Wood Marsh

Wood Marsh Pty Ltd Architecture is a Melbourne based Australian architectural practice founded by Roger Wood and Randal Marsh in 1983. Their design aesthetic and approach is often based on the sculptural form, a sense of drama, spatial arrangements, mood, and three-dimensional design.[1] Their works range from residential to public infrastructure, often informed significantly, by the site and locality.

Personal life and career

Roger Wood and Randal Marsh, both Melbourne-born in the 1950s, completed a Bachelor of Architecture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.[2] Marsh graduated with Honours and Wood received the RAIA (Royal Australian Institute of Architects) award upon his graduation.

After working for practices such as Williams Boag and Daryl Jackson, the two established their own private practice “Biltmoderne”, along with Dale Jones-Evans in 1983. Jones-Evans left the firm in 1987, from which emerged Wood Marsh Architects.

Earlier projects that lead to Wood Marsh’s prominence were their designs for nightclub interiors in the mid '80s - creating theatrical flourishes for Metro, Inflation and Chasers.[1]

Both architects lecture at Universities and Institutions around the world.[3]

Today the practice comprises 15 employees and works on projects that include architecture, infrastructure, sets/installations, and furniture.

Notable projects

Public

The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art

ACCA (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art) was completed in 2002 and is located in Southbank, Melbourne, Australia. It is a gallery presenting a diverse range of creative visual art. The design aims to be expressive of its function; a sculpture in which art can be viewed. The minimum external openings make the gallery easily adaptable, to accommodate the wide range of media on show. The gallery’s robust form is solidified by the use of one cladding, Corten steel, over a steel frame, also making reference to the industries that once occupied the site.[4]

Multiresidential

YVE Apartment

YVE apartment was completed in 2006 and awarded the Victorian Architectural Medal. The building was designed as a three dimensional structure, and its symmetrical design gives equal space to the residencies and also an exterior aestheticism in which the views of the tower are the same from different vantage points. The clover shape of the building also minimises overlook into neighbouring apartments.[1]

Residential

Gottlieb House

Gottlieb House completed 1990, won the 1994 Victorian Residential Architecture Award. The house is introspective and presents no internal program to the street and stands unreceptive in conventional suburbia. The building explores the arrangement of form and the interaction of these forms and spaces as a whole. Basic materials emphasise the buildings composition.[3]

Urban design

The Eastlink project was completed in 2009. The project consists of 45 km of freeway linking the existing eastern freeway to Frankston. Through the design and manipulation of noise walls, tunnel entrances and bridges, an architectural sculpture that snakes its way through Melbourne’s outer suburbs is the result.

Awards

Australia Pavilion of Expo 2010, Shanghai

Wood Marsh’s awards include 34 RAIA/AIA Awards, to date, along with the 1998 and 2006 Victorian Architectural Medal and The Walter Burley Griffin award for Urban Design in 1998.

References

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wood Marsh.