Like kids in a candy shop we poured over the map... 50 buildings in only one day!  Impossible! 

Knowing we would never see them all, we start at the back of the book, in the future, planning to work our way back in time.  Not normally one to read the last page first, I couldn’t pass up the chance to gain some insight into the future of our city.   Feeling like we’ve joined a secret society of yellow wristband wearers, we’re amazed by the number of people rushing excitedly around the city. Front doors normally closed to the street, sat wide open with visitors buzzing in and out ... 

An inspiring talk about architecture and beauty from an unusual engineer, Tristram Carfrae set the tone for a special evening - one of the highlights of the 2010 Sydney Architecture Festival.

Tristram showed a range of projects that present not only functionality but also beauty, buildings that touch the senses, that inspire, and awe.  His appreciation for architecture and design is evident in his work, presenting the possibilities that emerge from a close relationship between architecture and engineering. 

And so with a cheery mood, we congratulated this year's Byera Hadley Travel Scholarship winners, hoping they too will find beauty on their travels around the world.

Tone Wheeler, BHTS recipient and Tristram Carfrae, ARUP

Reviewed by Allison Earl, SAF Volunteer

3 hours, 3 houses and 3 Architects willing to invite people into their own homes – Irresistable! 

Organised by the Inner West Architects Network and in collaboration with the Sydney Architecture Festival, this spring houses tour was sold out well in advance. The organisation runs several tours a year for architects largely as part of their ongoing professional conversations with their peers. 

It’s 9.30am on a beautiful weekend morning. It’s still and the heat of the day is yet to come.

Already stirring, Ballast Point Park is attracting locals walking with their families, and dogs, reading their newspapers or just sitting, taking in the proximity of the harbour ...

Expanded Architecture was an evening celebrating short architectural films, within the Performance Space, at Carriageworks in Sydney.  The exhibition highlighted the connection between architecture, cinema and installations. The films focused on various topics and were produced over a large time frame (from the early 70’s to the present), but all displayed concepts of architecture’s shifting meaning and effect. Although film is not a mode of representation use in architecture on a daily basis, its ability to capture colour, light, movement and scale demands exploration.

The follow up debate to Tim Williams presentation on “Le Grand Pari(s)” the week before questioned how we define density, how we approach density and how we practically increase density in Sydney.

The discussion between architect Tim Williams, Department of planning architect and planner Margaret Petrykowski and Fairfield City Council Strategic Planner Robert Cologna focused on the disparity between urban planning strategy for increasing urban densities and the realities of approach within the confines of Sydney’s socio political structures.

During the Sydney Architecture Festival, Inside Insights provided an opportunity for the public to experience what it is like working in an architecture practice. Fifteen people of various ages and professional backgrounds, braved Sydney's early downpour to share in a common interest: architecture. From Hassell in the morning to COX in the afternoon, we had been exposed to the structure of studio operations through to a projects process and intent. Each practice brought something new to the day.

The AS Hook address is an opportunity for the recipient of the Institute of Architects Gold Medal to speak in a public forum on their work and practice. For the first time, this year’s recipient is not an individual, but rather a couple – the husband and wife team of Kerry and Lindsay Clare.

Kerry and Lindsay Clare’s practice has been a joint partnership since its inception, after meeting in the office of Gabriel Poole. Poole’s philosophy has guided the conceptual framework of their work through a varied trajectory in practice - and one whom they readily acknowledge as their philosophical ‘departure point’. It is a simple and direct philosophy which speaks of architecture’s relationship to landscape and environment, honest expression of an environmentally responsive envelope, social engaged places, and clear articulation of a building’s tectonics, materials and assembly.

It is interesting to watch people of different walks of life interact with the CH4 exhibition in customs house. I see a pair of trousered pants poking out of the bottom of the draped green installation, a scruffy looking photographer lying on the paved floor of customs house taking his ‘hero shots’, a family of German tourists posing alongside the elegant paper tube curve of the cardboard tube pavilion. Some people walk straight past, others get caught in a maze of green material flurry, groups play hide and seek through the captured vistas between tubes.