Melbourne has no shortage of architecture, but Carey Lyon believes there should be more space to talk about it.
In June, the architect, Lyons co-founder and RMIT Professor of Architecture established the Naarm Architecture Foundation (NAF), a new charitable organisation dedicated to supporting architectural discussion, research and experimentation in the city. Privately funded by Lyon as a way of giving back to Melbourne, the foundation brings together public programming, research grants, publishing and opportunities for emerging practitioners.
“Melbourne is an amazing creative city, but you can’t take that for granted,” says Lyon. “Design gets better, the culture gets better, the more you talk about it.”
That premise gives NAF a deliberately broad remit. Rather than focusing solely on professional practice, the foundation is conceived as infrastructure for architectural culture: supporting research and publishing, creating opportunities for emerging practitioners and providing a physical setting in which ideas can be exchanged.
Its home is particularly significant. NAF is based at Level 2, 46 Little La Trobe Street, the former office of Edmond and Corrigan, a practice closely associated with the development of postmodern architecture in Melbourne. Historic photographs by John Gollings show the office as a dense working environment of books, drawings and discussion; new photographs by Rory Gardiner and Colby Vexler capture the same address ready for another generation of architectural activity.
There is a pleasing continuity in returning the space to that purpose. At a time when architectural discourse increasingly takes place online or around major events, NAF offers something more permanent: a place in the city where research, practice and debate can coexist.
Its program takes three principal forms. Approximately eight $10,000 grants will be awarded each year to support research into architecture and the urban environment, with applications for the inaugural round having opened on 15 July. The Naarm Architectural Papers, published every six months, will combine commissioned writing with material from the grant program, contributing to critical discourse while building an archive of NAF’s activities.
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The third initiative, the Office of Speculative Practice (OoSP), turns the foundation’s physical home into an active workplace. As part of an 18-month residency, up to ten early-career creative practitioners will receive subsidised desk space at Little La Trobe Street, alongside mentorship, peer support and a regular program of activities.
The questions NAF hopes to encourage are substantial ones: how Indigenous knowledge can be meaningfully embedded within architectural practice; what makes successful public space in a rapidly growing city; how architecture should respond to Melbourne’s particular climate; and what role good design can play in addressing the housing crisis.
The foundation has received formal permission from the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation to use Naarm, the Wurundjeri word for “place” that is also used as a substitute for Melbourne.
Lyon is joined on NAF’s Board of Directors by Ian McDougall of Ashton Raggatt McDougall, Anna Jankovic of Simulaa and Marika Neustupny of NMBW Architecture Studio. The foundation is advised by Jefa Greenaway of Greenaway Architects, Tess O’Meara of Lyons, Philip Goad of the University of Melbourne and Georgia Birks of Architecture Media, bringing together expertise spanning practice, research, publishing, Indigenous design principles and curation.
More than another program of architectural events, NAF has the potential to provide something valuable to Melbourne’s design culture in the longer term: resources, space and time for ideas that do not necessarily begin with a client or end with a building.
Naarm Architecture Foundation
naarmarchitecturefoundation
Photography
John Gollings
