The National Museum of Australia (NMA) (1997- 2001) by architects Ashton Raggatt McDougall (ARM) in association with Robert Peck von Hartel Trethowan was commissioned by the Australian Commonwealth Government for the Centenary of Federation in 2001. It was conceived as a gift to the people of Australia and now stands on Acton Peninsula in Canberra, the nation's Capital. It is a visually complex manifestation of the design architects' (ARM) dialogue with the ambiguities of Australian history and national identity. The architectural realisation of these complexities was facilitated through advances in computer technologies and a complementary non-traditional procurement method, both at the leading edge of Australian architectural practice of the time. Completed three years earlier was probably the most debated work of architecture of the 1990s, the Guggenheim Museum (GMB) (1991-98) in Bilbao, Spain, by Frank O. Gehry and Associates (FOG&A). This satellite museum of the Guggenheim Foundation of New York was heralded as the quintessential example of a kind of architecture only possible because of advances in computer technologies. Both visually complex museums were conceived as flagship projects and consequently share many political, functional, and cultural expectations. Both were procured outside the usual adversarial designer/builder paradigm of western architecture and featured the innovative use of three-dimensional (CAD) software for design, documentation and analysis. The NMA project used a government instigated procurement method which was embraced by a group of design and construction companies who formed a joint venture known as the Acton Peninsula Alliance. This non-traditional or relationship-based procurement method required ARM to reassess their approach to generate and disseminate design data and their traditional relationship with other design and construction professionals. As part of this process, ARM were required to devolve some of their design authority to a project delivery team via a Design Integrity Panel and an Independent Quality Panel; both innovations integral to the Acton Peninsula Alliance. The NMA project reframed many of the enduring professional relationships of Australian architecture and in so doing extended the skill set and expectations of the architects and others to include a more substantial engagement with 3D CAD and a procurement system which was less subject to many of the common impediments inherent in the more traditional processes. Through a series of interviews with the architects and other stakeholders, a qualitative methodology was used to investigate the NMA as a case study which uses the GMB as an internationally recognised comparison. This thesis examines how these two projects have been successfully completed within time and budgetary constraints in an environment where flagship projects have had a history of highly publicised difficulties. It reveals that the successful realisation of the NMA was due to the relationships built or reframed as a result of this cooperative approach in conjunction with high levels of engagement with computer technologies. This is in contrast to the seamless flow of data and high levels of prefabrication integral to the success of the GMB. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1255317 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, 2006.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/280283 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Swift, John Paul |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
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