Adelaide Archives - Page 2 of 16

December 14, 2014

making cities liveable

Walking around Adelaide’s CBD with Ari has enabled me to see that urban design in Adelaide, since the 1960s, has been structured around keep the car happy.

Its been about suburban sprawl, traffic efficiency and parking spaces rather than public spaces for people to gather. The assumed model of urban design is the old modernist one— modern cities are about high-rises and good windy spaces rather than being about the human lives lived within the city.

It was only liveable because it was small or compact and so avoided the congestion of Sydney. The recent shift is towards densifying Adelaide around the core infrastructure, transport hubs and a diversity of income groups in the CBD. Continue reading “making cities liveable”

December 9, 2014

slowness

If cities are now seen as ‘engines for innovation and growth’, then the smart city paradigm is seen to involve the application of information and communication technology, environmental sensors, digital footprints of the inhabitants, manipulation of the resulting data using statistical techniques, and finally the use of complexity modelling and advanced visualisation in order to make sense of it all.

These assemblages aim to promote efficiency, productivity, and safety and to reduce uncertainty in the management of places. Smart city initiatives have been closely linked to the forms of accelerated living that increasingly dominate everyday life in the global metropolitan era. Smart cities are fast cities, efficient cities, controlled cities.

Poodlewalks are about slowness in a city increasingly dominated by speed and movement, acceleration and flow–wandering into car parks and observing the light on the built environment. Slowness stands for slowing down–for deceleration, detour, delay, interruption, inertia, stoppage and immobility. It stands for decelerated living in the context of the embrace and internalization of a culture of speed and hypermobility (of people, data, goods, capital, etc).

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October 19, 2014

walking the South Rd Superway

It was another Friday night with Suzanne and Maleko going to puppy pre-school at Regency Park and Ari and I filling in time by walking the South Rd Superway for an hour or so. We started out on the A13 from the South Rd/Grand Junction Rd corner and continued walking west for 25 minutes.

It was bright and sunny at 6.30 pm and, fortunately for us, most of the traffic was moving on the elevated roadway. So I was able to scope the urbanscape underneath. I didn’t really know what to expect. All I had in mind were some possibilities for a 5×7 large format photoshoot from the brief previous scouting. So we wandered.

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October 15, 2014

along Flinders Street

Ari, Maleko and I wandered around the Flinders St precinct yesterday as part of our afternoon poodlewalk.

I wanted to have another look at the late afternoon light on both the concrete modernist architecture and the nineteenth century buildings.

There is a big contrast between these two styles of architecture. People in Adelaide still don’t warm to the brutalism of the 1960s concrete and glass modernism, even though its been there for over half a century. I’ve made my peace with it. I can accept it— unadorned geometric forms, open interiors, and the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete—as part of our architectural history, and I think that it should be preserved as part of our architectural heritage. I’m probably in a minority.

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October 9, 2014

walking around Franklin Street

Since the theme for the 1picaday2014 project is architecture Ari and I have been wandering the city close to the Sturt St townhouse. I cannot leave Maleko at home alone for very long on his own. So we cruised nearby Franklin Street:

The Pad is a Gamer’s bar and lounge. I’ve never been inside. I’m more intrigued by the building and the laneway that runs north/south between Grote and Franklin Street.

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October 6, 2014

at Regency Park

Ari and I walked around Regency Park in Adelaide last Friday whilst Suzanne and Maleko were at puppy pre-school. I was looking for material for October’s architectural theme for my 1picady2014 project. It was around 6pm, the sun was just going down, and we had an hour or so to fill in. I didn’t have the lightweight Linhof tripod that I’d acquired for the digital camera on me. So I gave up on the idea of returning to the Dry Creek Area which I had initially planned to revisit.

So we just ambled around this industrial/warehouse area. It was pretty quiet. Most of the warehouses had closed and the workers had gone. There was just a couple of workers relaxing at Nippys.

The odd semi-trailer rolled through the area and one went into Nippy’s. The wife of a Muslim couple was learning to drive a car and the ute crowd were using the ATM to get money for their Friday night’s fun. Apart from that it was very quiet. It was quite suitable for some large format photography.

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September 27, 2014

at Henley Beach

Ari and I went to Henley Beach to help Gilbert Roe hang his ‘Time & Tide’ exhibition at the Swedish Tarts cafe. The images were made with a flat bed scanner and could be considered to be the digital equivalent of the 20th century photogram.

After hanging the exhibition I walked back to the car to pick up Ari, then we walked to Hendley Square to share a glass of wine, then Ari and I walked back to the car. It was just after sunset and I saw this building on Seaview Rd on the way back to the car:

A gentle south west wind was blowing and people were strolling along the esplanade and the beach enjoying the softness of the dusk.

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September 22, 2014

starting out in the city

Yesterday evening’s poodlewalk was Maleko’s first walk in the city. We had just returned from a week of walking and playing on the beaches in and around Victor Harbor in the morning and evening.

We walked along Sturt St to Whitmore Square, then back along Wright Street to the townhouse. Maleko was a little unsure of himself, as there was so many strange happenings and sounds on the city streets compared to the coastal quietness of Encounter Bay in the early morning.

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September 7, 2014

a festive Adelaide

Ari and I wandered around the CBD of Adelaide late this afternoon. It was a glorious spring day.

The city had a festive air, due to the AFL result of clash between Port Power and Richmond at the renovated Adelaide Oval. Port Adelaide won. The crowds were walking through the city after the game to the various forms of transport. The Richmond fans, who had travelled over from Melbourne— bussed, trucked, hitched, trained, planed and biked in numbers—were very subdued.

I was on the lookout for opportunities for street photography for the 1picady2014 project after I’d spent all day in front of the screen of a Mac desktop editing a text for my Edgeland exhibition at Manning Clark House in Canberra in November. It was a relief to be able to leave the office and wander the city.

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September 4, 2014

Adelaide: street photography

I’ve been doing some street photography in Adelaide these last few days whilst we are on our poodlewalks. The reason for the change is that the September theme for the 1picady2014 project is street photography. It’s not a style of photography that I usually do so I am being pushed into new territory.

I find it hard to do, especially when Ari is with me. It also takes a lot of time to find a suitable location and the right urban light. I’m not even sure what street photography means these days.

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