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My friends Guy Wilkinson and Rory Toomey (both in the lower left) giving me a tour of the new project. Photo ©Darren Bradley. Sydney's latest neighborhood renewal project is in the heart of what was once a fairly modest, working class area called Chippendale, on the site of a former brewery. To ensure its success, the developers commissioned a starchitect to design it - Jean Nouvel .  I have to say that coming across this place for the first time, nothing really prepares you for how insane that cantilevered shelf looks coming off the tower. It literally caused me to stop dead in my tracks.  Since I was already stopped dead in my tracks here, I thought I'd take a photo. Photo ©Darren Bradley Apparently, that shelf thing is a heliostat . That is, a series of mirrors that rotate to follow the sun and reflect the light on a specific target. In this case, the target is the park below the towers, which would otherwise be in the shadow of the buildings. Here's how it works:  D...

Museum of Contemporary Art by Sam Marshall opened in March 2012. Photo ©Darren Bradley I was excited to finally see the new Museum of Contemporary Art when I passed through Sydney a couple of weeks ago. It's a beautiful building that works very well, functionally. I quite like the design. Of course, it's easier to appreciate if you don't know the story leading up to it.  Without question, the best spot in Sydney to have breakfast. I did - twice. The food was very good, too. Photo ©Darren Bradley It turns out,  Jørn   Utzon isn't the only major international architect to have been snubbed in Sydney. Back in 1997, the Japanese architecture firm, SANAA, won a the commission to design the new Contemporary Art Museum at Circular Quay on Sydney Harbor, just  across the ferry terminal from the famed Opera House.  Photo ©Darren Bradley She caught me. Photo ©Darren Bradley A prized location for a prized assignment. Only thing was, turns out there were some restrictions o...

South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), by Woods Bagot, sits perched like an alien spacecraft next to Adelaide's main railway station. Photo ©Darren Bradley I've been to Adelaide several times, for both work and vacation. I rarely take many photos there because, frankly, there's not a lot of modernist architecture to speak of. It now appears that the city is trying to change that.  The Bicentennial Conservatory is a landmark in Adelaide's Botanic Gardens. It was designed by Guy Maron in 1987. It contains a tropical greenhouse habitat. Photo ©Darren Bradley. Adelaide in South Australia is a planned city dating from the 1830s that was laid out in a geometric grid pattern, and entirely surrounded by a greenbelt of parkland.  The greenbelt around both Adelaide and North Adelaide can be seen from this satellite photo. You can also see the central square (Victoria Square), as well as the four smaller squares - one in each quadrant. It makes for a be...

Melbourne Recital Centre by Ashton Raggatt McDougall. Photo ©Darren Bradley As you may have noticed from my previous two posts on Melbourne , the design team of Ashton Raggatt McDougall have been on a bit of a tear in that city for some time. This studio has landed some of the most prestigious commissions in Melbourne, including this Recital Centre above. I liked this building as soon as I saw it, but I was also a bit confused by it. I couldn't understand the shape of the white forms on the facade. Then I spoke to some of the locals and they explained it to me. You won't believe what they represent...  I described Melbourne as a city that largely skipped Modernism - going directly from Classicism to Post-Modernism.  M odernism is rooted in a sense of simplicity in materials and an absence of ornament, or historical styles and references. P ost-modern architecture rejects any sense of over-arching philosophy (such as Le Corbusier's Five Points )  or rules. This style stri...

RMIT Swanston Academic Building in Melbourne was designed by Lyons Architecture and completed in 2012. Corbett Lyon is from Melbourne, but he worked for a time under Venturi Scott Brown in the US. Photo ©Darren Bradley. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (known to everyone as simply RMIT) is another university in the heart of Melbourne. It wears its credentials as a leading institution for architecture and design on its sleeve, as it were... Many of its campus buildings make bold architectural statements. RMIT's influence can clearly be seen across Melbourne today.  One of many interior study areas at RMIT. Photo ©Darren Bradley. Some of it is a bit out there...  I suspect that the building on the left may have done something to the building on the right. Both are part of RMIT. Both by the same architects ( Ashton Raggatt McDougall - RMIT alums. Ian McDougall is an associate professor there, as well).  The additions to the one on the right are more recent. P...

Southern Cross Station. Photo ©Darren Bradley First off, apologies for the long absence. I was in Australia again, as I mentioned earlier. I had this crazy idea that I would be diligently taking photos and editing them and posting them to new blog entries every couple of days while I was over there. But of course, I didn't do any of that.  It's all about the roof. Interior view of Southern Cross Railway Station. Apparently, photography inside the station is not allowed, as I was informed by a nice security guard about 3 seconds after taking this photo. Even the security guards are nice in Australia. Photo ©Darren Bradley.  In fact, I really didn't have much time to take photos at all. My day job got in the way and I spent most of my time sitting in an office and various conference rooms in several Australian cities.  In case you're curious, conference rooms in Australia look just like conference rooms in America. I didn't bother to photograph any of those.  Photo ©D...