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Thursday, 15 August 2013

Australian architecture will be on display in Venice next year - without a building.

A team led by Assistant Professor Rene Van Meeuwen from the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts will produce the Australian exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014, one of the discipline's most prestigious and important events.

Augmented Australia 1914-2014 will bring 20 unrealised Australian projects to life through three-dimensional augmented models, images, voiceovers and animations; 10 historical designs and 10 unbuilt public buildings by contemporary architects.

Winthrop Professor Simon Anderson, Dean of the Faculty and one of the Biennale team, explained that while Australia's art and architecture was usually housed in the Australian pavilion in Venice, next year would be very different.

"The existing pavilion will be demolished next year to make way for a new pavilion, so while we won't have a building we will be setting up marker poles with trigger points for mobile devices in the Giardini that will reveal virtual spaces," Professor Anderson said. "Instead of physical drawings, imagine holding up a smart phone and being able to see these historical and unrealised buildings inside and out."

Augmented Australia 1914-2014 by team felix. Giles_Anderson+Goad, was the brain-child of felix, a company run by Professor Van Meeuwen and recent UWA graduates Matt Delroy-Carr and Craig McCormack.

After spending the past three years developing the idea, process and technology, the team at felix invited Assistant Professor Sophie Giles, Professor Simon Anderson and Professor Philip Goad (The University of Melbourne) to join their bid for the Venice Biennale 2014.

"We've assembled a team of the highest quality, enabling us to represent Australia on the world stage," Professor Van Meeuwen said.

"The collaboration so far has already borne much fruit. We're planning a high-impact exhibition demonstrating deep knowledge. It should have a big WOW factor."

The project was chosen to represent Australia from 26 team proposals.

The win presents an exciting opportunity for UWA's Advanced Computing students who will be involved in developing the 3-D models and animations.

The 5 th year unit has been run by Professor van Meeuwen for the past three years and the innovative work of the students was a major factor in the decision by the Venice Biennale Committee to select the UWA-based team.

The 10 unbuilt contemporary buildings have not yet been chosen. An open call to architects will go out to find the 10 most interesting unbuilt public projects designed in the past 20 years.

Perth-based Patron of the Arts, Janet Holmes à Court, Commissioner of the Australian exhibition and a Board Member of The Australian Urban Design Research Centre at UWA, will be on the selection panel.

Australia's leading architectural historian, team member Professor Philip Goad, will guide the selection of the 10 historical projects.

Australian architecture has been successfully represented at the Venice Architecture Biennale since it began. Thousands of the world's most influential architects, designers, urban planners, developers and critics visit the Biennale each year.

The 14 th International Architecture Exhibition , will be held from 7 June to 23 November 2014 at the Giardini and Arsenale venues in Venice, Italy.

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