ARCHITECTS OF AMBITION

Architecture must challenge and remake its own boundaries for it to survive. There is no other manifesto for the young.
Architecture Bulletin, September 1995

Within the larger discourse of architecture there currently exists a brilliant diversity in the manner of practicing. From small to big, making to manifesto, client to community, future influencers within the profession will come with many and varied motivations. Tasked with identifying who these individuals might be, we sought to recognise a series of future ambitions for practice, identifying a shift in the manner of practicing and the progression from graduate to established practitioner that can be traced through these themes.

Two previous editions of Architecture Bulletin have been constructed on a similar pretext. In 1990, Peter Tonkin guest edited an edition titled ‘6 New Works’, which profiled projects by six emerging practices including Julie Cracknell and Peter Lonergan, Andrew Stanic and Andrew Harding, Graham Jahn, Ian Moore, Stephen Varady and Sam Marshall. Within the work profiled, there is an acceptance of commonality across type, scale and ambition but also a larger editorial claim regarding a shared Sydney sensibility, where spatial articulation and architectonics is prized over the cerebral, cultural commentary of our Victorian friends.

In 1995, those profiled in 1990 – including Julie Cracknell, Peter Lonergan and Sam Marshall, along with Samantha Donnelly – guest edited the Bulletin’s ‘Zeitgeist’ issue, profiling the work of Drew Heath, Mark Cashman and Mike Hanna, Melocco + Moore, Pippita Bennett, Thomas Isaksson, Misho Vasiljavich, Christina Markham and Virginia Wong-See. Whilst making a claim of a new orthodoxy and shift away from type-bound production, this edition again focussed on traditional architectural output – the built project and a traditional model of emerging practice – the small business.

This edition seeks to investigate the multiple ways of practicing and contributing to architecture that we feel are now more eagerly embraced and recognised within the profession; from small and large practice models to writing, curating exhibitions and events, advocacy and client services. For this we identified six ambitions that we feel speak to these shifts: the manifesto as mouthpiece for a new voice; small and big – and the opportunities of scale; stewardship and the role of the educated client; community and opportunities for architects to give back; and techne, architecture as a process of making.

For each of these, we have put two emerging practitioners in dialogue, with interviews with each forming the main structure of the edition. The open questions were a specific strategy to engage each practice within a singular structure and to allow each of those profiled a voice within the publication, to enable each to use this platform to position their practices. Within the pairings, we are as interested in the differences as the similarities in approach. Each ambition is also in dialogue with the others with many similar opportunities, challenges and constraints identified across the set.

Drawing on the precedent set in 1995, we have included in the selection practitioners not currently based in NSW, but NSW educated and formed. Not all are registered architects, although each has architectural training and we believe architectural ambition. Each adds to the plurality of modes within a broader umbrella of architectural engagement.

Finally, we have not been too concerned about age or years of engagement as a definer of ‘emerging practice’ but have rather sought out those who seem to be suggesting a direction forward. We were also interested in including a spectrum, from the well known to the just beginning, with each being an exemplar of divergent and widely successful practices and ambitions.

Amelia Holliday, Phuong Le, Joseph O’Meara,
Anita Panov and Andrew Scott

Amelia Holliday (Director, Aileen Sage Architects) is a member of the AB editorial committee. She was also a creative director of The Pool exhibition at the Australian Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. Phuong Le (Design Manager, MPA) and Joseph O’Meara (Project Architect, BVN) are co-chairs of DARCH. Anita Panov and Andrew Scott (Directors, panovscott Architects) jointly won the Emerging Architect Prize at the 2016 NSW Architecture Awards