design
mag |
29
Six Australian architectural
practices were selected to exhibit
in the ‘Formations: New Practices in
Australian Architecture’ exhibition
at the Australian Pavilion in Venice.
(John Gollings photo courtesy
Australian Institute of Architects.)
Once again the Austral Bricks Bar
at the Bar Naranzaria near the
Rialto Bridge was a welcoming
gathering point for this year’s
visitors to the Biennale.
It is appropriate that as part of the 2012
exhibit Reinmuth explained they intended
to remove “unsympathetic alterations and
additions that have been made to the
original Cox-designed pavilion”. Richard
Goodwin’s installation then “used the
restored pavilion, inside and out as a
setting”.
The work of Archrival, called “Arena Calcetto”
(Little Soccer Field), was site specific to what
McCaughan and Humphrey called “a
hidden garden … surrounded by the
national pavilions of France, the Czech and
Slovak Republics, Uruguay and Australia”.
Here they displayed “a series of beautifully-
made custom fussball tables.These
architectural objects offer a playful program
and new level of interaction”, presumably to
counter the inevitable exhibition fatigue of
many attendees.
Healthabitat planned what Paul Pholeros
described as being “about the links
between health and housing”.A live
monitor in every pavilion sent readings of
temperature, energy, people movements
and water use to a display in the Australian
Pavilion. Pholeros and his team showed how
outcomes for specific illnesses can be
improved through design. Healthabitat also
applied their health designs to real dwellings
of disadvantaged Venetians around the city.
This seems to echo the original
“humanitarian and cultural” intent
of 1893.
One side event of the Architecture Biennale
with a growing reputation was repeated in
2012.At the Naranzaria wine bar near the
Rialto,Austral Bricks generously hosted drinks
on a Sunday and Monday afternoon.All
Australians were welcomed with a glass of
vino or prosecco.
The Austral Bricks Bar is most keenly
anticipated among the architectural
fraternity who have enjoyed it in previous
years, or heard of it from their colleagues.
It makes Venice and the Biennale a little
less daunting.
standard, having created true ‘plasticity of
practice’. Of those, six were standout
examples”.These six were offered a role in
the ‘Formations’ exhibit for the Biennale.
True to their ‘new practice’, all six elected to
do specific work for the event, rather than
simply show past achievements.
The six selected exhibitors were:
• Healthabitat (Paul Pholeros, Stephan
Rainow, Dr Paul Torzillo)
• Supermanoeuvre (Dave Pigram, Iain
Maxwell, Chris Duffield)
• Richard Goodwin Pty Ltd (Richard
Goodwin)
• 2112 Ai (100YR City) (Tom Kovac, Fleur
Watson)
• The Architects Radio Show (Stuart
Harrison, Simon Knott, Christine Philips,
Rory Hyde)
• Archrival (Claire McCaughan, Lucy
Humphrey)
Burke and Reinmuth worked in
collaboration with TOKO Concept Design,
headed by Dutch designers Eva Dijkstra
and Michael Luugmayr, to coordinate the
overall design with the six Australian
exhibitors.
