Thursday 22 June 2017

The Work Experience Kid's UFO Lift Motor Room


So I am clambering over a roof at my local Council building, and I suddenly see this thing.  It has unworldly scales, an access ladder, and zero connection with any adjacent surface.  It floats over the roof like a UFO, like something out of a Doctor Who episode (Given it's part of an 80's brutalist extension to a 19302 artdeco town hall, I am going to say Doctor IV.)

So what is it?  Cladding for a roof mounted water-cooled A/C system?  An early example of pod office group-team-workspace? A refuge for the burdened maintenance contractor?


It's a lift motor room.  And so here I celebrate the original architects of this building.  It is generally an unbalanced lump of a thing, full of slavish references to the 1936 town hall building, destroyed with curtain-wall smoked glass connections and a no sense of entry.


But the lift motor room is a gem.  I can see the scene in the architects office as the work experience kid is given the job of designed something that no one will ever see.


"Just give me a cladding for this thing, junior, and make it match the rest of the building"


"Sure boss."


There are some whooshing noises in the studio, some clangity-clang sound effects, and there it is.  A students folly, a jewel stuck on the top of a pile of random materials.  Tiled wall, recessed entry and a shadowline-connection perfectly scaled to the rest of the roof.


Neat.


Tuesday 13 June 2017

These are a few of my favourite things..

Moving to work in the inner 'burbs, it'll be sad to no longer be taking some of my favourite things for granted.  Some of my favourite things?  Let's sing together:

Shiny steel cladding and warm stinking dumpsters...♩♩♫

Raindrops on paving and whiskers on hipsters...♩♩♫



Brown paper bicycles tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things...♪♬

Amber poured ponies and crisp pulled pork buns...♩♫

Seating and fountains and stonework for skate fun...♫♪


Wild roofs that fly with the news on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things♬♪

Lanes in colour dresses with barred window sashes...♫♬

Dumplings that stick to tablecloth splashes♫♩♩

Fresh randang turns lunch into zings ♫♫
These are a few of my favorite things♪♫














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