Architectural Review: #156

S T R AT E GY | M A N AG E M E N T | F I N A N C E | L E GA L | H R | T E C H N O L O GY | L E G I S L AT I O N

THE BUSINESS OF ARCHITECTURE Architectural Review

ISSUE 156 | 2018

CHURCHES GROWTH TYPOLOGIES IMPACT OF PRIZES FINANCE GETTING RENDERS RIGHT TECHNOLOGY GROUP MERGERS STRATEGY

The Business of Architecture

Rosa Coy and George Yiontis

156

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16

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FEATURE INTERVIEW Rosa Coy and George Yiontis on running an architectural practice as a married couple.

CONTENTS

AR REGULARS 10

EDITORIAL

14

QUOTES

39

EMERGING PRACTICE Natalie Mortimer meets Adam Kane

64

ISSUE 156

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BRAIN TRUST Does your practice have a communications plan in place and do you think this is important?

BUSINESS 23

26

30

STRATEGY When three into one makes one – Buchan’s merger, by Cathy Anderson

34

GROWTH TYPOLOGIES City Life: a church of the future, by Melissa Rymer

TECHNOLOGY Hand to mouse – getting renders right, by Susanne Kennedy FINANCE Worth winning? The impact of prizes, by Deborah Singerman

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CONTENTS

DESIGN

APPLICATION

36

DESIGN Industrial design in architecture

58

42

LEAD PROJECT Humble house by Coy Yiontis Architects

60 COASTAL LIVING

50

EMERGING PROJECT Hardwood house by Adam Kane Architects

66

SKELETONS Sagrada Familia by Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano and Antoni Gaudí

62

MARBLE VERSUS MANUFACTURED STONE

AR ADVISER 56

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SHOWCASE New products under the spotlight

THE BUSINESS OF ARCHITECTURE

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Associate Publisher Lachlan Oakley lachlan.oakley @ niche.com.au (03) 9948 4952

10 EDITORIAL

Editor Madeleine Swain madeleine.swain @ niche.com.au

WORK/LIFE PARTNERS

W

hile it would be nice to be thinking about Architectural Review 24/7, the realities of publishing today mean that as editor I am responsible for a range of magazines.

Wearing one of those other hats I recently interviewed two married couples, one that runs a media agency and another that heads an accessories and fashion empire.

And in this issue AR is featuring the couple behind Melbourne practice Coy Yiontis as our lead profile. Three very different businesses. Three, it must be said, quite similar married couples.

All three are Melbourne-based, all have at least two children and coincidentally all the women are blonde (very Melbourne).

There are people who recoil at the very idea of sharing a working relationship with a significant other. How can that be healthy, they ask? Don’t they get sick of seeing each other all the time?

I’ve given this a bit of thought and reckon the answer is no. At least not these days.

Do you have a life partner? Children? If so, when you’re away from work or school – apart from running all the errands or driving the parent taxi to basketball, piano lessons and Parkour tryouts (is this a thing?) – how much time do you actually spend together?

Or do you perhaps find that invariably there are people spread out across the home, each diligently attached to their own personal electronic device doing whatever it is they do?

Catching Pokémon, checking Facebook, reading the news, bingeing on Netflix…?

Could it be that those couples that work together relish the time in the office/studio/factory as it’s the only time they really get to hang out these days?

Rosa Coy and George Yiontis seem to fit this mould and they reveal how it works for them on page 16.

From the micro to the macro merger, in this issue we also revisit the topic of company amalgamations and discover the challenges involved (and how to address them) when a large umbrella firm brings its smaller companies together, as Buchan has recently done.

Business development manager Tali Ben-Yehuda tali.yehuda @ niche.com.au (03) 9948 4953 Production Production manager Alicia Pinnock alicia.pinnock@niche.com.au Production coordinator Joel Sampson joel.sampson@niche.com.au Editorial designer Keely Goodall Design and digital prepress Karl Dyer Publishing Chairman Nicholas Dower Managing director Paul Lidgerwood Publisher & Commercial director Joanne Davies Financial controller Sonia Jurista Subscriptions Subscription enquiries Call 1800 804 160 or email subscriptions@niche.com.au Cover: George Yiontis and Rosa Coy © Elleni Toumpas Stock images via 123RF Printing Southern Colour

Architecture and Design Division Architectural Review is a publication of Niche Media Pty Ltd

Madeleine Swain Editor madeleine.swain@niche.com.au

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AR ADVISER CONTRIBUTION An AR Adviser is an organisation with which we’ve entered into a partnership to provide expert insight from their respective industries. In this issue, we welcome dormakaba.

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12 OPINION

WHAT LESSONS CAN YOU TAKE FROM A STARCHITECT? / MARIAN EDMUNDS

T

he Israeli-Canadian Moshe Safdie is undoubtedly a starchitect of the 20th and 21st centuries, who appears not to have fallen for his own hype. At almost 80, he claims not to entirely understand the tricky process of winning projects. Sometimes people seek you because of your reputation and sometimes you seek a project and you’ve got to tread lightly, he says. He still minds losing competitions if he feels he has self-knowledge superior to anything that was there. But sometimes it’s simply because there is no fit.

Safdie doesn’t believe in marketing.

He sees it as trying to convince clients to hire you for the wrong reasons.

You could argue Safdie’s clients do his marketing. But it his research, education and speaking engagements that probably make some clients want Safdie for the right reasons – a thought worth considering for the marketing averse.

Safdie recently spoke at Edge, the 2018 conference of Australian Institute of Architects. His keynote talk was keenly awaited. Safdie rejects isolating podiums and introverted malls, weaving together public and private realms in spaces that were always there yet unused, such as the sky.

Safdie is a long-time teacher. “Did you know Chongqing is the biggest city in China?” he asked in his talk, admitting he did not know of the city before

being invited there. Under construction, Raffles City Chongqing is a horizontal skyscraper that connects four of the towers at 250 metres.

I first met Safdie as one of the invited media group at the 2010 launch event for Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. He answered my questions as if no one had ever asked before. The design for three towers came about to keep the view to the sea from the city. His focus was to retain a human scale. The next day I saw him in the main lobby peering up at a leak in the atrium after a tropical storm.

Marina Bay Sands exceeded Safdie’s expectations at many levels, but he is disappointed he lost control of the room

interiors, so he believes they were not as cutting edge as the rest of the concept.

There was widespread regret that the project excised a whole level of parking.

Safdie describes his office as flexible and informal. If people have initiative and talent and the capability, they rise very fast. There are designers who stay with him for decades, taking on more responsibilities and accepting the process by which he conceives a building. These designers play a major creative role under the umbrella of his general process. And there are those who at some point feel they want to go their own way, and who thrive as architects elsewhere. ar

Marina Bay Sands.

123RF’s Narmada Gharat © 123RF.com

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REPAIR THE AUSTRALIAN PAVILION AT THE VENICE BIENNALE OF ARCHITECTURE 2018 HAS A SUBTLE MESSAGE REGARDING THE WAY ARCHITECTS APPROACH THEIR ENVIRONMENTS. / HÉLÈNE FRICHOT

C

urated by Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright with Linda Tegg, the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture this year has become the unlikely residence of a migrant community of 10,000 plants, composed of approximately 65 species of a plant that used to grow where Melbourne now is. With great difficulty and care these botanical beings have been collected in seed form, predominantly from the temperate grasslands around south-western Victoria, and with the collaboration of horticulturists they have been germinated and tended to in greenhouses in Sanremo Italy. Out of necessity, until 25 November, when the Biennale concludes, the plant community will be cared for by trained and equipped attendants, wearing custom designed caretakers’ outfits.

This is an Australian population that will presumably not be able to make the return journey to the homeland, given restrictions on importing plant matter into the country.

A superficial purview raises the question of what this has to do with architecture, and what lessons may be learned for architectural practices back home. Repair extends a radical environmental and post-colonial message, reminding us of the precolonial landscapes that have been erased through agricultural and urban

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“THIS IS A MESSAGE THAT CRIES OUT THAT WE OUGHT TO HESITATE BEFORE PROCEEDING VIA A LOGIC OF BUSINESS AS USUAL.”

development, and how little we know of these ecosystems. To reflect on the pre-colonial grasslands of the Victorian plains is not a nostalgic vision, but an active demonstration of how much we have to learn about our local environment worlds, which also suggests ways of thinking toward the future by placing an emphasis on repair, maintenance and an ethics of care – to reconsider the actual ground we occupy, as the curators stress. When it comes to business, this is a message that cries out that we ought to hesitate before proceeding via a logic of business as usual. Instead what is at work here is an ethical reorientation that questions human exceptionalism in a geological era we have now named the Anthropocene, asking us instead to pay attention to our environmental relations with the more than human.

This is about more than satisfying sustainability standards; it is about rethinking our always intimate relationships with biological others, those plant and animal species with whom we cohabit and upon whom we rely for our very livelihood.

Baracco and Wright are in the fortunate position of combining their architectural practice with teaching commitments and research, an ecology of practices drawing on a diversity of skills that enable them to plan this thought provoking more than human occupation. Their work is undertaken in collaboration with the artist Linda Tegg, who undertook a similar project called Grasslands, at the State Library of Victoria in 2014. The Australian pavilion represents 16 practices in all – the represented projects were selected based on their capacity to repair environmental relations, address social and economic issues, and contribute to cultural repair. What this ambition reveals is an extended understanding of ecology that brings together mental, social and environmental ecologies as well as an important acknowledgement of the needs of Indigenous Australians, whose position is also represented as Australia’s First Nations peoples. Repair, finally, is a provocation to continue to learn about those undervalued environments within which we carry out our daily lives. ar

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14 QUOTES

“OUR COMMUNICATIONS PLAN IS IMPORTANT WITHIN THE OFFICE TOO, CAPTURING THE CHARACTER OF THE PRACTICE AND HELPING US TO COLLECTIVELY CREATE AND UNDERSTAND OUR WORK AND OUR CULTURE.” / DAVID BARR, PAGE 65

“WHEN THE MERGER ACTUALLY HAPPENED ON DAY ONE, IT WAS PRETTY SEAMLESS AND THAT WAS A BIG RELIEF – THERE WAS POTENTIAL FOR WAVES OF PANIC AND OTHER EMOTIONAL RESPONSES.” / GRANT WITHERS, PAGE 30

“THIS IS ABOUT MORE THAN SATISFYING SUSTAINABILITY STANDARDS; IT IS ABOUT RETHINKING OUR ALWAYS INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS WITH BIOLOGICAL OTHERS… UPON WHOM WE RELY FOR OUR VERY LIVELIHOOD.” / HÉLÈNE FRICHOT PAGE 13

“WE’VE GOT SOME SOFTWARE NOW, SO WE TRY TO USE THAT TO FIGURE OUT WHEN THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN. THE PROBLEM IS MOST OF OUR WORK IS RESIDENTIAL... SO THAT CAN BE QUITE TEMPERAMENTAL.” / GEORGE YIONTIS, PAGE 16

