Prize-winning Qld house: 2008 Robin Dods winner Bligh Graham Architects are a relatively new firm in Brisbane. Their work is starting to attract attention and this year they won the 2008 AIA Robin Dods Award for the best domestic architecture in Queensland. This is a very modern Australian house—significant and unusual in that it generates (theoretically) enough electricity from the solar panels on its roof to supply the street in which it is situated. The owners are selling electricity back to the grid. The attention to detail in this house is at the highest level. The craftsmanship is evident at every point—the plastering, the woodwork, the flooring, the door handles. The house is short-listed for the Australian Institute of Architect (AIA) national award, the Robin Boyd Award, which will be announced on 30 October. Design Anthropology What can designers learn from anthropologists? Trends: Greening abandoned industrial sites This week in our regular Trends segment where we look at developments in a particular part of the designed world, we´re focusing on the greening of abandoned industrial spaces. Le Corbusier `Le Corbusier Le Grand´ is a book so heavy that it´s like a concrete block. But perhaps that was the idea, because it´s about one of the greatest architects of the twentieth century, who really did use concrete in new and creative ways\.

Parliamentary architecture Winston Churchill famously said that 'we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us', and the question of how buildings help shape parliamentary business, in particular Australian parliamentary business, will be the subject of a roundtable discussion to be held next Friday at Parliament House, Canberra. Bernard Tschumi: the architect's architect Those of you passionate about architecture and, more generally, those of you in love with Paris will know of his famous Parc de Vilette, the 125-acre contemporary parkland in north-eastern Paris. And many will know of his writings. How pin-up girls taught men to shop In the 1950s marketers looked to educate men and women quite differently when it came to advice about the then burgeoning consumer lifestyle. For men the lure was often pin-up girls inside quite respectable publications such as Popular Photography. Many advertisers believed that by placing the `hook´ of a scantily attired girl in photographic spreads and features many a lawnmower or motor car or particularly male product could be more easily sold. Many advertisers believed that `a girl in the hand [was] worth five salesmen on the road'. Trends and Products: haute barnyard The provenance of your chicken or beef or pork is becoming more and more an important part of knowing what you eat. Any old meat just won't do for many of the top chefs working in Australia. Hear about this trend.

Big idea for Australian architecture? Diversity In June By Design spoke to Aaron Betsky, the director of this year´s Venice Architecture Biennale, which opens next month. Betsky´s Biennale is about ideas, not buildings, and he controversially put forward the idea that architecture is not about building, it is about ideas. Architects Kerstin Thompson and Neil Durbach—two of the five-member Australian curatorial team—talk with By Design about Australia's event. Team Australia's big idea is diversity. You can view By Design's video interview with Vince Frost, also a member of the Venice curatorial team, by clicking on the links. Renovation Nation It seems beyond dispute that Australians are preoccupied with their homes. But our first guest believes that this national preoccupation—the great Australian dream—goes beyond the widely held aspiration of home ownership. It extends to everything to do with home and housing: house prices, interest rates, mortgages, investment properties and holiday houses and, of course, home renovations. Early Holdens This week on Trends and Products, the product we´re looking at is a car. But not just any car, an Australian icon. And we´re looking not forward but back in time as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the arrival of Australia´s first family car, the Holden. Art Deco Art Deco burst on to the world stage at the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale, and quickly swept across the globe. Its influence was everywhere: it transformed the skylines of cities from New York to Shanghai and shaped the design of everything from fashionable evening wear to plastic radios. Its influence was felt across all areas of art and design, including decorative arts, architecture, fashion, art, graphics and film. The new aesthetics were also found in industrial design, furniture, transport, communications and in household items. Above all, it became the style of the pleasure palaces of the age—hotels, cocktails bars, nightclubs and cinemas. Beijing's CCTV facade revealed Marc Simmons from Front Inc spoke to By Design in late July about his work on the CCTV Rem Koolhaas/Ole Scheeren designed building in central Beijing. Front Inc designed the facade of this building. It is now finished and ready for the opening of the Olympic Games. See link

James Stockwell: 2008 NSW Wilkinson Award James Stockwell has just won the 2008 Wilkinson Award, the Australian Institute of Architects' top award for a domestic house in NSW. The prize winning house is in the Blue Mountains in NSW, just outside Sydney. James Stockwell is one of Australia´s top young architects—now in his own practice in Sydney. He has previously won two top national awards—the Robin Boyd Award—as part of NSW architect Peter Stutchbury´s firm. Photographs on web slide-show courtesy Patrick Bingham-Hall. Place Makers: Queensland architecture 'California Dreaming' is the title of a paper written by Andrew Wilson. It is a wonderful insight into the development of the modern Australian house, and the inspiration many architects, particularly those in post-war Queensland, took from American and British architectural magazines and museum shows, particularly one called Brazil Builds, which opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1943. Andrew Wilson has written an essay as part of the catalogue for a show opening today at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane. The show is Place Makers: Contemporary Queensland Architects. It runs till 23 November 2008. Trends: urban forests This week Trends and Products is about urban forests, with physicist Dr Peter Fisher, who emailed us in response to our Conversation in June with the Melbourne City Council´s Rob Adams. Dr Fisher has a passion for old-fashioned shade from trees and plants, and is lobbying hard for urban forests. He is a climate change consultant and research fellow at the Central Queensland University. Modernism in Australia An extraordinarily ambitious exhibition is about to open at Sydney´s Powerhouse Museum.