AILA TALK

“Four Pillars”

Four pillars of sustainability - environmental (natural capital), social (social capital), economic, and corporate governance.

Practitioners from 3 design disciplines present their work to reflect how they engage with creating a sustainable future.

Wednesday 24 June         6.00 for 6.30pm

With

Peter Ho :  Architecture
Alexander Lotersztain :  Product and Interior Design
Jim Osborne :  Landscape Architecture

Speaker One

Peter Ho

Design Principal of PHOOEY Architects, Melbourne, who are a young and progressive design practice. 

Prior to forming his practice, Peter apprenticed for some of the world’s most colourful architects including :‐ Zaha Hadid, DCM, Nonda Katsalidis, Peter Corrigan and Gregory Burgess.  Peter is a former lecturer of Sustainability at RMIT, the University of Melbourne and is actively engaged in design education, discourse and entertainment.  Peter has also enjoyed the privilege of judging some of Australia's latest inventions on ABC television's New Inventors ‐ a role formerly filled by the late Professor Neville Quarry and Tone Wheeler.

PHOOEY have received worldwide publication and their work has been described as ...
ugly ...
fabulously whimsical ...
a billboard for sustainability ...
and ...
trash‐glamour!

In 2008, PHOOEY received local, national and international awards for the Children's Activity Centre at Skinners Playground in South Melbourne. They were delighted when this tiny building was runner-up to Sir Norman Foster's Washington Smithsonian Institute at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona.

PHOOEY Architects are entertained by the sobriety of global warming.
They aim to create zero waste.
They are engaged in the cultural identity of our sustainable future.
Peter Ho will talk about some rubbish.

Speaker Two

Alexander Lotersztain

Alexander Lotersztain Studio, Brisbane

Alexander was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he graduated in Industrial Design and then graduated from the Queensland College of Art receiving many design awards, including the Design Institute of Australia Prize "Best Design Student". In Japan at GK Planning & Design in Tokyo he participated in the development of products for clients such as Asahi, Mizuno and others. At IDEE Headquarters, he developed a range of low furniture including his acclaimed "skid seaters" and softsofa for Sputnik and defied the pre-conceptions of existing industrialised products with his "lightflow" light.

Alexander has participated in international exhibitions with Sputnik, Designers Block London, Tokyo, Milan, New York, San Francisco, Berlin and Moscow and one of his products is part of the Design Collection at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

He currently collaborates with companies around the globe including IDEE-Sputnik/Japan, Planex/Australia, SIGG/Switzerland, COVO/Italy, Ufl/New Zealand, Escofet/Spain, S&G/Australia and InAfrica Foundation as lead design consultant.

Alexander is part of the "Smart State Council work group" for the Queensland Government, drafting the Smart State design Strategy 2020.

Alexander will place his broad ranging work in product and interior design in the context of the culture of sustainability and a collaborative design environment.

Speaker Three

Jim Osborne AILA Registered Landscape Architect

Principal Material Landscape Architecture, Sydney

Jim graduated from the University of Canberra in Bachelor of Landscape Architecture.  His experience includes working as Senior Landscape Architect in urban and rural landscape architecture in New York with Edwina vonGal and Company and also with Plant Specialists Inc. specialising in rooftop landscapes in Manhattan. In Rio de Janeiro Jim worked with Roberto Burle Marx. Jim is also the Chair of AILA NSW’s Environment Committee.

Material Landscape Architecture’s work encompasses residential, rural and commercial landscape architecture throughout eastern Australia with a focus on sustainability.

Jim’s presentation will be a discussion on the difficulties of generating meaningful responses to sustainability in an environment where landscape architects are doing a lot of talking but struggle with the walking. His experience is in the new ‘Sustainability’ ethos, that this comes about through an underdeveloped hierarchy of decision making and clients not committed to actually spending the money.
 
Nungatta Station, Material’s most important and successful project to date (and the recipient of the 2008 AILA NSW Medal in Landscape Architecture) has them managing the natural resources of a 5,500 ha cattle station where the usual problems aren’t present; Material is the Client and the cash has been principally from environmental grants, where sustainability was the required outcome, not an ‘add-on’. This is a story where Material tackled a huge problematic landscape where the Four Pillars weren’t necessarily in the forefront of their minds but, interestingly were the outcome.