Solution toolkit: Autodesk Revit Architecture, Ideate BIMLink, Microsoft Excel

BVN with Jasmax Makes 3.5 Million Combinations Workable in Minutes with Ideate BIMLink for Revit

Company

BVN Architecture of Australia is a collaborative practice widely acknowledged for both creative and award winning design. The new environments that BVN creates address the needs of people and their processes, and articulate their entire realm of culture.

Jasmax, New Zealand’s largest architectural practice, specialises not only in Architecture, but also Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning and Workplace Strategy and Engagement. The firm’s purpose or ‘reason for existence’ is to create and develop inspirational ideas and design solutions for the environments in which people live, work and play.

On a project-by-project basis, Jasmax and BVN frequently operate in strategic partnership.

Summary

One such project in partnership for BVN with Jasmax is the new seven story ASB North Wharf building in Auckland, New Zealand. The sun-soaked northern facade presented a design challenge. Specifically designed northern sun screens would need to shade the façade to maximize the efficiency of the façade and minimize the need for mechanical systems.

The sun screens were designed to reflect daylight onto the ceilings of the northern façade and importantly for the wellness of the people inside, considerably reduce glare and therefore reduce eye strain. The urban design imperative to create diversity, visual complexity and tactility underpins these solar shading solutions. The urban desire to create a composition of irregular and smaller scaled building forms is achieved by the diverse expressions wrought by the solar shading devices.

Randomization of a pattern on a grand scale would be the key to achieving the goals. Ideate, Inc. customer BVN/Jasmax had responsibility for creating the Revit file and utilization documentation. By using Ideate BIMLink, BVN/Jasmax was able to manipulate, manage and harness the large volumes of data required for randomization, an endeavor that would have been next to impossible before the advent of Ideate BIMLink for Revit.

The Challenge

To be compliant with building code regulations in Auckland, entire building facades must be shaded to specified values. The ASB North Wharf building would be no exception. An imaginative facade composed of an elaborate array of diamond-shaped panels would reduce heat in the building to specifications and provide a dramatic architectural design element, provided the panels could be randomized. Without randomization, the aesthetics would be unachievable.

The facade’s massive size complicated matters. Spanning about 60 meters, the building would stand seven stories high. A grid of steel cables would form 884 diamond shaped facade segments. Each segment would be comprised of five panels to form 4420 distinctive leaf shapes. But the count of 4420 was only the start.

Mix it Up in 3.5 Million Ways

Angular blades would make up the diamond-shaped panels. Blades of varying length and colour are both perforated and non-perforated. Additionally, a rotation factor would be included as well. With dozens of individual possibilities for permutation with each single blade, the goal was to have, as Michelle Leonard, Jasmax Associate – BIM Specialist says, “No double-ups.” The tally of possible permutations devoid of any repetition: about 3.5 million.

When the Jasmax team reviewed the design, the team response to Leonard and to Melanie Tristram, Jasmax Associate – Revit Manager was, “We have no idea how we are going to construct this in Revit. It is going to take so, so long.”

The Solution

BVN with Jasmax had already engaged in a much smaller scale project with some similar properties. In the firm’s quest for a solution, they had made online queries with Ideate and, seeing the possibilities contained within Ideate BIMLink, they had downloaded the trial version. After experiencing success with the limited Ideate BIMLink trial and further consultation with Ideate Director of Software Development, Glynnis Patterson, Jasmax became one of the early adopters of stand-alone Ideate BIMLink. According to Leonard, “At that time, we were only becoming aware of Ideate. We did not yet know we had a Pacific Rim resource for Ideate developed solutions with Daniel Smith of AEC Systems.”

Leonard explains, “The next step was to have one important BVN/Jasmax team member, Senior Architect Michael Middlebrook, go to work. Michael is our Excel guru. He wrote a script using an Excel capability that can generate random variables. With Ideate BIMLink, we could then pull data from the Revit file, have Excel arrange and manipulate the blade interactions we wanted to see, and then push the data back into Revit. The work Michael did with BIMLink let us see how the blades across the facade would appear. It took minutes instead of days.”

Conclusion

Tristram says of the use case, “The time saving represents more than the hours we did not have to spend. No one, certainly not our Revit users, wants their valuable time caught up in days of data entry. That process is unsatisfying and it is open to error. Ideate BIMLink improved our
efficiency and accuracy.”

“Ideate BIMLink allowed us harness the data on each individual blade and visualize how it would or could interact with every other one,” explains Leonard. “On each and every occasion that we wanted to explore a potential set of interactions, without BIMLink, we would have spent a day and a half of tedium. With BIMLink, we achieved each exploration in about half an hour.”

About the BVN/Jasmax Partnership

ASB North Wharf is the fourth building BVN has done in partnership with Jasmax. The partnership began more than 10 years ago with C:Drive in Albany, followed by Sovereign House in Takapuna and the more recent Air New Zealand Regional Terminal in Christchurch.

The arrangement for recent projects has included BVN as lead consultant with Jasmax as sub consultant. BVN is the design principal with Jasmax providing local knowledge on New Zealand building practice and Jasmax providing the documentation team to deliver the project.

On the ASB project, BVN relocated the project director to Auckland to lead the Jasmax documentation team until project end. The firm has successfully integrated the fitout designed and documented in Sydney with the base building documentation done in Auckland through a weekly Revit model exchange.

About Ideate, Inc.