“READER DEMOGRAPHIC, THEIR INTERESTS, PRIORITIES AND LIKELY DURATION OF ENGAGEMENT, GUIDE OUR POSTS AND ‘VOICE’.” / YVETTE BREYTENBACH, PAGE 65

“I THINK IT WOULD BE DETRIMENTAL TO THE PROJECT TO BE THINKING OF TRYING TO WIN A PARTICULAR AWARD RATHER THAN SIMPLY FOCUSING ON MAKING THE BEST POSSIBLE PROJECT.” / WILLIAM SMART, PAGE 26

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“THE MODERN CHURCH IS ENDEAVOURING TO REDEFINE ITSELF. MODERN CHURCHES THAT EMBRACE COMMUNITIES’ CHANGING NEEDS ARE GROWING EXPONENTIALLY.” / KOOS DE KEIJZER, PAGE 34

“MOSHE SAFDIE DOESN’T BELIEVE IN MARKETING. HE SEES IT AS TRYING TO CONVINCE CLIENTS TO HIRE YOU FOR THE WRONG REASONS.” / MARIAN EDMUNDS, PAGE 12

“SOCIAL MEDIA IS INCREDIBLY POWERFUL, BUT USING IT INAPPROPRIATELY RENDERS OUR WORK AS FASHION TO BE JUDGED PURELY ON AESTHETICS.” / BROOKE LLOYD, PAGE 64 “DESIGN NEEDS TO BE ENCAPSULATED AND ARTICULATED, WHETHER IT BE TELLING THE STORY OF A BUILDING OR EXPLAINING ITS FEATURES FAR BEYOND THE FAÇADE.” / GENEVIEVE BRANNIGAN, PAGE 64

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“WE KNEW WE BOTH WERE INSPIRED AND EXCITED BY THE SAME TYPE OF ARCHITECTURE, SO IT WASN’T TOO MUCH OF A GAMBLE, BUT WE HAD NEVER WORKED TOGETHER.” / ROSA COY, PAGE 16

“YOU’RE DOING THE BOOKS YOURSELF, THE MARKETING, THE WEBSITE AND THE PHOTOS… THAT’S THE BIGGEST HURDLE I’VE FACED: ALL THE THINGS YOU HAVE TO DO THAT AREN’T PURELY DESIGN.” / ADAM KANE, PAGE 39

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16 LEAD PROFILE

MARRIED TO THE JOB SOME WOULD FIND WORKING ALONGSIDE THEIR PARTNER A SURE PATH TO DIVORCE, BUT ROSA COY AND GEORGE YIONTIS SAYS THE ONLY DRAWBACKS ARE TALKING ABOUT WORK TOO MUCH AT HOME AND ORGANISING FAMILY HOLIDAYS... / MADELEINE SWAIN

T

here are many different business models for an architecture practice, but one of the most fraught, surely, would be one run by life partners? Isn’t it hard enough to deal with the stress of operating a business without taking onboard any emotional baggage that comes when personal relationships are added to the mix?

Not so, say Rosa Coy and George Yiontis, who have run their titular Melbourne-based practice together since 1996.

The duo established the studio after finding success in their respective individual careers overseas. “We were both working for interesting practices,” recalls Yiontis. “And it came to the point where we had to make the decision about digging in there for the long-term.

“Rosa was with Renzo Piano and I was with a young company called Brunet Saunier Architects, which is now a very large company. Because of the cycle of the projects, I’d just finished three years working at a big music conservatory, and thinking, do I launch into the next cycle?

Which commits me to maybe another five years of living there, or do I start thinking about the future?”

The couple’s children were another consideration. “We decided, both the practice and the children would be a lot easier to establish back here, in terms of contacts and familiarity with the local scene,” adds Yiontis. “We fell into it a little bit naturally…”

“And a little bit naively, it needs to be said,” adds Coy. Naively? “We knew we both were inspired and excited by the same type of architecture, so it wasn’t too much of a gamble, but we had never worked together. In that sense, it was a little naïve that we just should quit work, get on a plane and come back to Australia. We both gave up very good jobs, and then we launched ourselves here. And it was a shock coming back here from big practices and starting out. It’s been a long process, obviously. We didn’t strategically think; it just felt like the right thing to do,” she says.

Importantly, that naivety had nothing to do with the practicalities of running a business. “We had a lot of good grounding – project systems, the way a practice and a project runs,” says Yiontis.

“We were confident there,” agrees Coy. “It was more about how it might affect our relationship. So, in one sense, we’re very lucky that it’s grown with us and it’s brought us closer in a lot of ways.”

When it comes to the administration of the practice, they share the load, but play to their individual strengths.

“Rosa is more financials, the accountant end of the business and I tend to be more systems, processes and IT,” says Yiontis. “I’m the guy who fixes the printer.”

“We’re lucky we have complementary strengths,” says Coy. Currently, the practice has four full-time staff, three part-timers looking after admin and a bookkeeper. There is also a communications intern and an architecture student who comes in one day a week.

“That’s part of the training, the responsibility we think we owe to mentor young architects,” says Yiontis.

In particular, Coy is conscious of attitudes to gender in the industry.

“I feel quite strongly about being a role model to the younger female architects, as well, out on the site and in the office,” she says. The couple say that staffing is very much merit-based, but at the moment they have a female heavy presence in the office. “That’s just because, when that position was available, the best candidate was a woman.

That’s how it worked,” says Yiontis.

They both believe that building sites have certainly evolved from the sexist bastions of old , but there is still a lot of unconscious bias from clients. “I don’t think it’s changed at all, to be honest,” says Yiontis.

“We typically meet the clients together,” says Coy. “That’s a very telling moment, that first interview. We are actually interviewing the

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Photography © Elleni Toumpas

“THE BUSINESS IS REALLY AN EXTENSION OF THE RELATIONSHIP, AND THE FAMILY AND THE WHOLE GAMUT.” ROSA COY

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18 LEAD PROFILE

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Coy Yiontis on…

Future-proofing the business: Something we’re interested in is looking to broaden what we do in terms of what we deliver.

There’s an American model I’ve been researching – architect led, design and construct. You assume a bit of risk in that you become a one-stop shop for a client, in terms of project delivery.

Growth areas: Definitely aged care. Perhaps it’s just our level of maturity and we’re much more exposed now with our own parents, seeing the reality of aged care.

Motivating the team: Aside from the standard social things, the Friday night drinks, and the trips away… It’s an open plan office, everything’s discussed. Aside from personal history and personal details, there’s not a lot that’s hidden information. We try to foster this sense of you are part of our project.

Being good leaders: Having the experience gives you the confidence, and perhaps the respect that allows you to be a leader. – Coy You’ve got to be constantly learning, as well and not arrogant in your knowledge, in a sense. – Yiontis Advice for young practices: Get your systems in place. And then get on with the job. It’s boring, it’s dull, but just get that done. And go home at six o’clock! – Yiontis Also take photographs of everything you do! Particularly retail stuff, it’s gone in five years’ time. – Coy Current industry challenges: Affordable housing and diversity.

We feel very strongly that we, as architects, can contribute to a much better designed environment for affordable housing.

client, more than they are interviewing us, most of the time. It’s at that point that we decide which one of us is going to be the project architect on the job, whether they’re better suited to having a female.

Sometimes the wife insists that only a woman can design a kitchen.

Which is totally wrong.”

“I do great kitchens!” says Yiontis.

“These preconceived notions... it’s all about just making the client feel comfortable though,” says Coy. In a practice of this size, getting staffing levels right is an ongoing challenge and something they’re very careful about. “We try to to forecast the jobs we do,” explains Yiontis. “We’ve got some software now, so we try to use that to figure out when things are going to happen. The problem is most of our work is residential, and it’s work for individuals, so that can be quite temperamental.

“What we’ve come to is that we have our core group and we try to develop all facets of the business. So, they’re all involved in design and documentation and contract administration.”

“WE KNEW WE BOTH WERE INSPIRED AND EXCITED BY THE SAME TYPE OF ARCHITECTURE, SO IT WASN’T TOO MUCH OF A GAMBLE, BUT WE HAD NEVER WORKED TOGETHER.” ROSA COY

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“We do take on young people with the intent of keeping them,” adds Coy.” That’s the ideal. We don’t just take people on to drop them when workloads change.”

The pair clearly have good instincts when it comes to hiring and firing as, over the 22 years in business, they have only experienced a couple of staff members leaving because the fit wasn’t right.

One of the greatest advantages of running a practice with your spouse is that you can combine commitments. The couple say that their business plan has been strategic from the start, with regular directors’ summits, where they spend a couple of days away from everything, sitting at a table and working. “So we’d go with an agenda, and we’d minute it,” says Yiontis. “And then we’d take that away the next year, hoping we’d go, ‘These were the objectives we set back then, have we met them?”

The bonus of course is that this summit also acts as a break from their children. They have four, aged 21, 19, 14 and 11. “Everyone laughs when we say directors’ summit, but we’d actually go away to a nice place and have nice food,” says Yiontis.

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“It has to be said it wasn’t just for business,” continues Coy. “It was family planning as well. The business is really an extension of the relationship, and the family and the whole gamut. We were planning the impact of when a child arrived, and all of this came into the annual planning. We were quite meticulous with all of that.”

This even included creating an office manual based on their combined experiences. They created templates and processes so that anyone new joining the practice wouldn’t have to constantly reinvent the wheel.

“I still have it,” says Coy. “And a lot of hours went into it. There were templates for everything – how you write a letter to a consultant, how you respond to a tender price that’s come in. All of that. There were very strong office standards that were set up from the start.”

One thing that is hard to plan for is the vagaries of the global economy. Being such a boutique sized firm, the practice was hit hard by the global financial crisis (GFC). “We contracted from about 10 or 11 people down to no one, in fact,” recalls Yiontis. “There was a period

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20 LEAD PROFILE

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“IN THAT SENSE, IT WAS A LITTLE NAÏVE THAT WE JUST SHOULD QUIT WORK, GET ON A PLANE AND COME BACK TO AUSTRALIA.” ROSA COY

in 2010 where we just packed the office into a garage storage unit. We had some work that was ongoing – town planning applications. From experience, we knew that would take six months to come out at the other end. So we boxed the whole thing up, took the whole family and lived in Italy for four months.”

Becoming re-established after this period was a natural evolution, they say, helped by a couple of repeat clients and industry recognition.

“There was an award that relaunched us, effectively,” says Coy. “We were the winner in 2015 [of the Australian Institute of Architects – Victoria Residential Alterations and Additions award] for our own house, House 3. That generated a lot of media…” says Coy. “There has been more of a focus on recognising that PR has helped relaunch us as well. Certainly in the earlier years we weren’t very good at putting our projects in for awards.”

Yiontis is particularly self-critical, they say. “He wouldn’t let us put anything in unless it was perfect,” says Coy. “But I’ve learned my lesson!” stresses Yiontis.

This GFC experience reaffirmed their commitment to keep the practice small, agile and manageable. Around three years ago, they felt ready to expand again. But only slightly.

“The intention is that we don’t get too big. During that small stage, when we had some bigger projects come in, what worked really well was joint ventures with bigger architects and we’re clued into that process now,” says Yiontis.

