The Australian Pavillion

The international ideas competition for an Australian Pavilion at the Venice biennale was organized in early 2008 by Rinaldo Di Stasio, owner of the Italian Cafe Di Stasio, to mark the occasion of the joint 20 year anniversary of the Melbourne Cafe and the Australian pavilion in Venice. The brief for the competition was very open and generated 446 registrations from around the world, resulting in 168 final entries. A panel of two architects and two artists shortlisted 56 of them in the first round, before making a smaller selection of finalists and choosing two winners from the professional and pre-professional categories. To check out some of the shortlisted and winning entries go to http://www.distasio.com.au/category/venice-pavilion/winners/

Our entry was submitted in joint names and represents the collaborative effort of Johannes Schuster and Alvyn Williams, director of Soft Loud House Architects. In the end it didn’t make it into the short list. The fact that we didn’t have access to high tech 3D computer graphics and used images of an only partially finished cardboard model (as a result of time pressure) probably didn’t help. However, regardless of  competition place, the design process and its underlying principles are still valid in their own right. It therefore seemed appropriate to feature the pavilion here from a process point of view,  as an example of the biosculptural approach to design.

The following sections describe the 4 steps of the creative process and the thoughts that led to the particular design of the pavilion.

1. AIM
2. FINDING THE CORE QUALITIES
3. TRANSLATING QUALITIES INTO PHYSICAL FORM
4. FORMING A PURPOSEFUL, LIVING WHOLE