Canberra House » Canberra

Laurie Virr

martin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:53:11 +0000

Laurie Virr is a Canberra-based architect who has designed work in the United States, New South Wales and Victoria, along with a number of houses in Canberra. Throughout a career spanning over fifty years, his primary concerns have been the design of energy efficient, solar houses on rural sites and efficient planning for small spaces. Together with Enrico Taglietti, he has been one of the most original and important practitioners of the late twentieth century organic style of architecture working in Canberra.

Early years

Laurie Virr has qualifications in both architecture and engineering. From 1950 to 1958 he gained formal qualifications in civil engineering in England and was employed on large scale projects including bridges, water storage reservoirs, major storm water drainage works, high rise buildings and turbine installations. In Canberra, he played a role in the development of engineering infrastructure for the Russell Hill Defence complex.

From 1962 to 1966 Laurie Virr studied Architecture, graduating from the University of Melbourne with Honors in Design. This time included a period (1963-64) in the studio of American architect Malcolm Wells, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. It was during this period that he designed and supervised the construction of his first passive solar house, and began to experiment with the idea of earth sheltered buildings. Examples of his work formed part of the Australian exhibits at The Commonwealth Institute, London, U.K. in 1972, and the Paris Biennale in 1982.

Laurie Virr in his studio.

Work in Canberra

In January 1967 he established his own practice in Canberra, where he has remained since. His practice has been based on commissions for custom residences, with occasional forays into the design of workshops for light industrial processes. The majority of the residences have been at rural sites, and all of them have been either solar houses in cool temperate climates, or of low mass, as is required in tropical locations. Spasmodically, he has also been involved in the planning and design of a scheme for the establishment of solar precincts in areas of cities and towns subject to urban renewal. This work has attracted the attention of local authorities in New South Wales, and of a private developer in Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Laurie Virr’s first house in Canberra was built in the new bush suburb of Aranda in 1969 for Mr and Mrs Andrews. It demonstrates the themes he would explore in his residential projects over the next three decades: the use of massing, geometric forms and deep roof overhangs in an energy efficient, solar house.

The house, at Kambah, ACT, in which he lives, and which was constructed substantially with his own hands, has been widely published. It has achieved a minimum night temperature in winter of 12° Celsius without artificial heating, when the minimum temperature outdoors was -9° Celsius.

The house is an outstanding example of the late twentieth century organic style with its massing, use of geometric forms, deep roof overhang and energy efficient design. The successful implementation of a complex geometric plan based on a hemicycle is unusual if not unique for a mid-century Canberra house. The house has been published many times, in the United States, Europe and Australia. Inexplicably, it is relatively unknown in Canberra.

Teaching

Throughout his career Laurie Virr has been invited to conduct classes in Architectural Design and the Theory of Architecture, at a number of universities. Recently he was nominated for the Bruce Goff Chair of Creative Architecture at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. He has been a guest lecturer at universities in Australia, including the University of Canberra, and the United States of America. These latter include the:

Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, Spring Green, Wisconsin
College of Architecture, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
University of Washington, Spokane
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
University of Idaho, Moscow

Houses profiled on this site

5 Juad Place, Aranda (1969)
‘Rivendell’, 17 Meredith Circuit, Kambah (1975)

Other works in Canberra

14 Fergusson Crescent, Deakin (1982)

Other works

House at Barragga Bay, New South Wales (1973)
House at Valla Beach, New South Wales (1998)

Source

Conversations with and information provided by Laurie Virr
M. Parnell and G. Cole Australian Solar Houses (1983)

Modifications to the Edmund Barton building

martin — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:37:19 +0000

Disturbing news report from the Sydney Morning Herald about the fitout of Harry Seidler’s heritage listed Edmund Barton building on Kings Avenue. It seems like the consultation with Seidler and Associates promised by the owners of the building, Stocklands, isn’t working out so well. The Federal Government spent over $40 million refitting Anzac Park West for the Australian Federal Police but found it was too small, so it sits empty. The AFP now plans to spend $115 million fitting out the heritage listed Edmund Barton building.

Penelope Seidler and Peter Hirst (Seidler and Associates) have written to the Parliamentary Public Works Committee seeking more information about the protection of the building’s heritage values, voicing their concern about how the proposed security measures and changes to the ground level will affect the external appearance of the building. Seidler and Associates were initially advised by Stocklands that they would cooperate to ensure that the integrity and heritage values of the building were not compromised.

