Glenn Murcutt

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GLENN MURCUTT Design Studio - Courtmacsherry County Cork

Dublin School of Architecture

4th Year Studio Dublin School of Architecture Dublin Institute of Technology Bolton Street, Dublin 1. dublinschoolofarchitecture.com Head of School Assistant Head of School

James Horan Orna Hanly

Glenn Murcutt Studio DSA Press Dublin School of Architecture No.1

ISBN Design - Paul Kelly, Noel Brady Š Dublin School of Architecture

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Contents Glenn Murcutt Biography Working method - Paul Kelly Building and Place - Noel Brady Glenn Murcutt Projects

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Boyd Education Centre.......... 12 Marika Alderton House.......... 14 Wals House............................ 16 Selected Student Projects Analysis

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Seán Attley............................. 28 Martin Burzlaff...................... 34 Brenda Carroll........................36 Niamh O’Flaherty...................42 Ruth Condren......................... 43 Darren Ferrari........................ 44 Robin Jardine......................... 46 Derek Keatly.......................... 50 Jessica Lange......................... 54 Carlos Lorite.......................... 56 Aoife Martin.......................... 57 Luke McCall.......................... 58 Celine McCall........................ 60 Siobhan McNulty................... 62 Ross Millaney........................ 64 Deirdre NíDhonaill................ 66 Gary Reddin........................... 68 Class List

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Glenn Murcutt (born 1936, London, England) is an Australian Architect. He is also the founding President of the Australian Architecture Murcutt studied architecture at the University of New Association. He won the Alvar Aalto Medal in 1992, the Pritzker Prize in 2002 and the AIA Gold Medal South Wales from 1956 to 1961. During this same period, he worked with a series of architects. After graduating, in 2009.

Murcutt travelled for two years, returning in 1964 to work Murcutt works as a sole practitioner, producing residential and institutional work all over Australia. Though he does his own practice in Sydney, Australia in 1970.

- In an initial exploratory phase Murcutt established a mases master classes for beginning and established architects. tery of the Miesian style. His second phase was more regional in nature. Using a mixture of pragmatism and lyriHe grew up in the Morobe district of New Guinea, where cism, Murcutt creates simple houses that resemble open he developed a preference for simple, primitive architecture. His father introduced him to the architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the philosophies of Henry architecture, and for creating an architecture that speaks and responds to the land. One of his favourite quotes is from an Aboriginal proverb “Touch the earth lightly�. style.

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Glenn Murcutt

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Working Method - Paul Kelly

The most important thing we as educators can pass on to students are the skills to enable them to develop a personal working method. It takes time and often quite a number of projects to develop such a method and very often graduation is only the start of the process. The most

Glenn Murcutt conducted a design studio with the 4th year students in 2009, the site was at the small village of Courtmacsherry in County Cork. Most of the staff and Glenn. It was interesting how despite his practice being

fellow students or tutors is no longer readily available.

to bear a personal working method on the context without imposing a preconceived style. This working method based on a detailed and precise assessment of the site conditions dis-allows the impositions of an architect’s preconceptions. Every aspect of the site from its history, topography, hydrology and climate were among an extensive range of issues to be investigated by the students.

College is a brief period in the career of an architect where we must imbue each student with the skill set that will foster critical thinking. The limited number of projects initiate an architects development, given the example of Louis Kahn that development may only come to full fruition in mid life. The integrity of this initial grounding in architecture is vital to the longevity of the process. Glenn Murcutt has demonstrated through his work how a rigorous working method will bear fruit. The work in this book describes the beginning of the students’ development of their own working method.

Each site presents a unique set of constraints and opportunities, leading when assessed objectively to a personal response to a place. The role of the personal is what makes each architects response unique even when they begin with the same base information.

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Building and Place – The CRH Chair in Architecture 2006 – 2009 Glenn Murcutt winner of the 2002 Pritzker Prize and the 2009 AIA Gold Medal

To the students and staff alike the town was both familiar and unfamiliar. Courtmacsherry shares a similar morphology to many Irish towns with is strong linear pattern of ribbon development. Many of the buildings face North,

Courtmacsherry is a small sleepy village at the southern tip of the island of Ireland. Beyond land’s end in depth remains the once great ship the Lusitania. The ship that pressured American sentiment to join WWI was of the same technological era as that which brought Victorian Sunday Visitors to Courtmacsherry. The tiny single track railway which tottered along the edge of the shoreline has left few traces along its precarious path. This line between earth and sea is occupied by the temporary and the

the hill of the peninsula. Much of the town remains in perpetual darkness exacerbated by less than judicious tree plantations.

Shelter is the paramount concern for any sea based community and this is writ large in this landscape. The town shelter from the wind in the lee of the hill rather than a concern for the sun.

Because the town has little or no indigenous employment its continued existence is supported by a transient community of commuting workers and weekend/holiday visitors.

The studio’s challenge was to introduce into this situation a strategy (Architectural and Environmental) that furthers a more appropriate environmental response. Glenn’s fo-

and ports. A recent plan for a Marina foundered upon the rock of inappropriate environmental impact. It would the lack of inward investment in employment, the inadequate environmental and transport infrastructures (waste treatment).

