Tabla de contenidos para July 2019 en Architecture Australia

In assuming the role of 2019 National President of the Australian Institute of Architects, I have been struck by what a time of both challenge and opportunity it is for our profession. The verdict in the Lacrosse building fire case in Melbourne, and broader discussions about the safety of our built environment, have had ramifications right across industry and around the country. With advocacy support from the Institute, quality is once again in welcome focus. The quality of our buildings is only as good as the quality of the procurement and delivery processes, so we’ve laid the groundwork on related issues of long-running concern to the profession, including novation, and I look forward to us taking this further in the coming year. We will also keep up the pressure in…

When you can see the horizon, the immensity of a landscape setting is sublime. It gives us perspective on our small place in the world, prompting our mind to wander and allowing dreaming to begin. By contrast, the ability to take refuge and find retreat from the vastness of the world allows us to recalibrate at the human scale and reflect on a mindful existence. Daylesford Longhouse by Partners Hill responds to both the dreaminess of a landscape setting and the very real human yearning for respite and reflection. On arrival at the site, ninety-three kilometres north-west of Melbourne, the full 110-metre length of the prefabricated shed structure is visible behind a series of landscaped berms. The scale of the structure responds to the vastness of the landscape, and the…

I first met Hank and Julie in Los Angeles in 1985. They were smart, generous and empathetic – like their architecture. I made some models of low-income housing for them and shamelessly borrowed their truck (many times) to look at buildings. Rare in the US, the work of Koning Eizenberg has always been committed to the social and the primacy of community while at the same time it is always formally and urbanistically clever, conveying that special Australian sense of leanness. This Gold Medal is a tribute to a pair of Australians who, against all odds, have made good in the world. Philip Goad Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Chair of Architecture, University of Melbourne One of the most asked questions around the Koning Eizenberg office is “why?” Why can’t…

“Social responsibility is not a ‘feel good, do good’ add on.” – Julie Eizenberg “Architecture is a social medium.” This simple statement underpins all of the work of Koning Eizenberg Architecture and its founding directors, Julie Eizenberg and Hank Koning. The idea suffuses the projects produced by the practice, the publications they assemble, the contribution that Hank, Julie and their colleagues make to the profession and discipline, the generosity and pleasure with which they engage, and the warmth and good humour they extend to others – myself included. This is not simply a matter of “social responsibility,” and it most certainly is not about pious, potentially dour attempts to “do good.” As Julie explains, “we’re meant to be good people because we do a lot of ‘public good’ projects. Well,…

This issue of Architecture Australia announces the recipients of the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2019 Gold Medal –Hank Koning and Julie Eizenberg of USA-based practice Koning Eizenberg Architecture. The Gold Medal is the Institute’s highest honour and the 2019 recipients were announced at Collective Agency, this year’s National Architecture Conference. In an appropriate coincidence, the focus of this conference, curated by Monique Woodward and Stephen Choi, was on a new generation of architects hungry for change, a theme that echoes the passion for activism shown by a young Julie and Hank during their student days in 1970s Melbourne. Alongside contributions by Aaron Betsky, Russell Fortmeyer and Justine Clark that celebrate the achievements of Julie and Hank, Ian McDougall reflects on this formative and experimental time for the formidable duo. During their…

In the south-east of Tasmania, beyond Eaglehawk Neck and across the bay from Port Arthur, the Tasmanian Walking Company (TWC) continues the legacy of more than thirty years of guided walks in Australia’s southern state. TWC’s four-day Three Capes Walk traces the edges of the dolerite cliffs of the Tasman Peninsula, three hundred metres above sea level, with a series of new buildings designed by Andrew Burns providing a place of luxurious repose at the end of each day. Located on two sites, one on either side of the peninsula, the buildings draw on TWC’s lineage of groundbreaking projects by Ken Latona and Joan Masterman, who established the Cradle Mountain Lodges in 1987 and Friendly Beaches Lodge in 1992, in addition to Latona’s third venture at Bay of Fires in…

Sunny buildings, sunny personalities – that’s how I think of Julie Eizenberg and Hank Koning. While deeply committed to high-quality design – crisp, humane, modern housing, houses, libraries and museums that typically come with a swoosh of colour or a material flourish – they always deliver it with sense of humour intact. I think of the time I interviewed Hank about the rainwater cistern they incorporated, Australian-style, into the Pico Branch Library in Santa Monica. He recalled how the Department of Health and Safety was initially worried about flushing toilets with recycled rainwater and “said to us we should put signs up that this is ‘not potable water.’ And I said, ‘who drinks from a toilet?’ and they said ‘dogs do.’ And my response was, ‘well, dogs are out of…

