Leading architect Donald Bates new Chair of Architectural Design

Donald Bates is director of award-winning Lab Architecture Studio, the architects behind one of Melbourne’s most recognised landmarks, Federation Square.

He says his first task as Chair of Architectural Design is to gain a clear sense of the faculty’s program and initiatives, and in particular the quality of the design sensibilities of the students.

“My appointment is specifically related to helping advance the level and quality of design within the faculty, and to do so, I will need to become familiar and knowledgeable regarding the various studios and their design directions,” he says.

“Architecture is a broad-based field of knowledge: students need exposure to and engagement with diverse design processes, art history and theory, critical studies in literature and philosophy, technology and material sciences, as well as an understanding of how to work collaboratively, and how to establish a robust and analytical process of critique and review for projects.”

Mr Bates is originally from Texas, in the USA, where he gained a Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Houston. He gained a Masters of Architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art (Michigan), and lived and worked in Europe from 1983 until 1997. During his time in the UK, he taught at the renowned Architectural Association, and established an independent school of architecture in France from 1990-94. Bates established LAB Architecture Studio with Peter Davidson in 1994 in London, and the office moved to Melbourne after winning the Federation Square design competition in 1997.

Mr Bates said though he taught architecture during his time in the US, Europe and Australia, he always combined it with professional practice.

“I have always wanted to remain working as a professional architect,” he says.

“I consider the academic and the professional as equivalent, but different, aspects of an architectural life.

“I don’t valorise one over the other, and I gain immense satisfaction from participating in both aspects.”

Mr Bates says architecture is sometimes represented as an act of singular genius, or artistic inspiration, but in his experience, it is never about solo acts of inspiration or an idea sketched on a napkin.

“Rather, architecture is a multi-faceted process of exploration, research, the testing of forms and surfaces, the production of spatial relationships and the integration of various technologies and environmental services.

“The outcomes are always negotiated, and therefore an understanding of how to convey and represent an idea or concept to a non-architectural audience is essential. Architecture is collaborative and far too vast and complex an enterprise to be the consequence of a single individual,” he says.

Mr Bates considers the architectural education standard of Australia to be high.

“The range and quality of education is quite good and there are many graduates with very good skill sets and a good base of knowledge in architecture,” he says.

“What is missing is a more active and engaging critical discourse and a more focused exchange between architecture schools and programs.

“I hope to be able to institute some form of critical review and encounter to exploit these productive differences.”

Mr Bates says he is looking forward to the opportunity to work with the Faculty and the students.

“This is a challenging time for Architecture and Urban Design,” he says. “Going forward, issues of urbanisation and sustainability will be increasingly important, not as issues purely of technology, but of understanding how design and architectural design in particular is able to give form, materiality and spatial relationship to new and emerging variations of social, cultural and political structures.

“Melbourne has a well-established and highly rated sense of the importance of design, but given the need for better and more efficient use of public resources, infrastructures and governance, a critical architectural design sensibility can offer a re-imagining of how these forces work to create a progressive future.”

http://www.abp.unimelb.edu.au/