Being sustainable is also possible living in the heart of the city. The walls of this inner-city apartment are covered in clay-plaster and the floors are made from recycled stone terrazzo. Choosing sustainable materials not only reduces impact but also creates a home that feels truly unique and beautiful.
1000 Eyes As Windows, 2025.
1000 Eyes As Windows is a mural composed of 60 clay blocks that form the façade of a fictional apartment building. Each block is a small sculpted moment, behind which a person might live confined to a narrow slice of space. These windows become symbols of both isolation and intimacy, capturing the paradox of urban living.
Inspired by the monolithic architecture of Le Corbusier's apartment designs, this work flattens the elevation of a modern apartment building into a series of stacked blocks. The effect is both architectural and sculptural. From a distance, the mural may resemble the uniform looming surface of a high-rise, but on closer inspection each block reveals a unique pattern of form, light and shadow. These quiet variations reflect the repetitive rhythm of the metropolis from the outside, and from within.
Many young Australians are preparing to leave their freestanding house on a quarter-acre block, and move into an apartment. This shift is evident when the artwork is viewed on a horizontal plane and then upon a vertical plane. At this moment, an undulating landscape of pitched roofs morphs into the restricted shadow of an apartment block balcony.
This shift in housing typology prompts urgent questions: what does density mean for liveability? Can intimacy and individuality survive within the rigid geometry of strata plans? What role does design play in softening the hardness of the concrete grid?
1000 Eyes As Windows is both a reflection and a provocation. It asks us to see the apartment block not just as infrastructure, but as layered emotional terrain. It reminds us that every window holds a story, and that good design must consider both the mass and the miniature, the structure and the soul.
Please come along to the Goodspace Gallery in Chippendale, where the mural will be on display for one night only. Hope to see you there!
Goodspace Gallery.
115 Regent St, Chippendale NSW 2008.
3 September, 5-9 pm
An interior glimpse inside Earth House. In addition to its rammed earth walls, the floor is made from pounded earth, offering a grounded texture underfoot.
#eartheninteriors
#naturalmaterials
#fromthegroundup
Earth House embodies many years of research into rammed earth architecture. Its form is outlined by thick rammed earth walls, made from the very soil found beneath the ground here.
#RammedEarth #SustainableArchitecture
#BuildingWithEarth
#FromTheGroundUp
#MaterialDrivenDesign
#LandBasedDesign
Re-introducing @studio_clare . Clare closed our program last year in her first solo exhibition and we are delighted to share the evolution of her practice!
Clare seeks to design the places where you dwell.
This might be a house, a new alteration and addition, a holiday home, a small studio within a beautiful garden or a unique exploration within the architectural sphere. She’d like to collaborate with you on your project idea.
To contact Clare:
📧 [email protected]
🌎 .au
My goal is to create beautiful spaces with sustainable building methods. Chloe's House gave us the opportunity to explore this sustainable agenda. Throughout the homes renovation, we re-painted surfaces, salvaged old cabinets and reused fixtures in good working condition. This approach to Chloes House lowered the overall cost and lessened the project's environmental impact. Recycling and reusing preloved materials gave this old 1970s cottage home a new life.
#sustainabledesign #laminex #fienza #castella #earthen
To celebrate Outlines In Clay, I shared a conversation with architecture curator, critic and educator Kate Goodwin. @goodwin_kate We discussed the possibilities of rammed earth architecture and explored Kate's project on Indigenous Art Centres. Thank you Kate, for sharing your thoughts!
The video is now available to view on YouTube. Please click on the link in my bio.
#gaffa #rammedearth #artcentre
Soil Samples, 2024.
This artwork is made from 49 pigmented clay dishes. Each dish represents the colour of one rammed earth building I visited. Mars Brown, Terra Rosa and Burnt Sienna are pigments found in soils. If you look closely enough at the photographs, you can see the colours of the earth that make up each building.
#gaffa #rammedearth #soil #clay
I made earthen benches for people to sit and observe photographs of rammed earth buildings. The images are dyed into lightweight fabric sheets and hung behind the gallery window. Light shines through the transparent chiffon, illuminating the pictures.
The images appear to hover lightly in the air.
#gaffa #rammedearth #fabric #chiffon
Earthen seat made from sand, soil, clay and recycled concrete aggregate. Elevated on wheels for transport. The seat is both beautiful and functional.
Like sitting on a mound of dirt!
#rammedearth #furniture #gaffa
Opening next Thursday between 6-8 PM 🥂
Clare Dieckmann @studio_clare
Outlines in Clay, 2024
'Clare Dieckmann is the founder and principal of Studio Clare. Clare’s practice is based on her commitment to make our built environment a more liveable and beautiful place. She guides her practice towards this aim by seeking innovative approaches to sustainable architecture and original ways of working with materials.Clare enjoys shaping volume and space for people to dwell inside. As a registered architect, she has shaped boutique residences, schools, sports and community centres, and museums of cultural significance with the desire to let people inhabiting them feel joy. In the future, she seeks to sculpt the places where you dwell. These might be within a house, a new alteration and addition, a holiday home, a small studio within a beautiful garden or a unique exploration within the architectural sphere. She seeks to collaborate with you on your ambitious project idea.'
Artwork by Clare Dieckmann, 'Secular Retreat'.
