Architects win with community focus

Greg Bamford received a telephone call for help 10 years ago that spurred him on to help community groups design better public buildings.

The caller was Anne Livingstone, the coordinator of the Clayfield Respite Care Centre which provided day respite services to mostly old, frail or disabled people.

She said the centre, an old Queenslander, was crowded and needed a new home but she didn’t want it replaced with a sterile institution that resembled a doctor’s surgery.

So Dr Bamford, a University of Queensland Senior Lecturer in Architecture, helped centre managers form their own design guidelines to avoid an institutional look and recommended architects to do the job.

“People liked coming there because it was a house not an institution. I helped them to understand what to ask of architects,” Dr Bamford said.

It was this project, combined with several community projects since 1992 and involving his students in them, that earnt Dr Bamford one of 25 Year of the Built Environment (YBE) Queensland awards.

YBE is a national program to raise awareness about the buildings and spaces in which we live, work and play.

Dr Bamford was nominated and was recognised for his commitment to the design of quality community built services and improving the built environment.

Last year, his students provided design ideas for Aged Care Queensland offices at Jindalee, the Dinmore Murri Baptist Church, Beaudesert Respite Care and Senior Citizens Centre and the Loganlea Community Centre.

UQ also had one of 10 YBE national award winners, architectural graduate Dr Shaneen Fantin, and one of 400 exemplars, Professor Michael Keniger, Executive Dean Faculty of Engineering, Physical Sciences and Architecture.

Dr Fantin was part of a team from global engineers, Arup, that won the YBE 2004 Healthy Environment Award for building clinics, hostels and rehabilitation centres for the Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health.

Professor Keniger’s nomination on the YBE website said he had turned UQ into one of the nation`s most creatively progressive schools.

“He has numerous extra-curricular roles on important committees in Brisbane and nationally including his position as Queensland Government Architect.”

Media: contact Dr Bamford on (phone: 3365 3845, email: g.bamford@uq.edu.au) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (phone: 3365 2619, email: m.holland@uq.edu.au)