 | VENICE BIENNALE MICRO MACRO CITY
EXCERPTS FROM THE AUSTRALIAN PAVILION
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Micro Macro City, Shane Murray and Nigel Bertram’s exhibition for the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale, is an analysis of the Australian urban condition structured by eight themes, and expressed via case studies, photographs and architectural projects.
The city we describe is a collection of urban
conditions experienced in everyday Australian life.
This city is composed of inner-urban cores, old
suburban combinations of industry, commerce and
dwellings, new suburban sprawl, sometimes
competing with industry and commerce, expanding
regional centres and small rural settlements.
These locations demonstrate the effect of Australia’s
particular combination of density, extreme
spaciousness, cheap land, relative affluence and
widespread access to technology.
Micro Macro City bypasses conventional
distinctions between town and country, centre
and periphery, downtown and suburb, and
instead understands these conditions as part of a
dispersed urban continuum. In so doing, we aim
to highlight connections and interrelationships
rather than separations.
As one thing grows, another thing shrinks.
The diminishing population in remote rural towns
is concurrent with the rapid growth of regional
centres. The search for affordable housing on the
periphery is put under pressure as industry vacates
its nineteenth-century inner-city locations to
compete for the same land. Households diversify
and drive residential growth in a different way
from previous generations. Infrastructural and
technological advances increase the attractiveness
and viability of regional towns as locations for
suburban lifestyles.
The city continues to grow and shrink in
different ways. Areas of vacancy and decline create
space and opportunity for the emergence of other
ways of living and working. Areas of intensity, high
competition, high land values and density provoke
new forms of urban occupation. Dwelling in these
locations promotes creative responses to habitation.
Social, economic and demographic factors all
have an effect on our physical environment. In this
exhibition we show particular environments that
reveal the impact of these forces. These physical
environments index the balance of these forces in
a certain space and time.
Architecture provokes, extends and responds
to this real urban environment. We have exhibited
buildings where this relationship to environment
and context is particularly evident. These buildings
are exceptional, but they are also encountered as
part of an everyday routine. They receive and
transmit – in these interactions they are changed
by, and in turn change, their world.
Our exhibition explores a series of complex
urban conditions, which enables us to reflect on
the latent potential of our immediate, everyday
environment and its location in the present.
Architecture is placed physically and
conceptually within these particular conditions
as a way of interrogating its role as an agent and
register of change.
SHANE MURRAY AND NIGEL BERTRAM, CREATIVE DIRECTORS,
MICRO MACRO CITY, 2006 VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE.
Exhibiting architects
Simon Anderson
Ashton Raggatt
McDougall + Phillips/
Pilkington
Donaldson + Warn
Donovan Hill
Durbach Block m3architecture
McBride Charles Ryan +
NHArchitecture
Gary Marinko
Neeson Murcutt
Harry Seidler and Associates
Stutchbury and Pape
John Wardle Architects + Hassell
Exhibiting artists
Max Creasy
Louise Forthun
Anna Jeffries
Danius Kesminas +
Ronnie van Hout
Paul Knight
Nicholas Murray
Selina Ou
Richard Raber + Naomi
Bishops
Matthew Sleeth
Drawings
Paul Dash
James Mo
Paulo Sampaio
Cameron White
Frances Piesse
Lee-Anne Khor
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| Shrinkage |
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Matthew Sleeth
A small rural town
experiences population
decline due to dramatic
increases in efficiency
brought about by
technological
transformations in
agriculture. This is
accompanied by the
disappearance of
government agencies,
the flight of important
commercial services and
the thinning out of
retail. The maintenance
of community support
structures for cultural,
social and recreational
activities is placed
under threat.
A small botanical
reserve survives in the
main street, witness to
the boom times some
decades previous – a
moment of intensity that
contrasts with the
fragmentation and
openness of the
surrounding urban
fabric. This small strip
of civic pride endures
because its compact size
enables it to be
maintained, despite the
town’s reduced
circumstances. In an
urban environment
experiencing ongoing
erosion of its social and
physical fabric, this
strip holds.
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| Exchange |
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Matthew Sleeth
A large shopping centre
on an outer suburban
highway is a powerful
focal point of social
activity in the life of its
adjacent community –
a contemporary public
forum. It is surrounded
by an enormous car park
which acts as its
forecourt. Subsidiary
commerce, convenience
stores, big-box retail and
transit stations populate
this space, particularly
at its highway interface.
At this edge, the
ecosystem of the
shopping centre and the
passing traffic of the
highway interact in an
opportunistic way.
