Comments on: University of Melbourne Announces Winners / John Wardle Architects + Office dA

By: Lachmad

Lachmad — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:49:13 +0000

Not like that its not – the design went to Sean Godsell and the basement has already been dug…that article is a bit old I’m afraid…

By: Barry Hill

Barry Hill — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:51:33 +0000

RMIT have anounced a bigger and more faceted building:

http://architecture.rmit.edu.au/Projects/Swanston_Academic_Building.php

By: Rob Chant

Rob Chant — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:00:51 +0000

I don’t disagree with your sentiment at all, but why “dan, you are an amateur. get a job”? It’s just unnecessary and lowers the tone. This isn’t YouTube!

By: tomnguyen

tomnguyen — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:50:35 +0000

i love this one. need more pictures to descibe the spaces inside. the rendering is architectural. the path that seperates the plan into two looks thoughtful. support it.

By: Maqbul

Maqbul — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:23:13 +0000

Reading: "University of Melbourne Announces Winners / John Wardle Architects + Office dA | ArchDaily" (http://twitthis.com/xua7mv)

By: gir

gir — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:49:23 +0000

i heard about the politics as well.
why even bother with the competition??

too bad students never get a say in these things…

By: john

john — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:54:48 +0000

Forget U of Melbourne. Always terrible projects covered up by faux renderings.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:36:58 +0000

P.S. Something that doesn’t come up in the renders. Wardle’s buildings always have a fantastic refined materiality to them. So I’m not completely dissappointed in the future archi building :P

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:34:17 +0000

Apparently, the competition was won on politics (hooray for a panel of self-obsessed professors).

With that said, there were fundamental flaws with the other entries. Sauerbruck Hutton didn’t design on the site the building would be built (!?!?). DS+R’s was fantastic to look at, but even I doubt the spaces would work. MCR’s design actually FOROT some of the brief. DCM designed a black cube that was unimaginative and depressing (architecture students risk depression as it is…).

So it was a high quality of presentations :(

By: knuckles

knuckles — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:53:27 +0000

Has it come to this? People discussing the renders?
Does this mean they have nothing to offer? And what does it say about the quality of students that are coming through?

Melbourne Uni has missed a marvellous opourtunity to usurp RMIT and have fallen short. JWA’s typical bag of tricks with its hard angles is on show again. yawn!

By: james

james — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:28:24 +0000

as always??

By: JBA

JBA — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:45:55 +0000

I think that the plan, at least the ground floor is awful. It seems they do strange angles without consider the difficulty of construct them, and even I’m not sure this strange forms have a good spatial quality (and the third render seems to confirm what I’m saying)

By: aa

aa — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:39:08 +0000

wow, this looks bad!

By: Remkool

Remkool — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:44:42 +0000

VERY intresting work of John Wardle ….. As always

By: Jacob

Jacob — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:41:48 +0000

Fyi, the first and the last renders is not their final render, its not even their final design. The final renders and design is more in tune with the second render which I think is not that bad.

By: abby

abby — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 06:06:42 +0000

Why do you say it’s not suitable? because it challenges conventional spatial/programmatic planning? im sure if they won, issues like that would be delved deeper and there will be an interesting solution to it. the winning entry just seems boring.

yes i am staying in melbourne. are you an archi student too? maybe we can go to 7 seeds.

…wait, hold on, are you asking me out or something?

By: Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:56:00 +0000

I wouldn’t go so far as saying it’s a disappointing decision. Although I was rooting for Diller Scorfidio’s entry as well. DS + R have a very interesting spatial model but I reckon that it is not suitable for Unimelb’s Archi school program.

Abby, you wanna meet up sometime and discuss about this over a cup of coffee? If you’re staying in Melbourne though.

By: abby

abby — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:35:10 +0000

how disappointing! i was rooting for Diller Scorfidio + Renfro’s work, theirs seem so much more exciting though there def would be lots of issues and questions abt privacy. Wardle’s looks boring and conservative. Thank goodness though that DCM’s wasn’t chosen; it looks like a depressing big black box that would prob make students fall into depression everytime they enter it.

i wished the judges chose an international architect like zaha or gehry (though im not a fan…). At least students can point at the building proudly and go, ‘Our building is designed by an international starchitect!’

By: CRISTIAN

CRISTIAN — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:01:48 +0000

INTERESTING STRATEGY
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK

By: Des

Des — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:30:03 +0000

JW seem to have a building on every campus in Australia now!