Five Mile Radius is a Brisbane-based practice whose approach to architecture centres around the use of locally-sourced building materials in construction. Clare Kennedy founded the studio alongside a group of architects and students, working on a range of building and art projects, as well as various workshops, educational events and other public engagement programs.
“Responding to the growing need to move away from globalised supply chains to more self sufficient models, we are working on a future where Australians can build using ethically sourced resources from their own shores,” explains Clare Kennedy from Five Mile Radius. “Our practice begun with hands-on material experimentation for art commissions. We tested our ideals by making things then quickly realising our limitations. Although we are now working on larger projects for commercial and private clients, every project still involves this process of hands-on prototyping and testing.”
One recent project saw Five Mile Radius teaming up with Private Forestry Services Queensland and the Gympie Woodworking Museum to create timber shingles and build a temporary shade, bar, stage and dance floor structure at Jungle Love Festival in Imbil, Queensland. Local timber was harvested and shingles were constructed by volunteers as part of a workshop event, while the final construction was erected over 2.5 days using skilled carpenters, labourers, volunteers from the local community and university students.
“For every project, we isolate a material or series of materials and start researching,” says Kennedy. “We have an open source approach to the office and like to share everything we know. The studio started as a database or website to teach people how to use local resources and developed from there. You need to be an educator – educating goes hand-in-hand with design and research for us.”
Architects around the world are now grappling with the embodied carbon of buildings – the total carbon emissions created in the production process, manufacture and transport of building materials. For Australia, which is particularly isolated, the travel costs of bringing building materials from overseas, and the carbon emissions involved in that transportation, are especially high. Understanding these issues and working on ways to unlock the potential of local materials is vital – and architecture studios like Five Mile Radius are at the forefront of this movement.
Working with local materials is nothing new for Australian architects, but has become increasingly rare, with more and more materials sourced from overseas and Australian suppliers going out of business. This new movement focuses on local materials, not out of necessity, but because of concerns about climate change. Considering the environment through the use of local materials is one thing that architects and interior designers can do to be ethical in their practice in the real world, every day.
The workshop that Five Mile Radius held at the Gympie Woodworking Museum to create shingles for the Jungle Love structure was a vital ingredient in the success of the project. The poster states: “Join Col, Sean and the gang from the Gympie Woodworking Museum for a day of hard yakka and good times.” The shingle-making workshop not only generated an environmentally friendly construction material, but also offered workshop participants the chance to get their hands dirty and make something, while also connecting with the community and learning something new.
A film by Jack Birtles about the Jungle Love project was shortlisted for Gympie Heart of Gold Film Festival.
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