Teresa from BFDA attended the Building Designers Association Australia Conference on the 13 and 14 October. This year it was held in Canberra at the Shine Dome (The Australian Academy of Science) aka the Martian Academy designed by the legendary Sir Roy Grounds.

The conference was mainly held in and around the NewActon/ Nishi precinct. And the two days were filled with engaging speakers from a range of disciplines. Some of the highlights being:

Johnathan Efkarpidis speaking to us about the NewActon precinct which was developed by his family business. The development took 10 years and involved not only many great international architect but everywhere you look you will find work by local artisans who were commissioned as part of the building works or artworks. I love his Greek quote ‘Use all your 14 eyes’ to observe the changes around you. I will certainly try and use many more of my eyes in the future.

Tim Ross and his amazing knowledge of Australian architecture was as refreshing as always. We then went to the Palace Cinema and saw his movie ‘Streets of your town’. Not as good as the first movie, but always great to be around people that appreciate great architecture….it is very rare in this country.

There was a lot of discussions about sustainable design. Up until a few years ago, talk about sustainable design was really only just beginning to scratch the surface. These days the discussion is more about materials and detailing. Which is starting to feel like people are beginning to take it more seriously. To this end Dr Andreas Luzzi managing to make a talk on making your building ‘air tight’ or creating the ‘architectural esky’ edge of your seat interesting. He even had to make an impromptu appearance the next day, as we could not get enough of him.

Adam Hobill gave an insightful talk about defining your brand and ‘niching’. Standing out from the crowd and doing things differently was the take away point from this.

Marketing guru Amanda Whitely the founder of HerCanberra gave us a lot to consider as we all try to master social media. Her advice is ‘know your audience and create interesting content for them’.

A great couple of days and too much to write about here. But I will certainly share more information from the conference over the coming months over our various social media sites.

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