Sydney Climate Change report: We're a full season out of whack

35 degrees today.  That's truly awful.

This is the middle of autumn.  Sydney is seeing a week's worth of temperatures hovering in the 30s - temperatures that should be gone by the beginning of February; today's peak should sit squarely in the middle of a bad, hot summer.

Autumn leaves are blowing around while elsewhere spring flowers are confused into coming out for a second season.

And this is a population safely ensconced in a large, safe, wealthy metropolis.  Never mind the rest of the world that lives at the margins.

We knew about this over 25 years ago.  We could have stopped it if we'd done the right thing.  Conservative politicians are beholden to a self-centred support base that's in denial because they don't like to be disgusted [by reality], and while things are okay within their immediate circle.  So-called liberal politicians are likewise captive to a voter base and marginal voters that doesn't want them to make the hard choices.  Voters who do not vote Green are culpable.  Non-voters are absolutely culpable.

Phew.  Now that I've got that off my chest... no, I don't feel better.  But I will offer a couple of sparks of hope today.  And one evil signpost of complacency.

First, the global investment in renewables - half of which comes from China, a command economy - is now double the investment in fossil fuels.  Too little, too late for a two degree rise in temperature, but the catastrophe is slightly lessened.  And a possible forward is flagged by the increase in climate change litigation.  This is the path that had demonstrated success when tobacco companies were fostering political paralysis: courts may help achieve what couldn't be done by those you voted for.

The evil signpost of complacency: Marketing makes our favourite animals seem common as they slide towards extinction.



17-Apr-2018 Sydney bushfire:  The "Holsworthy" fire has a far more direct, tangible impact.  It was raging over the weekend; on Monday, a colleague who lives in Menai stayed home, messaging me: "Sore throats and noses from the smoke.  The fire has formed an arc around us.  All depends on the winds and ember strikes.  We just watch and wait."
At Jannali station on the way home last night, the plume was only a few suburbs away:

The smell of the smoke is novel for a while, but then makes breathing laboured.  As an asthma sufferer, I couldn't survive it up close.  All asthma sufferers would clearly need to get away early, and stay away until the smoke dies away completely.  Climate change?  Because this happened so far out of season, response was not as good as it could have been.  Some specialist firefighting aircraft could not be used because they had been sent back to the U.S. at the end of the season.

Sculptures by the Sea 2013

Another year at the largest sculpture exhibition in the world.

Some things stay the same: the heat, the crowds, the little fat men (from Danish artist Keld Moseholm), and the same sort of things that just stick upwards.

Different this year: many more pieces that were obviously made from "found" or recycled (rather: re-used) materials.  Some of those works had a cheap feel to them (lots of plastics, some of them clearly not post-consumer waste).  Some, like Subodh Kerkar's Chicken Cafreal, had so much structural integrity that it was not obvious what it was made of.

For me, the clear standout was a staircase to infinity by New Zealander David McCracken.  My eyes were constantly drawn to it; I've not been so attracted to a Sculptures work for a few years.  My 11-year-old son felt the same, but interestingly my 12-year-old daughter wasn't moved: "What's so special about it?"

On the other hand, we all agreed we loved the crows - Mikaela Castledine's East of the mulberry tree - the legend of the ten red crows.  Such rich colours.

Sculptures by the Sea is on until November 10.

Sculpture by the sea 2012

From Bondi to Tamarama beach, up to 4 November, Sculpture By The Sea is apparently the biggest sculpture exhibition in the world.

Here's a selection: my three favourites.  Some more of my photos are available on this web album.  My kids both took lots of photos; I still haven't gone through them yet, but they should be good.

Come back (Nakayama)

 My favourite: a granite portal, facing out to sea from a granite chair. It has strength.

Kalaidoscope cube (Ritchie)

I tried to capture this one reflecting its environment. Again, a very well positioned work.

Capital tension (Rhodes)

 I did like this for the tension between the bull and the bear.

 

 Another one - in my above web album - looked odd, but the meaning was not very obvious until I read up on it: a marking of the height of that tsunami in Japan. Very salient for the site. Have a look. Exhibition ends this Sunday.

