Art, Architecture & the Environment
Issue 11:4 | December 1991
Special issue. Art as conservation of natural and built environments, art as ecology, new alliances, eco-design, autonomous houses, ecopolis, earth building, housing co-operatives, collaborative designs, sustainable cities. Great articles and photos.
In this issue
Art, Architecture and the Environment
This issue of Artlink tries to flag some of the issues for designers in Australia today, and to document just some of the changes which are happening.
The Art of Living
The place Ecopolis 2, the world's first ecocity. The time -- mid-afternoon 3rd November 2007.
Creating Livable Places
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.
Willmot Playspace Project
Willmot Play Space has taken place over a four year period and has involved the conversion of a disused football field inot a community park.
Acoustic Futures. Sound Noise and Urban Design
Our town planners, our architects and we ourselves need to rethink the city. If downtown spaces, internal and external, are to become inhabitable, there needs to be a dramatic shift away from narrowly architectural conception of them and their functions towards an acoustic analysis.
Women's Ideal Environments
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.
2040: A Message from the Future
The Brisbane Community Action Group CART (Citizens Advocating Responsible Transport) have recently won two awards....
Sustainable Canberra
Australia's capital shows the way in applying sustainability to a city.
Material Re-Creation
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.
Architecture and Lyndall Milani's Installations
Lyndall Milani uses sculptural installations to question the place of architecture in the landscape and within human life.
Solar Houses: an Introduction
Faced with these complexities, it is hardly surprising that many designers find the proto-type solar house to be a preferable starting point.
Working with Rules
We all use rules. By looking at them critically we will precipitate a dynamic evolution in our understanding and practice of designing 'with the environment'.
Andy Goldsworthy: Everything in the City is Nature
British artist Andy Goldsworthy came to Australia for three weeks in July to work on site at Mount Victor Station east of the Flinders Ranges. During the 1992 Festival of Arts photographs of the works made at Mount Victor and an installation was shown at the Artspace at the Adelaide Festival Centre, a survey of past works was on show at Yarrabee and Goldsworthy produced a permanent work for the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.
The Essential Gift of Ceremonies: Towards a Poetics of Scarcity
"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...."
Built Form for Well-Being, Not Just Comfort
Looks at issues of energy self sufficiency -- battery banks and photovoltaic solar collector panels.
Aleks Danko: Day In Day Out
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.
Designing from the Inside Out: Women, Design and Architecture
'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.
Places for Souls to Play
Looks at the work of Gabriel Poole with statements by Gabriel Poole.
Eco-design Conference at RMIT
Eco-design is probably one of the most far reaching topics to be assembled under the banner of one small hyphenated word. The linking of ecology with design is for many still a novel concept....conference held at RMIT 17 -19 October 1991.
Response to the Climate in the Top End
It never gets really cold in the Top End. But it does get very humid during the Wet. However, simple steps in house design can make the house comfortable and you don't need fans and air conditioners.
Artists and the Mt Leuseur Campaign
Artist's involvement in the Mt Lesueur Campaign -- 200 km north of Perth, Western Australia.
Let There be Light and Power
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.
Willunga Garden Village
Willunga Garden Village is a 20 acre allotment subdivision on a 10 acre site on the slopes of the north facing Willunga (South Australia) escarpment.
Aspects of Earth Building in New Zealand
New Zealand is not only snake less and nuclear free but also has a tradition of earth buildings. In pre European times, Maori utilised the ground's insulating properties by partially sinking thatched roofed houses into the ground.
Earth-Sheltered Building using Timber
Earth sheltered housing is not new. The most common way of keeping the soils at bay has been with reinforced concrete and masonry walls and roofs.
Res B: a Design Proposal for Brisbane
In Brisbane the older suburbs are distinctive and a prime source of identity for this sub-tropical city. The timber tradition has left us a rich heritage. For this proposal we have taken an existing suburb with houses on 800m2 blocks. The houses are simple single frontal address buildings.
Supporting Remote Places
Today's temperature will be around 37 degrees. At 6 am the relative humidity was 94%. The Monsoon winds haven't found their bearing to the north west, and the prediction is that el nino will prolong the build up this year - a late wet>
On Empowering Clients and Collaborative Design Processes
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." (Margaret Mead)
Collective Bargaining. Co-op Housing; an Overview
The South Australian Co-operative Housing Bill allowed for the creation of a new housing authority to administer co-operative housing independently of other forms of public housing was passed in October 1991. This coincides with the Federal Government's recognition, through the National Housing Strategy, of the need to explore "innovative forms of social housing which fit between the extremes of private and public tenure."
Artworkers On the Urban Frontier
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.
Merz: Tapping the Energy
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.
Prospect: Building on its Imagination
In these days of environmental awareness it is pleasing to see a growing awareness of the need to improve urban environments. This is not to say that we should, yet again, be looking after the concerns of people over and above the needs of the natural environment.
Community Architecture: High on People Power, Low on Fossil Fuels
Gregory Burgess and Associates are a remarkable architectural practice which places high value on the collaborative design process with clients and users as well as low energy use now has three major community projects to its credit...
Restored to Life with a Bypass
Landscape art by Roger Noakes and Flightpath.
Look See. Gnarogin Park
The headbutting syndrome which is normally associated with the oppositional mental locations of the engineering versus the environmental are here reconciled in the combined communities' new park. It should become their most treasured recreational amenity. Located two hours south of Perth, Western Australia.