Ideate, Inc. is a member of the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) with 25+ years experience in software development and specific focus on Building Information Modeling (BIM).

Ideate BIMLink lets users pull data from a Revit file into user-friendly Microsoft Excel and push Excel data into Revit with equal ease. www.ideatebimlink.com

Ideate Explorer for Revit, is a simple, powerful Revit add-on to explore, quantify and manage the 10,000+ building elements in your Revit model. www.ideateexplorer.com

Ideate, Inc. is a leading Autodesk solutions provider, offering quality software, training, support and custom consulting and 3D printing services to AEC professionals. Established in 1992 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Ideate is recognized as a Gold Partner for Architecture, Engineering and Construction, one of Autodesk’s highest levels of authorization. Ideate, Inc. operates five Autodesk Authorized Training Centers (ATC): San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, California; Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. Ideate facilities are Autodesk Authorized Certification Centers, providing globally recognized certification courses for professionals who sell, service and support Autodesk products and solutions. For more information visit www.ideateinc.com

Autodesk, ATC, and Revit are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. Excel is a registered trademark of Microsoft, Inc. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

THE $180 million Elysium Noosa community at Noosa Heads is undergoing a new wave of development, with a state-of-the-art recreation club under way and a range of completed designer homes, home sites and house and land packages on offer.

The $3 million recreation club is being constructed for the exclusive use of residents of Elysium Noosa. It will have an observation deck to take in lagoon views, a lap pool, tennis court, gymnasium, barbecues, residents' lounge and mixed-use fitness and leisure zones.

Located at the heart of the masterplanned Elysium Noosa community, the recreation club is due for completion in September.

Elysium Noosa is situated in one of Noosa's most sought-after precincts, just minutes from the tantalising restaurants and cafes of Hastings Street, unspoilt beaches and manicured golf courses.

Home buyers are now able to step straight into a new architect-designed home at Elysium Noosa for between $895,000 and $1.095 million.

The limited collection of designer homes, by Arkhefield Architects, Bark Design Architects, Bligh Voller Nield and Lahz Nimmo Architects, have three or four bedrooms, an individual design and top-shelf fittings and finishes and are currently discounted by between 50% and 67% from their original asking price.

Buyers can also choose from a range of house and land packages, priced from $670,000, or select a home site, being offered across three individual precincts, priced from $325,000 and sized from 427sq m to 920sq m.

AV Jennings chief operating officer Mark Henesey-Smith said now was an opportune time to buy at Elysium Noosa.

"The Rec Club will be the heartbeat of the community and feature a range of facilities that will add to the lifestyle on offer to our residents," he said.

"Home buyers also have a limited opportunity to select from our collection of completed homes, designed by some of Australia's most respected architectural practices. The opportunity to step straight into a new home of this calibre, at this value, is extremely rare.

"For those who prefer to build their own home we also have a selection of home sites and house and land packages on offer at Elysium Noosa."

Visit the sales centre at Elysium Drive, Noosa Heads, between 10am and 4pm daily, visit elysiumnoosa.com.au or call 5474 8663.

NOOSA HEADS

Elysium Drive

What: Elysium Noosa residential community

Features: Master-planned residential community, state-of-the-art recreation club due for completion in September

Price: New architect-designed homes from $895,000, house and land packages from $670,000, home sites from $325,000

Contact: Elysium Noosa sales centre, Elysium Drive, Noosa Heads, between 10am and 4pm daily, visit elysiumnoosa.com.au or call 5474 8663

Art usually hangs in galleries, confining the love it/hate it conundrum indoors. When the art is architecture, the result is a building in full public view – an object of civic pride or shame.

But while aesthetics may divide general opinion, at least the experts know what they like, with Arkhefield's River Quay at South Bank named Building of the Year at this year's Brisbane Regional Architecture Awards.

In claiming the prize won last year by the designers of Boggo Road's Ecosciences Precinct along with a handful of other gongs, the local firm received high praise. According to the jury, the design “enriches its river and gardens setting”.

Advertisement: Story continues below So much was achieved by tapping into a “unique Queensland feel and culture”, according to Arkhefield principal Andrew Gutteridge who said the building's other core strength was its community appeal.

“It has promoted a greater understanding of, and appreciation for, architecture and is an area which everyone can enjoy,” he said.

“Being so close to the river, it gives people the opportunity to get close to it, touch it and be a part of something that celebrates Brisbane.

“[River Quay] has re-imagined the public realm and created an iconic river edge destination for South Bank and the city.”

Though Mr Gutteridge admitted the firm had a prime site to work with. With a northeast aspect and choice riverfront location, creating a “modern interpretation of the Queensland vernacular” was a natural next-step.

The building will now go on to battle other regional category winners from around Queensland ahead of the Australian Institute of Architects' State Awards Reception in June. Competitors include the Robina Hospital Expansion by BVN Architecture at the Gold Coast and JMA Architects' Stage 3 of the Viridian Noosa Resort.

Other Brisbane designs recognised as part of the awards included the inner-city Four-Room Cottage designed by Owen and Vokes, named House of the Year, and Burnett Laneway bar Super Whatnot by Mar&Co in collaboration with Nielsen Workshop which was commended for Small Project Architecture.

“Queensland architecture has matured and grown to have its own distinctive style and quality,” Mr Gutteridge said.

“Clients and the public are more and more understanding and appreciating Queensland architecture and they want to, and will, see more of it as the state continues to grow.”