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and the particular qualities of the place on the other.

an explicit expression of the cause that released the

visit is the redundant quarry at the heart of the town.

In contrast various qualities that give Courtmacsherry its special sense of place include the “sea drive” along the axis of the town, the sweep of the estuary, the wildlife, the woods along the headland and the various walks through the town and landscape.

Siza, Murcutt engages in critical observation. By of place and people. He has refused to work outside his “native” Australia because of this link to the spehe feels truly at home with has ensured a consistency in vision that one might be tempted to refer to as a style. This would be too narrow a supposition since ent results depending on the context. His work has ranged from the urban to the outback. Each case has been argued with a strong frontier-ship criticality; (do it this way or die)… In Australia these issues are

Glenn Murcutt I have had the opportunity to interview Glenn on a number of occasions, including in conversation with Juhani Palasmaa. Glenn is not an architect who masks the intent of his work in the language of art or social theory. His explanations are always direct, his cause clear, his observation critical. He does not feel the need to have a virtual scaffolding hold up the veracity of his built work. Moreover his work is

years. This also lends a slightly otherworldly appearance to his work especially in the Bush with exploratory vehicles that touch lightly upon the earth. By treading carefully on the earth, the work appears to be without weight, without gravity, lifted in turn by

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the unstinting sunlight. There is no retreat below the earth because of the greater horrors that wait there, but a resting above, a magic carpet from which to view the landscape beyond. For urbanites it is the equivalent of the caravan, having stopped overnight in the bush beside a watering hole. This brings us into the realm of Mies’s Farnsworth Pavilion raised above the landscape, a stratagem that Glenn has acthe modern period as Critical Regionalists and it is tempting to place Ken in amongst Aalto and Utzon, but this is complicated by the lightness of touch that underpins the site strategy, the internal planning and the importance of the section, its precise and minimal tectonic expression of building.

In Courtmacsherry Glenn did not enforce hi particular world view on the students. Instead he shared his method, his keen observation and thoughts encouraging them to embrace the place, to rescue the lost and celebrate the real.

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Glenn Murcutt Projects

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The Arthur and Yvonne Boyd Education Centre Located between cultivated farmland and natural bush, the building emphasises the differences of each condition, framing views to both. It provides a large meeting hall with kitchen, bathing facilities and shared accommodation for up to thirty two students.

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Marika Alderton House, Northern Territory, 1991-1994 Commissioned by the aboriginal leader Banduk Marika and her partner Mark Alderton this project is in Yirrkala on land associated with the Marika Clan.

It was conceived by Murcutt as a prototype and as a viable alternative to the house then occupied by the clients, a brick building with small windows typical of aboriginal public housing in this context. Prefabricated in Gosford, north of Sydney, all components were packed in two shipping containers and transported to site via semi-trailer and barge. The house was bolted and screwed together on site, the entire process taking four months.

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Walsh House The house is located in Kangaroo Valley, close to the Fletcher-Lee House, with which Walsh House has some formal similarities....However unlike the Simpson-Lee House.....Walsh House is not conceived by an individual glazed bay, protected by adjustable louvres, which allows the user to individually adjust the day lighting of their room.

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Selected Student Projects

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Area of Study

Study Topics

Analyses 1. History 2. Water Courses & Drainage 3. Geology 4. Topography 5. Landscape Character 6. Flora & Fauna 7. Land/Property Use 8. Existing Housing Typologies 10. Tidal Systems 11. Sun Patterns 12. Climate Information Strategies Movement Strategies Height Restrictions Use Proposals

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History - Comparison Photographs In the neighbouring village of Timoleague, the town is placed within the catchment area of the Argideen river, this catchment area being 150 square kilometres. The fact that the town is located within a catchment means that there will be a lot less surface-water than in an area without a catchment, such as our site, in the village of Courtmacsherry. In Courtmacsherry, it is presumed that there will be a natural water drainage system dependant on rains in the area more so than an area with a river. will swell, that many temporary streams will occur throughout the site.

However, the water table will be more constant at our site than that of the surrounding areas, with the water being drained relatively uniformly rather than all draining to one single river, which then puts that area under a lot of stress during times of unexpected rainfall.

Water Courses 24

pography is concerned with local detail in general, including not only relief but also vegetative involves the recording of relief or terrain, the three-dimensional quality of the surface and the the village has developed as a mono linear ribbon development. The topography of the town can be broken into the following headings: The estuary is a mud/ sand basin. Strongly affected by the tide, it has an overall difference of 4.2 m between once of 4.2 m between the highest and lowest tide. between 3m and 7m approx. and comprises of elements such as per, breakwaters, walkways, tennis court and town square.

The main street of the village consists of a single row of two storey building facing onto a roadway and the shore front. and narrow, they create comfortable habitats for human occupation. This pattern is very distinctly disrupted around the quarry area.

The strip of woodland on the hillside forms a ribbon of wind shelter for the town. Consisting mainly of beech trees, it also holds the soil of the hillside together, preventing land slippage.

The barren ridge at the top of the hill is windswept and largely free of large amounts the highest and lowest tide.