The advantage of staying small is that all staff are involved, share in the responsibility and there is totally transparency in the workplace. “They can see the impact, if they spend too much time on a job, that the office actually makes no money,” says Coy. “They can understand that the hours that they put in have to be constructive, and we don’t waste time on things.

But I hope they would say that they felt involved in the entire process.”

When it comes to the split between design and administration, the couple say it’s not a nine-to-six distribution. “It’s one day in 10 sitting at the table designing,” says Coy. “And the rest is juggling admin, PR,

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finance, project management on-site. It’s probably about 25 percent design, 75 percent admin.”

Yiontis says he actually likes the strategic business side but would “rather be doing a little bit more design”. And Coy concurs.

They haven’t begun outsourcing documentation, but say that’s a possibility in future. They use professional render artists for commercial developers, but for clients they do everything in-house and have recently moved to Revit 3D software. Having younger team members is a definite plus in this regard. “It’s something they bring to the practice, their skills with all of that,” says Coy. “They advise and help us decide which are the right ones to go towards.”

Advice is two-way, however. One of the things they’re keen to impress on their colleagues is the importance of employee wellbeing. “When we came back and set up our practice here, we felt very strongly, particularly because we were juggling kids as well, that we needed to enforce a real work/life balance. So the staff leave the office at six and we get in at nine, typically. That’s the standard work hours.

And we don’t work on the weekends. We try to encourage that the staff have a life outside of the office,” says Coy Their life outside the office is unsurprisingly busy – with a family of six it goes with the territory. But it works because the support is there.

“When the children were younger, I used to, and I still do to an extent, try and leave about four o’clock. And do my other job, when I get back to the house. And George is just as involved in the household. The whole package is really a team effort. That’s how we make it work,” says Coy. A team effort? Will the practice become a family dynasty at some point? “I think we have bored them silly with talk of architecture; it’s very much just a part of their lives,” says Coy. “They’re all creative children.

They’re all studying design subjects at university, and they certainly gravitate towards creativity at school.”

“One’s showing a little bit of interest in interior design, or even industrial design,” adds Yiontis. “We definitely don’t have a banker or an accountant in the family.” ar

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TECHNOLOGY 23

HAND TO

MOUSE / SUSANNE KENNEDY

O

nce upon a time, all architectural renderings were done by hand – in pencil, pastel or ink, if not acrylic or watercolour.

Michaelango’s drawings in red and black chalk, and Zaha Hadid’s metres-long colour posters that described her early projects and the ideas behind them, are just two masterly examples.

But this century’s rapid technological advancements have seen architects

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exchange traditional rendering tools for the computer mouse and specialist drafting software. Consequently, most commercial and residential buildings are now planned, modelled and analysed onscreen with computer aided design (CAD) tools.

“I don’t hand render,” says Cykel Architecture director Stephen Geason.

“However, I do use sketching, drawing and model-making as an integral part of the design process.”

CAD IN TWO OR THREE DIMENSIONS Computer rendering can serve two purposes. The first relates to planning and resolving an architectural design, while the second involves polishing a set of, usually three-dimensional (3D), renderings for client presentation, bid or competition. As designs and plans advance, digital images typically move along a spectrum between simple, flat

below: 130 Williams © Binyan

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24 TECHNOLOGY

two-dimensional (2D) images at one end to rotatable, three-dimensional models, that approximate materials, lighting, interiors and building context, at the other.

The latter models, in their most finished and manipulated forms are termed ‘photoreal’ or realistic images, so named for being indistinguishable from photographs.

CAD ADVANTAGE: ACCESSIBILITY In the past, a small client group would have been presented with hand-drawn, scaled and coded 2D plans for an architectural proposal, and perhaps a 3D cardboard model.

“Today computer tools make concepts very accessible for clients.

A 3D render can be understood by a larger client or stakeholder group,” ays Nicky Adams of Terroir. “This is especially valuable when submitting a proposal when there won’t be an opportunity to present.”

The immediacy of 3D renders also makes them perfect for marketing to lay audiences.

CAD ADVANTAGE: ENHANCED COMMUNICATION AND FOOLPROOFING Architects’ relatively recent embrace of CAD tools and modelling is also attributable to their portability; digital plans can be accessed and simultaneously worked on by multidisciplinary team members, regardless of location, enabling more efficient dialogue and project development.

Further, inconsistencies or errors are more easily detected and rectified in 3D digital models, which represent architectural projects in a more literal way than traditional blueprints, with their colour and material coding, for example.

CHOOSING SOFTWARE Many architects use different programs for 2D and 3D imaging. AutoCAD is, arguably, the most popular for 2D rendering, while ArchiCAD, Revit LT and SketchUp are some commonly used programs for 3D rendering, due to their more developed modelling systems.

“We use ArchiCAD in varied formats, SketchUp plus Cinema 4D and 3ds Max for a higher presentation level,” says

Geason. “Photoshop plays a large role in polishing the final product.”

Meanwhile the international 3D rendering firm Binyan Studio primarily uses 3ds Max, V-Ray and Corona Renderer, and a suite of software applications, including Photoshop, to finish its images. “Autodesk (which produces AutoCAD, Revit LT and 3ds Max) is basically the Microsoft of the rendering world,” says Andrei Dolnikov, Binyan’s founder and CEO.

above left: Fireplace, Toorak © Binyan above: West Village Penthouse © Binyan

PHOTOREAL RENDERING: AN ARCHITECT’S PERSPECTIVE Like most architectural firms, Cykel does a basic level of rendering in-house, and outsources when more polished, photorealist 3D renders are called for.

“We supply photorealistic images at the end of the concept and design development stage if the project brief requires it,” says Geason. “We outsource this task, as obtaining a professional realistic finish is a precise art requiring a high level of technical skill and expertise.”

That said, Geason is restrained in his use of this project presentation style.

“3D rendering allows architects to present the essence of a project,” he says.

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OUTSOURCING 3D RENDERING – FOUR GOLDEN RULES Golden Rule 1 – Provide the external renderer with complete information Submitted information should be at least 95 percent complete and final, and include accurate dimensions, floor plans, elevations and material schedule, with consistent naming conventions and drawings. These should be grouped logically in a series of folders (not just thrown into one). __________ Golden Rule 2 – Select a client group leader The outsourcing firm should nominate a project leader to act as the key decision-maker and point of contact for the external rendering team. This person coordinates thorough image reviews, feedback and approvals; i.e. from in-house interior, landscape and architecture perspectives. __________ Golden Rule 3 – Don’t design by (outsourced) render Image review rounds (Binyan offers two) should be used to refine, tweak and edit the images or film, not to change a brief, update a design or introduce new information. __________

“However, when working with a client we try not to play the game of photorealistic images (too much) as it sets unrealistic expectations and has the capacity to limit the design solution.”

RENDERING AS A NEW DISCIPLINE: A 3D ARTIST PERSPECTIVE Someone who spent their working days rendering by hand or CAD tools was once called a draftsman. Today, however, they may be considered an architectural 3D artist, visualiser or 3D renderer, depending on their expertise, style and focus area.

Binyan staff comprise architects and designers who digitally stage interiors and environments, and use photorealism and narrative to evoke mood and emotional responses. “We don’t just showcase our clients’ work; we add value to it with specialist digital tools and an exceptional creative eye,” says Dolnikov.

Although a relatively new niche industry, 3D rendering has already established itself as an art discipline in its own right, he says, much like architectural photography. Binyan’s CEO is consequently working with three universities to develop masters programs in this young creative profession. ar

above: New Quay – Escala Library © Binyan below: 50 West 66th © Binyan

Golden Rule 4 – Nominate a chief art director The chief art director is often, but not necessarily, from the outsourced studio. They make critical decisions about images (rather than via inefficient decision-by-committee processes) and navigate away from classic ‘render killers’ such as: underexposed, saturated blue skies; over-wide angles; too high camera angles; and passé styling.

(Based on Binyan Studio advice to clients.)

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26 FINANCE

WORTH

WINNING?

WHAT CAN BUILD REPUTATION, HELP TO CONFIRM YOUR CREATIVE APPROACH, ADD TO A STOCKPILE OF HISTORY, JOY AND OPPORTUNITY, AND MAKE HARD WORK TRULY WORTHWHILE? IN A WORD, WINNING! / DEBORAH SINGERMAN

H

William Smart © Veronique Jenkins

“IT WOULD BE DETRIMENTAL TO THE PROJECT TO BE THINKING OF TRYING TO WIN A PARTICULAR AWARD RATHER THAN SIMPLY FOCUSING ON MAKING THE BEST POSSIBLE PROJECT.” – WILLIAM SMART

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ere, AR speaks with small and medium-sized firms that have either won a design competition for a high-profile, imaginative commission or received an award for an original, completed project. Each has its own reasons for pursuing this architectural endeavour and while it is no guarantee of more clients knocking on the door, such achievements do give an inestimable boost to their professional and design confidence.

Indigo Slam won Smart Design Studio the Robin Boyd Award for Residential Architecture – Houses (New) at the 2016 Australian Institute of Architects Awards.

“It’s always nice to have your work recognised publicly and ultimately this is what awards give you. In many respects it’s like an extension of the crit session, where you invite judgement and opinion on the work,” says creative director William Smart.

Winning awards will also “bring a level of exposure and validation to the practice profile”, he adds.

However, it is ongoing commitment that counts. “It’s the body of work that helps bring the right clients your way…

I don’t believe that the prospect of awards in any way influences our design process though. I think it would be detrimental to the project to be thinking of trying to win a particular award rather than simply focusing on making the best possible project.”

Choi Ropiha (now CHROFI) was part of a team that won the international competition to redesign the public park

John Choi

Duffy Square and the TKTS ticket booth in New York’s Times Square (the project took from 1999 to 2008), resulting in a striking, tiered, red resin staircase providing roofing and a public space. Founding partner John Choi says, “We want to engage with our profession and peers. Also, when working on a project there is not much time to reflect on what it is that we are offering.

With competitions, we have the space to look back at what we have done and debrief and reflect on that work.”

The firm supports “competition as a way of securing work, though it is very draining”. Choi also appreciates the acknowledgment that “design is a key part of the selection [process], so it does not put as much pressure on the fee. It is about what can generate the most value”.

“Winning an award does help you enter the [architectural] community – along with just getting older,” he adds, laughing.

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28 FINANCE

L-R Isabelle Toland, Amelia Holliday © Brett Boardman

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HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF ENTERING COMPETITIONS

Decide how important competitions and awards are to your marketing strategy. __________ Assess the kudos of winning against the time it takes to produce an entry that does the project, and your firm, justice. __________ Enjoy affirmation of your design approach, but do not expect a raising of your profile to result in a flood of commissions. __________ Consider what will be your reaction to the increasing recognition from awards and competitions. __________ The longer you are in the profession and the more experience you gain, you are likely to win bigger commissions, be able to charge higher fees and get more commercial work if you wish.

Alongside this natural progression though, add a trajectory that results from your higher profile.