Winners of the state awards are to be announced at AIA reception in June.

The Mabel Fidler Building forms a new entry and centre for learning at Ravenswood School for Girls and functions as the central hub within the school environment.

The design of this building was initiated through a master planning process focused on creating an attractive, imaginative and stimulating learning environment.

The building has been designed as a mixed-mode building that is able to operate completely with natural ventilation.

We are sure all the children will be well behaved in this building!

From tickets to surfaces, security to architecture, Australian companies are helping to put together the London Olympics, PHILLIP THOMSON writes

NEIL FERGUS is the former Australian diplomat helping protect the world's athletes from terrorists at this year's Olympic Games in London.

Like any Olympic Games post-September 11, there is no expense spared on security. Fighter planes armed with missiles will patrol British air space.

On the ground, a total of 10,000 police will lead security operations, supported by another 13,500 from the armed forces.

Advertisement: Story continues below And then there's Fergus, 55, a former Canberra public servant who is now chief executive of his own private security consultancy firm with its headquarters in Sydney.

His company, Intelligent Risks, may have a seven-year association with the London Olympic Games but his business actually started with an opposing team.

''We helped Rio de Janeiro with its bid for the 2012 Olympics,'' says Fergus, whose experience in the global security industry has involved multiple kidnap and ransom negotiations across Asia and in South and Central America.

''We put our heart and soul into Rio's bid.''

Even though Intelligent Risks has offices across the world, it does not work with cities competing with each other to host the same Olympic Games.

Instead it waits for the winning city to be announced.

Fergus happily explains the victorious city will usually ask for his company's security expertise anyway.

''We're world leaders,'' he says.

''If you provide security in an unwieldy way, it slows down construction.''

His company does not ''sell equipment or rent guards''.

Instead, it develops security strategies.

Intelligent Risks' role with the Olympic Games in London will not end until Britain's biggest sporting event is over.

It did a risk analysis of London's Olympic Park and its advice has helped guard the London Olympics under construction. It is currently advising on the transition of London Olympic Park from the Olympic Delivery Authority to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

When not advising Olympic committees or countries bidding for the Games - his company is currently advising Tokyo on security issues for its 2020 bid - his business has been involved in a number of what he calls ''K and Rs'' - kidnap and ransom situations.

Often his company is called in to negotiate with kidnappers and work with the family of the hostages by the insurance company Lloyds of London.

Fergus says he spent 21 years in the Australian public sector. At one point he was a diplomat with the Department of Foreign Affairs and returned to Canberra from a posting to London in 1997.

After coming home he was asked to manage the federal government's security for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

It was during the afterglow of the Sydney Olympics that he established his company.

There is a long list of Australian businesses now serving Olympic Games events worldwide. The Sydney Olympic Games more than a decade ago created a sector of Australian companies specialising in the Olympic industry, according to architect James Grose, principal of Sydney firm BVN Architecture.

''We got our experience back in Sydney [in 2000]. Now you find Australians everywhere - a whole profession of Olympic Games consultants.''

His company is contracted to help design the athletes village. Its contract is with the builder Lend Lease, another Australian company. Lend Lease's contract, valued at $13 billion in 2007, was to develop the athletes village.

Grose says BVN Architecture was brought in soon after. After they started designing, the global financial crisis struck. The plans had to be substantially changed to include more pre-fabricated materials to be bolted onto the buildings. The buildings themselves had to be simplified.

''There were more than a few torrid moments,'' Grose says. ''There were many layers of English bureaucracy at play.''

Most at risk was the longevity of the buildings which Londoners will live in for another 100 years once the athletes leave. What's left are Parisian-style residential apartments buildings, spanning entire blocks with courtyards in the centre.

Grose is happy with the overall result, which he describes as a ''fantastic urban experiment''. ''The real quality of the village is its urban character,'' he says.

Much of the character will be attained once the athletes leave and the precinct of Stratford matures organically with its residents. When the athletes leave, the apartments will be modified. False walls currently splitting living rooms to make extra bedrooms for the athletes will be pulled out once the competitors leave. At the moment the athletes will eat in mess halls. so additions will need to be made to kitchen facilities.

Among all this work, a clutch of expert Australians are busy beavering away: building, designing, selling tickets to events, or putting grass down on hockey fields. And they ensure that no matter the results on the track, in the pool or in other sports, Australia will win gold financially.

Auckland Theatre Company is delighted to announce ASB Community Trust will contribute $5m to the new theatre proposed for the Wynyard Quarter.

The contribution takes the total pledged to the new theatre $21.7m. The total amount needed to build the new 600 seat venue is $35.1m.

"We are thrilled to have ASB Community Trust's support for this visionary project, which will provide Auckland residents and visitors with a world class theatre going experience for generations to come," says Auckland Theatre Company General Manager, Lester McGrath.

In announcing the $5m contribution from ASB Community Trust, Chair Ken Whitney said the Trust was inspired by what has been achieved by working in partnership with other funders.

"The Trust is both proud and delighted to be able to make a substantial contribution to what will be a world class theatre for Auckland," he said.

"Large scale projects such as this inevitably require a number of funding partners to work together collaboratively to realise a shared vision.  In a relatively short time this approach has endowed our city with a number of iconic buildings such as the magnificently refurbished art gallery, Q Theatre, the Eden Park stadium redevelopment, the extensions to the War Memorial Museum, MOTAT and the Auckland Zoo, to name a few.  The ASBCT has made a significant contribution to each of these projects and we are excited to be an early key funder for the ATC's stunning new theatre here in the Wynyard Quarter.