The directness of the
commercially driven
relationship between
shopping centre and
car park is overlaid with
a range of informal
occupations:
skateboarding, cycling,
car maintenance,
hanging out, subcultural
exhibitionism, and the
often tense interaction
between these
occupations and
sanctioned usage. This
prosaic but familiar
environment is the
setting for many of the
encounters that define
our suburban childhood
and adolescence. The
vitality of this informal
and proscribed mixture
suggests it as a true
public domain.
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| Interface |
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Max Creasy
Industry vacates its
traditional inner-city
locations. Ring roads
and highway systems
make peripheral land
valuable. The traditional
interface between
agriculture and housing
in these locations is
complicated by their
newfound attractiveness
to industry. A patchwork
condition arises
comprising farmland,
new housing and
industrial estates. This
creates abrupt
juxtapositions of use,
space and various
building types.
The efficiency
created by the
combination of rapid
freeway interchange and
relatively available land
sets the stage for the
imminent development
of a super-scaled
produce market. At this
brief moment in the
continuum of
development time, a
poignant equilibrium
between the different
built occupations and
the traditional agrarian
usage is temporarily in
place. While at the city’s
edge agriculture is
usurped by industrial
and residential
development, in the
bush the iconic image
of labour-intensive
family farming is no
longer available.
Global pressures and
the necessity for
international
competitiveness drive
enormous volumes,
forcing intense
industrialized efficiency.
The farm is transformed
into an industrial
installation.
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| Expansion |
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Max Creasy
New housing locates
itself in a diversity of
contexts, subject to a
range of pressures –
from new suburbs
on greenfield sites
to piecemeal infill
development flanked
by a mixture of other
uses, and densification
through subdivision of
traditional house plots.
The bulk of marketdelivered
housing
seems not to respond
to contemporary
household diversity.
A new, affluent
housing estate is located
on a greenfield site.
While it awaits the
arrival of a planned
“town centre” at the
centre of the
development, its
location at a highway
edge creates an
opportunity for double
exposure to local daily
shopping and
highway-based transit
customers. The two
groups interact in their
use of service station
convenience stores and
fast food outlets. This
highway commercial
frontage becomes the
de facto town centre and
insulates the domestic
realm from traffic.
The convenience of
shopping on the way
home at the suburb
entry gates overlaps
with the necessary
efficiency of a highway
stopover.
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| Absorption |
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Selina Ou
A regional centre has
remained largely intact
since the 1970s.
An hour’s drive from
a capital city,
technological change,
rapid transport and
affordable housing lead
to a recent surge in
growth. Metropolitan
development pressure,
particularly the rapidly
increasing cost of
housing, brings the once
detached regional town
into the suburban field.
Improved
communications
technology and
transport efficiencies
make this idea feasible.
This change creates
new pressure for
development and
provision of services
within the town itself.
As a consequence,
previously ignored or
ambiguous spaces at
strategic locations
within the town’s urban
fabric become the focus
of redevelopment
ambitions. What once
appeared to be in a
state of suspended
animation now can be
seen as a new forum for
contemporary urban and
architectural enquiry.
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| Re-use |
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Selina Ou
The physical fabric of
many parts of the city
endures over time. An
apparently stable frame
witnesses successive
occupations that appear
unrelated to preceding
uses. Despite this re-use
being manifested in
ways which might never
have been predicted,
it is frequently
accommodated with
ease. It seems there can
be a perfect fit between
vastly different urban
ideas.
A traditional working
class housing and
industrial suburb
focused around port
and rail activities
experiences a wave
of intensive migration.
The largely unchanged
built fabric easily
accommodates this new
and distinctive cultural
occupation. Shopfronts
that once confined the
conventional commerce
of Anglo-Saxon
merchants to the shop
interiors now
experience looser and
more dynamic
Vietnamese commerce
which spills beyond
the limits of these
inherited containers.
This results in a
radically transformed
street and public/social
experience.
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| Overlap |
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Paul Knight
An industrial precinct
in the inner ring
suburbs is hemmed
between a commercial
street and railway
infrastructure.
Subsequent
transformation leaves
remnant pockets of
small-scale industry
dead-ended by rail
lines. Current
residential and
commercial
development
(gentrification) is
attracted to the area,
because of its
availability, its
“unloved” status and its
proximity to downtown.
Small industrial
businesses continue to
operate in parallel with
their new neighbours.
A Lebanese bakery
initially established in
one of these small
factories expands to
include a retail outlet
within the same
building. The success
of this business among
the new middle-class
population leads to
expansion. The business
grows to occupy
adjoining structures –
including a warehouse
building, an open car
park and a single-storey
house – to form a
composite and
overlapping urban
entity, enmeshed in the
larger scale mixing of
uses in the area.