“Duffy Square was a landmark project and it still does help. [Some firms] expend their energy hand-shaking with clients much more than we do. That has never been part of our approach. You make yourself known. Doing this through awards is something we are comfortable with and makes us feel culturally more aligned to the profession.”

Amelia Holliday and Isabelle Toland, as directors of the practice Aileen Sage (a combination of their middle names), with urban development strategist, Michelle Tabet, won the competition to become creative directors of the Australian Exhibition at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. The Pool: Architecture, Culture and Identity in Australia brought together creative, cultural, academic, technical and engineering experts in a collaboration that also included pool memories from the likes of Ian Thorpe, Tim Flannery, Romance was Born, Christos Tsiolkas and Hetti Perkins.

“This association with Australia drew people in who would not necessarily be that interested in arts and culture or architecture,” says Aileen Sage (Holliday and Toland echo each other’s thoughts so much, AR hopes they do not feel it is a disservice to quote them as the practice itself). “We like to bring architecture into a broader public conversation, so it does not seem so elusive or detached from reality.”

The project and collaboration, albeit requiring “a huge amount of time and energy… gave us a national profile, from being a very young practice to developing an interesting national network. Architects acted as mentors, gave us advice and were supportive”.

The directors “push and challenge each other”. Aileen Sage has entered more competitions since and its directors believe it gets something out of each of them. “You build on discussions and the network of people you are talking to.”

Shaun Carter, founding architect of Carter Williamson Architects and former chapter president of the Australian Institute of Architects New South Wales,

“IF YOU ARE A PRACTICE THAT CONSTANTLY GETS SHORTLISTED AND WINS AWARDS, YOU HAVE A PEDIGREE OF DESIGN EXCELLENCE… I THINK OF IT AS JUST LIKE MARKETING. IT’S A BUSINESS SO YOU MAKE A BUSINESS DECISION.” – SHAUN CARTER

Shaun Carter

says, “If you are designing something you believe in that gets awards, it is affirmation and confirmation that what you are doing is thought of in that way.

You need to have a point of difference in the general market, so a bunch of architects chooses to operate in what I call the upper 20 percent, because that is what you like to do and that is your pitch for added value.

“If you are a practice that constantly gets shortlisted and wins awards, you have a pedigree of design excellence.

It’s either in your DNA as a practice or it is not. I encourage everyone to strive [to win an award] because that would suggest that everyone is doing the best possible work. I think of it as just like marketing. It’s a business so you make a business decision.” ar

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26/07/18 5:04 PM

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30 STRATEGY

WHEN THREE INTO ONE

MAKES ONE EMOTION CAN RENDER ALL MANNER OF SITUATIONS UNCOMFORTABLE. A RELATIONSHIP BREAK-UP, BIDDING ON A DREAM HOME AT AUCTION… OR THE MERGER OF THREE ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICES COMPRISING 400 EMPLOYEES. / CATHY ANDERSON

S

enior management of The Buchan Group, unified and rebranded as Buchan since M May, recognised several years ago tthat a merger was in everyone’s best in n interest.

But they also understood that, a as a collective of creatives, there was p potential for unrest. After all, ‘merger’ can b be a scary word.

“Architects are creative people, so w with creation comes emotion, I think tthey go hand in hand,” says principal G Grant Withers. “Every employee probably h had a similar outlook to these sorts of tthings. They were all thinking ‘how does tthis affect me?’

“We had very open communication lleading e up to the merger, we made sure tthat all staff in every practice knew what w was coming; they were informed about tthe process we were going through.”

Since 1990 The Buchan Group had b been operating as an association of three d different firms: Malone Buchan Laird a and Bawden in Brisbane, Oldham Boas E Ednie-Brown in Perth and, the oldest a and largest, The Buchan Group (Aust) P Pty Ltd in Melbourne. Additional studios w were created under the umbrella within A Australasia, Asia and Europe and now ttotal 11. The Sydney office was created sso the Brisbane team could deliver the F Finger Wharf Project and the Melbourne o office could deliver Martin Place and S Sydney Central Plaza.

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Grant Withers

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“LOOK, WE HAVE BEEN ENGAGED FOR WAY TOO LONG – LET’S FORMALISE THIS AND TIE THE KNOT.” – PHIL SCHOUTROP

The nature of the arrangement meant larger-scale projects could be produced collaboratively, and the company could compete for an ever-increasing ledger of commercial, retail and mixed-use design work. But the process of seconding staff from other firms was not streamlined – it required contracts and was somewhat stilted. The principals wanted the convenience of being able to utilise all the skills and talents within their reach and grow the business.

So the answer was pretty obvious – a merger would be a win-win.

Buchan director and principal Phil Schoutrop, who works across the Brisbane and Sydney offices, says the potential of a combined group had been apparent for a while, but the process took several years because some firm leaders felt territorial about their ‘patch’.

“But the more projects we did together, the more joint venture collaborations we did on single projects, which started to break down some of those barriers and some of that ego to bring us to the table, probably about five years ago, to say, ‘Look, we have been engaged for way too long – let’s formalise this and tie the knot’,” he says.

Like any sensible couple negotiating their big day, the team decided to bring in a ‘wedding planner’ if you will – the merger team from Deloittes

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who delivered a strategy and kept communication lines clear and pressures minimal.

“They were critical in terms of how the process was communicated to the staff,” says Withers. “When the merger actually happened on day one, it was pretty seamless and that was a big relief – there was potential for waves of panic and other emotional responses.”

The major changes for staff, says Schoutrop, were positive. With one employer, they can now relocate interstate or overseas and retain benefits.

He says the more formalised structure of the business also allows transparency for career progression.

“As architects we use a little bit of telepathy, a little bit of osmosis or a few beers on a Friday to have a talk about issues that we are having. It’s now a little more formalised, which, for our Millennials and upcoming iGens, is a bit more comforting because they can see a structure and they can also see a bit of a ladder to climb,” he says.

Navigating change at the senior level was a bit more complex, with three boards of 17 members needing to be condensed into a single board with a non-executive chairman (Frank Zipfinger) and seven directors. Withers, who remains a principal in Melbourne, but is now no longer a director, says this was managed through constant communication and agreement.

Phil Schoutrop

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32 STRATEGY

“WHEN THE MERGER ACTUALLY HAPPENED ON DAY ONE, IT WAS PRETTY SEAMLESS AND THAT WAS A BIG RELIEF – THERE WAS POTENTIAL FOR WAVES OF PANIC AND OTHER EMOTIONAL RESPONSES.” – GRANT WITHERS

“Leading up to the merger, all of the structural side of the business was discussed and debated in a professional way. Everybody knew what their new role and their new title was and we just got on with the job,” he says.

“We had to ensure there was fair representation of the regional studios on the new board and keep it to an appropriate size.”

The meatier part of the process was legal and administrative. Two of the companies were trusts, explains Schoutrop, so they were converted into three companies and then rolled into one. Contracts with existing clients were redrawn while projects were in progress, and all involved went about their jobs to ensure work was kept on track, clients were happy and the company made money.

Three different design systems, as well as administrative and payroll systems, all needed to be merged too.

Looking forward, the team is now focused on consolidating a consistency of process for projects while retaining the ‘flavour’ of each – Brisbane and Perth are smaller, more family-focused, while Melbourne is a bigger entity.

“We are conscious that we don’t want to have a single design style across the studios. We want to make sure that we maintain that global cultural difference in each of the studios,” says Withers.

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Communication between teams is aided by technology: regular conferencing and video calls, and real-time cloud-based storage systems for projects. Flexibility and opportunities for staff to travel and to work on various projects outside their geographical space have been increased, says Schoutrop.

“The staff pool is much larger and the sharing capacity has been sorted out, so we can do that effectively now, which we didn’t do before,” he says.

Schoutrop says the greatest benefit of the merger is collaboration between teams, and the ability to speak to clients as a combined group of architectural and design leaders.

He adds that clients were incredibly at ease with the merger – most referring to the company as ‘Buchan’ anyway – and now they have an opportunity to push their reputation as a design-focused company with the ability to deliver great work with a strong commercial outcome.

“With a changing retail world and a changing development world, our clients have started to understand that it is not just about square metres that develops good profit; it’s all about good design that brings people to a building that will deliver that return,” he concludes. ar

Current non-excutive chairman, Frank Zipfinger

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34 GROWTH TYPOLOGIES

CITY LIFE: A CHURCH OF THE FUTURE AR BEGINS THE FIRST IN PLANNED SERIES LOOKING AT TYPOLOGIES CURRENTLY UNDERGOING SIGNIFICANT GROWTH – EXPLORING THEIR PARTICULAR REQUIREMENTS AND POTENTIAL FOR ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICES LOOKING TO BRANCH OUT AND EXTEND THEIR RANGE. WE START WITH RELIGIOUS BUILDINGS VIA DKO’S EXPERIENCES DESIGNING A MEGACHURCH IN THE OUTER MELBOURNE SUBURB OF KNOX. / MELISSA RYMER disenfranchised. Also creating spaces that are appealing to young people is an important theme and, for young children, creating inviting spaces that encourage creativity and learning.”

Typically, suburban churches of the 1950s to ’70s tended to follow the model of more traditional churches, with the ecclesiastical design, soaring ceilings, religious iconography and dramatic scale. Modern churches now require that the main auditoriums be multifunctional, with the capacity to accommodate multimedia, music and acoustic events. The brief for City Life was to accommodate theatre auditoria, welfare counselling rooms, cafés and playgrounds.

Sam Hey from Christian Heritage College, who has written a PhD on the history of Australian charismatic megachurches, says the 1960s and 1970s saw a particularly dramatic period of growth for Pentecostalism. Speaking to the ABC in 2011, he said, “Many traditional churches found it hard to attract the younger generation and… the Pentecostal churches seemed to fill a gap of young people and families seeking a more experiential form of religion.”

This trend has continued as, on any given weekend, such complexes may need to accommodate up to 2500 people at one time.

THE BRIEF On a broader level, there is a general desire to demystify the idea of what church is, and the brief for City Life Knox was developed as a way to shed light on what actually goes on in within such a large complex. One of the main objectives of the project was to maintain the sense of urbanism, as well as keeping the program simple and functional.

Photography © Tom Roe

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KO architects completed City Life Knox in late 2017. City Life is a Pentecostal megachurch located in Melbourne, Australia.

The church has five locations and a congregation of over 8000 people with weekly services in the municipalities of Knox, Casey, Manningham and Whittlesea.

DKO has built several churches over past 10 years, so has become part of the shifting typography around churches.

Contemporary churches are now more about whole communities than they have been for decades. City Life is the fifth church the firm has designed and principal architect Koos de Keijzer says his team has come to enjoy the challenges of working on projects of this scale, which are a radical shift from the commercial and residential developments that form the mainstay of DKO’s practice.

“The modern church is endeavouring to redefine itself. Modern churches that embrace communities’ changing needs are growing exponentially,” says de Keijzer.