 "This is about building infrastructure," Mr Whitney said. "The building itself is going to be a huge asset for our city, but what's more important is the potential it offers to develop the region's cultural resources.

"ASB Community Trust has been a long-term supporter of ATC. We've also put a lot of resource into our emerging artists programme, in partnership with the Auckland Theatre Company. This cutting-edge facility is going to give those young artists something to aspire to."

The new theatre will be located on the corner of Halsey St and Jellicoe St. alongside the new office building being built by Kiwi Income Property Trust which will house ASB Bank's head office.

Designed by Moller Architects in association with Bligh Voller Nield, the new theatre will add a significant cultural dimension to Auckland's waterfront.

"Not only will stimulate the 'after 5pm' economy in the Wynyard Quarter, generating additional spending of $8.59m per annum in the Quarter, it will fill a major gap in Auckland's current theatre provision," says ATC's Lester McGrath.

The new theatre will share a public lane way, court yard and 200 studio theatre with ASB Bank, which is a cornerstone partner of the project.

Auckland Theatre Company will be the anchor tenant of the new theatre, using the space for 30 weeks a year, with other significant New Zealand and international performing arts companies able to use it for the remainder of the year.

ASB Community Trust join the new theatre's other major funder The Lion Foundation who have contributed $1m to the project.

Detailed design for the new theatre is 90% complete. Construction is likely to start in early 2013 with the theatre opening in mid 2014. 

ASB Community Trust Contributes $5 Million to Visionary New Theatre Project

Auckland Theatre Company is delighted to announce ASB Community Trust will contribute $5m to the new theatre proposed for the Wynyard Quarter.

The contribution takes the total pledged to the new theatre $21.7m. The total amount needed to build the new 600 seat venue is $35.1m.

"We are thrilled to have ASB Community Trust's support for this visionary project, which will provide Auckland residents and visitors with a world class theatre going experience for generations to come," says Auckland Theatre Company General Manager, Lester McGrath.

In announcing the $5m contribution from ASB Community Trust, Chair Ken Whitney said the Trust was inspired by what has been achieved by working in partnership with other funders.

"The Trust is both proud and delighted to be able to make a substantial contribution to what will be a world class theatre for Auckland," he said.

"Large scale projects such as this inevitably require a number of funding partners to work together collaboratively to realise a shared vision. In a relatively short time this approach has endowed our city with a number of iconic buildings such as the magnificently refurbished art gallery, Q Theatre, the Eden Park stadium redevelopment, the extensions to the War Memorial Museum, MOTAT and the Auckland Zoo, to name a few. The ASBCT has made a significant contribution to each of these projects and we are excited to be an early key funder for the ATC's stunning new theatre here in the Wynyard Quarter.

"This is about building infrastructure," Mr Whitney said. "The building itself is going to be a huge asset for our city, but what's more important is the potential it offers to develop the region's cultural resources.

"ASB Community Trust has been a long-term supporter of ATC. We've also put a lot of resource into our emerging artists programme, in partnership with the Auckland Theatre Company. This cutting-edge facility is going to give those young artists something to aspire to."

The new theatre will be located on the corner of Halsey St and Jellicoe St. alongside the new office building being built by Kiwi Income Property Trust which will house ASB Bank's head office.

Designed by Moller Architects in association with Bligh Voller Nield, the new theatre will add a significant cultural dimension to Auckland's waterfront.

"Not only will stimulate the 'after 5pm' economy in the Wynyard Quarter, generating additional spending of $8.59m per annum in the Quarter, it will fill a major gap in Auckland's current theatre provision," says ATC's Lester McGrath.

The new theatre will share a public lane way, court yard and 200 studio theatre with ASB Bank, which is a cornerstone partner of the project.

Auckland Theatre Company will be the anchor tenant of the new theatre, using the space for 30 weeks a year, with other significant New Zealand and international performing arts companies able to use it for the remainder of the year.

ASB Community Trust join the new theatre's other major funder The Lion Foundation who have contributed $1m to the project.

Detailed design for the new theatre is 90% complete. Construction is likely to start in early 2013 with the theatre opening in mid 2014.

After months of brainstorming, discussion, sketches and mock-ups, it's almost time for the much-anticipated installations for The Project as part of Brisbane Indesign to be unveiled.

Our exhibitors and designers have been busy getting creative about the idea of Common Thread, what it means to them and how they can interpret it spatially and visually.

The Project is always a major drawcard at Saturday Indesign events as designers let their imaginations run wild and exhibitors showcase their products in ways they've never been seen before.

This year at Brisbane Indesign looks set to be no different, with an impressive lineup of collaborations.

Argent + QUT 3rd Year Interior Design Students - interpreting luxury in an open bathroom design creating a relaxing, soothing environment in an unconventional manner.

Café Culture + QUT 3rd Year Interior Design Students - a concept based around nature as a powerful energy uniting design and manufacturing.

Chairbiz + Various Artists - 10 artists will interpret the Common Thread theme in a live painting session at the Chairbiz showroom.

Coco Republic + Smeg + HASSELL - The Gallery Project, exploring art in design with the Smeg and Oly San Francisco collections.

