Cameron Offices - going...

Luke – I have worked in both Cameron Offices and ABS House, and the newer building is so much better to work in. The atrium in ABS House is far more impressive than anything the Cameron Offices ever had to offer, just a pity that not many people know its there from just walking past the building. Most people pleading for the preservation of old buildings are looking in through rose coloured windows, having never worked in these terrible buildings (more so in the latter years).

Meconium – from your comment I guess you have been actively campaining to preserve heritage buildings in Canberra?

F**k this town and idiots like the above poster.

‘We’re never going to have a culture/heritage if we keep destryoying things when they go out of fashion.’

Good.

They shouldn’t have knocked them over. I used to work in them (briefly), and I think they had huge potential to be a grea work environment. It’s just unfortunate the public service departments that filled them couldn’t muster any inspiration beyond ‘grey cubicles’ to fit them out.

It’s also a disgusting waste of resources, seeing them pulled down, They were basically built to last forever (which is proved by how long it’s taking to pull them down).

And what are we replacing them with? Totally uninspired prefab boxes like ABS house. Now there’s an example of crap architecture.

I don’t get this town… We’re never going to have a culture/heritage if we keep destryoying things when they go out of fashion.

you dont *have* to design a building to look bland. unless your budget only goes so far as putting blueboard and glass up on the outside.

at least modern brutalist looked interesting.

They may look more “interesting” than a glass or concrete box, but looking at an interesting piece of architecture and actually working/living in them is completely different. Yes the two remaining units have been refurbished, but they are still not a very functional or comfortable place to work. Crap lighting, crap design and nowhere near enough space. But unfortunately I don’t think there is anywhere in Canberra that has decent offices that are great to work in, if there was I wouldn’t really care what they looked like on the outside!

This software is without peer in the freeware world:

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/%7Embrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

A bit clunky you have to set parameters under options I think, and for large images it takes a while, but the results are normally as good as I can do manually in 10x the time…

we dont let buildings age gracefully in canberra, we knock em down and whack up a business friendly fischer and paykel box.

Yep – much better than a glass or concrete box.

And usually architecture needs to age a bit before it actually looks ‘intersting’ instead of just old fashioned.

I never worked in those buildings though so I can’t comment on amenity.

I thought they were interesting architecture actually.
Perhaps the building mechanics needed massive rethinks and for sure the concrete all needed a clean, but the interplay of spaces, light and level changes were so much better than just another glass box.