Buildings and Living Things: Garden House

Description

This book documents the materiality and spaces of the Garden House by Baracco+Wright Architects through photographs by Rory Gardiner. The imagery and thoughts reflect on the dialogue of building, life and systems conceived in an ongoing project of environmental repair. This holiday house is conceived as just a little more than a tent: a deck and raised platform are covered by a transparent 'shed'; the interior perimeter 'veranda' is garden space; the soil and natural ground line are maintained and carried through; a low lying site with terrestrial orchids and lillies, flood waters seasonally move through the site unimpeded; similarly the indigenous vegetation has begun to grow inside. B+W believe in a wide role for architectural thinking beyond the individual building. All projects are approached with a particular and equal attention to the parts and the whole, to individual project conditions and to the discourse of Architecture.

Louise Wright is a co-director of Baracco + Wright Architects (B+W). She has a PhD in architecture (RMIT University) and is also a sessional lecturer in design at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. B+W believe in a wide role for architectural thinking beyond the individual building. All projects are approached with a particular and equal attention to the parts and the whole, to individual project conditions and to the discourse of architecture. Working across a diverse range of locations, from inner urban areas to sensitive rural and coastal environments, they explore how to make architecture that is generous, opportunistic and connected to a local physical environment as well as the non-physical mixed conditions of each context. They consider the potential of even very small interventions over a large scale. The work of B+W is shifting more and more towards landscape based approaches. Formerly the Deputy Dean of Landscape Architecture (2013-2015), Mauro is a member of RMIT's School of Architecture and Design executive committee and The Centre for Design Practice Research (d___ Lab) through which he leads consulting projects in partnership with industry and government bodies. Mauro is also a Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering of Milan Polytechnic, Italy. Mauro was born and educated in Italy where he practiced and taught at Turin Polytechnic and the European Institute of Design, Milan. He moved to Melbourne in 1996, where he has been an academic at RMIT since, and a director of Baracco + Wright Architects. His research explores states of integration between open and built spaces, and natural and urban environments, spanning from large territorial/urban to small site scales. Mauro's projects and writings have been widely published in books and journals (Domus, Abitare, Casabella, A+U, Transition, Architecture Australia among others), exhibited and awarded nationally and internationally, and presented at conferences and symposia.