They have made the conscious decision to become more relevant, he suggests. “While the church is still a haven for those interested in the spiritual side of life, it is also now important to address broader social concerns, assisting the lonely and the

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The siting of the Knox development is very important, as the church sits on a major road. It was important for the architects to design an inviting and contemporary presence within the urban environment. “Often contemporary churches have a strong visual presence, frequently sited on main roads, but this needed to be addressed with the many variables,” says de Keijzer.

Parking and general traffic flow is often a major issue for contemporary churches, given the size of the congregations, and City Life needed to make allowance for 1000 car spaces. The challenge was to resolve the functionality of the design, but not at the expense of the aesthetics.

Circulation, logistics and managing noise present significant challenges for a project of this scale.

CHALLENGES There are business challenges that involve finding an architectural program that meets the needs of the various stakeholders. Often within the church administration, it is the executive pastor who is responsible for the everyday mechanics of running the church and fundraising, as well as overseeing the broader vision for the church into the future.

According to de Keijzer, “One of the other challenges (or benefits) of working

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on churches is that you are never dealing with just one person, you are always working with a committee to develop all aspects of the brief.”

With regard to permits and other matters of bureaucracy, with the Knox build there was an eight-year-old church building on the site, so the planning permits were already present. This concept was a reworking and extension of the existing buildings.

There is a lot of competition to attract and keep congregants, so it is important for each church to find its own niche.

DKO’s design director, Jesse Linardi, told Australian Design Review in 2016, “In the architectural world, you get different typologies that you become almost experts at. Because we’ve done quite a few churches, we find that our clients are now actually looking for us… to use our experience and help them move their brand, or their congregation, forward.”

The idea of these larger style of religious developments is that they have become important civic spaces. They need to be a skilful blend of master planning and micro design. One of the most significant aspects of designing for religious groups is that DKO is working to help reinvigorate the notion of church as an inclusive, communitycentred space. The focus has shifted from creating places of worship to

designing spaces that encourage people to build relationships and form a community. Part of the brief was to create plaza style spaces, where people would be encouraged to sit and chat and have a cup of coffee, a far cry from the formal and brief interactions of the past. ar

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36 DESIGN

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INARCHITECTURE ARCHITECTURE IS AN INDUSTRY AT A CROSSROADS WITH RAPID TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS. CONSUMERS NOW EXPECT BUILDINGS TO DO MORE THAN EVER INCLUDING PROVIDING CLIMATE CONTROL, AND INCREASED ACCESS TO NATURAL LIGHT AND VENTILATION.

The Sanctuary Bunurong © John Gollings

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hese heightened expectations and advancements in technology have pushed us into the realm of increased architectural experimentation. This experimentation is resulting in integrating everything from heliostats to bespoke large-scale skylights and operable façades into our built environment. However, new technologies are often difficult to access and require extensive training.

Australian industrial design firm, TILT, is helping architects deliver on this new way of working. TILT has access to the latest technologies, materials and manufacturing techniques, which aren’t part of an architect’s tool bag.

TILT’s operable façade in the chapel of Melbourne’s Bunurong Memorial Park, designed by BVN Architecture, is one example of cross-disciplinary cooperation. BVN needed a specialist consultant that could coordinate and assist in detailing the interface between the operable façade and the building proper, coordinating architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, and other finishes.

The concept for Bunurong Chapel was to develop three very large, automated custom windows – approximately seven metres each – with no vertical mullions. As happens with long span structures, deflections can occur. To avoid the problems associated with this phenomenon, the project required a custom design approach for

the framing steelwork. TILT collaborated with BVN, structural engineer, Partridge, and fabricator, R&R Murphy, to ensure both the structural performance of the frame and the aesthetic intent were properly considered in the design.

The combined set of skills enabled the proposed design to be realised based on simulation, thorough design documentation, the development of a feasible construction methodology, and the use of advanced manufacturing techniques.

With regards to accuracy, the glazing, steel frame and motor system all had to fit together in an exacting combination to work effectively. One long component closing and sealing on another meant that if any part of the lengthy structure was inaccurate, even by a few degrees,

it would have a significant impact on the performance of the system.

Another aspect of ensuring precision is having the knowledge and experience of working with the characteristics of any proposed materials. With this project, TILT and R&R Murphy brought an understanding of the way materials behave in fabrication and the capacity for them to be manipulated to achieve reliable results. For the steel frames, the structural engineers considered the need to pre-camber the frame (slightly bend it up), so that when the weight of glass was inserted, it would flatten slightly and therefore sit straight. The engineers used simulation to create shop drawings and the expertise of R&R Murphy was in developing production methodologies to bring to life those concept drawings. ar

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EMERGING PRACTICE 39

EMERGING: ADAM KANE ARCHITECTS WITH INTERIOR DESIGNER PARENTS AND A LIFE-LONG LOVE OF BUILDING AND CREATING, ADAM KANE WAS ALMOST DESTINED TO WORK IN THE ARCHITECTURE INDUSTRY. AR TALKS TO HIM ABOUT HOW THAT PASSION LED HIM TO SET UP HIS OWN PRACTICE. / NATALIE MORTIMER

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“IT’S MY NAME ON THE DOOR AND I HAVE TO BE PROUD OF EVERYTHING THAT COMES OUT OF THAT DOOR, SO I THINK THAT’S IMPORTANT.” ISSUE 156

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’ve always had a fascination with design and construction and if I wasn’t an architect I’d be a builder,” says Adam Kane, director and founder of Adam Kane Architects. “Having that creative side and being able to create beautiful things has always been of interest to me.”

Growing up with interior designer parents, coupled with a love of beautiful forms, there was never a plan B for Kane. “It’s a boring answer,” he says, “but I’ve always had that desire from the start.” Upon completing a master’s of architecture at Melbourne’s Deakin University and keen to gain as much experience as possible, Kane took up a role at JAM Architects after being attracted to the variety of projects being produced by the firm. “I’ve always been interested in learning as much as possible in as many areas as possible,” he says. “There’s no point just being shielded to doing single housing, for example, so they had a good assortment of projects to get that vast experience.”

In the years that followed Kane worked for a number of mediumto large-sized practices and slowly began to build up private work in the evenings and weekends. Eventually he reached a tipping point: “I realised that I didn’t want the nine-to-five job inhibiting the private work, which was going to be the future,” he says.

So, in 2015, Kane set up his own practice – Adam Kane Architects – initially working from home. The practice has now developed into a small but busy team of four working across both small- and large-scale residential projects. The majority of projects are in the Albert Park area: three are currently under construction and another half a dozen are in the works, but the practice is also working on new builds and alterations in the Melbourne suburbs of Kew and Toorak, as well as regional Victoria and along the Victorian coastline.

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“YOU’RE DOING THE BOOKS YOURSELF, THE MARKETING, THE WEBSITE AND THE PHOTOS …

THAT’S THE BIGGEST HURDLE I’VE FACED: ALL THE THINGS YOU HAVE TO DO THAT AREN’T PURELY DESIGN.”

With no previous experience of setting up a business, Kane relied on the support of his parents and other mentors within the industry.

Getting used to the business side was one of the bigger challenges.

“With having such a small company when I started, it was just me and one other and the challenge was having to wear 10 different hats,” he says. “You’re doing the books yourself, the marketing, the website and the photos yourself. When I first started I didn’t have projects with a huge budget, they were all quite modest and I couldn’t pay for a photographer, for example. So I think that’s the biggest hurdle I’ve faced: all the things you have to do that aren’t purely design.”

Day-to-day Kane spends a lot of time managing his clients as well as his staff, but control over design is something he is adamant not to relinquish and the reason he doesn’t aspire to grow too dramatically.

“I’d never want to grow to a size where the management side takes over and I lose control,” he says. “I think that is a slippery slope the bigger a company gets, so I always want to look over every project. I’m still involved heavily in most of the designs and checking over all the markups and the construction details. After all it’s my name on the door and I have to be proud of everything that comes out of that door, so I think that’s important.”

Also integral to the practice is establishing an office environment where each member of the team has a harmonious relationship, as well as a little fun along the way. “If someone doesn’t know a particular software you can teach them, but if someone doesn’t gel you can’t change a personality,” says Kane. “Everyone in the team is really passionate about the work that we are doing and whether we are talking on group messages or going out for drinks it’s a real team

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environment. It’s important not to be completely business minded and to make sure that it’s a fun environment to work in; it helps us collaborate on projects”.

With 10-plus years under his belt working in architecture, what does Kane advise graduates at the dawn of their career? “Perseverance is the biggest thing. A lot of firms out there are after a grad with a couple of years’ experience, so being fresh out of university can be a challenge.

The biggest piece of advice I would have is to compile a really good folio and pay attention to the detail and the presentation because it really shows. The type of project is almost irrelevant, it’s about how passionate you are about the project.”

That said, Kane says it’s important to align your passions with those of the practices you are approaching. “If you’re interested in only doing train stations don’t apply for jobs at practices that only design offices,” he adds.

As for the future of Adam Kane Architects, things are looking extremely rosy. “Every six months or so our projects get bigger,” says Kane. “It’s quite exciting because I’ve worked on significant scale projects at other firms and now we are catching up to that size. Two years ago I wouldn’t have thought that we would be doing houses for $4 million, because when we started we were doing sheds for $50,000, so that is so exciting. Going from an established company to going out on my own was almost a step backwards in terms of the scale of projects, so it’s exhilarating to get back into the larger scale things. That said, I will always want to do the small projects too.” ar adamkane.com.au

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LEAD PROJECT 43

HUMBLE HOUSE

Photography © Tatjana Plitt

Project description.

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Designed for an older couple who travel frequently, this coastal home accommodates visiting grandchildren and family as well as being a private, easily maintained haven between adventures. The building form was driven by site conditions and the need for accessibility; the resulting dynamic façade and dramatic internal volumes belie its liveability.

Screening from western neighbours and the need for the home to sit at a single level across a sloping site dictated the form of the building. The overbearing nature of the two-storey neighbour and threat of overshadowing and overlooking resulted in the design of a long, tall building form running the full length of the western boundary, protecting the clients’ amenity. Living spaces are oriented towards the north and cross ventilated. Bedrooms are oriented to the east to capture the morning sun.

With the occupants downsizing from a grand Heritage country homestead, this new home is consciously contemporary. The clients revel in the ‘touch button technology’ throughout the home. The standard mod cons such as hydronic heating and electric blinds are relative luxuries after their old home where the stoking of daily fires was required to keep the house warm. Also important are the small touches

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44 LEAD PROJECT

WITH THE OCCUPANTS DOWNSIZING FROM A GRAND HERITAGE COUNTRY HOMESTEAD, THIS NEW HOME IS CONSCIOUSLY CONTEMPORARY. that aid day to day living: a bench seat at the front door for removing dirty boots, the outdoor shower for rinsing sandy feet after a beach visit and the secret hatch in the garage that accesses the internal kitchen pantry directly so that the heavy grocery bags don’t have to be lugged.

Privacy was critical and the building form responds to the threat of overshadowing and overlooking from its western neighbour. The main living space extends from this form with full-height glazing to the north and south courtyards. This can be opened out completely on either or both sides depending on weather conditions. As the clients are frequent entertainers, a flexible plan was required that allowed private studies to be converted to bedrooms when visitors stay.

