The concept behind "Repair" starts from the fact that architecture takes up land and separates people from the natural environment. This is particularly relevant in Australia where cities are interspersed and bordered by vegetation and larger natural systems.

The Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) will present Repair at the Australian Pavilion during the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Creative Directors Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright of Baracco+Wright Architects, in collaboration with artist Linda Tegg, have curated a multi-sensory living installation for the Pavilion, designed to disrupt the viewing conditions through which architecture is usually understood.
 
Repair will address Farrell and McNamara’s call “to stimulate discussion on core architectural values” and to validate the “relevance of architecture on this dynamic plane" under their theme Freespace, by focusing on architecture that integrates built and natural systems to effect repair of the environment, and in so doing, repair of other conditions. Through this lens, this exhibition provokes new relevance and roles for architecture.

The Australian pavilion will be transformed into a living installation, entitled Grasslands Repair, with a huge grassland. It is designed to disrupt the viewing conditions through which architecture is usually understood and serves as a reminder of what is at stake when we occupy land. The curators will install ten thousand plants inside and outside the pavilion, including 65 species of Victorian Western Plains Grasslands. The seeds have been sourced in Australia, transported to Italy and grown by Italian partners. The area of plants exhibited is similar to that taken up by the pavilion.
 
“We have often struggled with our relationship as architects when considering the use of land – it’s no small act. We believe there is a role for architecture to actively engage with the repair of the places it is part of, which our exhibition will communicate. We hope the discussion we’re presenting will engage the profession and initiate a legacy of the Biennale Architettura 2018.”

Above this installation, a custom designed lighting system, titled Skylight, has been created to simulate the sun’s energy and to sustain the plants inside the pavilion during the entire period of the Architecture Biennale. It channels energy from the Italian electricity grid – 64% fossil, 21% hydro, 9% wind and solar, 5% nuclear, and 1% geothermal – into the bodies of the plants.

The third component of the exhibition is Ground, an experimental video series which will show 15 Australian projects. The projects represent a geographic, scale and project-type mix and illustrate different design processes and challenges. While most focus on achieving repair outcomes through addressing the natural environment, there will also be examples of cultural, social or economic repair. These include for instance the reuse of old buildings, the remediation of industrial land and the presence of indigenous culture in Australian cities.

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Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright (Baracco+Wright Architects) in collaboration with Linda Tegg
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It is only the second time that the current Australian pavilion will host the Architecture Biennale. As it’s the most recent pavilion (2015) in Giardini, it has a totally different style compared to the other pavilions. The black box next to the canal has been designed by the architecture firm Denton Corker Marshall. Some of the panels fold open to indicate that an exhibition is ongoing, and to allow natural light inside. The former pavilion was designed by Philip Cox and was opened in 1988.
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Baracco+Wright’s architectural practice combines the academic and practice world and is shifting more and more towards landscape based approaches that effect and catalyse environmental repair through decisions of siting, ground plane, hydrology and other ecological conditions.

Mauro Baracco is a practicing architect and a director of Baracco+Wright Architects. He has a PhD in Architecture from and is also an Associate Professor at RMIT University in the School of Architecture and Design, Melbourne, Australia where he was the Deputy Dean of Landscape Architecture (2013-15) and is currently the Deputy Dean of International.

Louise Wright is a practicing architect and a director of Baracco+Wright Architects founded in 2004. She has a PhD in Architecture from and also is a sessional lecturer in design at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

Together with Louise they seek opportunities to position architecture in a catalytic role that places the architect in the role of strategic thinker across disciplinary boundaries. Over the past 10 years they have developed this approach through research projects throughout the Wimmera region in Western Victoria, Australia, “Regenerated Towns: Regenerated Nature”, connecting environmental repair undertaken by Greening Australia in their project Habitat 141 with environmental, social and economic repair through strategic and integrated architectural and landscape works in the towns that lie within and around this project. The design based research they carry out informs their practice. Their work has been described as quietly radical.
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Linda Tegg works with photography, performance, video, and installation to investigate the contingent viewing conditions through which we orient ourselves in the world. Her work has been extensively exhibited in Australia, Mexico, The United States, and Europe. Tegg was the Samstag Scholar of 2014 and The Georges Mora Foundation Fellow of 2012. Linda is currently a Lecturer in Creative Practice at Deakin University, and the inaugural Artist In Residence at the School of Geography at The University of Melbourne.
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Published on: May 23, 2018
Cite: "Australia Pavilion. Preview of the Architecture Biennale 2018" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/australia-pavilion-preview-architecture-biennale-2018> ISSN 1139-6415
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