Exterior, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

Exterior of house during construction.

North elevation, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

Looking downhill to house during construction.

Sunshading, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

East elevation.

Upper floor, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

As seen from ground. Lower level deck under.

South elevation, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

Approach to house from road.

South elevation, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

Approach to house from road.

South elevation, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

Looking uphill to house.

South elevation, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

Approach to house from road.

Stained glass windows, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

As seen from interior.

South elevation, Carpenter Hall House, Wilston, Brisbane

As seen from street.

Sunshading to exterior, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

As seen from exterior.

North elevation, Carpenter Hall house, Wilston, Brisbane

View through house to landscape beyond during construction.

Kidosaki redux: Trans-cultural trans-location

This paper concerns a collaborative experiment in architectural design teaching and thinking developed during a workshop held at The University of Queensland in 2000. The programme explored the possibilities and the consequences of relocating location-specific architecture to a different context - a 'Trans-Cultural Trans-Location'. The project involved the careful study by Australia-based students of a house designed for a Japanese family in a dense part of Tokyo by the eminent Japanese architect Tadao Ando, and the subsequent translocation of the ideas that underlay the building to a suburban location in Brisbane, for a theoretical equivalent Australian family. This experimental project examined the universality of architectural concepts, their appreciation and the pedagogical setting. The project raised questions of: - How well do students from one culture comprehend architecture designed specifically for another – which are the areas of misunderstanding and understanding? - How can students transpose architectural ideas from one social and physical context to one that is almost entirely the opposite? - What are the limits of collaboration and exchange in design teaching and how do they reveal similarities, inconsistencies and the unexpected in the aims of the teacher and of the student? These questions suggest that in order to comprehend a design, we must understand the culture within which it originated, and that we must understand the cultures within which we work in order to design. This paper is written in two parts. The first part establishes a framework for discussing the contrast of the cultural settings studied. The second part considers the nature, conduct and results of the Studio Workshop itself.