Kerstin Thompson Architects

For over twenty-five years, Kerstin Thompson has explored how architecture can respond to local conditions to positively shape lives and communities. By harnessing the potential for beauty and delight and a sensitivity to landscape, each project resonates with a spirit of generosity and community value. Kerstin Thompson Architects: Encompassing people and place takes readers on an immersive journey into the very heart of this extraordinary body of work, and documents how, over time, the practice has shifted its focus from individual housing to larger-scale public projects created by a collaborative and talented team. With high-quality images, sketches and drawings selected from Thompson's archive and discursive texts, this monograph provides a deep insight into not only what architects do - the buildings they make - but also why and how they design. The first in a series of monographs that recognises the work of Australia's most exciting architectural practices, urban designers and landscape architects.

A timely and important search for architecture's missing women For a century and a half, women have been proving their passion and talent for building and, in recent decades, their enrollment in architecture schools has soared. Yet the number of women working as architects remains stubbornly low, and the higher one looks in the profession, the scarcer women become. Law and medicine, two equally demanding and traditionally male professions, have been much more successful in retaining and integrating women. So why do women still struggle to keep a toehold in architecture? Where Are the Women Architects? tells the story of women's stagnating numbers in a profession that remains a male citadel, and explores how a new generation of activists is fighting back, grabbing headlines, and building coalitions that promise to bring about change. Despina Stratigakos's provocative examination of the past, current, and potential future roles of women in the profession begins with the backstory, revealing how the field has dodged the question of women's absence since the nineteenth century. It then turns to the status of women in architecture today, and the serious, entrenched hurdles they face. But the story isn't without hope, and the book documents the rise of new advocates who are challenging the profession's boys' club, from its male-dominated elite prizes to the erasure of women architects from Wikipedia. These advocates include Stratigakos herself and here she also tells the story of her involvement in the controversial creation of Architect Barbie. Accessible, frank, and lively, Where Are the Women Architects? will be a revelation for readers far beyond the world of architecture.

Affect, Architecture, and Practice builds on and contributes to work in theories of affect that have risen within diverse disciplines, including geography, cultural studies, and media studies, challenging the nature of textual and representational-based research. Although numerous studies have examined how affect emerges in architectural spaces, little attention has been paid to the creative process of architectural design and the role that affect plays in the many contingencies and uncertainties that arise in the process. The book traces the critical, philosophic, and architectural theories to examine how affect, architecture, and practice are interlinked. Through a series of conversations and reflections, it examines three key contemporary architects, their practices and projects, all within a single coherent theme. Reiser + Umemoto (RUR Architecture DPC), USA, Kerstin Thompson Architects, Australia, and Shigeru Ban Architects, Japan, are critically studied through the lens of different aspects of practice, namely image-making, the design process, and the making of an everyday object/material. Through this investigation, author Akari Nakai Kidd demonstrates how affect theory allows a critical interrogation of the in-betweens of practice, its liminality and limits. It questions the stability of objects, the smooth temporality of practice, and its often under-conceptualised non-human dimensions. More significantly, the book demonstrates architectural practice’s contribution to the reconceptualisation of theories of affect.

This book explores new themes and ideas that relate directly to the millions of Australians who live and work in our nation's capital cities. For, it is here in the increasingly densified suburbs and business districts that we are experiencing first hand what Australia's growing population means. Multi-res, low, medium and high-rise buildings are becoming the norm in areas that once housed the populace in single-storey dwellings. Until recently, office towers rarely exceeded 20-storeys, although this is changing. However, by international standards our planning laws either prevent or discourage truly monumental buildings on a scale seen in many other countries. In a single decade there has been an emphatic shift towards a bolder, more confronting reality that our cities must adapt and (literally) rise to the occasion. For with nowhere else to spread, Sydney, for example, must increase density through infill or multi-storey buildings. The growing pains are obvious as government, local council and urban planners struggle to deal with the inadequacies of public transport infrastructure, community disquiet and possibly a reluctance to grasp the true significance of rapidly increasing populations. The Material city: density and design in contemporary Australian architecture seeks to explore these issues through 50 selected case studies and 20 essays and feature articles. These represent the ideas of many of Australia's leading architects whose work is informed by limitations of space, yet whose designs seek to meet the need for public and private space, infrastructure, the workplace and home.

