Eight architects and designers have been named among Sydney’s 100 most influential people by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Design director at FJMT, Richard Francis-Jones has been dubbed ‘the environmentalist’ by the paper for designing the super-sustainable Surry Hills Library and Community Centre that opened earlier this year, in which air is cooled naturally under the building and rainwater is collected and reused.
Brooke Johnston and Sarah Thornton, founders of Eveleigh’s Finders Keepers Markets, were listed for their success at bridging the gap between exhibition and market for young designers.
If the colour spectacle of the Beijing Water Cube didn’t get Chris Bosse noticed, winning the design competition to create the heart of the world’s first carbon-free, waste-free city, Masdar, in the United Arab Emirates certainly did. Laboratory for Visionary Architecture’s (LAVA) beat off stiff international competition earlier this year to win the project with their ‘solar umbrella’ designs.
The stunning excavation of Paddington’s water reservoir unearthed a nomination for Tim Greer, partner at Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, for his work as lead architect. The Herald’s panel said Peter Tonkin and Brian Zulaikha were also tipped for a nomination, but that “this was Tim’s year”.
Marc Schamburg and Michael Alvisse, co-founders of Schamburg + Alvisse, earned a nomination for elevating the derrière. The duo has noticed a “creative renaissance… one where sustainability, collaboration, craftsmanship and ethics are considered valuable”.
The much-loved Ballast Point Park had already won favour with Sydneysiders and scooped a BPN National Sustainability Award before scratching Phillip Coxall a spot in the top 100. McGregor Coxall Landscape Architects’ 7 Metre Bar is also open in Sydney’s laneways for a swift post-work beverage and eyeball of the temporary urban art installations as part of the By George Hidden Networks event.
