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Architecture

January

David Droga’s ‘menacing’ Tamarama mansion gets court go-ahead

The Adman’s planning application triggered a battle for the 1101-square-metre site over what character housing should have in the prestigious area.

  • Michael Bleby
Films such as ‘Megalopolis’ don’t show the reality of architecture, which is inevitably contingent; it is about working with existing realities, acknowledging the world as it is and its imperfections.

What the movies get wrong about architecture

Oscar nominee ‘The Brutalist’ and Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ perpetuate a colossal cliche: the image of practitioners as lone, tortured geniuses.

  • Edwin Heathcote
The slanted roofs and simple lines of  Kavillo villas recall to mind structures like shearing sheds and lean-tos.

The architect inspired by shearing sheds and tents

Mudgee-based Cameron Anderson honours the beauty of humble rural structures and rustic materials in his designs.

  • Stephen Todd
Nigel Bennett at the Barbican, London.

This star British gardener has big plans for Melbourne

Horticulturalist Nigel Dunnett is about to embark on his first project outside Britain – the Laak Boorndap garden in the new Melbourne Arts Precinct.

  • Hans van Leeuwen
Room to move - and watch: The Australian Open has a large pool of flexible space to use for events and uses separate to the actual tennis matches.

What the Australian Open can teach Brisbane 2032

Like grand slam tennis, the biggest challenge the Olympics faces is to attract people who may not even care for the sports themselves. But that needs space.

  • Michael Bleby
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The CPKC Stadium, home to the Kansas City Current, under construction ahead of opening day in Kansas City, Missouri, US, on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. This weekend, players will take the field for their season opener in a brand-new, $117 million stadium that its backers say is the world’s first for a women’s professional sports team.

World’s first stadium designed for women’s sports takes the field

The CPKC Stadium in Kansas gives one team a permanent base while providing inspiration for other women’s clubs in an increasingly expensive era of stadium development.

  • Mark Byrnes
A home destroyed by the Eaton Fire stands in front of a home that survived in Altadena.

Why did these homes survive the LA fires?

Amid the destruction some houses in Pacific Palisades and Malibu were left intact. Their fire-resistant features will be crucial to redevelopment.

  • Kriston Capps

December 2024

Notre-Dame refurbishment gif

How Notre Dame was reborn

It took about 250 companies, 2000 workers, about $1.4 billion, a tight deadline and a lot of national pride.

  • Aurelien Breeden

November 2024

With a 236-square-metre footprint, the average size of an Australian house in 2020, this country has the biggest houses in the world.

How much does that big house really cost you?

A new exhibition challenges thinking about houses at a time when Australia’s homes are the biggest in the world.

  • Michael Bleby
Just 10 metres wide: The Ferrars & York apartment building occupies a 610-square-metre site between a  tram line and a main road in South Melbourne.

How to build housing on urban wasteland

An apartment building sandwiched between a road and railway line has set a new standard for what can be done with once-derelict sites.

  • Michael Bleby

October 2024

An atrium inside 1 Elizabeth, the new headquarters for Macquarie.

Macquarie’s new home is one to admire for its smarts

The investment banking and trading giant’s new office at 1 Elizabeth Street in Sydney brings building materials, and a metro station, to the fore.

  • Matthew Drummond
Nina Maya designed the wellness space at GWS Chairman Adrian Fonseca’s Bellevue Hill home.

How the wellness revolution is transforming luxury property

Integrated spa facilities and health-enhancing spaces on par with the world’s best hotels are the new norm in high-end house and apartment projects.

  • Bonnie Campbell

Plan to save Frank Lloyd Wright’s only skyscraper isn’t going well

Once a buzzy hub of business life, and briefly occupied by Phillips Petroleum, the 19-storey tower has struggled for many years to find an anchor tenant.

  • Annie Aguiar

September 2024

Each of the six homes occupies three levels, with a top, middle and bottom level sunk below the ground plane and having a courtyard entryway.

An old London bridge? No – it’s a new housing development

In Camden borough, a row of tall brick arches gives the impression of a Victorian viaduct. But they’re something else altogether.

  • Richard Conway
Catching winter sun, avoiding summer glare: Emily Walter in her 8.2-star Canberra home.

The $660k home that has no heating or cooling costs

Higher thermal standards make homes more comfortable and cheaper to run. And they don’t have to be that much more expensive to build.

  • Michael Bleby
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August 2024

John McAslan

Keep building ambition, says key architect behind Sydney Metro

UK-based John McAslan says Sydney Metro was a smoother ride than London’s recent Elizabeth Line.

  • Matthew Drummond
A render of the four-bedroom, three-level townhouse at 11-11A Old Berowra Road in upper north shore Sydney’s Hornsby, which sold for $1.8 million off the plan.

Couple buys $1.8m home – and still ends up sharing with parents

Many multi-generational families want to live close to each other. But worsening affordability has reduced spending power – and that’s changing housing design.

  • Michael Bleby
Cathedrals of the 21st century: Victoria Cross Station on the new Sydney metro.

How Sydney Metro’s architects made train stations people actually like

The “cathedrals of the 21st century” have united Sydney’s tastemakers and commuters, who marvelled at their new Metro line this week.

  • Michael Bleby and Campbell Kwan

July 2024

The Lacrosse tower on fire in Docklands in 2014.

Architects, fire engineers, building surveyors fingered over cladding

Victoria’s combustible cladding crisis shows the permit system failed to ensure compliance with building rules, a new government agency report shows.

  • Michael Bleby

New Michael Kirby building takes law students ‘into the light’

The new Macquarie University Law School, designed by architectural practice Hassell, brings the legal faculty to the centre of the campus and into the light.

  • Stephen Todd

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/architecture-jaj