Future Sydney 4: Gehry's crumpled UTS building

As part of a continuing series on Sydney's future, here's an image of the planned UTS business school building, designed by architect Frank Gehry.  More details and more pictures can be found here - including the back facade, comprised of "large, angled sheets of glass".

This is the second startling building plan I've seen released by UTS, the University of Technology, Sydney.  The first, an engineering faculty, can be seen here.

The other visions of Sydney's future are rather less tangible, more costly, and politically difficult:

• a bold proposal to create a large plaza in front of the Town Hall (by razing a full city block!)
• the opening up of Circular Quay with the removal of the Cahill Expressway (with further distant visions leading from that post).

By way of contrast, there are some visions of a Sydney that never will be: alternatives for the Opera House (here and here), an opera theatre 'appendage' to the Opera House, and an alternative harbour bridge.

Sculptures By The sea

Every year in November, Sculptures By The Sea comes to Sydney: an exhibition laid out on the coastal walk from Tamarama beach to Bondi.  That's only a few beaches away from us, so it's a regular treat for the family.  It's become more and more popular each year - so crowded, in fact, that it's much like Pitt St mall at lunchtime.

This year, I've posted to Picasa a lot of photos from the event. Despite my attempts to crop them to suit, you can tell what a crowd it was by the number of people milling around them.  (It was very hard to take pictures without people standing right against the sculpture.  Many seemed to think the photos should be more about themselves than the art work - thus sullying forever their souvenirs of the art.)

Here's my photo album:

2010 Sculptures by the sea

It's not a full set of the exhibition - just the ones I felt motivated enough to capture.  There's also a bonus photo this year: a whale was spouting in the distance.

I got the catalogue, but deliberately set out to appreciate each art work purely in situ.  If you want to know the name of the artist and work, right-click on the image as if to save it, and the title will be revealed.  However, there's one work I couldn't spot in the catalogue.  If anyone can find out what the untitled photo is, please let me know.

Flake wins my prize for the most ingenious: a traffic light that had seemingly been ripped out of of its location, complete with trailing electric cables and an old bike leaning against it.  Apart from that and the adaptable migrant (the camel above), my favourites were splash and anaconda (immediately above), both for their vibrant colours on a very bright day.

Sydney's orange storm

The kids called out to me around 6am this morning to look at the light outside. Everything was orange.


Sydney was in the middle of a dust storm, the likes of which I've never seen in my 20 years here. The dust was exactly the same fine orange dust that my mother-in-law experienced three times per summer in Peak Hill. She hated it. It got into everything, regardless of whether the doors and windows were closed.

However, this particular dust apparently came from "two flooded rivers in western Queensland"  - ie, it was the silt residue after the floods had subsided.  It was estimated that 75,000 tonnes of that dust was carried by the storm; it resulted in the worst air pollution reading on record in Sydney.

Our doors and windows were mostly closed today. But enough dust got in to leave fine traces of orange on interior surfaces. Cars were patterned with a light orange dirt, and several people this morning were walking around with dust masks.

The orange colour had substantially cleared by 8:30, but the dust was still around, and the sky maintained an overcast look until early afternoon. When the dust lifted, the skies were bright blue with fluffy clouds.

At first I thought I'd have problems with asthma (and health warnings abounded), but for those walking the streets this morning, the greater problem was eye irritation. The dust is so fine, it takes a lot to properly clean out the eyes.

The Sydney Morning Herald has press reports and more photos.

Sydney's impending architectural treat: UTS

An exciting addition to Sydney is looming, with the announcement of the winner of a design competition.

The old Carlton brewery on Broadway has been mostly torn down, bar one building left presumably for historical reasons.

Part of that site will see a new building for the University of Technology, Sydney's engineering faculty. The winning design, from Denton Corker Marshall, is a stunner. Unfortunately, the Herald's online report doesn't contain the designs shown in the print edition, but here's one of them.
The other picture gave a clearer, more impressive view of the building; when I find it online, I'll put it here.

