Ray’s deep thoughts of the week

Book shelves part 2

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:11:55 +1000

A week or so back we finished the shelves.
As expected the novels fit OK with a little over a metre to spare. This allowed us to finally get a lot of other books out of box-storage, re-shuffle the existing setup and display our collection in some kind of ordered manner.
One of our friends, who shall remain nameless, arranged his books by colour. Can be useful if you remember that such and such had a red cover, but we have been more traditional in ordering by topic/subject/author.
The chair is a replica of Rietveld’s 1917 prototype for the “red-blue” chair. A tricky space to photograph!

Book shelves

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:43:43 +1000

Being a bibliophile is an expensive business. I just can’t resist book shops. It’s what’s inside that is the attraction. I have a reasonably good collection of architectural and art books, started while I was a student. The most recent major acquisition being Le Corbusier Le Grand, a massive tome I managed to wangle as a birthday present from my wife.
Such items need a home, and every so often the shelving needs to be extended. It’s not easy finding the space. When we built an addition a few years ago we included a purpose-built library. It didn’t take long to fill it up.
In the last week or so I have been working on an extension to our shelving capacity. We have a number of standard units about 280 deep by 600 wide with adjustable shelves. These are good for general non-fiction books, but tend to be too deep for novels. We have a short corridor that leads past the library to the studio that we thought could be used for a series of narrow - 165mm - shelves suitable for works of fiction. This would allow the overflow that resides on the floor and in various boxes into the vacated area.
Our good friends at Camberwell Cabinets sliced up some MDF and I used Artisan hangshelf aluminium extruded brackets. A lick of paint and a problem solved. Very economical as well. About 14m shelf length.
Photo taken late at night prior to final painting.

New Building Regulations

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:42:59 +1100

There are new building regulations relating directly to houses to be built, or added to, in bushfire prone areas. Details at the Building Commission website.
The new regulations relate Bushfire Attack Levels (BAL’s) to various construction types and materials. See diagram above for the meaning of the different levels. Each of these levels requires a particular use of design and materials for sub-floor, floor, external walls, windows & doors, roofs and external areas such as verandahs and decks. What I can’t understand is why anyone in a bushfire prone area would decide to design their house only for ember attack.
To me, all of the levels between BAL-LOW and BAL-FZ are superfluous, if not ridiculous. If there’s a likelihood, even small, of a fire, why wouldn’t you design for the worst case? The BAL’s are progressive stages of a single fire event, not a series of possible discrete happenings. Even so, the following appears in the Building Commission document:
So what does it all mean? The BAL-FZ requirements may not be sufficient to protect a building. It seems like a poorly considered piece of regulation, hurried through and with insufficient thought given to possible, even probable, consequences. Design for earthquake areas is assumed to actually work except in truly extraordinary circumstances. I wonder what the insurance industry thinks about it.

Postscript
I was recently in a Melbourne suburb about 15km from the city. The area was full of gum trees, many close to houses. Lots of undergrowth. The roofs & gutters were laden with sticks and leaves. The houses were mainly weatherboard. A fire would go through that area in a shot. It will be interesting to see what BAL is nominated there.

New Project

Tue, 3 Mar 2009 17:49:53 +1100

We are very pleased to announce that we have been awarded a new project. Details to follow.

Random image shown.

Archibald Prize 2009

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:50:04 +1100

I’m very pleased and proud to note that my Sydney-residing friend Paul Jackson has a painting selected for the 2009 Archibald Prize exhibition: ‘Flacco’s Chariot’.
His painting is one of 39 finalists chosen from more than 700 entries. On Wednesday he was awarded the Packers’ Prize. This is presented by the packers who work at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

From The Age web page:
The head storeman at the AGNSW, Steve Peters, chose the portrait of the character created by comedian Paul Livingstone.
But it's not necessarily good news for New Zealand-born Jackson - the Archibald's never been won by a work chosen for the Packing Room Prize.
But Jackson and Livingstone remain confident, telling reporters they'll not only win the Archibald but the People's Choice award too.
Flacco is shown in the portrait with a finger pointed on his bald head surrounded by his distinctive quiff of hair.
"Most of us are transported in some way by what we do, but in this case Flacco's work is informed by language, by the use of language, by the use of text, as is my work, even though it's a visual medium ..." Jackson said on Wednesday.
"And if you have someone who looks like the mini-me of the grim reaper you're going to find something in there to say about this person - a kind of Dr Jekyll and Mr Snide.
"I therefore decided it was time to represent Paul Livingstone as Flacco to show the internal structure of Flacco, who is in fact Paul Livingstone."
Livingstone, who posed for photographers at the gallery on Wednesday in an attitude similar to that of his Flacco portrait, said: "I'd much rather be popular than artistically relevant."
The $50,000 Archibald Prize, first awarded in 1921, will be announced on March 6.
On the same day, the $25,000 Wynne prize for landscape painting or figure sculpture and the $20,000 Sulman Prize for subject/genre painting and/or mural work will also be announced.

The painting I entered for the Wynne Prize didn’t make the finals. It means I have to pay the courier’s fees sooner rather than later.