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26 JULY 2018RMIT NAS celebrated at the 2018 Victorian Architecture Awards
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The Australian Institute of Architects announced the winners of the 2018 Victorian Architecture Awards at its annual awards night on Friday 29th June and RMIT University's New Academic Street project was the most celebrated project of the night.
The project, designed by MvS Architects in collaboration with Lyons, NMBW Architecture Studio, Harrison and White and Maddison Architects won the coveted Victorian Architecture Medal, as well as the top prizes in the Urban Design and Educational Architecture
categories and awards for Interior Architecture, Sustainable Architecture and the Melbourne Prize.
Winners will progress to the National Architecture Awards, to be announced in November.
Image courtesy Peter Bennetts
1 OCTOBER 2011QSYC display suite by MvS
Minifie van Schaik has been engaged by the Shengjing group and RMIT University to design a 5,000m2 display suite at Qinhangdao Super Yacht City. The display suite will be the mechanism through which the client sells apartments and yachts and will double as an information centre for the entire development. The display centre includes a dry dock, 50 berths, two display apartments, a theaterette, kitchens, sales offices, function rooms, a model display area and a yacht service centre
22 MARCH 2013Public Presentation at AIA awards
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On March 24th Jan van Schaik and Fiona Abicare will present Scandinavian Freestyle to the Juries of the Australian Institute of Architects awards.
This year 240 entries will be presented across a two day program. Each presentation will run for 8 minutes with a 2 minute opportunity for Q + A. The event is open to the public and will be held at MADA, Monash Art Design and Architecture Building G at the Monash University Caulfield Campus.
Scandinavian Freestyle is entered into 2 categories - Interior architecture which is scheduled for 1:15pm in studio 6 and Small project architecture which will be presented in studio 3 at 1:30pm.
The event provides to the public a good opportunity to learn about new projects being completed by Victoria's top architects and also provides the public an insight into how architects present their work to their peers.
Photograph by Peter Bennetts
11 JUNE 2015Practice Research Floor Talks by Jan van Schaik and Georgia McCorkill
This week features two PRS floor talks by PhD candidates Jan van Schaik (13/06/15 & 16/06/15) and Georgia McCorkill (17/06/15)
Jan van Schaik will lead a floor talk examining an experimental design practice that incorporates nine sub-practices: design through explicit re-working of the propositions of other architects; design through less explicit re-working; design through implicit reference to everyday objects; design through intuition and explicit strategy; design through chunking and interrupting chunking; design through a deliberate pursuit of discomfort; design through abrogation of the author; advocacy as a design process; and a practice titled ‘fake-it until you make-it’.
In this talk van Schaik will explain how a community of peers can have an influence over a creative practice without direct contact; how even the most random and unrelated events are an integral part of the creative process, and how to become aware of this phenomenon without dismantling it; and and the complexity of claim of ownership legitimacy.
Georgia McCorkill looks to discuss the creative practices behind the award winning special occasion dresses, and how the aspects of sustainability coincides with the context of 'one-off' design, while acknowledging the socially-grounded potential of these dresses. McCorkill will look at the relationship between the sustainability ideal and the poetic impulses of fashion design.
Jan van Schaik will present on Saturday the 13th and Tuesday the 16th of June at 12:30pm, and Georgia McCorkill will present on Wednesday the 17th of June at 2:00pm. Both Practice Research Floor Talks will be held in in Project Rooms 1 & 2, Level 2 of the Design Hub at RMIT University.
Photo by Ramesh Ayyar
9 JUNE 2011Our student's work on the front cover of Financial Review magazine
A project for the urban expansion of Lianyungang designed to cope with future changes is sea level has beeb published on the front cover of the Financial Review magazine. The project is part of the World Architecture Workshop which we have been running since 2003 with RMIT University, ENSAM, the Miyagi University and Tohoku University. This year the workshop was held in Lianyungang wich is planing a population expansion of thirty million people over the next fifteen years
15 OCTOBER 2010Cafe Bourgeois
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This idealised three dimensional space imprints on the cafe walls an other worldly quality - a backdrop for glowing displays, the relentless warmth of the polished joinery end-grain and the resilient reception of the rich Marmoleum colours underfoot.
Construction of Minifie van Schaik's design for a cafe in new Docklands Myer building is now complete and Cafe Bourgeois is now open for business. Catch a Collins Street tram over the bridge and have a coffee.
“A gargantuan post-Riley op-art ripple which swirls across two walls, up onto the roof and down across the floor, effecting a continuous architectural synthesis of lights, visuals and ergonomics.
It’s a highly economical solution, too, a simple sticky-back vinyl print. Yet the striking photographs don’t do the subtlety of the interior justice.
The juxtapositions effected by the ripple unify the diverse zones of the café, from the dangling hula-hoop spangled with tiny LED string lights to the display cabinets, jazzing up without overwhelming the space.
One inherent difficulty of designing such spaces requires enhancing function without obtrusiveness: nobody wants to feel that they’re being too-obviously directed this way or that.”
- Justin Clements
26 OCTOBER 2016New Academic Street in Architecture Australia
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The New Academic Street has been featured in Architecture Australia as a case study for how city campuses are becoming a model for urban development which seeks to re-balance private and public use.
