A line up of international guests in the habit of turning convention on its head is confirmed for Australia’s 2010 architecture conference.
Creative director Melanie Dodd has developed a theme around the idea that constraints provide opportunity for the conference, titled extra/ordinary.
The speakers include Chile’s Alejandro Aravena from Elemental S.A, Tom Bloxham from UK practice Urban Splash, Teddy Cruz of Estudio Teddy Cruz in the USA, SYSTEMarchitects’ Jeremy Edmiston, Liza Fior from muf architecture/art, FAT’s Sean Griffiths and Francis Diebedo Kéré of German practice Kéré Architecture.
“Several of the practices represented on the international guest list emerged during the mid-'90s recession, at a time when other established firms were cutting back. This is no coincidence; firms like muf and FAT work collaboratively in a socially engaged art practice, and neither has been afraid to be irreverent and to experiment,” Dodd said.
The inventive creation and use of space or place as a solution to social and political problems is another of Dodd’s conference themes. Urban Splash is a British company of property developers, not architects, who regenerate decaying industrial sites into modern housing and sustainable communities.
Architecture professionals rising to challenges and resolving ordinary problems in extraordinary ways is Dodd’s promise to conference-goers.
“Architects are rejecting the detached gaze, rolling their sleeves up and fighting back. Innovative, groundbreaking and profoundly useful solutions are resulting from enforcing or stimulating collaborations with others," Dodd said.
A complementary list of Australian architects speaking at the conference will be released shortly. The extra/ordinary national architecture conference will be presented by the Australian Institute of Architects in Sydney, 22-24 April 2010.