Alternative Sydney 6: Circular Quay+

Following straight on from yesterday's comment on the clearing of Circular Quay, the Herald splashes just such a proposal on the front page:





This out of the office of Mayor Clover Moore, from Danish urban planner Jan Gehl. The text to go with the picture says that in this proposal, the expressway would be torn down (and presumably the railway line underneath, which would be sunk underground as per earlier suggestions), and the ferry terminals "streamlined and moved to the east". Current vista below.

It's admirable to open it up from the water to the Custom House to the cityscape; but I'm not convinced the new proposal is sufficiently dramatic, or ultimately much different from the current situation. Moving the ferries gives it much better impact, but retaining a barrier - so to speak - between city and water... it doesn't really complete the vision.

This is actually part of the council's city vision for 2030; the Herald's website has quite a bit more of it on display, including removing all traffic from George Street, reducing car parking, removing the Western Distributor, increasing park space in Darling Harbour, replacing the (apparently inadequate) Convention Centre with apartments, and hiding the whole Central railway land area under a mass of shops, apartments, and entertainment and convention facilities. The Herald has befores and afters for George Street, Darling Harbour and Central. There's also a slide show. All definitely worth a look.

Alternative Sydney 5: more Opera House

Sydney Opera House is iconic on the outside, but unfunctional inside. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the original brief for a large hall combining operatic and symphonic functions was doomed from the start. As a result, opera ended up in the smaller of the two shells, which was never entirely satisfactory.

There are now plans to rebuild the opera theatre - for $700m. The Herald suggested that price could buy a whole new building, and now the Herald reports a proposal by architect Ken Woolley to build an opera theatre next to the Opera House.

Former PM Paul Keating now expresses his dislike for that proposal, suggesting another site altogether. He calls the idea an "all too proximate appendage to the great composition". The issue is the Opera House as a collaborative product of both design and site.

This speaks to the outcry over the Opera Quays building ("the toaster") which was seen as sullying the land next to Bennelong point. The opprobium is muted with the accomplished fact of the building, which doesn't really lessen the original criticism.



Ideally, the Opera House would house opera - that is how this 20th century landmark is known throughout the world - with no building close by. Unfortunately, I think this vision has already been abrogated by the toaster. Yet that doesn't mean it needs to be abandoned altogether.



Previous posts on an alternative Sydney have included two early designs for the Opera House (here and here) and one for the Harbour Bridge, as well as a vision for the future of the area in front of the Town Hall.


A substantial remaining issue is the removal of the Cahill Expressway, a blight on Circular Quay (and the transformed Custom House).

New Sydney Town Plaza - new City

This in the Herald today: I'd heard the council was buying up the Woolworths Building - or already owned it. They should be close to owning that whole block, for which there had been talk for a while of clearing it. Costly use of a whole city block. Especially if it becomes as lifeless as Martin Place twilights and weekends. But if they can ensure that it is well-used, there's wonderful potential. As a bonus (not a negative) it would throttle traffic on George St. Discourage cars from the city. And that can bring adjacent precincts - eg alongside Queen Victoria Building - to life.

Can work well - if done right. Needs good trams though. (Suggest closing Market around State Theatre for coup de grace.)

Tech: Sydney to get free wireless

Wohoo! The State government is planning to enable free wireless internet access.

It's been announced for the Sydney CBD, and a few other urban centres in Sydney. My guess is it would include North Sydney, Chatswood, Paramatta, and possibly Hurstville or Liverpool.

It's a real winner for personal internet access. At the very least, you can sit in a public library with a wireless laptop, and you're away.

But in particular - and this is where it's coming from - it's a powerful business enabler.

Anybody can communicate/collaborate on the go, via PDA or laptop.

Very forward-thinking.

World: Sculpture by the sea 2

In response to the rapturous silence, I am posting a few more pictures from the exhibition Sculpture By The Sea, in which art works were positioned from Tamarama to Bondi beaches.

Fisher, by Hugh Ramage

This is my favourite; as it happens, it also won the "Director's prize". I took quite a few photos of it, but it was so popular I could never get a shot free of people. Material looks to be plywood: the lines on it are the edges of the wood.

