Ceramic Studio

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: This is a commissioned work for a building to house a ceramics studio on a rural property covered by box ironbark woodland. The project contributes to the discourse on environmental sustainability through an innovative engagement between the building and the surrounding landscape. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: An innovative site-based approach to making architecture has been developed - where ideas concerning time, place, process and patterns of living are revealed by the building. While small in scale (and budget), the project demonstrates multiple ways of engaging the landscape. Siting of the building is derived from a careful study of existing conditions to minimise destruction of the fragile landscape. Readings of the surrounding landscape have impacted upon the form, placement, interior, types of opening, colour and material palette, and use, to strike a profound relationship between the building and its setting. RESAERCH SIGNIFICANCE: 'Momentum' was commissioned by Geoffrey London, the Victorian State Government and edited by a team of distinguished academics and practitioners, including (Shane Murray) Monash University and Philip Goad (the University of Melbourne). It was published by the prestigious Miegunyah Press imprint of Melbourne University Press. Aside from the significant peer review of inclusion in this book, 'Cermanic Studio' has been featured in the following keynote lectures delivered by Richard Black: the annual WH Roberston Memorial Lecture (2011) Curtin University of Western Australia; the Bau(sh) and Bogen lecture series, Faculty of Architecture, University of Seigen (2011), Germany; and RMIT Graduate Research Conference, University of Sint-Lucas, Ghent, Belgium. The project has led to interviews on RRR FM (10.10.2011) show 302 - "Times Two Architects", and ABC Radio National "The Architect-Designed House" (31.12.2012).