News

27.05.13

La Plage du Pacifique Vanuatu Exhibition - Christopoulos, Green & Bennetts

Time moves a little slower in Vanuatu, not that anyone there actually minds, and infact this is a big part of the appeal of the place. However if you are a young, energetic architect from a fast-track city you might yearn for the pace to pick up a little, especially as your ambitious design for a luxury resort emerges ever so slowly, half-realised on a spectacular tract of land where the forest meets the sea.

Kristin Green of Kristin Green Architecture invited photographer Peter Bennetts to accompany her to La Plage du Pacifique, Vanuatu. The resulting photographs are anything but “in progress” documentation.

Green has bravely allowed Bennetts to present her work at it’s most vulnerable but revealing such strength of form that we can already imagine the finished work.

We see the bones, the inner working, the structure – the important business of architecture before the detailing of surfaces and slick styling. This is architecture at its rawest.

Bennetts’ own unique vision has captured a profound stillness in the half-completed buildings and surrounding landscape. Time has shifted to such a degree that past, present and future/birth, life and decay, merge in one. Light and form create striking compositions that, rather than a direct descriptor, are more evocative of place.

It may seem incongruous to be opening an exhibition of architectural images in the tropics at the launch of a cheese cellar, but for those of you who don’t know, Green is also the architect responsible for the Spring Street Grocer mini-complex. To all her projects she brings a vitality, commitment to concept and a quirky sense of purpose, and this most recent collaboration with entrepreneur Con Christopoulos and photographer Peter Bennetts is no exception.

Downstairs @ Spring Street Grocer

157 Spring Street, Melbourne

Thursday 30th May 2013 from 5.30pm

(Exhibition continues until 9th June 2013)

19.03.13

ARCHITECTURAL URBANISM: MELBOURNE/SEOUL POSTER

NMBW Architecture Studio's Kerr Street Apartments is the poster for the Architectural Urbanism Exhibition at the Korean National Museum of the Arts in Seoul.

As well as NMBW's Kerr Street I'm thrilled my photographs of Muir Mendes', iph's and Kerstin Thompson's projects are writ large as floor to ceiling images. Very excited to see!

Architectural Urbanism is an ambition and sensibility for propositions that address the context of the city within the operative scale of the small architectural project. Architectural urbanism represents a tailoring of projects to the local; to the materiality and specificity of the everyday; and to the grain and substance of the location above all else. Architectural urbanism is less about erasure and more about insertion; infill; the weaving of old and new and the dynamics that evolve from subtle and careful manipulation of the city in detail.

Architectural Urbanism/Melbourne Seoul opens March 28 - April 5

31.12.12

Architecture Review Summer 2012/2013 #128 COVER STORY

Ashton Raggatt MacDougall

ARM's Wanangkura Stadium is the cover story of AR's summer edition. Named for the local Aboriginal word for cyclone, the building is as a mirage, a shimmering, rippling effect on an otherwise flat landscape. It's not every shoot that you have a building happily activated by the whole town; premier league basketball, football, a carnival AND fireworks! Wanangkura Stadium is in Port Hedland in the remote North West of Western Australia.

03.12.12

Marina Bay Financial Centre Singapore

Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates

I've been busy in Singapore for Kohn Pedersen Fox photographing four crystaline 50-storey towers that make up the iconic Marina Bay waterfront development. Singapore's gloomy haze and humidity made it difficult - the taxi drivers will tell you it's due to the burning rain-forests in Indonesia. But fortune favours the brave and we were always poised for the faintest clearing of the skies!

02.12.12

Venice Biennale photo essay for (inside) magazine

Commissioned for the latest issue of (inside) magazine #74 I've photographed and written of the highlights from the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. Always a pleasure working with editor Leanne Amodeo and art director Michael Bojkowski. Pictured is the Russian Pavilion, every surface covered by enlarged QR codes.

01.11.12

Looking Down, A view from the clouds

A VIEW FROM THE CLOUDS

Commissioned by Piccolo and Cornwall - A view from the clouds is an interpretative art piece by photographer Peter Bennetts. From the heady heights of the clouds we asked Peter to explore the macro view afforded by simply being elevated. Melbourne didn't disappoint. This stunning point of view exposes some of the rich texture of Melbourne - from architecture in development up to icons complete. There is nothing but an upside down outtake when looking down on this beautiful international city.

27.08.12

la Biennale di Venezia Italy 'Traces of Centuries & Future Steps' Exhibition

I'm in hot and sultry Venice for the Architecture Biennale and particularly 'Traces of Centuries & Future Steps' my exhibit with Paul Morgan in the Palazzo Bembo which opens today. I've photographed Morgan's work, process and environment which will be presented as two simultaneous looping videos and a soundscape. Michael Quinlan has edited the fine production. Hope you can see it and let me know what you think! That's the Palazzo pictured.

05.07.12

Brookfield Place Perth

Hassell

Brookfield Place Perth is a just completed commercial precinct featuring a new 45-storey tower designed by HASSELL. The tower's anchor tennant is BHP Billiton. The development includes retail and great restaurants in a restored series of heritage buildings that front onto St Georges Terrace. I'm thrilled to be working with good friend and editor Helen Kaiser and the whole team at publisher Hardie Grant on a book of the development.

30.06.12

AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS 2012 VICTORIAN AWARDS

Last nght was a big one at the AIA 2012 Victorian Chapter Awards held at the house of spin - Melbourrne's Crown Casino. Congratulations to all the winners! Really wonderful to see emerging practice Folk Architects win an Architecture Award in the Comercial Category with Medhurst Winery in the Yarra Valley. I'd photographed a good number of the winners including NMBW's Fitzroy Apartments, Minfie Van Schaik's Edithvale Discovery and Mildura House, Susi Leeton's Treehouse, HASSELL's Dandenong GSO, Edwards and Moore's Artist Car Park Studio, Andrew Maynard's Hill House, BKK and Peter Elliot's Hi-Pod and the aforementioned Medhurst Winery.