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| Oversupply |
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Paul Knight
Under certain
conditions, set-piece
urban arrangements
experience a cumulative
succession of other
social uses. Particular
points of physical,
commercial or
subcultural intensity
arise unevenly and
opportunistically across
the city. This seems
to be an effect of a
combination of arbitrary
development,
longer-term strategic
and opportunistic
commerce, and the
canny foresight of
individuals.
Informal and
subversive occupation
of retail space hidden
in Melbourne’s filigree
of laneways transforms
from a furtive
subcultural fashion
network to highly
desirable mainstream
commerce. This trend
is read retrospectively
by shopping centres
and department stores
which feed off the
energy of this
self-generated precinct.
The rear laneway
entrance to a large 1990s
shopping emporium
connects into this
ad hoc precinct and
becomes more vital and
energized than its
prestigious main street
address. This inversion
in the focus of the
emporium in effect
turns the back into the
front. The commercial
success of this laneway
fashion network has led
to innovative retail now
seeking even more
obscure and hidden
locations to capture the
fashionable edge.
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| EXPANSION |
Caroline Springs
Thirty minutes’ drive from
the city centre, the recently
developed suburb of Caroline
Springs is a fast-growing and
desirable residential location.
The suburb entry is accessed
from a major interstate
highway. Planned around
a future town centre deep
within the suburb, the
development largely turns
its back on the highway with
blank fences. In the interim,
however, residents obtain
their daily provisions from
highway-based convenience
stores, and this strip stages an
interaction between transitory
highway visitors and more
regular local patrons.
Three small urban houses
propose new architectural
dispositions to accommodate
the growing diversity that
characterizes contemporary
ways of living. Sited on
conventional suburban plots,
they display qualities which
are readily achievable in new
developments but rarely
encountered.
WherehouseSimon Anderson
The Wherehouse (top left) sets
itself back from the street in
the manner of a villa in order
to provide an abundant front
garden. Its anonymous form
within a diverse built fabric,
offers multiple readings and
possibilities for use and
inhabitation.
Photograph Richard Woldendorp
D House Donovan Hill
Recognizing the
contemporary housing
pressure on inner-city
suburbs, a corner block
is subdivided to create an
independent new entity
in the street. Although
basically a courtyard type,
the D House (middle)
develops a layered threshold
condition where the activity
within the house mingles
with that of the street.
Photograph Carl Warner
Poll House Gary Marinko
The Poll House (bottom)
presents itself as a
conventional detached
villa in a street of similarly
large houses. In fact, the
building is a courtyard
house accommodating an
extended family – one
residence for the owner
and their visiting children,
another for the owner’s
mother. The entire area of
the house is fully accessible
by wheelchair.
Photograph Robert Frith
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| OVERSUPPLY |
CBD
Service lanes in the central
retail precinct of Melbourne
have developed into a thriving
filigree of small businesses.
In this block, independent
fashion outlets and cafes
congregate to achieve a density
which influences the nearby
large-scale department stores
and malls. The lanes are used
in different ways due to
differing adjacencies,
hierarchies and commercial
profiles. Sometimes service
access, sometimes highly
competitive fashion strips,
sometimes informal and ad hoc
occupation, these linear
apertures connect to each other
and form energized short cuts
between major streets.
QV2 Apartments McBride Charles Ryan + NHArchitecture
The nineteenth-century public
library of Melbourne is fronted
by a formal grassed forecourt.
Over time, this space has
become layered with various
uses and occupations: students
from the adjoining university,
shoppers and city workers,
informal gatherings, protests,
skateboarding, dozing on
benches. An adjacent apartment
development borrows the
forecourt as an energized front
yard for its occupants, and
enjoys this sunny aperture in
the city. Reciprocally, the public
using the forecourt enjoy the
spectacle of everyday domestic
life, which contributes another
layer to this valued space.
Photograph Paul Knight
Riparian Plaza Harry Seidler and Associates
Brisbane’s river provides a
defining edge to development
pressure in the city centre.
With the return of residential
and entertainment development
to the central city, this edge has
been gradually transformed into
a recreational promenade. A new
tower contributes population and
programme to this compressed
condition and is equally
energized by its proximity to this
realm. The striking expression of
car park, residences and offices,
articulated in the form of the
tower, differentiates this building
from its conventional neighbours.
At ground, a seamless transition
between city commerce and river
entertainment is achieved.
Photograph Carl Warner
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| SHRINKAGE |
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Rainbow
The wheat belt town of
Rainbow (pop. 500) boomed
until the 1950s. Its unusually
intense and intact main street,
bounded at each end by rail
lines and highway, is
characterized by intensely
cultivated islands of date
palms and hedge borders with
ornamental gates. This dense
and formal street ensemble
quickly gives way to vague
and sparse areas of
unoccupied land, detached
sheds and houses, with many
sites unfenced. In this loose
condition a free mixture of
activities occurs, some urban
and some agricultural, in
unique and engaging
adjacencies.
