Bungarribee Parklands Plan ideogram

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: The Royal British Institute of Architects (RIBA) Journal's Eye Line drawing competition is an annual international competition open to students and practitioners. It rewards the 'pure art of architecture' and recognises architectural drawing skills. Anton James entered three drawings that charted the early design phases for Bungarribee, a new 345 hectare parkland in Western Sydney. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: The drawings are simple, beautiful ways to communicate complex design ideas and design research. James' ink and watercolour Bungarribee ideogram was a means of conceptualizing the structure and the key elements of the park. The red heart is an existing area of endangered grasslands that is to remain untouched and largely inaccessible. The orange rectangle is a 1 km disused WW2 runway that cuts through the park and the yellow loop is the circulation spine, a loop that protects the centre. The runway will be planted with 6000 redgums. His Bungarribee Parklands southern bridges pencil, water colour and gouache drawing was part of a series of studies for a pedestrian route through an area of swamp. The drawing marks the arrival at a decision to replace the idea of a single structure with a series of smaller islands and bridges. The final drawing and collage brings together all the design elements for the site. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: James was one of five commended entries in a prestigious international competiton run by the 120-year-old RIBA Journal. Other commended entries came from researchers at Harvard University, The Bartlett School of Architecture and Royal College of Art in London. RIBA editor Hugh Pearman was one of the judges. He described James' work as "unlike any other we received, using a loose, intuitive style to communicate ideas for a large site very beautiflully and clearly". Top entries were published in RIBA Journal August 2015, Jan-Carlos Kucharek 'The Power of Suggestion' 54-66 and exhibited at October Gallery, London.