Editorial by Simon Sellars:
AR’s annual Residential issue is always a favourite with readers, no surprise as the temper of the times in Australia can usually be measured by our obsession with housing. In 2012, while debates about high-density living and residential sprawl continue to ripple through public life, there appears a crisis of confidence in the property market. First we’re told that after huge spikes prices have lowered and more property is available. Then information ‘leaks’ that housing was never in short supply and that real estate agents have withheld data in order to drive prices to record levels (what a surprise). The result: developers use the ensuing confusion to gain a toehold in the residential landscape, forcing the gap between perception and reality and driving out good design in favour of the quick fix.
Thankfully, architects have not lost the faith. Against the backdrop of such machinations excellent housing design remains, as evidenced by a slew of recent books on architect-designed homes from the likes of Karen McCartney and Stuart Harrison (AR 124) and the popularity of TV shows such as Grand Designs and Sandcastles. The mission remains simple yet perhaps more daunting than ever: to inform the public that architects can and do make a difference to everyday living, regardless of market concerns, the tyranny of one-size-fits-all development and government stonewalling.
Exhibit A: James Russell’s Bisley Place project (p66), saddled with a developer-imposed minimum land area requirement of 250 sqm! The message seemed clear: build big or don’t build at all. Yet Russell circumvents this strange ruling in imaginative ways, inverting the state-sanctioned Aussie myth that ‘big is best’. Exhibit B: two Asian residential projects, jemmying creativity into the cracks of super-dense cities – take a bow Ryue Nishizawa, with Garden & House (p60), and Hoon Moon, with the Lollipop House (p104). Other projects are plucked from all points on the spectrum including K2LD’s wing-shaped ‘entertainment house’ in Singapore (p98) and two award-winning projects: RTA Studio’s House for Five (p74) in Auckland and Robert Simeoni’s Queensberry Street House (p90).
Our features return us to Earth. We interview Pritzker Prize Laureate Wang Shu (p34), an expert in combating creeping sprawl; explore Healthabitat’s work in improving neglected Indigenous housing (p40); and examine how ‘dead’ office space can be converted to living residential (p46). Then we move from metaphoric to literal dead, looking at the common home through the eyes of serial killers (p50).
Enjoy the ride, then, and bring a shovel: to either bury the myths of residential housing or else to bury your dead.
In this issue:
Project reviews:
- ‘Perpetual Performance’: Tokyo’s Garden & House, by Ryue Nishizawa (review: Christian Dimmer)
- ‘Return to the Suburbs’: Brisbane’s Bisley Place, by James Russell Architect (review: Stuart Harrison)
- ‘Wide Angle’: Auckland’s House for Five, by RTA Studio (review: Andrew Barrie)
- ‘Controlled Moments’: Sydney’s Kharkov, by Collins and Turner (review: Craig Johnson)
- ‘Poetic Ordinary’: Melbourne’s Queensberry Street House, by Robert Simeoni Architects (review: Maitiú Ward)
- ‘Tropical Expression’: Singapore’s Winged House, by K2LD Architects (review: Patrick Bingham-Hall)
- ‘Fantasy is Reality’: Yongin’s Lollipop House, by Moonbalsso (review: Jinyoung Lim)
- ‘Angular Drama’: Melbourne’s Blurred House, by Bild Architecture (review: Toby Horrocks)
Features:
- ‘Healthabitat vs the Myths of Indigenous Housing’ by Justine Clark
- ‘Re-Make/Re-Model: Dead Office into Living Housing’ by Charles Holland (FAT Architecture) & Robert Schmidt III (Adaptable Futures)
- ‘Deviant Domestic: Serial Killers at Home’ by Will Wiles
Interviews:
- Wang Shu, ‘Memory is deeper than symbols’, by Anna Tweeddale
Plus: Christopher Polly in ‘One to Watch’ by Phillip Arnold; ‘Green Design’s Evil Twins’ by Tone Wheeler; and Russell Fortmeyer looks at Asia’s urban super-density and the problems of Chinese urbanism.