Sponsorship
The Alastair Swayn Foundation and The Swayn Gallery of Australian Design sponsor a diverse range of initiatives that celebrate and advance Australian architecture and design. These include publications, events, exhibitions, and awards that share ideas, foster dialogue, and support the architecture and design community.
Canberra Art Biennial
The Alastair Swayn Foundation sponsored contour 556 – Canberra’s Public Art Biennial – in 2020 and 2022. Contour 556 became known as the Canberra Art Biennial in 2024.
The Alastair Swayn Foundation proudly sponsored the participation of two artists in the 2024 Canberra Art Biennial: Lakeside Moonwalk by Localjinni and Ludic Folly: The Playful Exchange by Sanné Mestrom.
Lakeside Moonwalk was a captivating nighttime journey through the National Triangle, where local artists animated architecture and sculpture with immersive film and sound projections.
Ludic Folly: The Playful Exchange explored themes of connection and belonging through a large, semi-abstract figure reaching outward. Its curvilinear forms invited playful interaction—visitors could sit, slide, or climb across the sculpture, or simply enjoy its striking visual presence. Designed to resonate across ages and cultures, the work reimagined traditional forms as approachable, familiar, and intriguingly unexpected.
AILA NSW Future Leaders Award
The Alastair Swayn Foundation was delighted to sponsor and present the 2024 Future Leader Awards at the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (ALIA) NSW event in Sydney. Congratulations to Abbey Davies and Matthew Nenadic (pictured below) for being recognised early in their careers for their outstanding communication and advocacy within the industry.
AILA ACT Awards
The Alastair Swayn Foundation was very pleased to attend the 2024 Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) ACT Awards in Canberra. The Foundation sponsored Landscape Architecture students from the University of Canberra (pictured below) to attend the event, providing them with an opportunity to experience the range of exceptional projects being recognised.
Griffin Lecture
The Alastair Swayn Foundation was pleased to be the Griffin Lecture’s Student Support Sponsor in 2023. The Griffin Lecture is named in honour of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin and has been organised by the Australian Institute of Architects since 1961 and has addressed the big issues in architecture and design. The theme of the 2023 lecture was to underline the role good architecture and design play in improving the urban environment with Australia’s 29th Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull AC & Urbanist, Businesswoman, Philanthropist and Former Mayor of Sydney, Lucy Turnbull AO leading this vital discussion. The 2023 Griffin Lecture address and luncheon was held at the National Press Club of Australia on Wednesday 8 November 2023.
Design Canberra Festival
The Alastair Swayn Foundation was a Gold Sponsor of the 2020 Design Canberra Festival, and a Platinum Sponsor of the 2022 Design Canberra Festival.
During the 2022 Design Canberra Festival, the Foundation supported architecture talks through the Design Revisited Series, the Canberra Low Carbon Housing Challenge competition; and it hosted the Parlour Canberra Spring Salon.
Books
Designs on Density
by Simon Anderson and Geoffrey London
Housing in Australia is currently in a period of rapid change, even crisis, due to increasing environmental consciousness, demographic movements, affordability pressures, and new technologies in the building industry, in the workplace and in the house itself. This state of flux has re-invigorated debates about and around general housing.
How will the house of the twenty-first century accommodate new household types? How can new materials and methods of construction be best employed in house building? How can housing assist in helping the country respond to environmental change? How do we design and build better suburban housing? How can density of dwelling be appropriately increased within established areas? What strategies can be developed to make infill housing more palatable? How can design improve housing affordability as Australian cities continue to become the world's most unaffordable? And, importantly, how can the architectural profession best contribute to this process of change?
The Politics of Public Space is a quarterly publication of transcripts that speak directly to the city and the way we read it. Over three years, OFFICE curated a public lecture series titled ‘The Politics of Public Space’ as part of their university teaching, inviting speakers to present in and around Melbourne, and more recently, online. Holding the series outside the conventional spaces of the institution allowed these discussions to be directed at the city’s forms and the issues at stake in their development. To preserve and disseminate these events, OFFICE has compiled this content into a printed quarterly publication.
Each issue draws out new forms of investigation between the individual practices and the content gathered from the discussions. The fact that these talks took place on street corners, in laneways or public squares is what gives them an informality, and it is this quality we seek in the publication. In releasing this print publication, OFFICE hopes to continue the discourse on what shapes the city and its spaces.
A Certain Kind of Life
by Jimmy Carter, Abigail Chang, Francesco Marullo, and Agata Siemionow
A Certain Kind of Life examines how we dwell and live together, delving into the relationships between architecture and asceticism, domesticity and estrangement, rules and transgressions, solitary rituals and collective forms within both historical and contemporary societies.
This book derives an approach to individual and collective living from monastic architecture. Alongside research and documentation of a large-scale pavilion and exhibition featured at the 2019 Lisbon Architecture Triennale, the book builds on drawings, texts, and images from scholars and architects who contemplate questions surrounding solitude, retreat, and quietness. The narrative considers how architecture can distill our everyday social encounters into a building language through different mediums. The ideas of community present in the monastic architecture typology offer a lens to reflect on the solitary living that we recently collectively experienced.
From these various perspectives, A Certain Kind of Life examines how we have historically lived together, alone while continuing to share, adapt and build under unpredictable conditions that bind us globally.