Information
TONDM was founded by Tony Owen and Geoff Klimpsch in 2004 and has now grown to 25 staff. The office concentrates on taking a new, pragmatic approach to managing development in cities by smoothing links between the social, spatial, temporal and cultural forces that come into play as urban density increases pressure on a site. It sounds like serious stuff, but if their stunning beach residences are anything to go by, this is the kind of densification we can certainly live with.
Bondi Wave House
Inspiration
‘Working in Sydney,’ says Owen, ‘it is very difficult not to find inspiration from the natural landscape.’ They are currently working on a series of projects dubbed Liquid Architecture, including the Castlecrag and Double Bay and Wave houses. These are foreshore or beach projects, inspired by water, with geometries derived from tidal patterns and the estuarine flows and the traces they leave in sand dunes, coastlines and rock formations.
Innovation
TONDM generally produces 3-D computer visualisations within the first week of a design to test forms and explore the spatial potential of an idea. In the near future, says Owen, ‘the relationship between technology and the building process will gradually liberate the plan from all previous preconceptions’ allowing architects to focus on the purity of the idea as an expression of the issues involved. ‘This,’ he assures us, ‘will lead to unprecedented new acts of pragmatism’, an interesting counter opinion to the prevailing idea that technology is only there to liberate playful fantasies.
INFORMATION
- Website
- http://www.tonyowen.com.au
