Friday 13th September 2024
A REFLECTION OF AN INTERVIEW WITH
NIGEL DICKSON BY
CALLUM ANDREW
Rebuilding After Disaster: The Role of Architects in Bushfire-Affected Communities...
During an interview with Callum Andrew (CA), Nigel Dickson (ND), the Director of Dickson Rothschild and a member of Architects Assist, discussed the organisation’s participation in rebuilding efforts after the destructive bushfires of 2019-2020.
CA: Firstly Nigel, what moved you to become involved with Architects Assist?
ND: We are a broad urban design, architecture and planning practice and have always been focussed on projects that provide substantive community benefits. Apart from Australia, we worked in the Pacific Islands, in India and China. In each case, each community is different, and it is essential to understand the place, the economic imperatives and the clients as individuals and families. This was highlighted by project we have been doing on the Far South Coast for the last 8 or so years. This region is just chalk and cheese with metropolitan cities.
The region needs outcomes which are not conventional but resourced cleverly. Our mixture of skills and experience is well suited to attempting to broker project outcomes for the maximum public benefit. We built a house at the Murrah 14kms south of Bermagui, NSW in 2017. That introduced us to BAL 29 construction, termite resistant construction and building in simple ways, suitable to rural areas that require cost effective and minimal labour-intensive techniques.
Our practice then started on 21 small weatherboard houses in Bodalla and that brought us closer to the difficulties of negotiating house design and consents through the regional councils. These were designed as traditional timber weatherboard cottages which related to the shapes and scale of the vernacular in this picturesque rural township.
My family lives on and off on the Far South Coast of NSW and naturally being part of the community means working with the community and exchanging ideas and services. When the devastating bushfires of 2019-2020 occurred, we knew we had to be involved in the rebuilding effort. Architects Assist is one way to do this.
Image: Phoenix shed sketch: Dickson Rothchild
CA: You are working on a number of projects as a result of the bushfires which occurred in January earlier this year. Were all these projects commissioned pro bono through the Architects Assist initiative?
ND: We are undertaking about 7 projects on a pro-bono basis now on the Far South Coast. One new house is related to the Tathra Bushfire of 2018. All of these projects have come through the Architects Assist initiative.
CA: Your project ‘Phoenix Shed‘ provides a workshop setting for community members during the construction of the prototype, a community garden shed. Could you talk us through this workshop and why it was established?
ND: We were introduced to this project by Building Angels, who found us on Architects Assist. They saw an opportunity to create a building that would serve as a community garden space in Cobargo. From our own involvement designing and helping on community gardens we saw the enormous potential of a simple building in the main street section of Cobargo which would form a useful place making facility.
Building Angels also saw the potential of the building being a prototype for other sites and testing the resources of suppliers for such demonstration pieces; and furthermore, using the building to show others how such a building may suite their own rebuild requirements. In essence we saw the project as starting a simple dialogue with the community.
CA: With still so many people living under canvas, in the Phoenix Shed program aims to provide ‘a seed’, a reconstruction. Do you think there is too much focus enough attention given to need for immediate shelter?
ND: On the various projects we have found that most people are going on their own journey and each situation is entirely different. Our involvement really starts with the simple task of listening to people, visiting their places and slowly working though the memories of the place, what they loved about the destroyed house, looking at old photos then only then thinking about ways forward.
For many the tent and caravan is unliveable for the areas they need for their belongings and pets. Some are overflowing with trying to hold their possessions. Many have found that an agricultural shed gets them started and provides wind break and rainwater. Caravans and tent don’t provide sufficient semi
protected spaces around them; wind protection is also vitally important.
Our houses in many ways are simple spaces, and a veranda. This gives our immediate comfort. The need for living inside and out appears to be a common theme for our clients. A simple open kitchen and fireplace with large windows to the north east is also a theme with protection from cold winds coming off the
mountains are also relevant matters.
Image: Murrah: Dickson Rothchild
CA: How important is community focused design and engagement for regional towns like Cobargo?
ND: It seems to help a lot. In my own trips to Cobargo it is evident that a flood of thoughtful help is being offered. However, each individual who has faced great loss has their own needs, and having choices is useful. But some people have very, very little funds, no insurance and are burdened by shock and grief. In this way the smallest offer of help is very much appreciated.
CA: Did you approach these designs any differently from the outset considering the previous dwellings were lost to bushfires?
