What if buildings could transform?
Most probably we wouldn’t be here now. We are the 2017 Droga Architects in Residence, temporarily living in the Droga apartment in central Sydney. The Droga family moved to a new home as the family grew and the flat became too small. Now vacant, they gifted it for use by the Australian Institute of Architects Foundation. For a few weeks their former home will be a place for us to reflect, explore, ponder, develop, research by design and hopefully inspire and forward subjects that catch our imagination and spark our interest: Ours is dedicated to the transitional condition of the built environment; it’s capacity to adapt, to reassemble in new locations, to transform, to contract and expand, to move, and how this capacity can help to resolve some of the pressing environmental problems of our times.
While our globalized life is becoming ever more mobile, it is almost unimaginable to conceive of architecture as other than static—existing permanently for progressively longer spans of time. Global issues such as climate change, urban densification and migration, reveal a need and desire for adaptable urban and architectural situations. Our aim is to identify specific areas of potential change in the urban fabric of Sydney and challenge the permanence of architecture in order to develop prospects for a new understanding of architecture as a mobile, transitional proposition—an architecture that provokes questions of, and proposes answers to, the needs of a globalized society that is in a constant state of flux.
This blog will keep you in the loop about our discoveries on our journey to the transitional city of Sydney.
