Studio 24


COMPLETING BOYD

Norman Day

This studio is available to students enrolled in ABPL90142 Studio C, ABPL90143 Studio D, and ABPL90115 Studio E.

Studio Description

This studio will prepare individual entries for a real student design competition.

The site for the design will be Robin Boyd’s own house in South Yarra where you are asked to imagine a clear site allowing for your reimagined design for two new houses, maximum three stories. The idea is that you explore Boyd’s ideas using your reflections on contemporary concerns.

You will contemplate issues of Country, affordability, aesthetics, urban density, suitable sustainability, materiality, masonry construction and appropriate circular-economic values.

We will develop and document an understanding the Boyd house site in history and Boyd’s philosophy as represented in his writing and architecture, and apply our understanding of context, place, ideas, vision, theories and research to produce an appropriate engagement with the program.

We will celebrate the values, curiosity and creativity of Boyd, and discuss the breadth of his architecture in broad scope and with attention to detail.

Studio Outcomes

Students will develop their submissions in accordance with the competition requirements (to be supplied).

The competition is titled, “The Walls Around Us”, to be delivered by the Robin Boyd Foundation, which will run semester 2 - 2022 and with entries due to be delivered on 30 January 2023. The winner receives a return economy air fare to the Biennale Architettura 2023 in Venice along with a prized Vernissage pass allowing entry to the exhibitions.

The Jury will assess the merit of each Entry against the following Criteria:

  1. Engagement with of Robin Boyd with particular focus on the Boyd House II/Walsh Street residence.
  2. A proposal which provides a response to environmental, economic, social, and cultural issues through architecture.
  3. Understanding and creative use of material qualities and possibilities provided by brickwork and blockwork.
  4. A creative and viable response to the site and context of 290 Walsh Street, South Yarra, 3141.
  5. Presentation, clarity and quality of graphics, text and submitted materials.

The competition is titled, “The Walls Around Us”, to be delivered by the Robin Boyd Foundation, which will run semester 2 - 2022 and with entries due to be delivered on 30 January 2023. The winner receives a return economy air fare to the Biennale Architettura 2023 in Venice along with a prized Vernissage pass allowing entry to the exhibitions.

Studio Leader

Norman Day worked with Robin Boyd.

He is an architect, educator, and writer operating in Melbourne and the Asian/Pacific region. He worked with Robin Boyd and Professor Frederick Romberg before starting his own practice and is a Board Member of Architects Without Frontiers.

His interest is in developing an attitude towards architecture which reflects community and lasting values not simply to do with the objective nature of buildings as commodity, but rather with intrinsic principles focussed - where architecture becomes a constructed morality.

His commissions include the Heritage Listed Mowbray College (Melton), Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists Headquarters (Melbourne), RMIT International University (Ho Chi Minh City) and Cantho University Library (Cantho City, Vietnam), PetroVietnam University (Hanoi) and Embassy for Timor Leste (Canberra).

Readings & References

  • Smith, Linda Tuhiwai, “Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples”, Ed.3, ZED Books Ltd, London, ISBN 978-1-7869-9813-2, 2021.
  • Neale, Margo, Kelly, Lynne, “Songlines – The Power and Promise”, Thames and Hudson, Australia, ISBN 978-1-76076-118-9, 2020.
  • Page, Alison, Memmott, Paul, “Design- Building and Country”, Thames and Hudson, Australia, ISBN 978-1-76076-140-0, 2021.
  • Boyd, Robin, Victorian Modern: One Hundred and Eleven Years of Modern Architecture in Victoria, Australia (Melbourne: Architectural Students’ Society of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects, 1947).
  • Boyd, Robin, The Australian Ugliness, foreword by John Betjeman, (Ringwood, Vic: Penguin, 1970.  Cover illustration Barry Tutt, photographs in text by Nigel Buesst).
  • Boyd, Robin, The Australian Ugliness, afterward by Harry Seidler, (Ringwood, Vic: Penguin Books, 1980).
  • Boyd, Robin, The Walls Around Us: The Story of Australian Architecture Told and Illustrated for Young Readers (Melbourne: F.W. Cheshire, 1962).
  • Boyd, Robin, Australia’s Home. Its Origins, Builders and Occupiers, (Carlton, VIC: University Press, 1952).
  • Boyd, Robin, The Puzzle of Architecture, (Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 1965). Cover illustration shows a colour bas-relief solarization of a photograph taken by Mark Strizic inside Kenzo Tange’s Olympic Pools Building in Tokyo.
  • Boyd, Robin, Living in Australia, afterword David Saunders, (Rushcutters Bay, NSW: Pergamon Press, 1970).
  • Boyd, Robin, The Great Great Australian Dream, (Rushcutters Bay, NSW: Pergamon Press Australia, 1972).

Schedule Mondays and Thursdays 12:00-15:00
Off-campus Activities Week 3

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