauner

Photo Jeremy Weihrauch

HERITAGE ARCHITECTURE COMMENDATION

Sadlier Residence

Traditional Owners

Wiradjuri Country

Architect

Source Architects

Builder

Tablelands Builders

Photo

TFAD Tom Ferguson & Source Architects

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

AWARD

Bonito

Traditional Owners

The Bundjalung Nation of Byron Bay – Arakwal People, the Minjungbal People and the Widjabul People

Architect

HGA Studio

Builder Rawcorp

Photo David Chatfield & Peter Tanevski

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

AWARD

Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre, Shellharbour

Traditional Owners

Wodi Wodi People, Dharawal Country

Architect

Edmiston Jones

Builder

Corporate Interior Projects (CIP)

Photo Louise Wellington

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE COMMENDATION

Yukari House

Traditional Owners

Arakwal People of the Bundjalung Nation

Architect

Tanev Muir Architects

Builder

Morada Build

Photo

Aaron Chapman & Tanev Muir

PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE AWARD

Bathurst Animal Rehoming Centre (BARC)

Traditional Owners

Wiradjuri People

Architect

Welsh and Major

Builder

RWC (Regional West Constructions)

Photo

Welsh and Major

PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE

COMMENDATION

Coffs Harbour Jetty

Foreshore

Community Building

Traditional Owners

Gumbaynggirr Country

Architect

King and Campbell

Builder

Lahey Constructions

Photo David Tooby

SMALL PROJECT ARCHITECTURE

AWARD

Wallabies Watch

Traditional Owners

The Arakwal People, the Minjungbal People and the Widjabul People of the Bundjalung Nation

Architect StudioMODA

Builder

Forty Four Constructions

Photo

Peter Tanevski

URBAN DESIGN AWARD

Coffs Harbour Jetty Foreshore Community Building

Traditional Owners

Gumbaynggirr Country

Architect

King and Campbell

Builder

Lahey Constructions

Photo David Tooby

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE – HOUSES ( NEW ) COMMENDATION

Brahminy House

Traditional Owners

The Bundjalung Nation of Byron Bay

– Arakwal People, the Minjungbal People and the Widjabul People

Architect

HGA Studio

Builder

Foley Construction

Photo David Chatfield

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( NEW )

COMMENDATION

House Nabiac

Traditional Owners

Katang-speaking Aboriginal People of the Biripi and Worimi Tribes

Architect

Nicholas Flatman Architecture

Builder

Arte Constructions Pty Ltd

Photo Alexander Mcintyre

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( NEW)

AWARD

High Tide House

Traditional Owners

Arakwal Bumberlin People of the Bundjalung Nation

Architect

Ware Architects

Builder

TWIL Constructions

Photo Rory Gardiner

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( NEW )

AWARD

House in the Dry

Traditional Owners Kamilaroi/Gomeroi of the Kamilaroi Nation

Architect

MRTN Architects

Builder

J and S Contracting

Photo

Anthony Basheer

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( NEW )

AWARD

Rosedale House

Traditional Owners

Yuin Country

Architect

Scale Architecture

Builder

Owner Builder

Photo

Tim Clark Photography

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS )

AWARD

House in Narrawallee

Traditional Owners

Budawang People of the Yuin Nation

Architect

Architect George

Builder

Envisage Construction & Design

Photo

Cameron Deynzer

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS )

COMMENDATION

Yukari House

Traditional Owners

Arakwal People of the Bundjalung Nation

Architect

Tanev Muir Architects

Builder

Morada Build

Photo

Aaron Chapman & Tanev Muir

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– MULTIPLE HOUSING AWARD

Cedar on Collins

Traditional Owners

Wodi Wodi People, Dharawal Country

Architect

Kennedy Associates Architects

Builder

Orwell Constructions Pty Ltd

Photo Brett Boardman

NSW PRESIDENTS REGIONAL PRIZE

Albert Street Towers

Traditional Owners

TBA

Architect

Dylan Wood Architects

Builder

TBA

Photo Jessica Lindsay

2025 Newcastle Architecture Awards

NEWCASTLE MEDAL

AWARD

New Castle

Traditional Owners

Awabakal People

Architect

Anthony St John Parsons

Builder

Ledbury Constructions

Photo

Benjamin Hosking

COLORBOND ® AWARD FOR STEEL ARCHITECTURE

Murrook

Traditional Owners

The Worimi Nation

Architect

Derive Architecture & Design with Worimi Local Aboriginal Land Council

Builder

GTS Constructions

Photo Brett Boardman

COLORBOND ® COMMENDATION FOR STEEL ARCHITECTURE

Killcare Heights Escarpment House

Traditional Owners

Darkinjung Country

Architect

Matt Thitchener Architect

Builder

Arte Constructions Pty Ltd

Photo

Luke Butterly

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

AWARD

New Castle

Traditional Owners

Awabakal People

Architect

Anthony St John Parsons

Builder Ledbury Constructions

Photo Benjamin Hosking

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

AWARD

The Beach Hotel

Traditional Owners

Awabakal People

Architect

EJE

Builder Club Projects

Photo Alexander McIntyre

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE COMMENDATION

Flotilla x Vecina

Traditional Owners

Awabakal People

Architect

Derive Architecture & Design

Builder

Scipio + Appleby Projects

Photo Alexander McIntyre

PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE AWARD

Traditional Owners

The Worimi Nation

Architect

Derive Architecture & Design

Builder

GTS Constructions

Photo Brett Boardman

Murrook

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS )

AWARD

Window, window, window

Traditional Owners

Guringai & Coastal Dharug

Architect

PANOV–SCOTT

Builder

Owner Builder

Photo

Hamish McIntosh

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS )

COMMENDATION

Stockton Link House

Traditional Owners

Awabakal People

Architect

Sarah Truscott Architect

Builder

Owner Builder

Photo

Justin Aaron

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( NEW ) AWARD

New Castle

Traditional Owners

Awabakal People

Architect Anthony St John Parsons

Builder

Ledbury Constructions

Photo Benjamin Hosking

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( NEW )

AWARD

Throsby House

Traditional Owners

Pambalong Clan of the Awabakal People

Architect Curious Practice

Builder

Coastline Builders & Designers

Photo

Clinton Weaver

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( NEW ) COMMENDATION

Speers Point House

Traditional Owners

Awabakal People

Architect

OVDA Studio

Builder

Stafford Constructions Pty Ltd

Photo Alexander McIntyre

RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE

– HOUSES ( NEW ) COMMENDATION

Killcare Heights Escarpment House

Traditional Owners

Darkinjung Country

Architect

Matt Thitchener Architect

Builder

Arte Constructions Pty Ltd

Photo

Luke Butterly

Pictured: 2024 Australian Architecture Conference | Hamer Hall, Melbourne

Photographer: Michael Pham