Comment | Architecture & Design

Unveiling the Future: 2023 Sustainability Summit Review

Last Thursday, November 9, Sydney's magnificent Allianz Stadium played host to the much-anticipated 2023 Sustainability Summit, a unique two-stream, 10 Q & A panel, built industry event that brought together architects, designers, visionaries, experts, academics and enthusiasts to explore and champion sustainable design ideas and practices.

Design notes for week 46/2023 from Tone on Tuesday

Last week's Design Notes looked at Los Angeles. Established in just 50 years from 1920s to the 1970s, it then appeared to be the city of the future, especially through the eyes of Reyner Banham and his ‘four ecologies of Surfurbia, Foothills, the Plains of ID and Autopia’.

Design notes for week 45/2023 from Tone on Tuesday

50 years ago, in the ‘year out’ between architecture degrees, most of my cohort went overland to London, following a path laid out just a couple of years earlier by Tony and Maureen Wheeler, which became the foundation of Lonely Planet.

Unschooling: Taking school out of the box

Following on from the 2021 UTS AfterSchool architectural masters studio, this year, Hayball Principal Fiona Young, Associate Rob Chan & Hiral Patel (from Cardiff University) co-led Unschooling: Taking School Out of the Box, which explored challenges facing school development in NSW (and beyond).

Form–A Studio and Woods Bagot partnership continues

Form—A Studio, the architectural wayfinding and place curation practice making waves nationally with their unique take on place curation, has had the chance to work on projects that have enhanced the function of wayfinding for architecture in Sydney.

Design notes for week 44/2023 from Tone on Tuesday

Costs and quality in construction are under the spotlight. 2213 building companies declared bankruptcy in the last financial year in Australia, up 72% from the year before. Most of these were attributed to the rise in materials and labour costs for companies who had signed fixed price contracts in the years before when rates were lower. Two issues spring to mind.

Design notes for week 43/2023 from Tone on Tuesday

The Sydney Opera House turned 50 this week. All manner of media carried copious copy with the usual suspects: Utzon’s turbulent times, cost blowouts, building difficulties, finally success. Ho hum. The building itself was barely discussed.

Generative design in urban design, planning and sustainability

Generative design is something where you throw a whole bunch of constructs at the machine, and the machine bounces through a whole lot of iterations, and presents you the best possible scenarios, says Andy Cunningham, the senior regional director of Australia and New Zealand at Autodesk.

Design notes for week 42/2023 from Tone on Tuesday

There are two ways to look at indigenous affairs: what white society should do to help our indigenous; and how our indigenous could help white society. In the year-long NO campaign we heard endless lies and misinformation about the former, but nothing of the latter. And that’s a tragedy, which could be remedied by design.

Design notes for week 41/2023 from Tone on Tuesday

It's sad to convey the recent passing of Marshall Thomas Cook, New Zealand's finest domestic architect.

A social impact: Designing solutions to the world’s greatest challenges

With global shifts reconfiguring architectural briefs and setting new expectations every day, designers have an immense responsibility to deliver on clients’ evolving aspirations and design for greater social impact.

Design notes for week 40/2023 from Tone on Tuesday

“The future is not what it used to be: We were promised jetpacks and instead received e-bikes.” Jack Murphy in the Architect’s Newspaper reviews the MOMA exhibition Emerging Ecologies: Architecture and the rise of Environmentalism, highlighted in Design Notes 180.