An isolated study with its own bathroom has the potential to house a live-in carer should the need arise in the future. This is a contemporary home steeped in the history of its occupants and designed around their daily lives.

Comfort, ease of maintenance and facilitation of established daily rituals were primary elements of the clients’ brief. The home is fundamentally liveable and carefully considered with regard to the idosycrancies of the couple that live here. Spaces are carefully personalised with customised niches for mementos gathered over a lifetime. Despite the contemporary response required to accommodate the functional brief, the family history is richly evident.

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Architect statement – Rosa Coy, co-director, Coy Yiontis.

How was Coy Yiontis chosen for the project?

The client is my father: Peter Coy and his wife Jill. Coy Yiontis was an easy choice.

What was the timescale between commission, design and completion?

Six months design and planning, 12 months construction.

What were your greatest challenges with this project?

Working with family can be difficult, but Peter and Jill were dream clients from start to finish. The greatest challenge was fitting a growing brief onto a single level across the site and accommodating very specific room sizes.

How did the project address the issue of sustainability?

The project achieves a six-star energy rating (BERS) featuring water tanks plumbed into sanitary units and double-glazing throughout. It also respects stringent local fire rating requirements.

The feature spottedgum cladding and screening was used for its aesthetic and environmental qualities – being a local sustainable plantation timber.

How did it differ from other recent Coy Yiontis projects?

The family association and a brief that considered and accommodated ‘ageing in place’.

This home was to be that which their previous home was not: contemporary and easy to maintain. Consideration of the clients ageing comfortably in place determined that there should be no steps in the home; internal spaces and garden are at one continuous level and the resulting terraced garden at the rear of the sloping site provides ease of maintenance and an abundance of vegetables.

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How did you make your material choices?

The clients’ preference was a timber clad home. Spotted gum was chosen as a local sustainable timber – for its availability and acceptability under the required fire rating. The Spandek Colorbond cladding extends from the roof down to clad back-of-house external walls. Wide oak boards and stone tiles were chosen as easy to maintain internal finishes to floors. The interior palette is light and durable.

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How involved were the clients during the design and build?

We were given a fairly free rein with the building form and materials.

The build was a cost-plus contract and the clients were involved in decisions throughout.

Were there unexpected or confounding obstacles that arose during construction?

No.

PRIVACY WAS CRITICAL AND THE BUILDING FORM RESPONDS TO THE THREAT OF OVERSHADOWING AND OVERLOOKING FROM ITS WESTERN NEIGHBOUR.

What was your main inspiration for the design?

Screening from western neighbours and the need for the home to sit at a single level across a sloping site dictated the form of the building.

Now the project is finished, what elements do you love most and why?

The house is simple and very pure in its design. There are no excesses, no superfluous elements. We love the resulting drama of the front faรงade and the timber detailing.

Has there been any need to revisit the project since completion and, if so, were those issues resolved easily?

We visit the home regularly as guests, but there have been no issues that have required our involvement. We are reminded every time we speak to the client how wonderful the house is to live in and this makes us very happy.

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PROJECT 47

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48 48 PROJECT LEAD PROJECT

Post occupany evaluation.

AR CONDUCTS AN INFORMAL POST OCCUPANY EVALUATION OF HUMBLE HOUSE WITH OWNER PETER COY. What were the top six elements that were most important for the finished building to have integrated into the design?

Having lived most of my life in a large bluestone house built and designed in the 1870s, I had a pretty clear idea of the house I wanted built for retirement and old age.

■ not too large, single storey with minimum steps ■ comfortable with good heating/cooling and easy to look after ■ modern and light with lots of large glass sliding doors and skylights ■ predominantly timber both inside and out to suit our taste and the coastal environment ■ a large main room opening onto decks both north and south – lovely for entertaining and enjoying warmer weather, and ■ separate offices for my wife and I, for a private spot that can be easily converted to bedrooms for an overflow of grandchildren.

How was Coy Yiontis chosen for the project?

We chose Coy and Yiontis because we knew their work well and in particular the two most recent homes they built for themselves. We love their flare and bright modern design. Of course I may be a little biased being Rosa Coy’s father…

How was the briefing and consultation period handled? How long did it take and were there any obstacles or difficulties along the way?

Briefing and consultation took a couple of months. We and Coy Yiontis all had a pretty good idea of what we wanted. We did initially look at two levels with a lift, but ruled it out on cost. In hindsight I’m so glad we did as what we have suits us perfectly.

How involved were you during the construction period and how long did that process take?

We were involved during construction as we only lived a couple of hours away and regularly met with the architects and builder on-site.

The build took about 12 months.

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Now that the project is finished: How well does it respond to those top elements, individually?

The house is everything we had hoped for and more. Our old home was magnificent and over 100 squares, but this modern light and comfortable home with all mod cons is a joy.

Are there any unexpected or surprising elements that have become apparent through daily use?

There were no surprises; we did have a problem with the airconditioner and that was replaced under guarantee.

What has been the reaction from other visitors?

Visitors love our house and we enjoy entertaining. There is nothing we would do differently, except that, with all the glass, it’s perhaps a pity we don’t have an ocean or at least a river view.

Are there any elements that will need further adaptation or augmentation?

No. Have you needed to go back to Coy Yiontis with any queries or responses to the project?

No.

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Project details.

Design/project architects: Coy Yiontis Architects George Yiontis, Rosa Coy, Elodie Lim Builder: J&S Trickey builders Structural engineer: Greer Consulting Engineers Landscape architect: Bellarine Landscaapes Structure: timber, walls and cladding: spotted gum – finish Cutek oil clear CD50, roofing: Spandeck by Lysaght – Finish ‘Monument’, glazing and doors: windows: AGS 900 Serties by Capral – Finish ‘Monument’, retractable flyscreens: Centor – Fiinish Black, doors: solid core MDF, paint finish, finishes: plasterboard by CSR, painted finish: 1/8 blanc by Resene, kitchen fixtures: oven/microwave: C67P70N0GB by Neff, oven: B15P42N0AU by Neff, warmng drawer: N22H40N0GB by Neff, cooktop: T29R66N0AU by Neff, rangehood: UV12002T by Qasair – concealed, benchtops: Caesarstone – finish ‘Snow’, kitchen mixer: Porcher Saga, bathroom fixtures: under counter basin: Kado Arc by Reece, shower heads: Nikles pearl 250 square, shower/bath/ basin mixers: Mizu 1700, bath: Sanilux – finish white, WCs: Meridian CCBTW – finish white, lighting: Balance pendant over dining table by Vistosi, Ecostarr 85 soft downlights by INLITE, heating/cooling: hydronic heating throughout, cooling: ducted A/C, decking: spotted gum finish Cutek Oil, other: all joinery custom made by SCLK Moolap, Geelong, artworks: Approaching Storm by Nicolas Dillon in living room beside bookshelf

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Photography © Adam Kane

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EMERGING PROJECT 51

HARDWOOD HOUSE ADAM KANE DISCUSSES HARDWOOD HOUSE, A HOME WITH A DOUBLE FUNCTION THAT WAS INSPIRED BY EUROPEAN CHALETS. / NATALIE MORTIMER

Architect’s statement.

Hardwood house was designed with intended use as both dwelling and overnight high-end accommodation in regional Daylesford, Victoria. With this setting in mind, the intention was to create a contemporary home that referenced the warm, textured timber chalets of alpine Europe.

Designed to a modest floor area and budget, the floor plan lends itself to the flexibility of being used as a single house, or two independent and private rentals with separate entrances, facilities and outlooks. Externally the building was designed as two timber-clad gabled forms, appropriate for the area.

These pitched-roof forms were referenced internally with high raked-ceilings, which create a great sense of volume while reminding the occupant of their setting. It was believed that a sense of comfort and relaxation could be achieved within the

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interiors through a darker, emotive colour palette, enhanced by the predominant timber-lined finishes.

The timber floor, wall and ceiling linings, all of which were locally sourced and hand-finished, add a sense of warmth and luxury for the inhabitants, while referencing the surrounding garden plantings. From early in the design process the designers strived for a unique approach to the use of timber. A predominant use of rough sawn timber, was selected as wall and ceiling linings. Treated in a warm, deep, hand stained finish, it has achieved the sense of enclosure and comfort required of the brief. A sense of ‘air’ was achieved through a lightcoloured timber flooring, laid at an angle as a light-hearted approach.

The home’s interiors are considered unique, yet subtle and restrained, following the path of appropriate and timeless design without excess.

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52 EMERGING PROJECT

“WE CHOSE A DARKER, MOODIER PALETTE, WHICH EVOKED A FEELING OF ENCLOSURE AND SAFETY. THERE’S A REAL SENSE OF CALM AND PEACE IN THE HOUSE.”

How did the Hardwood house brief come to you?

It’s actually a holiday house for my parents. The intent was to design a three-bedroom house that could be split into two halves: a onebedroom section and a two-bedroom section, so that they could be rented out as accommodation independently or as a whole. Given that my parents hadn’t owned a rental house before, it was important to design it in a way that, if renting didn’t work out, it could be sold as a singular house. So it was important to factor that in.

What was the brief and how did it evolve?

The project is in Daylesford, a cold climate town in rural Victoria, about an hour-and-a-half from Melbourne. It’s a getaway location and the house needed to offer a sense of comfort. In the area there are a lot of miners’ cottages that are all very light and bright and cold and a bit twee. I wanted to do something that was still referential of the area, but had more of a solidity and permanence. We chose a darker, moodier palette, which evoked a feeling of enclosure and safety. There’s a real sense of calm and peace in the house. The walls are all really thickly insulated and that’s for both acoustics and to provide the impression that you are in your own little world. Having that feeling of privacy and just getting away from it all was what we wanted to achieve.

What was the inspiration for the project?

The initial inspiration was the two gabled forms on the façade.

There is a lot of wood in the project, how did you make that material choice?

Cost was one factor. The cladding, walls, floors and the ceilings are all constructed from the same timber. We used local timbers and they’re all hand sanded and hand stained, which adds that artisan feel to it.

Being local, it was very cost-effective and easy to work with. Having those multiple applications of the timber and being able to reference the materiality outside on the inside was important, so we wanted to use a material that could do both. The timber makes up 90 percent of materials used, but we also chose rustic steel for corner stops and gutters, and there is a little bit of fresco work inside to add a relief to some of the rooms.

How involved were your parents throughout the design process?

They were very involved and it was a great collaborative environment where we bounced ideas off each other. They were also heavily involved in the construction of Hardwood house, doing a lot of it themselves. They did a lot of the furniture building as well.

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54 EMERGING PROJECT

“ALL OF THE BOARDS WERE LAID BY HAND ON A DIAGONAL, WHICH ADDED TO THE WORK AND THEY WERE ALL HAND SANDED AND HAND STAINED.”

Were there any specific requests or things that you had to take into account?

The biggest one was having to split up the dwelling into two. One of the dwellings comprises a large master with an en suite and there is a door that can be concealed between the other dwelling, which is the main house and that worked pretty well.

