Dr Shane Murray is a practicing architect and Associate Professor of Design in the Architecture Program at RMIT University.
Nigel Bertram is a director of NMBW Architecture Studio and Senior Lecturer in the Architecture Program at RMIT University.
As a team Shane Murray and Nigel Bertram have extensive experience in the interrogation of the Australian urban condition: through architectural and urban design, through teaching, research and analysis, publication and exhibition.
In 2002, they established the Urban Architecture Laboratory (UAL) at RMIT University, a research unit devoted to a direct engagement with contemporary urbanism and an ongoing inquiry into the diversity of forces which shape the contemporary metropolis. They have co-supervised the successful completion of 13 post-graduate candidates through this stream since 2002.
This work and its subsequent dissemination has been a leading voice in the articulation of models for applied architectural and urban design research. The UAL focuses on the relationships between architecture and the detailed urban conditions in which it takes place, and interrogates the links between research and design practice.
Murray and Bertram’s publication record and extensive research experience, including completed ARC grants linked with industry partners, demonstrates an ability to work in teams, to successfully complete projects and to deliver quality outcomes within tight time and budget constraints. They have a strong relationship with the architectural profession as independent active practitioners. Their own architectural work has been recognised through RAIA design awards and published in leading national and international journals.
Creative directors theme
Our response for the Australian exhibition has been to look closely and carefully at the actual conditions of our urban environment, focussing on its specificity and differences. We consider the contemporary Australian urban condition to be a matrix of inter-relationships between urban cores, suburban sprawl, regional centres and rural hinterland. Understanding this field as a continuum of inhabitation across a range of densities and settlement types bypasses traditional distinctions between city and country, town and suburb, centre and periphery, metropolitan and non-metropolitan.
Micro-Macro City will present a sequence of illuminating case studies which have the potential to reveal a more precise understanding of our actual urban inhabitations and to consider how such an understanding can contribute clues and insights into how we might develop these urban realms into the future. Entwined with each of these case studies we will present contemporary works of urban architecture from a range of scales, types and uses. The relationship of these varied contexts and these particular architectural works will be exhibited in a manner that reveals a dynamic relationship of mutual influence.
Event Contact:
Shahana McKenzie
RAIA National Events Manager
Australian Pavilion Venice Biennale
T +61 2 6121 2000
F +61 2 6121 2001
M + 61 [0] 410 343 644
shahana.mckenzie@raia.com.au
Media Contact:
Jane Silversmith
PR Manager
Australian Pavilion Venice Biennale
T +61 2 9215 9099
F +61 2 9215 9074
M + 61 [0] 408 029 118
j.silversmith@ozco.gov.au
|
