The curators of the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, Biennale Architettura 2018, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, have announced the title Freespace. They have asked participants to “encourage reviewing ways of thinking, new ways of seeing the world, of inventing solutions where architecture provides for the well being and dignity of each citizen on this fragile planet”[1]. Responding to this call Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright of Baracco+Wright Architects will collaborate with artist Linda Tegg to present Repair, a living installation inside the Australian Pavilion that will disrupt the viewing conditions through which we understand architecture and the land it occupies. The broader team supporting the Creative Directors includes architect Paul Memmott, landscape architect Chris Sawyer, landscape architect and urban designer Tim O’Loan, ecologist David Freudenberger, curatorial advisor Catherine Murphy, architect Lance van Maanen and graduate of architecture Jonathan Ware.
Repair will address Farrell and McNamara’s call “to stimulate discussion on core architectural values” [2] and to validate the “relevance of architecture on this dynamic planet”[3] under their theme Freespace, by focusing on architecture that integrates built and natural systems to effect repair of the environment, and in so doing, repair of other conditions. Through this lens, this exhibition provokes new relevance and roles for architecture.
Mauro and Louise invited a team of people they felt would help them reflect on architecture from unconventional positions so that the theme of repair could be explored deeply. Through the team’s expertise in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, ecology, indigenous culture and conceptual thinking a diverse filter can be applied to the gaps, possibilities and issues facing Australian architects who work cheek by jowl in one of the most diverse and ecologically and culturally sensitive landscapes in the world to create architecture not yet fully imagined.
Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright, Creative Directors
Photo: Sharyn Cairns
Mauro Baracco is a practicing architect and a director of Baracco+Wright Architects. He has a PhD in Architecture from and is also an Associate Professor at RMIT University in the School of Architecture and Design, Melbourne, Australia where he was the Deputy Dean of Landscape Architecture (2013-15) and is currently the Deputy Dean of International.
Louise Wright is a practicing architect and a director of Baracco+Wright Architects founded in 2004. She has a PhD in Architecture from and also is a sessional lecturer in design at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
Baracco+Wright’s architectural practice combines the academic and practice world and is shifting more and more towards landscape based approaches that effect and catalyse environmental repair through decisions of siting, ground plane, hydrology and other ecological conditions.
Together with Linda they seek opportunities to position architecture in a catalytic role that places the architect in the role of strategic thinker across disciplinary boundaries. Over the past 10 years they have developed this approach through research projects throughout the Wimmera region in Western Victoria, Australia, “Regenerated Towns: Regenerated Nature”, connecting environmental repair undertaken by Greening Australia in their project Habitat 141 with environmental, social and economic repair through strategic and integrated architectural and landscape works in the towns that lie within and around this project. The design based research they carry out informs their practice. Their work has been described as quietly radical.
Linda Tegg
Photo: Sharyn Cairns
Linda Tegg works with photography, performance, video, and installation to investigate the contingent viewing conditions through which we orient ourselves in the world. Her work has been extensively exhibited in Australia, Mexico, The United States, and Europe. Tegg was the Samstag Scholar of 2014 and The Georges Mora Foundation Fellow of 2012. Linda is currently a Lecturer in Creative Practice at Deakin University, and the inaugural Artist In Residence at the School of Geography at The University of Melbourne.
Tim O’Loan
Tim O’Loan is an urban designer and landscape architect, having worked for a leading practice in the United Kingdom and a large, highly innovative global architectural group he now leads the Design Practice across Australia and New Zealand for AECOM.
Tim has spent most of the past decade building a team focused on developing forward-thinking urban policy and development strategies that underpin world-class infrastructure that enhances the environment, equity, and economy of our cities.
Tim contributes to industry journals and lectures and teaches at universities and institutes worldwide. Tim is a passionate advocate for continuous improvement in the practice environmental sustainability, particularly water sensitive urban design and water cycle management. He sees that there is an increasing need for landscape architects and urban designers to engage with social equity, access to employment, housing, food and water; this is the next frontier for city makers of all types.
Since joining AECOM in 2008, he has worked on significant national and international integrated developments and master planning projects in Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Europe – from planning for new communities and townships to designing town centres and public spaces.
Chris Sawyer
Chris Sawyer together with Susie Kumar are Landscape Architects and the founding directors of Site Office and, Chris is an Adjunct Professor of Landscape Architecture at RMIT University.
Site Office is a landscape architectural and urban design practice that works primarily with local government and state government organisations with the goal of crafting beautiful places for animals, plants and people to thrive.
Site Office have created and developed a number of projects that hover over and through special terrain, of traditional owners, fragmented ecologies and disturbed landscapes to aid humans’ connection with nature, and aid the preservation and restoration of nature.
Paul Memmott
Professor Paul Memmott is a trans-disciplinary researcher (architect/anthropologist) and the Director of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre (AERC) and the Indigenous Design Place Initiative at the University of Queensland where he is affiliated with the School of Architecture and the Institute of Social Science Research.
The AERC field of research encompasses the cross-cultural study of the people-environment relations of Indigenous peoples with their natural and built environments. Research interests encompass Aboriginal housing and settlement design, Aboriginal access to institutional architecture, Indigenous constructs of place, cultural landscapes and cultural heritage, vernacular architecture and Native Title, social planning in Indigenous communities and sustainable remote-area buildings and villages.