Cosh Living + Bosanquet Foley Architects + QUT 3rd Year Interior Design Projects - (see image at top) transforming paper into three different resolutions, using traditional craft forms to reflect hero pieces of furniture throughout the showroom.

Indesign Group + Fireworks Gallery + PDT + QUT 3rd Year Interior Design Students - finding a Common Thread of inspiration between magazines and the output of design professionals; blurring the boundaries between the two.

Inspiration Office + Woodhead + QUT 3rd Year Interior Design Students - exploring the notion of an interconnected and interdependent Brisbane design community, supported by Quadric. The elements of Fortitude Valley will be represented in a unique structure that will appear to grow throughout the day.

King Furniture + David Hicks - 'Work, Rest and Play' is the theme, each word interpreted in a different way and letting visitors engage with the furniture in the showroom.

Living Edge + Bolon for TAG + Woods Bagot + QUT 3rd Year Interior Design Students - creating a 'choose your own adventure'-style journey through the showroom, encouraging interactivity and literally bringing the theme to life.

Luxxbox/OBJX + Geyer + QUT 3rd Year Interior Design Students - merging design with graffit, transforming the showroom into an interactive tunnel complete with photo opportunities!

Mafi + HASSELL + QUT Students - an ever-evolving installation that combines repetition, balance and harmony for a unique visual experience.

Space Furniture + BVN - a weaver's loom of vectors will create an immersive environment across all levels of the showroom.

Zenith + Various Designers - a large scale concept puzzle called SPWY will challenge teams to see how quickly teams of 3 can assemble the SPWY into a star-shape.

Live it up Hollywood style, less than two hours out of Sydney.

Moments after you arrive at Mending Wall, an eerie calm descends. This magnificent contemporary house is a rare commodity in the Blue Mountains: it has stunning views of the distant lights of Sydney punctuated only by the occasional chirp of birdsong.

The birdsong comes with responsibility and you need to arrive fully stocked with supplies. The closest shop is a 45-minute drive away – admittedly a drive through the lush valleys of Mount Wilson and Mount Irvine.

The owners of the property, Peter Cudlipp and Barbara Schmidt, have their roots in the television and design industries and it’s mark of the building’s success that such a modern space fits in such an isolated location. It was designed by BVN Architecture and was shortlisted in the 2009 World Architecture Festival.

Cudlipp and Schmidt say they wanted a house that allowed in the maximum natural light. And that they have achieved. When you lie back in this secluded retreat, you are treated to a sweeping vista across beautiful cold climate gardens filled with ferns and eucalypts. Some visitors may choose to go for long rambling walks, but we preferred to plunder the well-resourced library before settling in front of a majestic fire. We couldn’t immediately find the Robert Frost poetry collection after which the property was names, but I devoured a stack of New Yorker magazines while my partner flicked through an impressive catalogue of film screenplays including Annie Hall and Chinatown. A bottle of Moet – here on our arrival – helped us stir the baby grand into action.

And there’s plenty to admire from the piano stool too: Louis Poulsen lights, Thomas Jacobsen tables and the classic Eames lounge chair and ottoman.

Undoubtedly the focal point is the kitchen, which is a joy to cook in with its Smeg appliances, Global knives, de Buyer pans and every kind of cup, bowl, knife, blender and coffee maker available. One evening we sparked up the enormous Weber BBQ and dined at the foot of the garden as the sun set.

The owner’s art collection is also an unexpected highlight. Six lithographs from New Zealand artist Shane Cotton five real warmth o the hallway linking the entertaining area with two guest bedrooms. A bold series of paintings by Minnie Pwerle is eye-catching above the fireplace, as are several sculptures scattered through the garden.

A mud room filled with gumboots of all sizes and colours is a nod to the rain that is part of the mix. An outdoor spa is a nice place to sit back and admire the stars before retreating to a king-sized bed on the first floor with stunning views over the valley.

The name Ninotschka Titchkosky suggests a countess out of Anna Jarenina or some bored provincial from the pages of Chekhov. But the strawberry-blonde Victorian director of architects Bligh Voller Nield is earthy and unaffectedly Australian. Sassy yet casual, she wears faded jeans and a blouse on the day we meet for a chat at a Flinders Lane café. She grew up in Sydney’s northern suburbs and her accents, with its expressive Aussie diphthongs, still bears their stamp.

Titchkosky is one of an increasing number of women taking on leadership roles in a profession hitherto dominated by a pantheon of male gods. In Australia, Seidler, Murcutt and Leplastrier have ruled the architectural roost for decades.

Years after graduating from a class at the University of Sydney, Titchkosky is one of three female principals at BVN. At the same time, she has benefitted enormously from the guidance of three of the men who taught her at university and employed her soon afterwards: Alex Popov, Richard Francis-Jones and BVN’s Lawrence Nield. “Lawrence was always a bit of a mentor and still likes to think of me as his student in an endearing way,” she says.

The professional landscape, she believes, has changed for women but, given her experiences – the influence of “nurturing” men some years her senior and her surefooted rise to the position of principal – she is disinclined to put too much weight on the gender question. “Being a woman does pose unique challenges,” she says. “But then architecture as a profession is not without its challenges.”

There is nothing conventionally feminine about her values or work practices. She’s fond of “big, fluid, expressive, robust buildings”, enjoys the problem solving side of architecture and the hard work of resolving complex geometries. She shows a marked preference for warm finished in wood; for materials that take their colours from the landscape. “I’m not one for over decoration,” she admits. “I like a natural palette of materials. They have a timeless quality and a tactility that’s important.”

