"In modern architecture we find difficulty in managing the relation between the physical presence of a building and its intimations of the mental and spiritual. Our architectural objects rarely serve as objects of intermediation between the ordinary, the physical and the present on the one hand, and the mystical, the spiritual and the abstract on the other...."
A new paradigm of design is starting to emerge as a result of the efforts of those members of the design community who are concerned with the extent, as well as the underplaying, of our global environmental crisis.
Berwyn Lewis talks to solar physicist Bruce Robins. Imagine 6 billion people simultaneously turning on lights and electrical appliances. This apocalyptic drain on power would plunge us into an eternal blackout with devastating effects on the environement.
Affecting one's city, state or country requires wit, wisdom opportunity and a sense of fun. Robert McNulty, President of the extraordinarily successful Washington based 'Partners for Livable Places' gives a thumb-nail sketch of the last 15 years of the organisation and some of the tools they have used as operational forces for action.
Australian cities cannot continue to grow in the manner to which we've become accustomed. The environmental, social and economic costs are simply too great. There needs to be a qualitative change to the way we build and live in them.
Written with Paul Mutton. Merz is a new urban artist's village in the inner city suburb of Brompton, South Australia. Photos and drawings of the project.
'Choose a woman architect - there is a difference!' proclaim a multitude of stickers all over Sydney. Constructive Women, the Sydney based association of Women Architects and Planners decided it was time for a new approach.
Two recent shows in Melbourne of installations by Alex Danko have investigated issues indirectly referring to architecture and the private and social body within the Australian environment.
Exhibition review Possessed: Virginia Barratt, Simryn Gill, Richard Grayson, Michele Luke, Julienne Pierce, Steve Wigg
Bullring Jam Factory
South Australia
6 October - 3 November 1991
It seems clear enough that women feel loss and the lack at the heart of the consumer society. But the creation of other riches, even in imagination, is hard to achieve....We need nevertheless to imagine other worlds, other ways - all of us- in order to sustain hope and inform desire.