The entries are in, juries announced and architects across South Australia will be honing their presentation skills for Saturday 24th March.
This year we are making a day of it with closure of Leigh Street and a welcome to all of you and your friends to come and experience architecture as it is presented by its authors.
Presentations will be occurring in ODASA and also in the Institute with the opportunity to enjoy the hospitality and sign up for a Modernist Adelaide walking tour as you stroll through Leigh Street between the two venues.
As an architect, what better way to hone your presentation skills than by watching your contemporaries present and explain their finest work. It will be a day of celebration of our profession and of those projects where clients, architects and project teams have aligned to make positive contributions to our community.
Positive contribution will also be a focus this year in consideration of the awards process.
Two years ago Vanessa Bird as President of the Institute in Victoria suggested a theme for their awards to be ‘public benefit to communities’.
This year we will be doing the same.
In a year when we will receive many pre and post-election announcements of infrastructure opportunities and where we are seeing the commencement of some significant projects in both public and private sectors, it is fitting that we consider architecture in the context of what benefit it can bring to our communities beyond its basic brief.
This Thursday at the Jury briefing breakfast I will be suggesting to our jurors that they consider projects in the context of the additional value they offer which reaches further than their direct stakeholders. Those presenting projects should think about the moves they made which were not necessary but added public benefit, and our citations will celebrate these extra contributions to our community.
We know that while architecture is commissioned with a site specific focus it is in our training to think more broadly and this year we will publicise the fact that we can turn focussed investment into a wider benefit simply through our professional skills as architects.
Mario Dreosti
SA Chapter President
Managing Director Brown Falconer