Why is it important? The post-war international Edmund Barton building is one of Seidler’s most important public buildings and arguably his best non-tower office block. The contrast between rectilinear and curved forms was an important and recurring theme throughout Seidler’s career and is fundamental to the idea of this building. The open ground floor accommodates quadrant shaped glass lobbies for the three entries, while the circular cores form the corner of the building and conceal the vertical services.

We have made various suggestions on preliminary designs for this work but have not seen any drawings for some time.
— Seidler and Associates

To viewers in the offices above, the quadrant shaped conference hall expresses its theatre seating and acoustic form and the cafeteria shows its long span shell-shaped roof elements. This theme of visual tension and contrast between the rectilinear and curved elements is reinforced by the courtyard paving pattern and in the two sculptures by Norman Carlberg, one in each courtyard. A fountain had the same effect, but it was filled in some years ago and replaced by landscaping. Underpinning this is the clearly expressed resolution of the two major parts of the structural system: 22.5m I-shaped spandrel beams and 15.8m T-beams of the spanning floor systems.

The building is also a rare example of Seidler’s work in Canberra, being the most significant of the two intact Seidler office buildings here. A quick overview of Seidler’s Canberra work:

12 Yapunyah Street O’Connor (1956): demolished
Garran Group Housing (1968): demolished in the late 1990s
11 Northcote Crescent, Deakin (1951-52): extended twice, no heritage protection
Canberra South Bowling Club (1959): extensively modified
Campbell Group Housing (1964): intact, but no heritage protection
Ethos House (1970): intact
Macgregor townhouses (1980): intact
Lakeview townhouses in Yarralumla (1982): intact
The Edmund Barton building (1973): intact—for now

I think that statements being made by the AFP about the nature of the modifications (reported in the Sydney Morning Herald) are of concern.

Mr Keelty told the committee security measures would include a ‘transparent perimeter barrier’ to control pedestrian access to internal courtyards and bollards to stop unauthorised vehicles from approaching the building. Federal police executives said heritage values would be enhanced by reintroducing some of Mr Seidler’s original concepts by making the internal courtyards more welcoming for staff.
— Sydney Morning Herald

The idea that it was Seidler’s intention to close off the courtyards so as to make them more accessible for staff simply doesn’t ring true. These courtyards were designed as spaces for staff and pedestrians, with the fountain (long since filled in), works of public art, a cafeteria and a theatrette. The building bears all the hallmarks of a Seidler building—maximizing public open space at the ground floor. The sculptures and the buildings in the courtyard are positioned to control the open areas and make them more intelligible to the pedestrian as well as office workers who look down into the courtyards from the windows above. Closing this courtyard off to the public contradicts this aim and will not enhance the heritage values of the building.

A related concern, but thus far not mentioned, is future public access to the works of art. Closing the area off for security reasons and restricting access will deprive the city of two important works of public art by Norman Carlberg, the internationally acclaimed American sculptor who worked in the modular constructivist style and studied under Joseph Albers at Yale in the late 1950s. Black Widow is the free standing black painted steel form standing 4.8m high in the west courtyard. Concrete Form is the 7.3m high precast concrete sculpture in the east courtyard. These two important works were installed in 1975.

While unrestricted access to public art can be a grey area when such works are located inside commercial buildings and schools, for example, I would be interested to see some kind of statement about how these sculptures will remain accessible to the public once and if these alterations are made.

Canberra’s top twenty modernist houses

martin — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:36:37 +0000

Over at my Flickr photostream I’ve put together an image set called Canberra’s Top Twenty—a list of Canberra’s most important modernist houses. The images are geo-tagged, and I’ve created a KML file for you to play in Google Earth.

While some may argue that the list is arbitrary, it is substantially based on significance according to the Royal Australian Institute of Architect’s Register of Significant Twentieth Century Architecture and nomination to or listing on the ACT Heritage Register. It is open to debate, of course, and a colleague has already taken me to task for initially including Robin Boyd’s last Canberra house at 12 Marawa Place ahead of Noel Potter’s house at 3 Arkana Street, Yarralumla.

Looking at the tour, it’s interesting to see the geographic spread of the houses around Canberra. While many are located in the inner south and date from the 1930s to the 1960s—modernism’s golden age if you like—there are examples in some of the newer suburbs, or areas developed since the late 1960s. It finishes around the mid 1970s, in line with the general feeling that heritage has to be older than 30 years to qualify as such.

It also highlights how few of Canberra’s houses are of heritage significance. When one talks about heritage listing (and more importantly) preserving houses, it’s not as though we’re talking about locking away vast tracts of valuable land from developers. Of Canberra’s total housing stock we’re only talking about protecting and conserving a tiny handful of houses from the mid twentieth century. And if we’re unable to do that it reflects badly on us as a community.