Mundaring Community Park
The Shire of Mundaring is a large semi rural locality in the hills of the Darling Scarp some 35 km east of Perth in Western Australia. Large areas of natural bushland including the John Forrest National Park and the catchment areas of the Mundaring Weir are to be found within its boundaries--- so are some fascinating sculptures and installations.
Exponential Losses, Collective Guilt: The Work of Jeannie Baker
Change, and how it effects the evironment and the quality of life, is a recurring theme and metaphor in the work of artist Jeannie Baker. While celebrating the beauty and fragility of the environment she delivers a provocative and powerful message about our responsibilities towards the natural world.
Getting our Shit Together
There is a video which shows the noted Viennese artist Hundertwasser sitting on a bucket in his public home unit in Vienna City, uttering this exhortation. He then takes the bucket upstairs to a roof garden of sorts and dumps the contents into a compost bin.
Red Gum, Red Light
David Cranswick's work in Perspecta 1991 entitled Constructing Nature was one of the most successful and moving of the Western Sites Component.
The Re-humanising of Water
Ecologically sustainable development is a stated aim of our national and state governments. Unless we can stimulate a higher and more sustained level of discussion on what this means, our progressis likely to remain fitful and unfocussed. Hopefully this article will stimulate the debate!
Frogs and Serpents: Re-colonising the Suburbs
That the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia are part of the world thought is evidenced by Wonambi, the Rainbow Serpent....
Memories of Water
The Sandgate Environmental Sculpture has involved the local community in both designing and creating the sculpture.
Reading the Land
The idea for a 7 day 'Reading the Land' Festival came to Wimmera River Catchment Group Chairperson, farmer, artist and environmentalist Barry Clugston during a series of salinity flights.
Science, Art and Mangroves
The Mangroves Discovery Cycle was a Community Arts Project which gave a group of school children an opportunity to explore the environment. Located in Cairns, far North Queensland.
Meadows Under the Sea
The Seagrass Project has been cited as a model community arts project. Located in Hastings Victoria, the project has been documented on video and shown on television in Austria and Canada and could potentially achieve wide international exposure.
Mudflats: A Fertile Breeding Ground for Artists
Mudflat arts believes that the landscape is not there to be painted so much as to be protected. The role has changed from one of passive painter to active member of the community.
Memories of Power
Placemaking in Newport, Geelong and North Carlton.
Gilding the Lillipilli
Tree decorating was revived in Melbourne as part of the larger Treeproject. Looks at some of the issues faced with mounting such an event.
New Life for Gordonvale
Written with June Fermo. Looks at the issues in a townscape project, faced by the community of Gordonvale 21 km south of Cairns in northern Queensland.
Gateways Project
..the response to a site was very much tied up with the way humans had mediated the experience. Yes trees and forests were sacred but that didn't mean that you couldn't touch them. Our mediation of course must be sensitive - be fearless yet thoughtful... Series of black and white photographs accompany the article.
Arts to Ashes
In Tasmania particularly it can be difficult to be vocal about political issues. Here is a chance to be uncompromising, a chance to take risks, a chance to raise community cultural awarenes. And who says art needs to be permanent? Heres a chance to make something and then release it, to allow visual art to metamorphose into performance art. Intrigued? then follow up the article!
The Art of Living Sustainably
Written with Andrew Bryan The increasing urgency for us to achieve a harmonious relationship with the environment is stimulating artists in many media and designers in a range of disciplines to work in new ways with one another and community groups who share this concern.
Further Reading and Glossary
Selected book list with notes. Includes a glossary of terms including acronyms.
Possessed
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
Asunder, and Lindy Lee Painting
Exhibition review Time Warps Sound Installation by Ros Bandt Composing Women's Festival
Union Gallery
Adelaide South Australia
September 1991
First Australian Jewellery Biennial
Exhibition review Manifest Destiny: Ian North
Vast: David Stephenson
Contemporary Art Centre
South Australia
14 September - 6 October 1991
Maleness
Exhibition review Asunder: Works by Rick Martin and David Kerr Artspace Festival Centre
Adelaide South Australia
September - October 1991
Lindy Lee Paintings
Exhibition review Lindy Lee - paintings
Contemporary Art Centre
Adelaide South Australia
October 1991
First Australian Jewellery Biennial
Exhibition review First Australian Jewellery Biennial
Jam Factory Craft and Design Centre
Adelaide South Australia
October 1991
Juan Davila
Exhibition review Juan Davila
Contemporary Art Centre
Adelaide South Australia
9 August - 8 September 1991
Gareth Sansom
Exhibition review Gareth Sansom
1991 Indian Seventh Trienniale exhibition
University of South Australia Art Museum
12 September - 19 October 1991
Backward Glance and A Sideways Glance
Exhibition review Backward Glance: Perth Institute of Contemporary Art Western Australia
6 - 30 September 1991
A Sideways Glance: Galerie Dusseldorf
Western Australia
13 September - 6 October 1991
Wildflowers in Art
Exhibition review Wildflowers in Art
Art Gallery of Western Australia
October 1991
Review of the Year
Exhibition review Reflections on a year of contemporary art in Tasmania.
Subject/ Object
Exhibition review Subject/Object Arthouse
Tasmania
October 1991
Hook's Mountain - The Environment as Theatre
Tasmanian theatre company Zootango's touring production Hook's Mountain.