Staying on the Hawkesbury just north of Sydney for 6 weeks in a water access only house – like many other people up here who live without car access. Here, it’s just taken for granted and not questioned or thought of as odd – in the UK, at Moonshine, we are constantly bombarded with incredulous comments about not being able to drive to the house…  In this landscape – the Hawkesbury – there is a thriving self build community, and whilst individually they are nothing special, what is interesting is just how sensitive they are to the bushland in which they sit – absolutely no cut and fill, ever; no trees cut down, ever – and thus this landscape appears to be able to take development. In the UK, unquestionably, virgin sites are ruined whenever people build – seemingly, not here.

Induction Studio – cnc’d, labelled and in process of assembly

As Stephen Fry said in the Guardian today about Steve Jobs:

“The standards he set, the passionate belief he had in the way that technology, the arts, design, fun, elegance and delight could all co-exist, the eternal pushing for higher standards, the refusal to accept standard paradigms in anything, either the conventional modus operandi of corporate affairs, technological matters or market practices was an example from which the world will continue to learn.”

Puts in to perspective how we all (architects) continue, by and large, to peddle the same old bollocks… How many of us can really claim to shift paradigms?

Me neither…

2 months off completion, 5 years in the conception

13th October 2011 at the University of Bath, Department of Architecture