I was listening to a radio program from Australia on CBC overnight; one of the pieces was about an award winning design for a recreation hall built in a little rural town called Berry down the south coast of NSW. I’d like 5 bucks for every time I drove through than little ol town, beautiful sleepy little spot it was back then, still is going by Google earth, but I digress.
On the show they interviewed the lead man on the design team, seems pre design he had taken a trip to the town and spent a couple of days.
He said he was overawed by the clear pristine sky, especially at night with the stars shining brightly unencumbered by any big city ambient light.
The project was one funded by the state government and as is governments want had to be built within a very tight budget. In the past this had resulted in a series of like buildings being constructed in a very generic way, most looked like brick and metal boxes.
Luckily for Berry this guy had some vision and gave a shit about what he does. The designers came up with an amazing concept so that the sports building melded into the surrounding area. The 500 odd small windows built into the concrete wall blend in nicely with the night sky.
Even durring the day the sun penetrating the multi colored windows adds to activity inside, young children invent ways to interact with the suns light on the walls and floors.
If you click on the images here they enlarge, bloody amazing really, and all for 1.3 million bucks.
This brings me to the gist of this post. I always wonder why buildings up this way have to be all build in the wooden square box concept. There is no vision, no thinking outside of the box, just wood frames with no thought to renewable energy or trend setting anything.
Even the new NG building is a wooden box with cement block veneer around the bottom floor. The only thing that takes away from the box look is triangular looking appendages on three sides.
When I was involved with the construction of the OK media center I tried my best to introduce some different building techniques [for up here]. I was stymied at every turn, especially by the architect and the design engineers.
Sure cost was a factor, though a minor one in my opinion. It was the status quo that just did not want to do any real work for the money they received.
On the show they interviewed the lead man on the design team, seems pre design he had taken a trip to the town and spent a couple of days.
He said he was overawed by the clear pristine sky, especially at night with the stars shining brightly unencumbered by any big city ambient light.
The project was one funded by the state government and as is governments want had to be built within a very tight budget. In the past this had resulted in a series of like buildings being constructed in a very generic way, most looked like brick and metal boxes.
Luckily for Berry this guy had some vision and gave a shit about what he does. The designers came up with an amazing concept so that the sports building melded into the surrounding area. The 500 odd small windows built into the concrete wall blend in nicely with the night sky.
Even durring the day the sun penetrating the multi colored windows adds to activity inside, young children invent ways to interact with the suns light on the walls and floors.
If you click on the images here they enlarge, bloody amazing really, and all for 1.3 million bucks.
This brings me to the gist of this post. I always wonder why buildings up this way have to be all build in the wooden square box concept. There is no vision, no thinking outside of the box, just wood frames with no thought to renewable energy or trend setting anything.
Even the new NG building is a wooden box with cement block veneer around the bottom floor. The only thing that takes away from the box look is triangular looking appendages on three sides.
When I was involved with the construction of the OK media center I tried my best to introduce some different building techniques [for up here]. I was stymied at every turn, especially by the architect and the design engineers.
Sure cost was a factor, though a minor one in my opinion. It was the status quo that just did not want to do any real work for the money they received.
For the evening meal it was roast chicken and veggies cooked in salt beef, or my version of jigs dinner.
Having never cooked or eaten figgy duff I decided to give it a try instead of stuffing [that’s the result in the white bowl].
I used whole-wheat bread instead of white, and I did not measure any ingredients just eyeballed them. I boiled it for two hours in a cloth bag in with the salt beef.
Sure it looked a bit dodgy and the taste was a mixture of sweet and heavy on the herbs but it passed the test as Fran gave it her seal of approval.
No comments:
Post a Comment