So, download this KML file and view Canberra’s Top Twenty in Google Earth. Let me know what you think.

‘The finest building in the National Capital’ — a bridge

martin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:29:13 +0000

As I drive or ride over Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, I often think of Sir Robert Menzies—no, really. Menzies thought the Bridge was the ‘finest building in the National Capital’. Opened to traffic in November 1963 over the yet to be filled lake, the bridge was and is regarded as a lovely example of form and function working together. It remains the principal entry point to Canberra’s National Area. How did something we may now take for granted and not give a moment’s thought come about?

In 1957, British town planner Sir William Holford was invited by Menzies to review the Griffin plan, which had basically languished since Canberra was formally named capital on 12 March 1913. In his report, Observations on the Future Development of Canberra, Holford pushed Griffin’s idea of incorporating a lake to unite the two halves of Canberra.

His view was that Canberra could either remain divided with the flood plain of the Molonglo as an ‘open wedge’ between the federal town on the south bank and a municipality on the north—or it could become a unified city. He didn’t shirk the issue—he was convinced the NCDC should opt for the latter option:

Real quality and imagination in the design of three features of the new city – the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, the permanent Parliament House, and the Lakes, would lift Canberra at once into the ranks of the significant capital cities of the world.
— Sir William Holford

The development of Lake Burley Griffin—one of the key features of Griffin’s plan for the capital—was perhaps the NCDC’s key undertaking during the 1960s. The Scrivener Dam was completed in September 1963 and began filling to form the lake. The decision to create the lake meant that new bridges had to be built to replace existing timber structures across the Molonglo River. Intriguingly, on some early maps showing Griffin’s plan, there are three bridges across the lake—Commonwealth and Kings Avenue bridges and an additional one spanning the lake from Black Mountain Peninsula to the area near the bottom of Novar Street in Yarralumla. Obviously, this was never built. So the four lane Kings Avenue Bridge was opened on 10 March 1962, with a motorcade led by Prime Minister Menzies.

The Commonwealth Avenue Bridge needed to accommodate six lanes of traffic on two structures, with pedestrian access cantilevered out from each. Approaches to each side needed to pass under Commonwealth Avenue. The design requirement was for a sleek, horizontal structure with a reasonably long span resting on slender piers—very modern. This low profile aesthetic would make sure there was visual continuity between the central and west basin of the proposed lake. The final design was submitted by G. Maunsell and Partners and William Holford and Partners, while Hornibrook Pty Ltd would be the construction company.

Each bridge was designed as a single geometrical arc formed by a continuous pre-stressed concrete box girder 2.7m thick and over 300 metres long. The roadway width on each bridge was over 11 metres and an asphalt/concrete surface for the road was designed to be placed on the top element of the box girder members.

Work commenced on the bridge in March 1961. At the peak of building, up to 500 men would gather on the flood plain to work—uprooting trees, removing soil, cottages and dismantling the timber truss bridge at Commonwealth Avenue. The construction required extremely close attention to detail and high quality materials for the pre-stressed concrete. After extensive testing it was discovered that all of the required materials were available locally: high quality aggregates, the right rock and various types of sand. Extensive falseworks were required for the initial support of the bridge superstructure and for the degree of accuracy required in placing the pre-cast concrete bridge segments. Critically, no floods were experienced during construction, which would have hampered these efforts with the timberwork.

The Bridge incorporated several design features that were new to major bridges in Australia. The superstructure comprised the first post-tensioned concrete multi-webbed torsion box made of jointed pre-cast segments. The one hundred segments were stressed together in one operation over the full length of deck by 320 metre long external tendons. To a non-engineer, this still seems like a remarkable feat. For each bridge 102 reinforced concrete box segments 3 metres long and weighing 45 tons were cast on site and after curing were carefully placed by gantry on the timber falseworks. The 3 inch wide gap between each segment was filled with fine concrete to make a continuous box girder over 300 metres long. This was post-tensioned by external high tensile steel cables. After final checking for stresses the cables were encased in concrete to prevent corrosion.

Following on from the successful example of Kings Avenue Bridge, lighting for the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge was achieved by fitting a line of fluorescent tubes in each outer handrail. This integrated lighting marked the edge of the carriageway and provided illumination for the footpath and an impressive night-time display of the bridge structure, seen in countless postcards since. The resulting absence of post-top lighting on the bridge further enhanced the sleek appearance of the structure and didn’t break the view of the lake and the Parliamentary Zone.

