“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” - Lewis Carrol
This installation was included as part of the ‘Ghost Town’ exhibition, held at Platform Contemporary Art Space in February 2013. Joining twelve other ‘emerging Melbourne architecture practices’, Architecture Architecture contributed a piece entitled ‘White Rabbit, White Rabbit’.
The work was created in collaboration with photographer Tom Ross of Brilliant Creek and reflects Architecture Architecture’s interest in themes of uncanny perception and the strangeness of the everyday.
A white, empty display cabinet contains a virtual reproduction of the same white, empty display cabinet just out of reach. An alternate reality so close to our own, beyond the looking glass. Caught within, a white rabbit jumps from side to side, impatient for us to follow…
Photography by Architecture Architecture and Tom Ross of Brilliant Creek
Posted: March 5th, 2013 | Filed under: Architecture Architecture, Art, Exhibitions, Projects | Comments Off
Architecture Architecture have completed a fit-out of one of the Cairo Studio Apartments – an exercise in creating a fully functional abode within a mere 24m2.
Set within lush green communal gardens, the art deco Cairo Apartments are a landmark in Melbourne’s architectural heritage. Designed by Best Overend and completed in 1936, they were (and remain) an exercise in minimal living.
In a studio apartment of such modest dimension, the smallest modifications make a significant difference to the feel and functionality of the space.
Compact robes and clever storage solutions are integrated with a fold-out bed and a handsome full-height curtain, creating the flexibility to quickly convert the single-room space from a study to a bedroom to a dining room to a party space to a media room.
A door has also been moved and a kitchen servery window has been opened-up, reactivating the forgotten entry area, maintaining a strong visual connection from the kitchen to the garden, improving natural light and ventilation and creating greater flexibility in the layout of the apartment.
Embracing the philosophy of making more with less, Architecture Architecture have created a simple space with maximum flexibility to address contemporary living needs within a minimum floor area.
In an era when people are increasingly opting to live in cities and our urban fringes are forever expanding outwards, Architecture Architecture understand the imperative to make more with less, opting for high quality flexible space rather than inflexible specialised spaces – quality over quantity.
Photography by Tom Ross of Brilliant Creek
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Posted: November 14th, 2012 | Filed under: Architecture Architecture, Projects | Comments Off
Overlooking a sun-bathed olive grove on the Mornington Peninsular, the Harts Farm project provides high quality ‘bed & breakfast’ accommodation as well as a commercial kitchen and dining facilities. The brief required suitability for a range of uses including cooking classes, guest accommodation, commercial food production and wedding receptions.
The new facilities sit comfortably in the farm environment, taking cues from local agricultural buildings in order to maintain a strong connection with the existing structures on site. Nevertheless, the new facilities assert their contemporary design with subtle modifications to the traditional building type.
For example, two corners of the otherwise simple form have been cut away to create a pair of defined entry spaces. Also, the careful misalignment of building and deck heightens the sense of arrival, casually revealing the olive grove views while establishing a more dynamic relationship between the building and its environment.
Photography by Tom Ross of Brilliant Creek
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Posted: October 18th, 2012 | Filed under: Architecture Architecture, Projects | Comments Off
In a somewhat unorthdox role, Architecture Architecture director Michael Roper has been working with the (somewhat unorthodox) Chamber Made Opera as consulting Architect for their latest production of ‘The Minotaur Trilogy’ as part of the upcoming Melbourne Festival, showing at the Melbourne Recital Centre from 18th-21st October 2012. Get along to see it!
Book Here | Artshub Article | The Age Article |
‘The enfant terrible of Australia’s contemporary opera scene, Chamber Made Opera has built a reputation for wild, subversive takes on the conventional opera format. For this year’s Melbourne Festival, the renegade company casts its decidedly unorthodox gaze over ancient Greek legend with The Minotaur Trilogy, an unconventional opera told over three suitably epic chapters.’ (Extract from Melbourne Festival Website)
Posted: October 5th, 2012 | Filed under: Events, Michael Roper, Theatre | Comments Off
Scheduled to commence construction in September, this family house has been designed in the tradition of the rural Australian shed with a few contemporary twists.
The house itself is organised into a loose collection of pavilions, separating guest rooms and service spaces from the core living areas. Whether the whole family comes to stay or whether it’s just Nonno and Nanna, the house can comfortably accommodate any circumstance as pavilions are opened up or battered-down according to requirement.
Set atop a hill in a beautiful natural setting, it was important that this project make the most of the near and distant views. In response, the careful arrangement of pavilions creates a cinematic experience of the landscape, subtly framing and shifting focus as the visitor moves about the site.
Importantly, this somewhat fractured experience of house and site is held together by way of a single-pitch super-roof, its diaphanous canopy suffusing the outdoor areas in a soft natural light.
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Posted: June 26th, 2012 | Filed under: Architecture Architecture, Projects | Comments Off
This single fronted, single bedroom, single storey house had a simple wish – to accommodate its occupants more comfortably. The brief called for an ensuite, robes, European-style laundry, extra storage and a study nook, all within the confines of an already small residence. Due to a limited budget and time frame, there were to be no external alterations and no major structural works. The key challenge was to accommodate these requirements without compromising the existing amenity.