Hot with a chance of late storm by The Glue Society. This melted ice cream van won the people's choice prize.

Also have a look at the winner of the site specific prize: cipher, by Konstantin Dimopoulos. It needed to be appreciated in motion, so I posted a video of cipher to YouTube.


And finally, details from atlas – shadow dance II by Frank Woo. Here's the base of same:

World: Sydney Harbour Bridge: alternate design

This is dated 1922, a design by Ernest Stowe. It links the city (Millers Point) with Balmain to somewhere west of current North Sydney, via Goat Island.

Any suggestions how the centre could have handled a modern volume of traffic? A roundabout would be too slow.

World: Sydney Opera House (3): Another discarded design

This one is said to be a "concept" rather than a definite proposal, put forward by the then-conductor of the Sydney Symphony, Eugene Gossens, for the 1956 design competition for Sydney Opera House.

World: Sydney Opera House - could have been...

What do you think of this as a design for the new Sydney Opera House?


Well, it's a bit retro - very 50s. Not surprising, since it was designed in 1957.

It was a "commended" design when it was entered into the original design competition for the mooted Opera House.


All I can say is, thank heavens that's not what we ended up with. I can see it when I cross the bridge every day to go to work, and although I'm quite used to it, it still surprises me sometimes. And it's an intrinsic part of the whole harbour vista. No matter how cliched the image is now, it's better than something that's stuck in time.

(Jorn Utzon's design probably baffles most people as to its genesis. In fact, he said his inspiration came from segments of an orange. Thinking about this, he has actually done an inversion of the shape of an orange segment, making the curve run obtusely instead of acutely. Not immediately obvious.)

Pers: Memories of the Sando, and the best grafitti ever

In the late 80s, my whole household (I had four flatmates) would wander up to the Sando on Thursday nights to watch Roaring Jack. They were a heavily political Celtic rock band, playing songs like Thin Red Line, The Lads From The BLF, Yuppietown, We Don’t Play No Elton F****** John. A rollicking institution it was, the crowd packed tight and jumping all over the place, and we’d frequently stay until closing, where Dirty Old Town was the send-off and the leftovers would spill onto the streets.

In those days, the Sando was playing free live music seven days per week, with various residencies. Louis Tillet (Paris Green and other bands) would play there, so would Tim Freedman (Penguins On Safari); and various Hayes brothers in various incarnations: Tuesday nights had the Gruesome Twosome: Bernie and Stevie Hayes doing covers in acoustic mode; the Shout Brothers (Bernie, Stevie, plus a few more) was a great covers band for Sundays. It was definitely downmarket, always fun.

Roaring Jack’s residency ceased. Last time I saw Louis in the old days, he fell off the stage halfway through a song, and someone jumped up from the audience and finished off the set. Stevie worked behind the bar for a while, then as Stevie Plunder formed the Whitlams with Tim; Stevie later took a fatal turn in the Blue Mountains. Bernie Hayes went solo, producing some lovely CDs but little money. Tim (as the Whitlams) made substantially more money although not as interesting musically. Louis took several hiatuses (including a hospital stint from smoking in bed), and the Sando… well, it was eventually gutted, and became a very bland pub full of poker machines. In recent times it’s made something of a return to live music, but nothing like its heyday.

Musically, I think Bernie Hayes and Louis Tillet ended up faring the best. Bernie’s first album was a real treat, and Louis is always great on stage.

The best grafitti I ever saw was a collaborative effort by three unknown people in the men’s toilet at the Sando. The first one had written:

Question everything

Under that, someone added:

Why?

Under that, someone else wrote:

Why not?

13-jul-06 Update: the above photo is actually the result of me stumbling across a community art project one Saturday long ago. This is my first ever - and only - linocut. At short notice, it was the best local theme I could come up with. The linocuts were subsequently cast in metal and embedded in the footpath across the street from Newtown Station. At least two copies of mine remain, if you care to look. The first S is the Sando's logo in its heyday, and the last is my signature. Somewhat cryptic, but I'm sure a few people would have worked it out.