Professor Richard Goodwin has been producing and designing public works since 1974, coming from an architectural background, studying Architecture at the University of New South Wales and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He is currently a practicing Artist-Architect and Professor at the University of New South Wales with a long line of many past awards including the 2004 Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award and the 2003 Sydney Water Prize for ‘Sculpture by the Sea’.

In his lecture today, Goodwin addressed two main points; firstly, the importance of the process of thinking through making, especially in the realm of model making, and secondly, our perception of public space through the performative and parasitic nature of spaces. Goodwin discussed the process of making models and objects as important to the design process and performance art by generating ideas using one-to-one modelling in an attempt to change, modify and think through the generation of space. He also addressed the importance of model making as a design tool in creating space, through traditional, analogue means as well as technological means, such as 3D CAD and animation platforms. Through the use of model making, artists and designers are able to communicate their designs in ways that help clients and users connect better to projects that have yet been constructed. Goodwin also showed examples of his own work using computer-generated models to show how his works were created and constructed. In particular, Goodwin’s exploding motorbike sculpture was created through a computer-generated animation of an exploding motorbike, paused at a specific interval and then the sculpture constructed from this computer aided drawing. Goodwin also address the ability of technology to feed our imagination, without the physical need to construct model iterations; the use of computer modelling is helpful to explore different outcomes and reimagine more complex structures. Through computer iterations, one is able to explore the new possibilities of pre-exisiting objects, such as the previously stated motorbike as sculpture and not just a mode of transport.

  Poroplastic explosion motor 3 2008 computer generated image

Poroplastic I – red octopus 2008 stainless steel and motorcycle parts

This idea of rethinking designs stems from a Goodwin’s rebellion against modernist ways of thinking that ‘form follows function’. His ideal of Parasitic Architecture is one of the many programs in which the line between art and architecture is blurred, as parasitic forms creep across city buildings creating new programs and spaces on pre-existing architecture. Goodwin is famous for his parasitic architecture types, such as the famous Elizabeth Bay ‘Stealth Bomber’ Penthouse, a penthouse structure built on top of a pre-existing apartment complex. The nature of Goodwin’s parasitic architecture is to use and reimagine the uninhabited spaces around existing buildings.

  “I see architecture as a type of body onto which things can be attached – new propositions. Architecture, to me, is a body in a state of becoming, always. It's not a finished work. And so my art/architecture proposes a series of attachments and new things happening to those buildings as they evolve.”

- Richard Goodwin 2004

  This so-called parasitic nature also appears in momentary or pop-up public spaces such as Goodwin’s own Seven Metre Bar, which appeared in Underwood Street for the Laneways By George Festival held by the City of Sydney in 2009. These public spaces not only stand alone as human interaction spaces also delve further into the interaction of humans and space. The Seven Metre Bar was not only a bar but also an installation work that explored the outcome of climate change and the resulting 7m, worst case scenario, sea level rise, and how that would affect Underwood Street in Sydney. This project, a collaboration between an artist, architect/gamer and landscape architect combined the landscape of weather, an architecture of catastrophe and the technology of games in order to explore the outcome of climate change. As a precursor for the creation of this design, 3D animation techniques were utilised to visual the catastrophe of rising sea level as well as help in the creation of the space, specifically in terms of the placement of ‘floating’ debris within the space. This pop-up architecture helped to raise awareness of the severity of climate change, whilst also taking an abandoned laneway in the heart of Sydney City and breathing new life into it. Overall, I was pleasantly fascinated by this project, and the animation that Goodwin, Lowe and McGregor were able to produce in order to demonstrate the outcome of such flooding.

Seven Metre Bar 2009 recycled city debris

The Seven Metre Bar projects remains one of my favourite momentary architecture projects, because of the design’s simple yet thought provoking way of challenging society. In this lecture Goodwin also discussed the boundary between public and private space as a way of challenging society’s notion of acceptance and permission. Goodwin questioned the ideal of social permission, in terms of performative art and spaces that he had previously created, stating that “when someone says no, to always ask why” this constant questioning of authority gives way to new dimensions of public art and what affects public space. With the line between public and private spaces becoming questionable and the ever present curiosity of human beings to explore what is out of bounds, designers and artists alike are also left to question the use of the public domain as a starting point for new concepts and ideas.

    References;

Alex Tarney 2004, Richard Goodwin, ABC George Negus Tonight, viewed 19 March, 2011  

<http://www.abc.net.au/gnt/future/Transcripts/s1139100.htm>

Australian Galleries, 2009, Australian Galleries, viewed 18 March, 2011

<http://www.australiangalleries.com.au/index.php?option=com_ag&task=work&id=2796&aid=179>

Richard Goodwin, 2008, Richard Goodwin, Richard Goodwin, viewed 20 March, 2011

<http://richard-goodwin.com/web/316/>