Project details Client: Private client Scale: Floor area 175 square metres, site area 430 square metres Completion date: 2017 Architecture: Adam Kane Architects Interior designer: Barry Ludlow Photographer: Adam Kane

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What were the biggest challenges and how were they resolved?

The flooring took three months to lay because we didn’t use engineered boards, we chose rough sawn timber cladding. All of the boards were laid by hand on a diagonal, which added to the work and they were all hand sanded and hand stained. That was probably the biggest complication.

What would you say is your favourite element of Hardwood house?

Nothing you can see, but it’s the feeling that you get when you are in there. By far, that sense of enclosure and peace that you get from the palette and materials is my favourite part. ar

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56 AR ADVISER

CLOSING THE DOOR ON SECURITY

CONCERNS

THERE ARE MANY REASONS WE NEED OUR DOORS TO CLOSE FIRMLY AND SECURELY BEHIND US – SAFETY AND THE PREVENTION OF HEAT LOSS AMONG THEM. ABOVE ALL, HOWEVER, IT’S A MATTER OF SECURITY. BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN TO SPECIFY A DOOR CLOSER AND WHICH IS THE CORRECT ONE TO CHOOSE? MALCOLM MCKENZIE REPORTS.

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ith security top of mind in the minds of all involved in the building design industry, specifying door closers when considering egress and access solutions is now second nature. Door closers ensure that people entering and exiting a building don’t have the responsibility of making sure the door is securely closed behind them.

The fundamental thing to remember when specifying any door products is that you can spend $10,000 on electronic security on a door, but if it does not close efficiently and securely, then those security items are money down the drain.

Today’s security door applications typically involve the use of electromagnetic locks, drop bolts and most work with a receiving plate or, alternatively, have a latch mechanism that engages into an electric strike.

If the door closer lacks the strength to close, engage the electromagnetic locks receiver plate or the strike plate, then basically that security is useless.

People will invariably key in or swipe a

card and enter the premises, expecting the door to close behind them. All it takes is for the door to be sitting one or two degrees off the fully closed position and it won’t secure.

So a well-designed door closer that shuts securely and reliably every time is a must. And the best way to ensure this is a well-designed and fitted door closer.

But there are different types available, so how can designers know which is the best fit for purpose?

The first consideration is to ensure that the solution you choose is compliant and approved to the EN1154 or AS4145.5 door controls standard, which provides details on product types, classification by use, test cycles, door mass and corrosion resistance, as well as definitions, product performance requirements, test apparatus, test methods and marking of products.

Selecting door closers that comply with a standard provide specifiers with peace of mind. Once this standard is complied with, it’s possible to select an appropriate spring strength door closer to suit known closing conditions.

ALL IT TAKES IS FOR THE DOOR TO BE SITTING ONE OR TWO DEGREES OFF THE FULLY CLOSED POSITION AND IT WON’T SECURE.

APPLICATIONS As a rule, a building is broken down into internal and external doors, with the latter requiring the most robust solutions, as they suffer the greatest from air pressure issues. But there are exceptions to the rule. In a high-rise building, stairwells are typically pressurised, as they are fire escape routes. Fire doors must be self-closing at all times to ensure the door closes after every use. If a fire door is not closing efficiently, it may be that the closer installed has inadequate strength or requires some additional spring adjustment. A professional expert or service team can assist with

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adjustment or advice regarding the right model and installation for any application.

Lifts too create much variation in air pressure when they rise up the central part of a building so, like stairwell doors, lift lobby doors are also treated in the same way as external doors.

Hospitals too have very specific requirements. Further to the necessary smoke and fire doors, such environments require their door closers to provide many additional functions. They assist with climate control (loss of heating or cooling), security, acoustics and the prevention of infectious diseases in isolation airlocks For general internal applications, the strength of the door closer is aligned to use. In a nursing home, for example, where you may have people with physical challenges, closers with an immediate drop-off in opening resistance such as cam action door closers are preferred.

The more difficult a door closer is to open, the more resistance a person passing through that door will encounter.

So, the object is to select the right type of door closer with as little resistance as possible to open, while maintaining a strong closing force ensuring the door closes efficiently and safely.

SPEED CONTROL Other adjustments that can be made to the door closer are its sweep and latch closing speeds and these should be adjusted so the door closes safely, and

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doesn’t slam shut. On selected models of door closers you will find a feature known as delayed closing, or delayed action. While this could be thought to cause an issue for security purposes, it is particularly handy in a number of situations, such as facilitating access for a person in a wheelchair, carrying large volumes of goods or pushing a trolley through an entrance.

WHICH TO CHOOSE? There are two main types of door closer: the rack and pinion, which has been around since the 1890s, and the more modern cam action. The latter requires less resistance to open the door while still maintaining a strong closing force.

Accordingly, they offer people with disabilities, the elderly and children a higher level of comfort in the operation of a door. A cam action door closer has a unique heart-shaped cam, which leads to higher efficiency due to the fact that the spring of the closer has minimal travel compared to rack and pinion door closers.

Cam action door closers have an immediate drop-off in opening force the

THE MORE DIFFICULT A DOOR CLOSER IS TO OPEN, THE MORE RESISTANCE A PERSON PASSING THROUGH THAT DOOR WILL ENCOUNTER.

moment a door is opened and provide maximum closing power right up to the point of the door being fully closed thus better securing doors.

Often users believe that because a door closer has a slide channel that it must be a cam action door closer, but this is false. Cam action closers do use a slide channel, but the internal mechanism of the door closer with the heart shaped cam is uniquely different to other types of door closers.

Rack and pinion closers, on the other hand, were designed to be used with scissor arms, never slide channels, although these are sometimes added for aesthetic reasons. The downside is that the effects of opening the door are increased dramatically, sometimes up to four times greater than the forces stated in AS1428.1 allow.

Also rack and pinion door closers with slide channels lack closing strength resulting in doors that simply do not close efficiently resulting in loss of security, fire door integrity, acoustic issues and heating or cooling losses.

Whichever type you select, remember that the highest efficient door closer you can have is one that delivers almost the same closing force as it does opening force. So in a perfect world, if it takes a user 20 Newton-metres of force to open the door, if that door closer delivers 20 Newton-metres of closing force, it will be 100 percent efficient. ar Malcolm McKenzie product manager Door Hardware | Pacific, dormakaba.

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58 APPLICATION

MARBLE VERSUS MANUFACTURED

STONE / MELISSA RYMER

M

arble has been used as a building material for millennia.

Renowned for its natural properties, natural stone creates unique, warm tones and in recent years has become an increasingly popular material in domestic settings, most often used in kitchens and bathrooms, but also preferenced as a flooring material and as a dramatic feature wall.

There are a huge variety of marble products on the market and, not surprisingly, the effect, cost and quality vary dramatically. Marble has always been regarded as a luxury material, and many architects and designers would argue that you can never have enough marble. There are many types of granite and marble, plus other stone including limestone, onyx and travertine.

Arguably some of the most popular and beautiful types of marble are Carrara and Calacatta, which come from Cararra in Italy. The difference between the two is that Carrara generally isn’t pure white, but a muddier colour. It’s also less expensive than Calacatta, which has become the most sought after of all natural stones.

Marble is sourced from many parts of the world including India, China and Africa, each with a distinctive colour, pattern and density.

There are, however, advantages and disadvantages associated with all building materials. Some of the advantages are the fact that there is a stone to suit most budgets and there is a huge variety in colour and texture, which

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123RF’s Katarzyna Białasiewicz. © 123RF.com

123RF’s Guillermo Avello. © 123RF.com

STONE NEEDS TO BE SEALED REGULARLY BY A STONEMASON, WHICH IS COSTLY AND CAN BE COMPLICATED.

123RF’s breadmaker. © 123RF.com

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creates a distinctive appearance. Marble will never go out of fashion and, if looked after, will last for decades.

Disadvantages include the fact that some types of marble are very expensive and, when they are scratched or marked, can be very expensive to repair. Stone needs to be sealed regularly by a stonemason, which is costly and can be complicated. Another limitation stems from the fact that there are a small number of lighter coloured marbles available.

Over the past decade there has been a surge in popularity for architects and designers to use engineered stone. Examples include CaesarStone and essastone (made from up to 95 percent quartz), Talostone and Corian.

The composition of these materials creates a stronger slab than natural stone with better scratch and stain resistance properties. It is processed by a stonemason in the same way as granite.

One of the reasons for the popularity for these products is that they are strong and have a wide range of a lighter colour palette. Unlike stone products, there is a uniformity of colour and there are none of the cracks or veins that are common with natural stone.

While they are not completely stain proof, they are for the most part stain resistant if they are cleaned quickly.

Unlike natural stone, these products are flammable, so can’t be used as splashbacks, and are not suitable for outdoor applications. This is because ultraviolet light affects their stability and they will become brittle.

With so many decisions and options available when choosing materials for building, there are always many factors at play. Whether it’s a natural material or a manufactured product, the choice will always come down to personal preference and budget. ar

australiandesignreview.com

25/07/18 9:40 AM

60 APPLICATION

COASTAL CONSIDERATIONS

POLLY HARBISON HAS A SYDNEY-BASED PRACTICE THAT SPECIALISES IN COASTAL RESIDENCES. HERE SHE SHARES SOME RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE BEST MATERIALS TO USE WHEN CONSTRUCTING IN THIS ENVIRONMENT.

How do you combat the effects of the elements such as salt and wind in coastal properties?

Put in outdoor taps and make sure they are connected to hot water, so you can wash the house down with hot water – it melts the salt. Anything on the coast is going to get hammered, so choose materials that don’t rely on being pristine and beautiful to look good. That’s why I like the timber and stone – materials that actually look great with a bit of age on them, and a bit of weathering. They also settle into the bush better. These are quiet and sensitive environments and, if you have a beach view, that means everybody on the beach can see your house. So it’s important that the building you design really disappears into the bush.

Do you like to use much colour?

The water and the bush and the outside is so beautiful, I just don’t want to compete with it. The whole intent is that [the house] is just a neutral backdrop to make the blues and greens shine. They are the colour.

Photography © Brett Boardman

AR: What are the particular design challenges in this space?

Polly Harbison: A lot of the buildings on the south coast are quite cold. They have all these little courtyards on the north side of the house that don’t have the view, but they are protected and so often where you hang out the most. You will sit where the cat sits!

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Do you prefer working with new or recycled timber?

I love both. Recycled is fantastic when you get your hot little hands on it. For a lot of the buildings we use 300 by 300 bridge timber as post and beam construction. Sometimes you can’t get it, so it’s not the right thing to use. But there are so many good Australian hardwoods.

Which are the best hardwoods in this environment?

It depends where you are. We do a lot of the windows etc in blackbutt. Or mixed hardwoods coming from the coast, out of Kempsey. A lot of the recycled stuff comes from Eden.

What sort of wood is the recycled timber?