When not running BVN’s Melbourne operations she is at home on the Mornington Peninsula, where she rises early most morning to take one of her horses for a ride.

Titchkosky’s father was a pilot who flew commercial planes for Qantas; her mother imported European fashion labels such as Givenchy and Yves Saint Laurent.  Dad was away a lot and her mother led the family of four girls and one boy. “It was a family of strong females,” she recalls. Her mother “believed we could do anything.”

Looking back on her time at Ravenswood School for Girls, in Gordon, she feels that she was “reasonably balanced”: a good student though not school captain material. Things came full circle when she designed a new leaning centre for the school, completed by BVN late last year. That project was born of a process of thorough consultation with the school community about its needs, which included a mixture of quiet and public spaces and plenty of green features.

She recently orchestrated a significant pro bono work – a community hall for the bushfire ravaged Victorian town of Narbethong – and there, too, she spent a good 12 months deep in conversation with residents. The result is a beautifully modeled fire-proof timber hall with some of the meditative qualities of a memorial. A structure of polished rusticity orientated around communal needs, its interior is finished almost entirely of timber. An undulating pier of 4.2m-high timber slats evokes both forest and chapel. The community hall’s warmth and humanity is of apiece with much of her work, all of which begins in the old-fashioned way – as sketch on paper.

A Monash University student housing project, opened this year, also reflects her values. Unlike so much modern work of this mass type, the 600 apartment building is no monolith. Split into two facing blocks, it is graced with an articulated exterior finished in spotted gum and a cleverly designed interior situated around a fulcrum of spacious, well-appointed double story common rooms. Students in the common rooms enjoy a clear view of those circulating around the stairs and linking corridors, and vice versa: a humane innovation designed to guard against the introversion and atomization that has plagued student housing in the past. It’s large scale design with a heart.

In her own student days she was drawn, she says, to architects “pushing boundaries” and was fascinated by Zaha Hadid and Enric Miralled. She remembers challenging some of her university teachers: “You always want us to design boxes, but I don’t want to design boxes.”

It’s when real world problems lend themselves to creative solutions through architecture that Titchkosky finds her chosen profession not only satisfying by “thrilling” too. There is vague disappointment that she hasn’t fulfilled the youthful promise of firebrand who wanted to “push the boundaries” but what has emerged instead is an approach to design that fuses humanity , warmth and intellectual agility, and a recognition, when reflecting on her own career trajectory, that “you don’t have to rock the world every time you do something.”

The Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 burned over 4,500 km² (450,000 hectares, 1.1 million acres), resulted in the lost of 173 people’s lives and injured over 400 people. The damage to the areas surrounding Melbourne was extensive and disastrous and included the loss of the Narbethong Community Hall, the only public space for residents of the area. Even before, the timber building lacked in adequate facilities for the community and was defenseless bushfires. BVN Architecture, with the help of ARUP, donated their services to design a new hall with improved facilities, one that would have a more direct connection with the surrounding landscape and most importantly, would meet new fireproof building codes. According to Ninotschka Titchkosky, Principal of BVN, “As Narbethong’s only public venue, the hall is the heart of the community. It is a space where local people can come together for meetings, recreation, celebrations and commiserations. In a small country community, a building like this holds great importance.”

The structure was built to meet Bushfire attack levels BAL 29, be low maintenance, and survive on its own in case of fire so the community could focus on their homes and businesses. A fireproof bronze mesh encases the building and eliminates the chance of embers passing through and catching the building on fire. The inner structure is formed from floor to ceiling double-paned glass supported by fire-retardant Blackbutt timber mullions. Roof penetrations were limited to minimize the chance of embers falling into the building. Tilt up screens on the north and south raise up to increase light penetration inside the building and can be shut when the building is not in use. Inside, curvy, moveable timber walls separate the main room from the bathrooms, kitchen and flexible meeting rooms.

Eco-friendly $132.1m harbour-side structure waiting for ventilation funnel

The funnel topping off the new $132.1 million ASB North Wharf building rising in the Wynyard Quarter will be barged to the site this month.

Derek Shortt, ASB property manager, said the structure was conceived by the bank working with Australian architect James Gross of BVN. It was being built by NZ Yachting Developments at Hobsonville and would be brought to the site by sea.

Pure Design & Engineering, a consultancy specialising in advanced composite structures with a focus on the marine industry, designed the funnel, he said.

"It's a funnel because it's like a chimney. It allows air to come into the centre. It's round, like a boat. We thought we could never build it in-situ so we designed it and Yachting Developments tendered for it and got it," he said.

The funnel is a natural ventilation system, the first of its kind in New Zealand. It is designed to bring cool air into the building, operating about a third of the year, during the hottest months and the shoulder seasons, Shortt said.

The side of the funnel facing away from the prevailing wind will be kept open while the funnel facing the direction of the wind will be kept shut.

The building, which faces the new Wynyard Quarter restaurants and the tram line, has other passive eco-friendly systems.

The carpark on level one of the building on reclaimed land will be naturally ventilated. Shops and the primary plant room will be on ground level.

The electricity supply is unusual.

"Power comes from the floor up, not the roof down," Shortt said, referring to elimination of what he referred to as umbilical cords, the dangling unsightly roof-to-desk cables so common in offices.