ND: We learn so much from looking at the place and the house site. The pre-existing buildings and their siting tells us much. In Nerrigundah, Coolagolite and Wandella we have been seeking to replace buildings that were built over 150 years before. These simple structures had beautiful timber fames and slabs of timber walling that are impossible to source today. They were place sensitively on a rise of land or in a heritage street. We try to learn from that experience.
Image: CGI MOGO: Dickson Rothchild
CA: After consulting the victims of these terrible fires, how did you assess their readiness to engage with an architect?
ND: Those people are re-building their lives not just a house. Our a role is to listen and perhaps, if they are willing, to provide them a road map. We would not push ourselves on them. If we were to be engaged we advised we had to be properly engaged with a proper appointment letter. Just because we are doing the work pro bono doesn’t mean it may be only half well done. The work has to be well considered and as though as any other project.
CA: Your recently completed Murrah project south of Bermagui was also situated in a BAL 29 overlay. Was this your first project dealing with bushfire attach levels?
ND: Over the years we have had experience in a number of projects with the elevation of designing for bushfire protection from the 2006 RFS publications to the more recent 2019 codes. This involved dealing with steep and forested sites. More recently we have found the awareness of bushfires not just in forested area, but in grassland settings has heighted markedly. The Murrah house in 2017 was about doing the house cost effectively, but with much attention to thermal design, and orientation.
CA: In regard to bushfire resilient design, what was the most important thing you took away from this project?
ND: Houses should be as simple as possible. Light and space are key. Rainwater sunlight and thermal mass are the tools to support the house.
CA: Did you take anything learnt from the Murrah Project and apply it to these most recent commissions?
ND: All of the projects have part of the Murrah project in them. The projects involve simple skillion roofs if possible, always rainwater, solar panels, and orientation for sunlight capture, and centrally placed thermal mass.
Image: CGI Bushfire resilient building design: Dickson Rothchild
CA: What are your thoughts on the national building standards for bushfire-prone zones? Do you think they are enough?
ND: The country firstly needs attention on regional development and building our regions with skills and employment. A great deal of attention needs to be done to examine regional development strategies and getting results for local communities by creating employment and thriving local centres,
building towns and getting business underway.
Secondly, the conversation will be about the land zoning and asset protection zones. The Australia landscape will always have bushfire potential risks in all locations. A national settlement strategy will be a key discussion that needs to meld these ideas together.
At other levels there is the need to learn from the recent catastrophic fires to review building policy and codes. There will need to be an update to the NSW RFS Planning for Bushfire Protection 2019.
Further in NSW alignment of statutory processes in particular the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the Rural Fires Act 1997, and the strategic planning and development process particularly in under resourced rural areas will need a considered review.
Architects must be thoroughly involved with this process and need to be at the edge of the upcoming developments of building and land planning issues.
In detail the Australian Standard AS 3959-2018 Construction of buildings in bushfire-prone areas, will need to be reviewed based on these recent fire experiences. The rebuild projects we have been undertaking were destroyed by fire that swept across dry grass paddocks at huge speeds, with their own exceptional wind velocities exceeding 100km/hr. The fire front moved at over 40kms an hour in the Cobargo Valley in the early hours of the
morning on 31st December 2019.
The quantification of bushfire risk in open grassland settings as well as super events needs to be understood and dealt with. This will mean increased review of building materials testing standards and also the consideration of Bushfire water spray systems in all fire prone locations. Increasing we need to recognise the role of safe place bunkers in remote places.
CA: What advice can you give to other architects looking to offer their services pro bono?
ND: Pro bono work is not easier. It is harder than working for traditional fee clients, because the deliverables are very uncertain, and the clients are under enormous financial and emotional strain. One has to be prepared to put in more time and patience. Since the clients may be very stressed one needs
to recognise decisions take time and sometimes it takes several emails of meetings to be sure that they are comfortable with the design.
We always produce high standard CGI images of the designs, so the concept is clear to everyone. Generally, clients don’t understand plans and scaled drawings, so the images are most helpful.
CA: Beyond offering victims individual assistance through one off residential designs, what else needs to be done by the profession as a whole?
ND: We need to extend the debate about our regional communities, how we continue to make them places for the young to grow up in and have lives without being sucked into the large metropolitan cities. Too often the regional communities are our neglected areas, and its people live in the shadows of the cities.
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