The architecture of Koning Eizenberg is never less than exceptional. Their buildings are thoughtful, resourceful, edgy, resilient, contextually intelligent, socially progressive and environmentally conscious. And now recognized by the Gold Medal. Notwithstanding a stellar career in Los Angeles as architects and educators, Hank and Julie have stayed Australian. They’re generously hospitable to visiting compatriots, providing a cultural bridge too. In 2015, merging conviviality with cultural discourse, they put me up and hosted a dinner where I presented Haig’s and my four decades as architectural editors and critics. We published their Santa Monica studio in UME 15 (2002). Bravo and encore. Jackie Cooper and Haig Beck Editors and publishers, UME Hank and Julie often challenge conformism in architecture, and most often their architectural journey is told with a good dose of…

Gold Medal Hank Koning FRAIA and Julie Eizenberg RAIA The Gold Medal – the Australian Institute of Architects’ highest honour – recognizes distinguished service by architects who have designed or executed buildings of high merit, producing work of great distinction that has advanced architecture or endowed the profession in a distinguished manner. The 2019 Gold Medal is awarded to Hank Koning FRAIA and Julie Eizenberg RAIA of Koning Eizenberg Architecture. Since the inception of their practice, Hank and Julie have produced work of dignity underpinned by an egalitarian generosity of light, scale and air – all imbued with Australian congeniality and wit. After studying at the University of Melbourne, Julie and Hank arrived in Los Angeles in 1979 to undertake graduate study at UCLA. They established Koning Eizenberg Architecture on…

On occasion, an architect is able to work iteratively over an extended period in such a way that their architecture comes to define the character of a place. We are thinking of Jože Ple č nik by the river in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Luigi Snozzi’s seven rules for the village of Monte Carasso, Switzerland, Fumihiko Maki’s work over fifty years at Hillside Terrace, Tokyo or, more recently, Gion A. Caminada’s tactical rejuvenation at Vrin, Switzerland. To the above list, we would add Richards and Spence’s James Street precinct in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. Since 2012, the architects have been working with brick, concrete and stone to develop an alternative vernacular to the traditional use of timber and tin. This way of making is also a form of resistance to the otherwise rapid…

My first contact with Stuart Vokes occurred a decade ago, after viewing his practice’s entry for the invitational About Face 2009 competition run by Think Brick. Impressed by the scheme, I contacted his office expressing admiration for the entry’s premise and quality. This communication was graciously returned, leading to a meeting months later in Perth where I was confronted by Vokes’s self-assured proclamation that he was a “suburban architect.” Later, we discussed Vokes’s claim in our office at length, leading to a realization that there is a palpable difference between architects who choose to work in the suburbs (like us), and what it means to be suburban architects like Vokes and Peters. In visiting the Subiaco House and listening to Vokes’s extensive, layered description, my thoughts drifted back to the…

Contrary to popular opinion, Los Angeles does have a style, in architecture as well as in other forms of culture, and few designers have come closer to defining its elements with more care and verve than Hank Koning and Julie Eizenberg. By mining the basic elements of the vernacular that has shaped homes, apartment buildings and commercial structures, these Australian-born architects have put together a kit of parts from which they have been able to create forms that give identity and clarity to the messy vitality of Southern California. Most architects bridle at the designation of style, but Koning and Eizenberg understand the necessity of creating coherence in their work, in both visual and compositional terms. They base their work not on precedents that manipulate facade or plan treatments, however,…

Key AIA – American Institute of Architects Institute – Australian Institute of Architects ALA – American Library Association HUD – US Department of Housing and Urban Development 2018 AIA/ALA Library Building Award, Pico Branch Library 2017 Institute, International Chapter, Public Architecture Commendation, Temple Israel of Hollywood AIA California Council Honor Award, Temple Israel of Hollywood 2016 Faith and Form Religious Architecture Award, Adaptive Reuse/Repurpose, Temple Israel of Hollywood The Chicago Athenaeum, American Architecture Award, Belmar Apartments Architizer A+ Award, Architecture +Preservation, 28th Street Apartments Urban Land Institute Global Award for Excellence, Belmar Apartments AIA Los Angeles Residential Architecture Award, Single-Family Residential (up to 5,000 square-feet), See-Through House Learning by Design Grand Prize Award, John Adams Middle School 2015 Institute Jørn Utzon Award for International Architecture, Pico Branch Library Institute, International…