Sandstones

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Sandstones

Over the past 12 months, I have been documenting the transformation of two historic sandstone buildings in Sydney’s CBD. Led by Make Architects, the hotel development brings together the former Department of Lands and Department of Education buildings.

The Education building will be the grand hotel in the European manner, whereby it takes part in the city’s life, acting as a drawing room or stage for events and meetings. This will directly address Farrer Place and house the majority of the guest rooms.

The Lands building’s form, with its clearly defined suites and sequence of spaces, will be the more discreet sibling. It will have fewer, but still grandly proportioned, rooms driven by the existing architecture. The Bridge Street level will be opened up to the public with carefully curated retail, cultural, and food and beverage offers.

The Department of Lands Building was designed by NSW Colonial Architect James Barnet and completed in stages during the late nineteenth century. The Department of Education Building is attributed to Government Architect George McRae, best known for designing Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building.

The project presents a rare opportunity to document two of Sydney’s most significant civic buildings as they are carefully adapted for a new chapter.

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Temple House

Following on from the success of the Kengo Kuma designed Opposite House in Beijing and Upper House in Hong Kong, Swire Hotels has recently unveiled its third House located in the centre of Chengdu, China. Designed by Make Architects, I had the pleasure of accompanying the team from their London base to photograph the project in early July. The balance between old and new has been carefully considered and Make have done an incredible job overall.

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Comprising of two L shape towers which sit adjacent to a restored Qing dynasty heritage building, the experience of entering is though a considered sequence of courtyard spaces. Subtle references to the styles and architecture of the Sichuan region are incorporated in a contemporary manner. The larger of the two towers contains the hotel rooms while the smaller contains serviced apartments. Many thanks to Swire Hotels for a welcoming and enjoyable time. I can heartily recommend a stay there if visiting!

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5 Broadgate

Has been a fantastic experience to shoot the cover and a 10 page feature of the almost-completed 5 Broadgate by Make Architects, for the spring edition of New London Quarterly. The cover shot was based on an idea of Ken Shuttleworth to show 5 Broadgate in the context of the Square Mile, and in particular its proximity to the cluster of nearby tall buildings which includes The Gherkin and 122 Leadenhall Street.

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Google Earth includes comprehensive 3D building information for London and proved to be an invaluable tool to research potential viewpoints for the contextual shot. Fortunately we were able to arrange access to Broadgate Tower, which is also part of Broadgate Estate. Surprisingly, many of the other London landmarks are visible on the cover shot if looking closely enough, including St. Paul’s, Tower Bridge, The Shard (partly obscured), and London Eye.

5 Broadgate is due to reach practical completion around May 2015 with the internal fit-out to follow (UBS is the main tenant).

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Peter Zumthor

A collection of shots of Peter Zumthor’s works, photographed last winter, has been added to the portfolio section. Projects visited include Kolomba (Cologne, Germany), Bruder Klaus Chapel (Mechernich, Germany), Kunsthaus Bregenz (Bregenz, Austria), St. Benedict Chapel (St. Benedict, Switzerland), Shelters for Roman archeological site (Chur, Switzerland), and Therme Vals (Vals, Switzerland).

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Primary

Lighting designer Flynn Talbot recently exhibited a new lighting installation called Primary, which I photographed at PSAS gallery in Fremantle. Spotlights project red, green and blue lights onto a polygonal structure in various combinations and intensities. The 10 minute long sequence is accompanied by a soundscape (also by Flynn), which together with the moving and overlapping colours, aims to create an immersive experience within the gallery space. Spread below is from Mondo*arc magazine, and the Dezeen article can be found here.

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Excerpt from artist’s statement:

A new exploration in colour and light. Primary is a three sided wall installation which is illuminated by three LED light sources. This is a reference to the primary colours of light, red, green and blue (RGB). These base colours of light have defined the quantity of light sources and the use of triangles. Everything in threes. The cardboard structure is designed to fragment the light and show how coloured light is mixed. Light and object are intrinsically connected.

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Weil am Rhein #2

At risk of becoming overly accustomed to the same antipodean island I have lived on most of my life (well to be fair… it’s a rather large island), it was refreshing to return to some of the places I had previously visited as an open-eyed student intern in Europe.

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In particular, it was great to see the way the built environment has evolved in some areas, with many bold works completed by both prominent and lesser known architects. The context of these ranged wildly from the rural to the historic, and in the case of Vitrahaus (above), to the industrial but rarified aggregation of works by key 20th and 21st century architects.

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Swiss Sensibility

I had the pleasure to photograph the Cottesloe residence of a Swiss family who have relocated to Perth. It proved to be a well crafted, elegant addition… and prefabricated none the less! Designed and built by Modscape.

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Japan

In the coming month or two I will be posting several projects from a recent trip to Japan. The first is Shibuara House by Kazuyo Sejima (one half of the well known collaboration SANAA). The building contains workshop spaces and offices, in addition to the ground floor space which is open to the public. This was an interesting project to visit, most notably for the complex layering of internal and external spaces when moving through the building.

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Also coming soon is a chapel project by Hironaka Ogawa + Associates, impressive for many reasons, not least its clever use of structural steel framing (update: posted).

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Emerging Award 2013

Following up last year’s result, I am pleased to announce that I have won the architecture category of Capture Magazine’s ‘Australia’s Top Emerging Photographers’ competition. The jury for the competition is made up of leading architectural photographers, including two of the most respected and prolific in Australia, John Gollings and Tim Griffith.

The series of photos submitted for the competition included commissioned work by Pendal & Neille, Tierra Design and Donaldson + Warn.

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Congratulations to runner-up Zoe Wetherall, and all of the other finalists. Details can be found in the May/June 2013 issue of Capture Magazine.

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Awards Season 2013

It’s that time of the year again, when architects around the country scramble to put together their drawings, diagrams and of course photography, to best explain and present their projects. As is evident from past presentations it is latter that often carries the greatest weight with juries (prior to an actual site visit of course), which is why I cannot overestimate the importance of getting good photos taken!

Over the past year I have had the privilege to photograph for some of the very best designers in WA, some projects of which were entered into this years awards. Certainly I look forward to being able to photograph more of this amazing work in the coming year.

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Wishing everyone the best of luck for this year’s National Architecture Awards.

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Emerging Photographer Award

I was recently announced runner-up in the architecture category of Capture Magazine’s ‘Australia’s Top Emerging Photographers 2012’. The judges include some of the very best architectural photographers in Australia, with judging based on a portfolio of six images submitted by each entrant.

Congratulations to the winner, Adelaide based photographer Peter Barnes.

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All the results (including winners of the other categories) can be found in the May/June issue of Capture Magazine.

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New Site, New Year, New Location

The new year marks an exciting point in time, with the launch of a new website as well as having recently relocated to sunny Perth. The climate here would appear to be an architectural photographer’s dream – year round good weather, little rain, beautiful sunsets and skies, bearable weather at dawn and dusk (though less so in the middle of the day).

WA has many terrific architects producing works of architecture; obviously I would love to be able to capture as much of this as possible… Geoffrey London’s ‘A Short History of Perth Architecture‘, while slightly dated, is proving a good start for 19th/20th century architecture.

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A lot of building work has also been happening in the last few years, no doubt helped by Perth’s current prosperity. A cursory look around inner Perth reveals many new and interesting buildings: Hassell’s One40William, Lyons’ Central Institute of TAFE, CODA’s Foundation Housing, and Kerry Hill’s State Theatre Centre of WA to name a few.