Australia learned architectural concrete in public: the High Court and National Gallery in Canberra, Harry Seidler’s Australia Square, the Sirius apartments at The Rocks, the UTS Tower before its manners were debated. Those buildings are not house extensions. They are still the best argument that concrete can be the face of a room, not a substrate waiting for tiles.
Residential work that borrows that seriousness has to accept the same disciplines: formwork as a drawing, not a hire item; sample panels that include the pour join; a bench that is detailed for mass and hygiene; a stair that is a structure and a finish.
This hub collects benchtops, cast-in-place walls, precast panels, furniture and feature stairs.
Walk the civic buildings if you can. Then look at the house job. The gap between them is usually not budget. It is whether anyone drew the face of the pour.
