Matthew Bird x Phillip Adams

BALLETLAB

There’s nothing new about design doing the pas de deux with dance; from Zaha Hadid to Jean Nouvel, architecture has thrown its best at the performative arts. But what differentiates the long-term collaboration between Matthew Bird’s research-driven architecture practice Studiobird and Phillip Adam’s artistic direction of BalletLab at Temperance Hall from any preceding synergy of design production and performance, set and story is their willingness to push risk. And that risk — a mind-blowing meld of movement, mutual interest (in kooky US architect Bruce Goff), lustrous materiality, wacky geometries, wild scenography, erstwhile public participation and the random venue — always garners stellar reviews. As to the question of their collaborative frisson being a function of compatibility or incongruity, Bird, a senior lecturer in architecture at Monash University, offers a brief answer: “We both have esoteric and creative imaginations, and combined they swell to dazzling and rewarding heights.”