Barbie’s in the pinkMargot Robbie stars as Barbie in a new movie. Her house (Barbie’s not Margot’s), high in the Malibu hills, has pink flourishes. But wait there’s more. When Hollywood’s over-the-top marketing machine gets into promotional gear the house goes completely bonkers pink.

Oh and BTW, Pink (the singer not the colour) had a Barbie house down on at Malibu Beach. Years ago I was invited by some locals for a wander to view the series of spectacular and ugly houses on the private beach. The house she had in 2012 was very different (long story, doesn’t fit here).

Celebrating emerging architects

Shaun Carter must have been rightly chuffed when Ben Peake, Design Director at Carter Williamson architects in Sydney, won the NSW AIA Emerging Architect Prize. The judges’ observations noted that Ben is “responsible for many of the firm’s awarded projects and … an important mentor to the next generation of emerging architects … sits at the forefront of the company’s gender and diversity policies…been a driving force for social and ethical progress… exemplifies the important role architects have within society and is a leader for our profession”. 

His advocacy was instrumental in the ‘SaveOurSirius’ campaign, and he contributed to a book on the notable brutalist building. Shaun will no doubt be thinking how ‘child is father to the man’ as his rigorous and energetic support for Ben helped both of them. The mentor often gets as much, or more, than the mentee. I should know. Years ago I enjoyed having Shaun Carter work for a short, and extremely productive time, in my practice.

Vale Michael Hopkins

The yobbo behaviour of the English crowds in the second Ashes test last week has been rightly criticised. All the more ironic given the surrounds, none more beautiful than the Mound Stand, designed by Michael Hopkins, who passed away last month. In an illustrious career, he was known initially in the vanguard of British high tech (Foster / Rogers / Grimshaw), but less theatrical and more modest.

However, my favourite is Portcullis House, offices for parliamentarians, that wears its sustainability design on the outside: the natural ventilation ducts rise and gather at the roof as they would have in a Gothic revival building; appropriate here so close to ‘Big Ben’. A fearsomely difficult project: inserting a high-performance contemporary building into one of the most treasured historic precincts. Done with aplomb.

Hopkins was invited to Australia in 1996 and gave a series of talks, and I was pleased to host one at the University of Sydney. Creative as ever, he’d organised and brought with him from the UK a kit of parts for a lifeguard tower on Bondi Beach, which he assembled with the aid of students the weekend before. No trace remains in reality or on the net, and my photo slides from that day were stolen at the lecture (again, long story - I know who you are).

Vale Hugh Saddler

There was a time in the mid 70s when a critical mass of scientists and researchers, interested in energy and alternative technologies, pitched up in Canberra. Initially unrelated, they found each other, and support systems grew. As a young architect working with the Commonwealth Government, but interested in all forms of alternatives, I was thrilled to be at a nascent epicentre of radical technology and politics.

I recall Derek Wrigley, Mark Diesendorf, Ken Newcombe and others, but the quiet maestro was Hugh Saddler, who passed away last week after a long illness. In one way, the measure of his extraordinary life is illustrated by the luminaries from sustainable politics who wrote his obituary in the Guardian (wife Merilyn Chalkley, Frank Jotzo, Phil Harrington and Richard Denniss).

I was brash, in a hurry and all over the shop. Hugh was calm, authorative and had both smarts and wisdom. On more than one occasion I was forced to rethink my abrasiveness in the light of Hugh’s dignified eye on the long game. I treasure his first book (below) and although not in touch for decades, the lessons lasted.

Bookends: energy and climate

Ross Garnaut’s book is considered one of, if not the, most important books on adaptation to climate change in this decade. We know there’s a problem, he’s talking positively about solving it. I would argue that Super-Power is not possible with Hugh Saddler’s Energy in Australia, not just the data, but the problem-solving approach that Hugh took. Standing on the shoulders of giants.

Signs Off: you’ve been booked

By the time you’ve figured out whether you can park on Crown Street in Surry Hills (sic), you can’t.

Reference: A&D Another Thing week 27/2023

Tone Wheeler is an architect / the views expressed are his.

Long columns are Tone on Tuesday, short shots every Friday in A&D Another Thing.

You can contact TW at toneontuesday@gmail.com

Tone Wheeler

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