architecture Archives - Page 13 of 14

July 13, 2011

solar panels

This is my reason for being down at Victor Harbor this week–I’m overseeing the installation of photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of the weekender at Victor Harbor. The solar photovoltaic electricity system is costing us an arm and leg re the capital required, as it is a big (2.4kw) system.

The solar panels absorb light and turn that into electricity via a converter that is plugged into a standard ETSA household fuse box that is connected to the national electricity grid. So we are both taking power from the grid and putting power back into the grid.

The assumption is that with the feed in tariff means this size solar power plant on our roof will generate more energy than we use, and this will then–hopefully—provide a bit of an income from the weekender through the feed-in-tariff.

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July 7, 2011

photographing the urban environment

I have been plugging taking photos of my local urban neighbourhood without giving much thought to what I’m doing apart from thinking that it is something to do with architecture.

I was kinda doing architectural photography intuitively I told myself, but when I actually came to consciously do architectural photography the results, more often than not, were disastrous.

wallfederalcourt — detail, Federal Court building

Then I stumbled upon the newly formed Urban Photo Magazine group on Flickr and I could see people doing similar work to me.

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July 3, 2011

“urban form”

Tim Horton, the Integrated Design Commissioner for South Australia, has said that too often the idea of vernacular in architecture is dogmatically applied to a Disney-like preconception of quaint pioneering shopfronts and the purse-lipped Georgian strait jacket and is rarely translated into the 21st century convincingly (we’ve all seen the historicist townhouse dwarfed by the three car garage grafted on the front).

He adds that the future of Adelaide’s city form needs to be modeled on a more sustainable response to our climate, not the Centenary picture book, circa 1936, and not a forced idyll long since departed.

If these are accurate observation, then we don’t seem to be getting in the buildings for businesses, and residences a shift in Adelaide that is a sustainable response to our environment. Nor is the urban form being reinvented for the 21st century. What we have is piecemeal ad-hockery.

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July 1, 2011

yesterday

I worked in Canberra in the political world for many a long year as a political and policy advisor. Alas, I only returned to photography towards the end of my time there.

That’s a pity.I could have done more when I look at the film archives. But I’d given up photography. It was no longer a part of what I was doing at that time. All my cameras had been put away in a cupboard and forgotten.

I don’t recall what made me start to pull them out and start to take photos again.

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June 26, 2011

marine heritage

The poodlewalk was down at Port Adelaide this afternoon. I had a go at the two marine cranes that have been saved; but you can find two far superior interpretations here and here. Local knowledge derived from living in the locality always wins doesn’t it.

I realize that I don’t really know Port Adelaide, even though I ‘m doing a project on it. I’m basically a fly in. I drive down every couple of weeks or so for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon and take some photos. But I’m not really intimate with it’s character.

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June 22, 2011

heritage at Port Adelaide

This picture of the former Customs Clearing Office, known locally as the Radio Shack, on the corner of Todd and Divett streets, in Port Adelaide shows the state of heritage at the Port. This area has been earmarked for residential redevelopment, and this historic building, which housed the Port Adelaide Radio Club for more than 15 years, has been left to decay.

It is currently owned by the South Australian state government Land Management Corporation, whose “primary aim is to provide social, economic and environmental benefits to all South Australians”. It looks as if it will be quarantined from the waterfront development of the “upmarket” lifestyle residences that has stalled since the global financial crisis.

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June 19, 2011

at Port Adelaide

I went to Port Adelaide this afternoon with the 5×7 Cambo and the poodles in the car as soon as the wind dropped and the clouds rolled in. I had a couple of shots of decayed industrial architecture in mind that I thought would suit this kind of format.

Unfortunately what looked like a rock band was being photographed as a ‘street hoody gang’ at one of the woolstore locations that I had in mind, and, as the poodles would have destroyed the carefully cultivated ‘outlaw’ look, we moved onto another possible location. As soon as we got out of the car to check it out it started to rain. Damnation.

So we walked around the streets where the old warehouses are located for a bit and I took a few snaps with the digital camera, whilst we waited for the rain to stop.

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June 14, 2011

street photography

I don’t do that much street photography, even though I live in the heart of this lawyer precinct in Adelaide. I’ve never had the confidence doing this genre with 35m film, let alone using medium format. It is pretty much hit and miss for me and film is too expensive for this kind of work.

Digital makes it so much easier to experiment and I can check the results on the spot whilst I wait for the next person to move into the urban space I’ve selected. Its convenient. However, the fundamental underpinning is very simple—film and its processing cost money, digital does not.

With the latter you can correct mistakes right away, experiment, try new approaches or techniques and have fun—and do so at no additional cost. It’s a no brainer.

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June 9, 2011

heritage

One of the intriguing aspects of the central market precinct in Adelaide is the heritage buildings that have been preserved and used by the lawyers. It is my local neighbourhood and I often think about how can we respect and celebrate our heritage and meld it with an exciting future. Yet I rarely take photos of it.

I decided that needed to change from taking the sporadic photo. I would force myself to start looking at the precinct as a photographer as opposed to being an inhabitant or local who works, lives, shops, and plays in the precinct.

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