In response, Architecture Architecture minimised structural modifications by repurposing existing rooms and ‘thickening’ existing internal walls to accommodate the laundry, robes and other storage requirements.
In order to improve the sense of spaciousness all internal doorways were increased to full height, creating spaces that flow unimpeded from one room to the next. This particularly benefited the narrow entry hall, where extra deep door reveals further contribute to the illusion of generosity. Similarly, in the master suite, a continuous bank of full-height robes extends into the ensuite, dissolving divisions between the rooms to create a sense of natural spaciousness. The robes simultaneously create a buffer between the master suit and the rest of the house, establishing these rooms as an inner sanctuary.
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Posted: February 4th, 2012 | Filed under: Architecture Architecture, Projects | Comments Off
The latest project from Architecture Architecture is a piece of garden joinery, designed to weather and age. Eventually the steel will shift from oily black to rusty orange, the timber from warmer yellows to a weathered grey – the slow seasons of a decade or two. Like everything in a garden, its impermanence reveals the passage of time.
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Posted: November 29th, 2011 | Filed under: Architecture, Architecture Architecture, Projects | Comments Off
The following essay by Architecture Architecture director Michael Roper, was recently published in ‘Water: Curse or Blessing?’ as part of the Aedes exhibition of the same name. It explores the mythology of water in the Australian landscape and presents three Australian architectural propositions by Richard Black, Ross Brewin & Tom Morgan.
The Australian people gather at the ocean’s edge, a great arid landscape burning at their backs. Once the sanctum of an ancient people, Australia is now home to 22 million immigrants, 18 million of whom have barely ventured inland from their newfound shores. They look out towards the distant lands of their ancestors, across the oceans that delivered them. They yearn for home. Not for the homes they have left behind, but for the home they continue to build. Caught in the dream that first spooked their ancestors, they think often of the water’s cool promise – of opportunity and redemption – so they gather at the ocean’s edge, the shimmering red centre burning at their backs.
It is an irony that this vast, flat land, surrounded by many thousands of kilometres of coastline, should offer so little by way of hydration. In fact this is the driest, most arid of all continents. The Australian tastes this irony whenever he plays in the copious waves he cannot drink. It is a saltiness, deposited on the tongue of his famously dry wit.
And yet, while it never rains, (as the expression goes) it pours. For, although Australia is a land of scarcity, it is also a land of abundance, cycling irregularly between years of drought and flood. Again the ocean plays a role, its changing surface temperature invoking those mischievous South American siblings – El Niño and La Niña. He brings the cool ocean currents, a false balm to the accompanying years of drought. She brings the warm currents, and with them the rain. Together they torment the entire eastern seaboard of Australia with their uncertain temperament. Here, where soils are most fertile and the yielding crops are sown, Australian farmers are forever at the mercy of the terrible duo.
1935 Illustration of a Bunyip (artist unknown)
Of course, this is nothing new. From the very beginning, earth-bound life has been at the mercy of its water supply, tied to the creeks and rivers that thread the landscape fertile. While some organisms have adapted to survive long periods without – for man, life simply expires within days. No wonder the story of water bears mythical significance in so many cultures. Not least for Australia’s Aboriginal people for whom all life springs from the river’s Rainbow Serpent and the billabong Bunyip haunts the stagnant waters.
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Posted: October 26th, 2011 | Filed under: Architecture, Exhibitions, Journalism, Michael Roper | 1 Comment »
'Badeschiff' public swimming pool on the Spree River in Berlin.
James Staughton and Michael Roper have now commenced teaching their second annual Berlin / Melbourne architecture design studio at RMIT. Following the success of last year’s studio, ‘Latent Urbanism | Berlin’, this year they are focusing on the role of urban, agricultural and natural river systems in both Australia and Germany. The studio, called ‘Watershed: Rivers Wild / Rivers Tame’, explores how rivers have shaped our civilization, and how we, in turn, have shaped them. It considers rivers in their ecological and economic functions as well as their role in the mythological narrative of humankind. Specifically, the studio considers our various relationships with waterways, be they symbiotic, parasitic, competitive, dominant or servile, challenging students to propose new, more sustainable strategies for living with our rivers. As part of the studio, Michael will be taking the students to
ANCB in Berlin for three weeks in August / September to study the Spree River first hand.
Posted: July 22nd, 2011 | Filed under: Architecture, Education, Michael Roper | Comments Off
Conrad Schumann breaching the 'Berlin Wall'
In June this year, the
Aedes Gallery in Berlin staged an exhibition entitled ‘Creative, Informal, Temporary Berlin’. The exhibition showcased the work of an international collection of university design studios dealing the theme. Having led an RMIT design studio called ‘Latent Urbanism, Berlin’,
Architecture Architecture’s Michael Roper took part in the exhibition, presenting some of his students’ work.
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Posted: July 7th, 2011 | Filed under: Architecture, Education, Exhibitions, Michael Roper | Comments Off