David Freudenberger
David has a diverse research career as an ecologist. He joined CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology in 1991 to conduct grazing management research in the rangelands of eastern Australia which built on his expertise in kangaroos and goats. By 2000, CSIRO shifted research focus from eastern rangelands to agricultural landscapes dominated by woodlands. This led him to research on the impact of landscape fragmentation on woodland bird assemblages and other taxa. In such highly cleared landscapes restoration is a priority, so he led a number of research projects on the ecosystem services derived from government supported native plantings in southern NSW. This research put him in contact with the NGO, Greening Australia, which he joined in 2007 as Chief Scientist. There his collaborative research projects included effectiveness and cost of revegetation technologies, carbon sequestration measurement and modelling, biofuels from native species, and the benefits of biochar application for improving restoration effectiveness. He joined the Fenner School in 2012 to continue his current research in applied restoration practice and lecture in management of forested landscapes.
Catherine Murphy
Catherine Murphy is an academic in the Department of Architecture at Monash University, where she coordinates the new Masters of Urban Planning and Design. Her current research is exploring how alternative design and planning processes could address climate change impacts on cities, as part of a project for the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities. She has a background in urban and cultural planning, and has worked as a program manager, curator and writer/editor.
Lance van Maanen
Lance van Maanen is a practicing architect based in Melbourne with experience across a wide range of project types in Australia. With a focus on modes of architectural representation, Lance embraces a range of three dimensional techniques to enhance an understanding of the built form and environment with a particular interest in immersive technologies that bridge the physical and immaterial worlds. Lance contributes to architectural education through teaching and critiquing as a sessional tutor at RMIT university, and has been published in various industry journals.
Jonathan Ware
Jonathan is a practicing Architect based in Melbourne, Victoria. He is also a design studio leader in the masters programs of Landscape Architecture and Architecture at RMIT University, Melbourne.
His work and research integrates architecture and landscape spaces which seek to heighten our experience of place, by learning from and contributing to the local ecology and built typologies of site.
Tickets for the 16th International Architecture Biennale are available for purchase from La Biennale.
Past Creative Director – Guidelines
1 VERNISSAGE PASSES
Each previous Australian Pavilion Creative Director team, will receive a total two (2) x Vernissage Passes for their team. Passes will be allocated over a maximum three Biennale periods. The table below highlights the rotation.
2018
2018_Current Creative Directors
2016_Immediate Past Creative Directors
_2 x passes allocated
2014_Past Creative Directors
_2 x passes allocated
2012_Past Creative Directors
_2 x passes allocated
2020
2020_Current Creative Directors
2018_Immediate Past Creative Directors
_2 x passes allocated
2016_Past Creative Directors
_2 x passes allocated
2014_Past Creative Directors
_2 x passes allocated
2018
2018_Current Creative Directors
2016_Immediate Past Creative Directors
_2 x passes allocated
2014_Past Creative Directors
_2 x passes allocated
2016_Past Creative Directors
_2 x passes allocated
Any Creative Directors prior to 2012 will no longer automatically receive Vernissage Passes. They are of course welcome to be part of the Network Venice program or engage as a partner, however outside of this, there will not be guaranteed passes.
2 CREATIVE DIRECTORS ALUMNI
The Commissioner’s Dinner is a forty (40) seat sit-down dinner held at the Institute’s Apartment on the Grand Canal. This event is hosted by our Commissioner, Janet Holmes a Court, and therefore as the host will, in conjunction with the Institute, identify the guests that will be invited to this dinner.
In line with the above ticketing allocations, the Creative Directors that will be extended an opportunity to attend the dinner include the Current and the Immediate Past Creative Directors only. All other invited guests with be at the Institute’s discretion.
As this was a key component for many past CD’s, we would like to implement a new event, a “Venice Biennale Creative Director ALUMNI” to celebrate the past and present installations, together with networking and general comradery of the work and efforts that goes into delivering the Australian Pavilion.
This will event will take place from 10:30am – 12:30pm, on Wednesday 23 May, at the Apartment. Invitations to this will be sent directly.
3 COMMISSIONER’S COCKTAIL PARTY
All past and present Creative Directors will be provided an invitation to attend the Commissioner’s Cocktail Party on Friday 25 May 18.
Official launch video of 'Repair', the Australian Institute of Architect's installation at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Baracco+Wright Architects in collaboration with Linda Tegg. Read More
The official catalogue of the 2018 Australian Institute of Architects Venice Biennale installation Repair, is now available for purchase. This limited edition publication retails for $55.00 and is available to purchase through Books at Manic. Image: Rory… Read More
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The Australian Pavilion will host the installation of ‘Repair’, created by Baracco+Wright Architects. This exciting and unique creation will endure the six month duration and require a ‘hands-on’ volunteer team.
As a volunteer at the Biennale, you will be exposed to a unique opportunity to work with the Institute, the Australian Pavilion creative team and be part of this amazing global event. Read More
Austral Bricks is excited to be the Principal Partner of the Australian Exhibition at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. Register for your chance to be a member of the 2018 Austral Bricks Club, receiving exclusive benefits in association with the… Read More
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PRINCIPAL PARTNER
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