MMXX tells the story of architecture in Australia in the first two decades of the 21st century. Shaped by unprecedented prosperity, urbanisation, uncertainty and internationalisation, the past two decades have produced some of the most significant and diverse architecture in this country. This richly illustrated volume reflects on and evaluates this period, taking the reader on a journey through varying scales and locations - from ambitious city-making projects to finely crafted homes and elegant sheds nestled in the scenic countryside. Showcasing 59 acclaimed projects completed between 2000 and 2019, the book features work by more than 100 practices. Turn the pages to experience the urban generosity of Harry Seidler & Associates' Riparian Plaza in Brisbane, visit the irreverent and culture-shaping Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart by Fender Katsalidis, and explore ARM Architecture's iconic Shrine of Remembrance on Melbourne's grand axis. Highlighting the impact of the buildings, each is paired with a number that tells a story of occupation: capacity concert audiences, the number of babies born and large crowds gathered to witness moments in history. Alongside the key projects, ten essays by leading thinkers document the cultures and ideas that have shaped architecture today.MMXX guides the reader through contemporary architecture in Australia, foregrounding its invaluable contribution to our built environment and inspiring an optimistic future.

Originally published in 1970 Living in Australia provided Boyd with an opportunity to describe his own approach to design. This new edition, co-published with the Robin Boyd Foundation, includes new colour photographs by John Gollings and essays by renowned architects Kerstin Thompson and Rachel Neeson reflecting upon the importance of Boyd's work.

For architect and educator Leon van Schaik, the way we understand our world is not an abstract consideration, but deeply rooted in physical experience. Our family houses and places of work, the gardens we have played and rested in, the landscapes we have travelled through and those we have come to call home-all of these inflect what van Schaik describes as our spatial intelligence. For better or worse, this understanding informs our interpretation of the world, and any attempts we might make to reshape it.In Doing, Seeing; Seeing, Doing, van Schaik unearths the lineage of landscape and garden ideas that have influenced his thinking over many decades spent practicing and teaching architecture. Partly auto-biographical, partly essayistic, the book unfolds as a series of journeys with friends and colleagues through their shared histories in architecture, landscape and gardening.From Persian paradise gardens to the mosaic burning that maintained pre-colonial Australia's 'parkland' landscape, the nested arches of Edwin Lutyens to Renaissance axiality, Doing, Seeing; Seeing, Doing explores how every line drawn in our world brings a system along with it. It also demonstrates why an awareness of our own spatial histories is crucial if we are to avoid visiting those systems onto others, unexamined.What others think...."For 30 years van Schaik's academic work has centered on how an architect's personal spatial experiences create an indelible stamp. His new book, Doing, Seeing; Seeing, Doing shows how it's the same for designers of any space, landscapes included." - Megan Backhouse, The AgeSpecial note: This is a popular edition of this book, which was released in an earlier, limited edition of 300 that is now out of print.

Contemporary Museum Architecture and Design showcases 18 diverse essays written by people who design, work in, and study museums, offering a variety of perspectives on this complex building type. Throughout, the authors emphasize new kinds of experiences that museum architecture helps create, connecting ideas about design at various levels of analysis, from thinking about how the building sits in the city to exploring the details of technology. With sections focusing on museums as architectural icons, community engagement through design, the role of gallery spaces in the experience of museums, disability experiences, and sustainable design for museums, the collected chapters cover topics both familiar and fresh to those interested in museum architecture. Featuring over 150 color illustrations, this book celebrates successful museum architecture while the critical analysis sheds light on important issues to consider in museum design. Written by an international range of museum administrators, architects, and researchers this collection is an essential resource for understanding the social impacts of museum architecture and design for professionals, students, and museum-lovers alike.