"Energy costs will be lower," he predicted, from an existing average $145/sq m operating costs which he expects to be closer to $85/sq m at the new building although these charges include insurance, air conditioning and electricity so is not just a measure of energy consumption, he said.

Shortt referred to the interlinked structures as building 22 and 23, standing either side of Te Whero Lane.

Takapuna's Sovereign House was also designed by Gross working with Shortt.

One institutional investor with units in the building, owner Kiwi Income Property Trust, had a few qualms.

"It's going to be really unique which is due to the current tenant who has signed a lease sufficiently long term that it makes sense to do it financially.

"It will be 20 years time before that's tested. Commercial development folk might have done things a little differently.

"The facilities are what the tenant wanted but if you were doing it as a spec building, you might do it differently.

"The design, externally, is going to be interesting. Kiwi have made provision that if they had to, they could bring in another tenant."

Fletcher Construction's team, led by project director Alan Gray, is working for Kiwi whose chief executive, Chris Gudgeon, said the block would be the country's most advanced from a sustainability, service and environmental point of view.

NORTH WHARF
* Owner: Kiwi Income Property Trust.
* Tenant: ASB Bank.
* Location: Corner Jellicoe St/Halsey St, Wynyard Quarter.
* Builder: Fletcher Construction.
* Bank staff: To move around June, 2013.
* Project book: Released around July, 2013.

Landscape, light and colour used to support a salutogenic approach to hospital design

Robina Hospital forms part of the infrastructure of Queensland’s Gold Coast Health Service District, delivering public health services to the region. The Robina Hospital Expansion project has transformed a small local hospital into a major regional health facility. The design promotes the modern healthcare environment as a place of wellness, and also a workplace for highly skilled staff.

Two key architectural design concepts evident throughout the project are the use of landscaped courtyards to provide a framework for the design along with the selective application of colour. Existing courtyards were a key factor in the development of the design concept as these were considered strong, positive features of the hospital. The combination of existing and new courtyards afford pleasant outlooks from internal spaces, enhance wayfinding, introduce natural light, create a sub-tropical landscaped ambience and provide visual amenity.

The controlled application of colour to building elements across the project, provides visual interest, energy and creates a non-institutional feel. The use of colour assists with wayfinding and is intended to give the expanded hospital a strong identity.

At the urban scale, the new building provides a landmark for motorists entering Robina, using a simple material palette and clean architectural forms to offer legibility to the hospital plan. At the scale of the hospital, the design reveals a further level of complexity and delight by using the predominant façade textures and forms with hints of added colour against a backdrop of simple silver cladding to lead the visitor into the vibrant courtyard spaces.

The calm greens of the Southern Courtyard, the bright orange of the Education Courtyard, or the vibrant Linear Courtyard with its yellows, oranges and reds, all offer positive distraction, providing relief and warmth as a counterpoint to a user experience which often coincides with difficult, stressful or uncertain times.

Technology and a younger workforce are reshaping the office, writes Catherine Armitage.

Here's something new for the ''prairie dog'' office workers with their heads up over the partition, sniffing the workplace wind.

The open plan office is on the way out, falling victim to dramatic shifts in the way people work and better understanding of the relationship between built environments and behaviour.

''I think the so-called open plan office has seen its heyday,'' says James Grose, national director of BVN Architecture. ''As a generic applique it is very simplistic and that is now being exposed.''

The mantra is "work is a thing you do, not a place you go".

Frank Lloyd Wright dreamed up the open plan prototype for the Larkin Soap Company in Buffalo, Texas, in 1902, then refined it with his ''Great Workroom'' for Johnson Wax in Wisconsin 30 years later. Ever since, it has been the layout of choice for employers. It is cost effective, supposedly egalitarian, conducive to worker collaboration and makes it easy to keep an eye on employees.

But workers assailed by the constant racket of their colleagues have had less reason to like it than bosses content in their quiet perimeter offices. Despite partitions and cubicles, open plan has never resolved the conflicting requirements of chatty collaboration versus concentrated quiet work.

Now, mobile work technologies have done away with the need for fixed work stations. Health studies have conclusively shown the inadvisability of sitting for a long time in one place. Up and coming Gen Y workers have made clear their disdain for traditional work environments. So it's farewell, open plan and hello, activity-based workplace, or ABW.

Forget allocated desks and offices. In its purest expression, the new ''workplace philosophy'' pioneered by Dutch consultancy Veldhoen + Company does away with territorial work spaces so people can ''work independently of time and place''. The mantra, as adopted by Microsoft, is that ''work is a thing you do, not a place you go''.

Microsoft, Macquarie Bank, the Commonwealth Bank, GPT Group and Jones Lang LaSalle are among the large corporates to have adopted ABW for their Sydney offices. In practice, it means creating diverse work environments so people can choose where and how they work at any given time, whether at a workstation, in a lounge area, a cafe, a quiet area or a meeting space, according to what they are doing and how they are feeling.

''People are increasingly conscious about the quality of the space they work in and don't want to be locked away in the same area,'' says Simon Swaney, a joint managing director of leading interior design firm Bates Smart.

At the same time, the social movement for work-life balance is encouraging employers to judge workers on the basis of performance not attendance. The limitations of communicating by electronic means alone are well recognised, and management is realising ''the benefit that arises out of knowledge sharing and collaboration''. It all adds up to more flexible working environments, says Swaney.

