Latest Programs
Saturday 28 June 2008
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What determines the fate of our cities? Is it policy and infrastructure or is it our attitudes and desires? Bob Perry, an architect and a director of SCAPE, a consultancy focused on urban design, planning, landscape architecture and transport, thinks it's our attitudes and desires. He believes that we have reached a point where an imbalance between our public and our private lives needs to be fixed if we're to enjoy a sustainable life. In this country, that means embracing the idea of urban density and shared public space. It also means getting on your bike.
There are people who are addicted to watching repeats of the BBC series Antique Road Show, now running on commercial television, even though they do not collect antiques themselves. And the same people will tell you that Friday nights on the ABC means watching Collectors.
The Australian Pavilion in Venice—the one used for the Venice Art Biennale and the upcoming Venice Architecture Biennale—is the subject of a show that opens today at Melbourne's Heide Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition has 11 finalists, shortlisted from an international competition, that give options for a new Australian Pavilion.
From Sherbet's satin jumpsuits and platform shoes to Kylie Minogue's gold hotpants, we investigate how Australian pop and rock performers have influenced the world of fashion.
Saturday 21 June 2008
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In this segment By Design invites guests to raise ideas they want to talk about, rather than respond to events raised by the media. Last year Rob Adams produced a report for the European Union looking at 12 cities worldwide that have taken on the agenda of liveability -- Melbourne being one of these cities -- and it is this topic that he has chosen to talk about today, about you and I, actually, moving to a low-carbon future and embracing the change.
By Design spoke a couple of weeks ago to Nokia's principal researcher, Jan Chipchase, about the future for mobile phones. You may recall that he mentioned the idea of mobile phones as 'urban sensors'. This week we speak to Eric Paulos, from Intel, about the work he is doing with urban sensors. He says we carry mobile phones with us nearly everywhere we go; yet they sense and tell us little of the world we live in. Look around you now. How hot is it? Which direction are you facing? How healthy is the air you are breathing? What is the pollen count? How strong is the sun? Were pesticides used on the fruit you just bought?
UK author and journalist Tim Richardson is equally at home in an 18th century garden, he says, as in a very contemporary 'conceptual' garden. In his latest book, Avant Gardeners, Tim profiles the work of 50 contemporary landscapes worldwide, and takes us behind the thinking of these gardens. Why make a garden from blue sticks, or a garden full of glass shards? Whatever happened to plants?
A few weeks ago on this show, we spoke to the builder Bob Day about private property as not just a roof over your head but the cornerstone of democracy. This prompted a listener to write in and tell us how unimpressed he was by this idea, 'Property rights were the result of the theft of the commons by the powerful, not a generous gift to society.' Can this be true? To discuss the origins of private property, we talk to Dr Andrew Fitzmaurice, Senior Lecturer In History at the University of Sydney.
Examine the contention of the eighteenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the legal theorist Pufendorf that the essential idea here is that taking something is not theft when everybody agrees that it is yours. Then we consider the views of the late seventeenth-century English philosopher John Locke, who held that land is converted into property by the activity of tilling it, rather than simply hunting and gathering on it? We also look at how this relates to property in Australia and the notion of 'terra nullius'.
Saturday 14 June 2008
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Trends and Products is the part of the show where we look at what's happening in a very particular part of the designed world. This week we're opening the doors on hotel lobbies.
By Design talks to Vince Frost about his approach to design -- in his favourite room, a converted textile factory in Surry Hills, Sydney. He also talks about today's look, the aesthetic of our time. VIDEO: To view video click into this story, then follow links.
When you visit your doctor perhaps the design of the waiting and consultation rooms is the last thing on your mind. And many doctors might think that aesthetics take a back seat to the primary function of a medical clinic. But should they? Can't design help play a role in making us feel better?
The 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale opens in September. The director this year is the internationally acclaimed USA-based writer, historian and curator Aaron Betsky, who believes architecture is not building. For him architecture is ideas, pure and simple. Out There: Architecture Beyond Building is Betsky's theme for the 2008 Biennale. Listen to Aaron Betsky next on By Design
Saturday 07 June 2008
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This short feature explores how, over the course of 14 days, 24 architecture students from the University of Tasmania's School of Architecture and Design created The Castle.
Yves Saint Laurent changed the world of 20th century fashion with his design and his use of fabric. He is famous for inventing the re-invention of the pants suit for women. Carla Bruni, wife of President Sarkozy, wore one of his pants suits to the funeral in his honour.
How much of our built environment should be preserved for future generations? Who should decide what we keep and what we demolish? And at the end of the day, who will pay the ever-increasing bill for heritage?
Guy Mirabella was born in Melbourne and now lives on the Mornington Peninsula with his family and now cooks at Shop Ate Café and Store in Mt Eliza. But he has also spent much of his life as a designer and a teacher of design, and, as a graphic designer, he has designed a lot of cookbooks (as well as writing quite a few).
Saturday 31 May 2008
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Dubai. Part of the United Arab Emirates, perhaps ten years ago you might never have heard of it. Today that's unlikely since we are talking about the fastest growing city in the world.
Leon van Schaik has written a rather interesting text that accompanies a new book on the Melbourne-based architecture firm Denton Corker Marshall. Professor van Schaik puts forward a hypothesis on what he calls weak-force architecture and strong-force architecture. Strong force architecture is international and driven by highflying brandname architecture firms. Weak-force architecture is local, organic, slow even -- and it is in this category that he positions Denton Corker Marshall. What does all this mean -- find out on By Design.
John Parker from Format Furniture in Sydney and Melbourne talks about the history of Italian design, and focuses on the Italian company Arflex, who produce - and produced - many of the icons of Italian furniture, including the seats in the original FIAT Bambino. A show on the History of Italian Design, opens at Format Furniture (Sydney) this week, part of Sydney Italian Festival 2008.
In Australia, Vietnamese came after Chinese and before Thai. You probably have a local Vietnamese offering some version (adapted, no doubt; limited, certainly) of this great cuisine. But this week, we look at the real thing with the help of Bobby Chinn, an American who runs a restaurant in Hanoi and is the author of a new book about Vietnamese food.
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7.30am AEST