A lot is ironbark, but with many recycled projects, even at DA (development application) stage, until you’re about to build, you won’t know exactly the material you’re using because you have to find it. Our Bundeena project used a wandoo timber (aka white gum). We put the call out to a couple of suppliers and

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someone found something – I hadn’t even heard of wandoo before. The Macmasters Beach house is turpentine.

Does the wood need to be treated?

If you’re happy to let it go grey, you’re still sealing it and oiling it, but you’re not putting a protective coating on the outside. If you want it to keep its colour, then you have to maintain it.

What about the concrete?

Mostly off-form, but the stairs at Macmasters we used a pre-cut. You get a much better control if it’s pre-cut. But the rest of it is poured on-site. We use a standard mix; we’re not colouring it for the structure of the building, we’re not changing it. What’s I like about that is that if there is any bleaching or calcification that’s going to happen, it’s already rough because it was imperfect to start with.

What do you use for the floors?

We have used limestone, which was beautiful, but the one we used in Macmasters was better. That’s a Moroccan sandstone, which is fantastic

to walk on in bare feet. There’s a little bit of underfloor heating for winter, but in summer it’s a very soft stone to walk on.

The tactile thing is really important.

Do you specify the fabrics for the drapes and cushions?

It would depend. The Macmasters house is very elaborate, but just had curtains for the glare because it’s right on the water.

The super dreamy fun white curtain felt like the right thing to do in contrast to the very solid beach houses. It’s a cotton linen mix with some polyester to make it hardier, which increases its lifespan in this environment from two or three years to seven or eight.

You don’t use a great deal of metal, but what is your preference for when you do?

Brass because it patinas so well. The older it gets, the better it gets. You put it up and it looks gaudy and gold, and in those marine environments three days later it has tarnished off. With our own home we didn’t have the money and we had to use galvanised, which mimics brass. ar

australiandesignreview.com

25/07/18 9:40 AM

62 APPLICATION – SHOWCASE

▲ USG Boral Ensemble Acoustical Plasterboard Ceiling System

▲ Aneeta Duomode Choose the mode to suit your mood.

Architects, interior designers and their clients look for a clean, seamless ceiling finish in impressive public spaces. Acoustical ceiling solutions with a smooth plasterboard appearance have been traditionally costly to install. Now the USG Boral Ensemble Acoustical Plasterboard Ceiling System offers the clean, elegant aesthetics you want with the sound performance you need.

A cost-effective solution for lobbies, atriums, galleries, educational and other spaces with multiple hard surfaces and ambient noise, Ensemble is a sound choice. To view the Chancery House Perth case study video visit: www.usgboral.com/au/ensemble

▼ Transit Stainless Steel Curtain Range Locker Group’s Transit wire mesh curtains, installed on a curtain track, can be opened and closed to create some privacy and intimate spaces.

Perfect for the busy city interior space and reception areas, the large Transit range can provide flexibility and the ability to alter spaces at a moment’s notice while adding an industrial tone. locker.com.au/architectural/curtains

Providing the streamlined appearance of fixed windows with the functionality of a fully operable window, the Duomode sashless window features a patented locking system that allows the large, frameless panes to be locked to operate as either a counterbalance window or a servery window. So you get the maximum possible viewing area, along with unparalleled freedom and flexibility.

Live uninterrupted. aneetawindows.com

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25/07/18 2:45 PM

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25/07/18 3:14 PM

64 BRAIN TRUST

BRAIN TRUST THIS ISSUE AR ASKS A PANEL OF EXPERTS THEIR RESPONSE TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: DOES YOUR PRACTICE HAVE A COMMUNICATIONS PLAN IN PLACE AND DO YOU THINK THIS IS IMPORTANT?

/ BROOKE LLOYD, DIRECTOR, HEAD OF INTERIORS, COX ARCHITECTS NATIONAL DESIGN AND MARKETING COMMITTEE MEMBER

© Jim Stephenson

As an architect or designer it’s natural to assume a circular relationship of ‘win work, do work, publish work’ in terms of marketing. To a certain extent this remains true, our work is the best marketing tool. Following such a singular approach, however, results in fragmented and ‘transactional’ messaging and limits our ability to tell a practice

narrative that is coherent and holistic – beyond the business of projects.

‘Design excellence’ as a positioning has become so prevalent that it’s now meaningless and does very little to differentiate one practice from another (as a claim, if not as a reality). It also fails to acknowledge that non-designer audiences can benefit from being provided with additional context, tools, cues and messages, with which to interrogate our work.

This is where the importance of planning comes in – proactive, holistic and based on the desire to differentiate the what, the how and, most important, the ‘why’ we do what we do. We want to enable stakeholders to make a choice of design partner based more on insight and understanding, and less on who has the best hero shot.

This desire to cram all the meaning and inherent sophistication of architecture into an image has only been exacerbated by social media platforms – effectively turning stories into sound bites. Social media is incredibly powerful, but using it inappropriately renders our work as fashion to be judged purely on aesthetics.

Just as with design, understanding context is critical to deriving real benefit from marketing. And these benefits

only come from insight and planning. Too many practices ‘push’ projects, when we should be revealing expressions of an overall narrative.

/ GENEVIEVE BRANNIGAN DIRECTOR, COMMUNICATIONS COLLECTIVE As Australians continue to develop a strong interest in design, buildings and construction, architecture practices are being recognised for their role in shaping the built environment around us. It is vital, then, that architecture practices are able to communicate effectively given the diverse range of invested stakeholders requiring information. There is an enormous opportunity for architects to educate and inform the public, share their stories and help shape the conversation around broader civic issues.

Engaging with so many different groups requires tailored forms of communication to cater to a variety of needs, knowledge levels and agendas.

Design needs to be encapsulated and articulated, whether it be telling the story of a building or explaining its features far beyond the façade.

These narratives add depth to individual projects and allow for a stronger appreciation for the industry, which, in turn, allows it to develop. Architecture needs recognition and a more positive, collaborative approach – particularly given the increasing densification of cities.

The built environment industry is at a crucial point.

Buyers are more astute than ever, seeking buildings and homes that reflect their values.

Coupled with a rise in sustainable and ethical property developers, architecture practices must ensure long-term viability by effectively communicating their crucial role in this shifting landscape. Rapid technological and societal changes have made this difficult as audiences are now found on a growing number of platforms. This demands customised content to effectively spread messages among the key stakeholders and users of buildings.

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25/07/18 2:37 PM

/ YVETTE BREYTENBACH DIRECTOR, MORRISON AND BREYTENBACH ARCHITECTS CURRENT PRESIDENT OF TASMANIAN CHAPTER OF AIA

© Nina Hamilton

Tasmania in the early 1990s was remote and isolated from the Australian mainland and the world. In this pre-internet era, Morrison & Breytenbach Architects was established, becoming a mid-sized ‘fish’

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practising in a small regional pond. “Why,” a puzzled, Sydneybased colleague asked me at the time, “would you choose to practise in Hobart?” Looking at the friendships, community, lifestyle and project opportunities we found here as new migrants, my response has been, “Why wouldn’t we?”

In recent times, the MONA phenomenon and internet connectedness has brought robust growth in tourism. For architects, it has translated into mainland clients, but also significantly increased offshore competition, as remote working is made easy courtesy of the ‘cloud’. These changes have spawned the essential need for a business presence across the different platforms of the ether.

Reader demographic, their interests, priorities and likely duration of engagement, guide our posts and ‘voice’. For each, we pitch a slightly different content, intonation and appeal, communicating architectural values, design approach and project wins or detail.

On Instagram we emphasise persona, mood, what grabs our eye and makes us tick, as people and a practice. Our Facebook page serves as a modest resource of themes we value – things sustainable, clever and provocative. Our website news (shared to our Facebook page)

aims to rouse curiosity, guiding viewers to the broader site, which offers detail of example projects we have realised.

LinkedIn? A recruitment platform? Twitter? Useful trending conversation? We remain, by choice, a small local practice. Finding balance and investing time in our still informal communication plan is our increasingly important challenge.

/ DAVID BARR DIRECTOR, DAVID BARR ARCHITECTS As it nears the 10-year mark, our practice has had two phases of communication, reflecting a transition from a one-person office working exclusively on residential alterations and additions to a small office of five working on a mix of residential, multi-residential and urban design projects. The communications plan has evolved from an implicit, unformed strategy into a documented plan, itself evolving.

In the first five years of the practice any commission was gratefully accepted, and the marketing strategy relied heavily on word of mouth, AIA awards and the occasional publication. Reflecting a practice finding its voice, the ‘communications plan’ was fluid

and reasonably unfocused.

Now, as our practice grows and seeks larger and more targeted commissions, we are aware that our communications plan is crucial to presenting the office to diverse client types (domestic, commercial and institutional).

With a sense of purpose developed over the decade, we aim to communicate clearly to each potential client about the practice’s values, strengths and capabilities.

We avoid jargon and talk honestly about what we believe in and how we work.

We see our communication with the world at large as a series of independent threads, which collectively support and reinforce each other, creating a larger practice identity.

Our communications plan is important within the office too, capturing the character of the practice and helping us to collectively create and understand our work and our culture. ar

australiandesignreview.com

25/07/18 4:52 PM

66 SKELETONS

SAGRADA FAMILIA THIS ISSUE’S SKELETON IS A LITTLE DIFFERENT. INSTEAD OF LOOKING AT OUR NOTABLE AND ICONIC BUILDING WHEN IT WAS A TWINKLE IN ITS CREATOR’S EYE, WE’RE LOOKING AT IT AS STILL A TODDLER, FINALLY GROWING INTO ITSELF. BECAUSE, WHILE IT WAS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED IN 1882, IT STILL ISN’T FINISHED… / MELISSA RYMER

L

ocated in Barcelona, the Roman Catholic basilica, the Sagrada Familia, also known as the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, was originally designed by Spanish architect Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano in 1882. The renowned architect Antoni Gaudí took over the project in 1883 and transformed the church into a spectacular Gothic and Art Nouveau masterpiece. As with most of his works, he decided to design the Sagrada Familia with curved lines.

According to Gaudí, straight lines do not exist in nature, and he believed the church should reflect all aspects of nature. The columns of the Sagrada

Familia are built in a tree-like shape and function as the primary supports for the whole building.

When Gaudí died in 1926, he had devoted much of his life to this building, but it was only a quarter finished.

Since then the project has relied almost entirely on private donations, and has encountered many interruptions, including the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Today, given advances in technology, it is anticipated that the project will be fully completed in 2026, in time for the centenary of Gaudí’s death. Some of the project’s greatest challenges remain, however, including the construction of 10 more spires, each

symbolising important biblical figures in the New Testament. When it is finished, the Sagrada Familia will have 18 towers: 12 dedicated to the Apostles, four to the Evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), one to Jesus and one to Mary, with the tallest spire reaching 170 metres high.

The project has seen a variety of architects at the helm, the most recent being Barcelona-born Jordi Fauli, who took over as chief architect in 2012.

The Sagrada Familia is one of the most famous monuments in Barcelona (alongside Gaudí’s wonderful Park Güell and Casa Batlló). It attracts nearly three million visitors a year and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. ar

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25/07/18 2:38 PM

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