06.06.12

OTTO Launch Party SOHO June 13

I'm looking forward to the OTTO launch party next week, June 13. Let me know if you're in New York and would like to come for a night of fun, celebration and cheers in SOHO! "OTTO represents the best photography of architecture and design, dedicated to licensing the work of preeminent architects and designers from around the world as captured by master contemporary photographers."

23.05.12

Opus Hong Kong

Opus Apartments Hong Kong
Gehry Partners

in Hong Kong to photograph Gehry Partners Opus Hong Kong at 53 Stubbs Road, The Peak. I thought a great way to experience and photograph the building would be to scale Victoria Peak starting from the harbour...a hell of a climb with a camera bag and tripod through surprisingly tropical and verdant jungle. The building is more easily visited in a chauffer driven Maybach or Rolls Royce!

18.05.12

30 St Mary's Axe

Stepping out of the 'The Association' in London's Creechurch Lane you're at once confronted by Foster + Partners 'The Gherkin' formerly 'Swiss Re' building which at 30 St Mary's Axe occupy's the site of the former Baltic Exchange building damaged beyond repair by an IRA bomb. There are a lot of 'formers' in The City...

30.04.12

Ministero della Sviluppo Economico Rome

The latest in the European Finance Ministries series - Italy's 'Ministero della Sviluppo Economico'. The crumbling building in Rome's EUR district features roller shutters that read together as bar graphs, potted rubber trees and a mysterious figure on the 4th floor striking a Medici like pose. Meanwhile in the car jammed street Roman youths in tricolore tracksuits practise 'parkour'.

22.03.12

ARCHITECTURE AUSTRALIA March/April 12 Vol.101 No2 COVER STORY

Edithvale Seaford Wetlands Discovery Centre
Minifie van Schaik

Cover story of the very wonderful relaunch issue of Architecture Australia magazine is Minifie van Schaik's sublime Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands Dicovery Centre. Wolf and Magnus and their friend Lily discover the buiding, test the features and view the birds.

21.03.12

Park Hyatt Sydney

BARstudio

Photographing BARstudio's Park Hyatt Sydney last week had us battling torrential rain and 4am starts. My kit now includes a nespresso machine! BARstudio have re-designed Sydney's iconic hotel to give it the feel of a luxurious residence...with views. The Ancher Mortlock and Woolley building has been completely re-worked internally and had a new level added. Sydney sandstone features large in the new interiors...so now there's a nice correspondence between interior and exterior. It's the home you'd like to have away from home!

04.11.11

Barcelona's Media-TIC World building of the year 2011 WAF

Media-TIC building Barcelona
Cloud 9

At the WAF awards ceremony on Friday night Enric Ruiz-Geli of Cloud 9 which designed the Media-TIC building, said it should act as a 'seed for an environmental revolution'. He said, 'If it doesn't happen, we will not succeed with our fight against global warming.'

Ruiz-Geli took to the stage with his entire family, saying, 'This is what happens when you win an award at home.' His nine-year old son, Iago, had chosen the green colour that dominates in the building, he said. Looking at his children, he added, 'These are our clients.'

Big clap Enric, Iago and all at Cloud 9!

I'm leaving Barca now for an super looking little project 'the Illuminami' showroom by Russell + George in Rome's EUR suburb - it's in view of the Square Colosseum.

03.11.11

Australian Institute of Architects 2011 National Awards

one40william Perth
Hassell

The AIA National Awards were held this year at the fantastic MONA. From what I hear it was a big-top's worth of fun. Congratulations to all the winners! Great to see two major awards heading west to Perth, including the Walter Burley Griffin Award for Urban Design that was awarded to Hassell's one40william. Congratulations also to Durbach Block Jaggers Architects for the Garden House and to Muir Mendes for the Law Street House, awarded Commendations in the Residential Architecture - Houses and Small Project categories respectively. It was pleasure working with everyone involved in these projects!

18.10.11

OTTO Launch - Exclusive Architecture & Design Photography Licensing Agency

Announcing the launch of New York based OTTO, a full-service architectural and design photography agency dedicated to licensing the work of preeminent architects and designers from around the world as captured by master contemporary photographers. OTTO represents the works of leading photographers such as Scott Frances, Peter Aaron, Tim Street-Porter, Michael Moran, Floto + Warner, Richard Barnes,Ty Cole and me!

02.09.11

Finance Ministry Plaka Athens

On 29 June 2011, violent clashes occurred between the riot police and protesters as the Greek parliament voted to accept the EU's austerity requirements. Poignantly marking the violence was this Finance Ministry building in Plaka. I was fascinated by the patina of soot left on the 70's building. Completely burnt out, the building was blacker than black in the harsh light of day. I've been photographing finance ministries Europe over - they are uncannily accurate metaphors for a countries fortunes or lack there of...

31.07.11

Dezeen this week - House Holman Dover Heights

Dezeen magazine, one of the world's most popular and influential design blogs has as it's most popular story this week the Holman House by Durbach Block Jaggers. In the last week Dezeen has featured House 20 by Jolson, Law Street House by Muir Mendes and CentralTAFE Perth by Lyons.

For the second week running I've photographed Dezeen's most looked at story - Law Street House by Muir Mendes. And yes, we'll be joining Amy and Bruno in their house in case of a zombie apocalypse.