Commonwealth Avenue was more than just a link in the city’s road network: it also performed an important role in Canberra’s developing sewerage system. Who knew? The original intercepting sewer to the north had been built in an inverted siphon under the Molonglo River near Commonwealth Avenue. The proposed lake raised concerns that the tunnel might collapse during flood, so the decision was taken to incorporate sewer mains within the superstructure of the bridge itself: 500 millimetre inside the eastern bridge and 450 millimetre on the western bridge. A vent was incorporated in the south-east decorative pylon and a pumping station built next to the northern approach of the eastern bridge.

Ever noticed the old stones in the supporting embankments? When London’s historic Waterloo Bridge was demolished in 1936 some of the large, flat stones from the 119 year old structure were donated to the Commonwealth Government. The stones were stored in quarries around Canberra for decades and eventually used in the supporting embankment under Commonwealth Avenue Bridge.

The Bridge is a twin structure, with separate parallel carriageways. The bridge structures are of 5 spans totalling 310 metres, of fully continuous prestressed design. It has a higher camber than Kings Avenue Bridge, a design feature to allow for yachts to sail beneath. The end pylons give added importance to the bridge as the main route to Parliament House. To provide an exit and entry clover leaf layout, separate structures are built on the main bridge’s south approaches, totalling 49 metres each, in 4 approximately equal spans.

The Bridge is like an important piece in a puzzle. As we can see now, the Central Basin of the lake is the centrepiece of the National Area in the immediate foreground of the National Area, and unites the wider city-scape and public spaces on its foreshores in which are now set major national buildings. The Bridge brings the natural beauty of the mountains and adjacent hills into focus and visually unites them with this created setting for our public buildings. It provides marvellous aesthetic qualities and is a major feature of Canberra’s viewpoints at Black Mountain, Mount Ainslie and Red Hill lookouts.

Canberra’s growth — a brief overview

martin — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:44:30 +0000

The 1930s and 1940s

Canberra was little more than a country town during the 1930s, with a population of around 10,000. In 1941 there were as few as 400 privately owned houses, with the vast majority of housing construction government driven. There were probably only two privately practising architects in Canberra up until the late 1940s (Kenneth Oliphant and Malcolm Moir). The ideas of mainstream modernism came slowly to Australia and there was little private building in Canberra during this period. Consequently, only a very small number of inter-war functionalist houses survive from this period, some being influenced by the architecture of Mies van der Rohe in Germany and W M Dudock in Holland.

The 1950s

The population of Canberra grew to 50,000 during the 1950s. The decade saw the establishment of the Australian National University, gradual movement of government Departments to Canberra and the creation of the NCDC. The arrival of academics and senior government officials from Sydney and Melbourne accompanied these developments and it was not unusual for them to commission architects from their home cities to design their new houses in Canberra. At the same time, the NCDC increased the amount of commissioned government work for public building, also attracting leading architects to Canberra. As a result of these influences, there are excellent examples of post-war Melbourne (Grounds and Boyd) and post-war international architecture (Sydney architects Seidler and Ancher). Some are of national importance. The presence together in Canberra of work by important Sydney and Melbourne architects is also of particular interest.

The 1960s

With the NCDC in full swing, the 1960s witnessed growth rates of 10% per year in Canberra and by 1970 the population had climbed above 140,000. The city was transformed, with the development of new satellite towns in Woden and Belconnen, the creation of Lake Burley Griffin and the commencement of national institutions in the central national area. The decade saw further important examples of Melbourne regional and post-war international architecture designed and built, together with the emerging Sydney regional style and beginnings of medium density housing. The first medium density housing development sponsored by the NCDC in Swinger Hill created a sensation when it was opened for exhibition on two weekends in April 1972, attracting over 20,000 visitors.

The 1970s

Canberra’s high growth rate continued in the early part of the decade and large scale office development accompanied a rapid expansion of the town centres in Belconnen, Woden and Tuggeranong. By 1976 the population had reached 203,000. The Sydney regional style became more widespread in the early part of the decade, particularly in developing bushland suburbs such as Aranda. The 1970s also saw a further increase in medium density development as the NCDC began actively promoting the idea of townhouse living.

1980 and later

The city of Canberra matured in the 1980s, with the population approaching 300,000 and greater diversity apparent in lifestyles, employment and recreation. The suburbs and town centre of Tuggeranong were constructed to the south, and the new town centre of Gungahlin planned in the north. Meanwhile, real estate values in inner suburbs increased significantly, reflecting a growing awareness and appreciation of the city’s history and heritage. The marked increase in the regeneration of central suburbs has provided opportunities for architects, and produced a number of interesting and award winning houses in this period. But it’s a two-edged sword: this regeneration also threatens some significant older houses with demolition and redevelopment.