Architecture in Canberra is coming to the people; or the people are coming to it.
For 80 years Canberra has been a city for architects. It was designed by one and is a place where other architects could place the monuments and symbols of the nation. It is still the city of architectural symbols of nationhood, but now the ordinary people who live here are the inheritors of an architectural standard not available, perhaps, in any other city in the world of comparable size.
That was epitomised on Friday night when an architectural firm, now with a home in Canberra and responsible for the design of the nation’s most important symbol of democracy (Parliament House) won an award.
The award was for the design of . . . wait for it . . . the refurbishment of the Ainslie Fire Station.
Well may we laugh. But what other city can tap that sort of talent for seemingly mundane things like fire stations?
In any event, for many people, the design of a fire station is more important than the design of a Parliament. Nero laughed while Rome burned, but you do not laugh if it is your own home.
For the architect, however, the two projects (like nearly all architectural projects) meld creativity and utility.
The firm, of course, is Mitchell Giurgola Thorpe.
The award was one of three Canberra medallions in this year’s prestigious Royal Australian Institute of Architects (ACT chapter) awards.
The other two went to the Therapeutic Goods Administration building near Mount Mugga (Australian Construction Services) and the Ainslie Village redevelopment (Collard Clarke Jackson). All are Canberra firms.
This year, the monumental and the massive missed out. The Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier and Woden Valley hospital did not get awards.
In the words of the jury the monumental gave way to projects with “”humility and humanity”.
Aside from the three medallions (which are tickets to the national competition), certificates of merit went to the Tuggeranong Pool and Recreation Centre (Daryl Jackson Alastair Swayn) and the Weston Creek Retirement Village (Freeman Collett).
A lay-person’s reaction might be, “”The ACT chapter has messed it up. Fancy giving an award to a fire station and a place for the down and out ahead of the grandiose tomb. What hope have we got in the national awards?”
Well, bear in mind that a few years ago dunny designed for the Gogong Dam won a national award.
The Diggers commemorated by the Tomb would have applauded, because the awards recognise the combination of utility and creativity not the symbolic and the grandiose.
Those requirements are putting a lot of pressure on the profession of architecture in Canberra. The wide open space, the blank government cheque and the building untested by high demands of population and economics are things of the past in Canberra. As the city gets more compact and the demands for efficiency get more strident, architects are less likely to get away with sloppy work.’
In this year’s awards, the jury report said the entries reflected a community maturing and developing its own identity with a high standard of entries generally from Canberra-based architectural practices _ 16 from 19 entries.
“”A number of projects this year demonstrate a degree of humility and humanity that contrasts with the monumental nature of buildings generally associated with the capital city,” it said.
There was an extremely high level of co-ordination and integration of the building designs with landscape, services, user-group requirements and the community at large.
The winners:
The Therapeutic Goods Administration Building. Few people go near this building on the flanks of Mount Mugga. From the Monaro Highway as people come back from skiing late at night, people must think it is an all-night battery-hen farm (Ah, that one!)
The jury was impressed by the simplicity of a complex project and the high flexibility and ability to accommodate future change. The jury said there was a lot of hi-tech plant and equipment with stringent functional requirements, yet there was a pleasant light-filled working environment.
Ainslie Village redevelopment. The village was used by the military during World War II and for new arrivals to Canberra from the 1950s to 1970s and since then for accommodation for people on low incomes.
The jury liked the way the architect had created a non-institutional environment in harmony with the landscape and with reverse brick-veneer for thermal efficiency.
The jury also liked the the management of stormwater through surface drainage and retention ponds and water features.
The Ainslie Fire Station. The original station was built in 1962. The jury said the architects had dealt well with the constraints of a tight site and had used the northerly aspect well. The jury liked the planning of internal spaces _ firefighters could come back from a fire sooty and sweaty and go direct to shower areas without tramping though sleeping quarters. The firefighters enjoyed their building and were proud of it.
The Tuggeranong Pool. The jury said; “”The building is quite misleading as it surprisingly accommodates huge volume and plan forms and yet retains some humanity in scale.”
The Weston Creek Retirement Village. The jury was impressed by the way in which the architects softened the institutional feeling of the existing school buildings which were converted to the retirement village.
The jury praised the attention to detail and the use of light.
In all this year’s jury was impressed by the human, environmental and utilitarian elements of the buildings, rather than the monumental or symbolic. Perhaps that is appropriate in a maturing city whose people are increasingly seeing the city as more than a repository of national symbols, a factory for feeding and housing the machinery of the Federal Government and a place for tourism.
It is where we live.