Peter Salhani has joined ADC as our latest Writer in Residence. His reviews, interviews and articles exploring Australian architecture and design, urban space, sustainability and landscape, are published in magazines, books and online, including WISH Magazine, Houses, Mezzanine (2015-2017), architectureau.com, Inside, and the Thames & Hudson monographs: The Forever House and The Terrace House.
Currently a freelance contributor to magazine, journals and newspapers, Peter is also a former editor of Monument magazine, the national website architectureau.com, and the journal of the Australian Institute of Architects (NSW), Architecture Bulletin.
Some recent articles include his account of a recent four-day excursion into Tasmania’s southwest wilderness region of Lake Pedder, published in in WISH Magazine (2-4 June); a trip to Pumphouse Point, a reborn relic of the hydro-electric era, now a luxury wilderness lodge in the Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park.
Closer to home, Peter wrote about a concrete beach house on the NSW Central Coast, cloaked in hardwood by Polly Harbison Architects (Houses 116), and revisited Harry and Penelope Seidler’s iconic 1966 Killara House (Houses 81).
In a series of surveys (2015-2017) of residential architecture for Mezzanine magazine, Peter looked at new projects making statements beyond mere utility and shelter – from Designers Re-public exploring the civic side of private homes such as Indigo Slam by Smart Design Studio, to houses designed for multi-generational families (Reshaping the Block).
Also produced for Mezzanine (2015-2017), was Peter’s series of first-person interviews with emerging architects, including Brisbane’s Paul Owen (Owen Architects), who is reinventing the unused undercrofts of traditional Queenslander houses, Hobart’s Core Collective who's bespoke buildings and tailored interventions stitch together old and new in a distinctly Tasmanian (resourceful) way, and Melbourne’s Jeremy McLeod of Breath Architecture, founder of Nightingale Housing — a new co-operative model for affordable sustainable apartment developments.
As well as writing about architecture, Peter also participates in advocacy for the profession as a member of the NSW Architects Registration Board, where he represents the consumer interest, sits on the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship panel, and was on the curatorial team for the Sydney Architecture Festivals of 2014 and 2015.
Photo: Penny Craswell