Topography 25

Tidal System

Public Space

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Waders and Wildfowl A considerable amount of migratory birds feed on the mud and

Wild Animals Evidence of badgers and hares was noted in the area and it is ex

Domesticated Animals

Dairy farming is the other main source

Flora and Fauna

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Brian Attley - Culinary School

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Martin Burzlaff - Music School

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Brenda Carroll, Benedictine Monastery Strategy

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Ruth Condren - Community Building

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Darren Ferrari - Budadhist Monastery

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Housing

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Fourth Floor Plan 1/200 Robin Jardine - Cider Mill

Cider Mill Section B-B 1/200 47

Reception desk Storage Silo Washing belt Milling Machine Presses toilets

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courtmacsherry - cider mill

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courtmacsherry - north elevation

Derek Keatley, Cider Mill

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courtmacsherry - cider complex collague

courtmacsherry - cider complex perpectives

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courtmacsherry housing - perspectives

courtmacsherry housing - perspectives

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courtmacsherry -- single single unit bed ground unit firstfloor floor courtmacsherry

courtmacsherry -- single single unit bed ground unit firstfloor floor courtmacsherry 1

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hall storage wc bedroom

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1 bed Unit - First Floor 2 bed 2

single courtmacsherry -- 2 single bed ground unit firstfloor floor courtmacsherry bed unit 6

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living lightwell wc kitchen

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single courtmacsherry -- 3 single bed ground unit firstfloor floor courtmacsherry bed unit 1

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3 bed Unit - Ground Floor

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3 bed Unit - First Floor

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Aoife Martin - Seaweed Baths and Spa

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TOWN HALL

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- 40/60mm squared pine, heat treated. (100mm centre to centre) - 40/40 mm battens on 20 mm treated plywood - damp proof membrane - 60 mm rigid foam insulation - 20 mm plywood board - 60 mm rigid foam insulation - vapour barrier - 80mm rigis foam insulation

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1 - 40/60mm squared pine, heat treated. (100mm centre to centre) - 40/40mm battens on 20 mm plywood - damp proof membrane - 60mm rigid foam insulation - vapour barrier - 2 x 20 mm plywood board - 100mm rigid foam insulation - 2 x 20 mm plywood boards, perforated UP

1 1 - 40/60mm squared pine, heat treated.

(100mm centre to centre) - 40/40mm battens on 20 mm plywood - damp proof membrane - 60mm rigid foam insulation - vapour barrier - 2 x 20 mm plywood board - 100mm rigid foam insulation - 2 x 20 mm plywood boards, perforated

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2 - 40/60mm squared pine, heat treated. (100mm centre to centre) - 40/40 mm battens on 20 mm treated plywood - damp proof membrane -60 mm rigid foam insulation - 20 mm plywood board - 60 mm rigid foam insulation - vapour barrier - 80mm rigis foam insulation - 20mm finished plywood board 5

3 - 210mm outer leaf concrete wall (slate aggregate) - damp proof membrane - 60mm rigid foam insulation - vapour barrier - 180mm inner leaf concrete wall - Steel ties from inner to outer leaf 1

3 - 210mm outer leaf concrete wall (slate aggregate) - damp proof membrane - 60mm rigid foam insulation - vapour barrier - 180mm inner leaf concrete wall - Steel ties from inner to outer leaf

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Wall Detail

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Celine McCarville - Culinary School

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Siobhan McNulty - Biodiversity Research Facility

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Ross Millaney - Community building

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Deirdre Ni Dhonaill - Town Hall

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Town Hall 01_foyer 02_reception 03_store 04_upper balcony 05_auditorium 06_stage 07_kitchen 08_function room

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09_function room 10_toilets 11_toilets 12_dressing room 13_dressing room 14_backstage 15_store

Gary Reddin - Visual Arts Centre

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Dublin School of Architecture Year 4 2008-2009 Staff Students Year co-ordinator - Noel Brady Brian Attley Peter Crowley Darragh Breathnach Paul Kelly Alessandra Bruzzone Martin Burzlaff Glenn Murcutt Brenda Carroll Helen-Rose Condon Ruth Condren Jim Roche Raul Salgado David Cuddy Marcin Wojcik Darren Ferrari Kenneth Fitzmaurice Ronan Gallagher Neil J. Ginty Ciara Hamell Clare Healy Robin G. Jardine Derek Keatley Mark R. Keogh

Caroline Mahon Aoife Martin Celine McCarville Siobhan M. McNulty Bejamin Meyer Ross Millaney Marie Morel Colin Mulhern Deirdre Ni Dhonaill

Gary Reddin Brian M. Sheehy Cecily Weeks

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Credits Photographs Page 1 Pages 6-8 Pages 10 - 17 Pages 18 - 19 Pages 20 - 21 Page 21 Page 72

Noel Brady courtesy of Glenn Murcutt courtesy of Glenn Murcutt courtesy Courtmacsherry RNLI Paul Kelly Noel Brady Noel Brady

Glenn Murcutt project descriptions are extracts are from Glenn Murcutt - The Architecture of Glenn Murcutt, TOTO Shuppan, 2008 ISBN978-4-88706-293-1

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