With wireless technology, a laptop and a mobile phone, ''everyone can move from space to space and hardware isn't an inhibitor'', says Amanda Stanaway, a senior associate with Woods Bagot, who did the ABW fitout for Macquarie Banking and Finance at 1 Shelley Street, near King Street Wharf on the western fringe of the Sydney central business district.

The spaces place greater emphasis than open plan layouts on collective or collaborative work, but not at the expense of quiet solo time.

''The key to these environments is bringing people together [with their laptops] to do things together and get an outcome. Instead of a meeting ending with 25 things on the to-do list it is … actually doing the work,'' Stanaway says.

A ''pretty compelling cost advantage'' is propelling companies towards ABW, according to Grose. With studies showing about 40 per cent of the workforce are out of the office at any given time, companies are loath to pay for redundant space. By trading off individual territory for shared areas, their floor space requirements can be reduced by 20 to 40 per cent. Macquarie estimates its space-saving through ABW at 20 per cent.

Technology companies with their Gen Y workforces have been early adopters of the activity-based workplace. But designers caution that it doesn't suit all kinds of work. Says Niall Durney, senior design architect of PTW Architects, ''Software industries tend to have a huge amount of playful stuff where staff can disconnect from their work, like Google playing table tennis as a meeting to discuss ideas.''

''The software industry, because it is such a younger generation, they are comfortable having a skateboard going around the place, whereas you're not likely to have that in a bank where they are all suited and booted.''

The worry, Grose says, is ABW becoming ''just another excuse to roll out product''. Add lounges, bean bags, cafe furniture, libraries and interactive whiteboards to your standard workstation order. But the companies that get great results are those that ''engage very deeply into the organisation, talk with everyone, and importantly, everyone participates''.

''If you want potential out of people, you don't foist something on them but engage with them and let them … craft the solution which is appropriate,'' Grose says.

The law firm Clayton Utz spent four years ''getting our culture right for the move'' before shifting to 1 Bligh Street in the Sydney CBD less than a year ago, says Julie Levis, who oversaw the shift as managing partner and is now a real estate partner. Staff focus groups worked to identify the firm's culture and vision for 20 years hence, with the fitout designed to match by Bates Smart.

Levis says the legal staff, accustomed to individual offices sized according to status and seniority, had ''zero appetite'' for open plan. But a solution to retaining acoustic privacy while gaining a greater sense of connection with colleagues was achieved with glass offices, all of standard size, radiating 270 degrees around a central ''village'' of secretarial support staff.

Glass offices, glass lifts, a central atrium allowing views to other floors, all means ''you really do feel part of a bigger whole, you can see everybody''.

But does it make for a more productive workplace? Levis acknowledges she has no numbers to prove that the new workplace has led to improved work. But the staff are ''very happy'', there has been ''enormous positive feedback from staff and clients'', and ''it certainly feels like we are all working together really well in this building''.

The assumption that a desirable workspace leads to higher productivity lacks an evidence base, Stanaway explains. ''It is actually a really grey area'', she says. The difficulty is separating the effect of changes in work practices - such as using less paper, collaborating more, moving around the office - from the effect of changes in the spaces themselves.

''A lot of the work we are all doing at the moment is to actually find a way of really strongly attributing it to workplace, because obviously lots of different factors go into major productivity change,'' Stanaway says.

''Architects are not the ones that say productivity increases,'' Grose says. ''Architects say that if people are in respectful environments, creative environments, human environments … with humanly appropriate materials, people will automatically feel more centred or comfortable or at ease. Therefore you can say on a very, very broad level, space can affect behaviour.''

''But space will not affect productivity,'' he says. It's the human factors - ''how people are treated and what their intellectual satisfaction is'' - that count.

The Mabel Fidler Building forms a new entry and centre for learning at Ravenswood School for Girls and functions as the central hub within the school environment. The design of this building was initiated through a master planning process focused on creating an attractive, imaginative and stimulating learning environment.

The Mabel Fidler Building is designed to be in scale with the existing school buildings and be seen as a modern insertion into a campus of varied buildings. Site accessibility due to level changes and difficulty of way finding has always been an issue for the school, along with the useability of external areas. The Mabel Fidler Building project is designed to address these issues.

A new main entry to Henry Street will aid site security; currently numerous entries do not allow ease of monitoring school visitors. The new entry courtyard at the heart of the proposal provides an external space for the school community, partially covered while providing maximum usability. Administration and the new Junior and Senior libraries address the courtyard along with the new café that links the courtyard to the oval.

The lower levels are designed to provide a solid base to the building, reminiscent of the masonry materials used in the existing campus. The upper levels are designed in steel with a translucent cladding and significant cantilevers which appear to hover over the base, providing weather protection and covered outdoor areas. A large canopy roof floats over the buildings that front the oval, creating a new urban scaled verandah to the major public space of the school and allowing the building to be read from the Pacific Highway across the oval.

The building aims to bring together both passive and active design solutions to sustainability and allow the initiatives to be utilised in the education program for the girls. The building has been designed as a mixed-mode building that is able to operate completely with natural ventilation. Conversely, on extreme weather condition days, the space can be air conditioned. In order to achieve this, the building features a double-skin façade that creates a cavity that in winter is kept closed to retain heat and in summer opens automatically to release heat.

The scheme provides much needed vertical and horizontal connectivity for the school. The proposal unifies both landscape and environmentally sustainable design principals. The facilities allow for best practice and ensure the school’s philosophy of flexibility and an individual approach to teaching and learning.