International Art Space Kellerberrin Australia Donaldson + Warn
In a shrinking town in outback
Western Australia, a small
architectural intervention is made
in the main street. A vacant
haberdashery shop is renovated
to house a gallery and provide
accommodation for an
international artist-in-residence
programme. Despite its physical
modesty, the project’s engagement
with the community and outreach
internationally has enormous
positive social and cultural
repercussions. Careful
management, which requires
resident artists to make works
that directly engage with the local
environment and community,
amplifies the impact of this
modest but highly effective
architectural transformation.
Photograph Robert Frith
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| EXCHANGE |
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Frankston
A large shopping centre sits
on a highway in the outer
suburbs. Convenience stores,
petrol stations, car washes,
fast food restaurants with
play equipment, hardware
and appliance warehouses
populate the car park,
particularly at its highway
edge. In this commercially
interdependent relationship,
a series of unintended and
informal social occupations
take place. While, like the
shopping centre itself, a
relatively controlled
environment, the overlapping
and less defined nature of
the car park realm seems to
facilitate many possibilities
for exchange between its
vastly different user groups.
Marion Cultural Centre Ashton Raggatt McDougall + Phillips/Pilkington
A community centre
comprising theatre, library
and gallery is inserted at the
edge of a suburban car park.
The design of this public
building consciously
acknowledges and embraces
the real circumstances and
cultural importance of the
often-ignored arena of the
car park. In addition to the
pursuit of their ongoing
formal concerns, the architects
celebrate the building’s
car park as an important
suburban front door. This
car park gesture contributes a
new energy to both the social
intensity and material quality
of this interface by overscaling
and intensifying familiar
elements.
Photograph Sam Noonan
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| RE-USE |
Footscray
A Vietnamese market sits
behind nineteenth-century
shopfronts. The car park
between serves the market
and provides rear address to
individual shops. Extending
this primary relationship, a
range of subsidiary
connections and culturally
specific activities infiltrate the
surrounding buildings, streets
and laneways. Commercial
enterprises occupy main street
shops and their wares spill
out onto the footpath. An
abundance of signs, posters
and paraphernalia appear.
Vietnamese accountants, hair
salons and nightclubs take up
tenancies in side streets, and
the whole ecosystem
seamlessly fits into the
pre-existing structures.
Homebush Bay, in Sydney’s
west, was once an area of
intense large-scale industry.
The vacancy and scale of this
site permitted its re-use as the
venue for the 2000 Olympics.
This one-off event signalled
the potential of the vast area,
but post-Olympics, questions
concerning re-utilization and
integration remain. The
seemingly insatiable housing
market continues to transform
large industrial sites into
residential communities;
however, industrial fragments
resist total transformation.
New large- and small-scale
landscape-based infrastructure
is now being utilized to
enhance connections and
understandings in this
layered terrain.
Brickpit Ring Durbach Block
An enormous hole left by
the process of excavation
to manufacture clay bricks
remains as a sculptural
amphitheatre (above). New
development pressures in the
surrounding areas intensify
the prominence and value of
this inaccessible landscape.
These same pressures threaten
natural ecosystems, which
have been able to flourish in
this sealed-off environment.
A strikingly clear architectural
insertion allows pedestrian
reconnection across this
vacancy, protects the fragile
ecosystem below, facilitates
enjoyment of the dramatic
setting, and encourages
reflection on the layered
historical circumstance.
Photograph Bob Peters
Shipwreck Lookout Neeson Murcutt
A mangrove-lined promontory
extends into Homebush Bay
(top right). The site of an old
barge landing servicing the
adjoining brickyards, this
former usage is evident
through a litter of brick rubble
infiltrated by the roots of
overgrown mangroves,
dilapidated timber loading
platforms and a series of
rusting barge hulls. Using
this language of materials,
the architects carefully arrange
a series of pathways, a brick
ramp and viewing apparatus
that reframe and construct
new experiences of the old
and new landscapes in
combination.
Photograph Brett Boardman
MICRO MACRO CITY SHOWS
IN THE AUSTRALIAN PAVILION
AT THE 2006 VENICE
ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE
7 SEPTEMBER – 19 NOVEMBER.
THE CATALOGUE, MICRO MACRO
CITY, IS AVAILABLE FROM THE
RAIA. THE EXHIBITION WILL BE
REVIEWED IN THE NEXT ISSUE
OF ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA.
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