Andrew Nimmo writes that “The city campus can be an effective agent in the process of urban change and can add to the cultural landscape of the city. In many ways it is a model for ideal urban development in which greed and self-interest give way to the higher goal of mutual benefit and a different balance between private and public use.
The New Academic Street is a collaboration between MvS Architects, Lyons, NMBW, Harrison and White, and Maddison Architects.
Read the full article “The city campus and urban agency” in the July/August edition of Architecture Australia.
29 MAY 2015Breaking the mould
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MvS collaboration with iPartnership reviewed in AIA International
Working with iPartnership, a firm based in Kuala Lumpur, MvS Architects have been bringing life and flair to the built environment. This unique partnership is well into their 5th joint project, and have recently picked up an award at the PAM awards in KL.
The process involves an integrated style of practice with MvS directors heading to Malaysia regularly in order to provide experience and feedback to the local designers. Both firms benefit from the sharing of design ideologies and methods, giving rise to new design strategies which result in continued growth and evolution by both practices.
Photo by H. Lin Ho
07 NOVEMBER 2014Bold, Creative, Bright!
The prospects for a new Shepparton Art Museum has been the 'talk of the town,' with Simon McArthur & Associates and MvS, encouraging the community to help shape a new art museum by describing what would encourage them to visit, whilst also voicing their opinion on the placement, contents and services to supplement the building. By engaging the people early on in the process, it's possible to establish a brief which is representative of the greater community, thus satisfying the needs of the community as a whole.
The feasibility project is due to be completed at the end of the year.
The Article 'Bold visions for future sought,' Bishop, J. Appeared in the Weekend News, 27/09/14
26 OCTOBER 2016“The Home Within”: Panel Discussion with Anaïs Lellouche, Larissa Hjorth and Jan van Schaik
As part of the upcoming Melbourne Festival and the MPavilion public programs, Jan van Schaik will be contributing to a panel discussing “The Home Within” by Chiharu Shiota.
The large scale installation will be traveling to different venues in the city, with the panel discussion focusing on further exploration of Chiharu's work, the notion of home, and the relationship between public and private space.
The talk will take place 6pm Thursday 13th October at the MPavilion, and will also feature Anaïs Lellouche and Larissa Hjorth. This discussion is part of the visual arts program at the Melbourne Festival and the public programs at MPavilion, organised by Anabelle Lacroix.
02 NOVEMBER 2017“SPECULATIONS: Betting on Architecture” - PROCESS speaker series
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On Monday 2nd October, Jan, Leon, Anna and Mon delve in to robust discourse and fervent SPECULATIONS as they unpack the concept of 'betting on architecture'.
Speakers will rethink and retool normative understandings on the city, its economies, policies, procurement models and architectural outputs. Making proposals is certainly no ‘safe’ nor neutral practice, having seen the risks of projecting utopian ideals into reality. Yet today, provocation is both a business model and a format to explore unchartered territories. Where does that leave us? When design, money and time pressures run high, how does one decide between a ‘good bet’ and a ‘gamble’?
In an age of relentless entrepreneurship, risk-aversion, multinationals and mass-media advocacy, architects and designers navigate multifaceted parameters, looking for contingencies and overlooked moments that belie our architectural landscape. Speakers will explore the machine behind and between the ideas; the moment of calculation before rolling the dice; the speculative faculties behind the decision-making impulse, and what opportunity for innovation and reward lie on the horizon.
Speakers:
Jan van Schaik - MvS Architects, WRITING & CONCEPTS, RMIT University.
Leon van Schaik - RMIT University.
Anna Fairbank - Architect + Artist.
Monique Woodward - WOWOWA.
When: Monday, October 2 at 6:30pm
Where: Loop Bar, 23 Meyers Place Melbourne
24 MAY 2016'PROCESS' explores the notion of collaboration
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On Monday the 6th of June at Loop Projects Space and Bar, Process Loop investigated the notion of 'collaboration' and the three main types of working relationships that are the new normal and asked: how do collaborations happen? On what scale do they happen? And do too many cooks spoil the broth?
Adam Pustola x Nigel Bertram presented the RMIT New Academic Street Project project - a collaboration between Lyons, MvS Architects, MNBW, Harrison & White and Peter Maddison providing a new student experience over multiple buildings and functions in the university's city campus.
18 NOVEMBER 2011Wetlands Discovery Centre opens
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This week the Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands Discovery Centre was officially unveiled, giving key stakeholders their first opportunity to see inside the $4.9 million building. The education centre offers school and community groups a unique vantage point to study and appreciate the flora and fauna of the area, which each year is home to migrating birds from as far away as Siberia.
Built atop urban wetlands in Melbourne's south east, Minifie van Schaik designed the building – owned and operated by Melbourne Water – to merge with the landscape, causing minimal impact on the ecology of the site and complying with the requirements of its RAMSAR listing. As MvS director Jan van Schaik said, the building is “designed to be another inhabitant of the wetlands.”
The Centre was officially opened by the Victorian Member for Carrum, Donna Bauer MP and Chris Chesterfield, Melbourne Water's General Manager for Waterways. The MvS team were in attendance, sporting orange nails to match the bright underside of the building.
The Centre will begin operation in early 2012, hosting programs for school and community groups.