interview
DUO SPEAKS WITH LEADING TOWNSVILLE ARCHITECT
ROGER MACCALLUM
CONTRIBUTING TO OUR CITY’S EVER-CHANGING SKYLINE FOR 20 YEARS, AWARD-WINNING ARCHITECT ROGER MACCALLUM KNOWS OUR ENVIRONMENT WELL. LIKE ALL DESIGN FIELDS, ARCHITECTURE IS JUST AS MUCH ABOUT FUNCTIONALITY AS IT IS AESTHETICS AND COST. ROGER TELLS DUO ABOUT WORKING WITHIN OUR ENVIRONMENT AND THE VARIED WORK OF A TOWNSVILLE-BASED ARCHITECT.
INTERVIEW - RACHEL LICCIARDELLO PORTRAITS - SANDRA HEIER EVENSEN
INNOVATIVE ARCHITECTURE is about not following a stereotype. It’s about applying fresh new approaches to design, sourcing new materials and technologies. I became known as being involved in innovative architecture when I first came to town, so I was welcomed with a steady and varied flow of work. I’d first arrived in Townsville [from Sydney] in 1993, with intentions of settling here short-term while I worked on the Castle Hill Tourist Cableway, a job my Melbourne-based office had won. It was a high-profile job, possibly the highest profile job the town had seen at that stage. My role was to see the architectural aspects of that project through the assessment process involving both the Queensland Heritage Council and the City Council before building the infrastructure on a heritage site, Castle Hill. We finally obtained our approvals, then at 18 months I moved on from the project. We [Roger, his wife Jane, who is the interior design arm of the family business, MPA Design, their four young children and the family cat and dog] decided to stay in Townsville. We considered Townsville a buoyant market, while Melbourne [Roger’s native city] and Sydney were both quiet markets. Townsville presented great opportunity to innovate, to design buildings that were different to the standards at that time. I believe we’ve had a range of opportunities here that you wouldn’t normally get in a smaller city.
VARIETY KEEPS IT INTERESTING. Some of the more unique projects I’ve worked on have been for the Department of Defence. One such project was to design a shelter that could be completely silent inside despite a jet flying overheard. So we had to work with the engineer to create a sound proof shell. Imagine the noise load that comes from jets flying low overhead? The detail and work that went into creating that shell was significant. In the mid-1990s, I designed a series of aircraft shelters that, while they looked like a bunch of sheds, were actually dehumidifying environments for Chinooks and Blackhawks, to prevent corrosion of the aircraft frames. We did some leading-edge work on that project, running yellow pipes from a dehumidifying station outside, through the sheds and connecting to the aircraft; it was an Australian first. That same project, we designed a semi-automated helicopter and light aircraft wash; a similar concept to a car wash.
DUO MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2013 duomagazine.com.au 37