Peter Ho gives Monument Magazine a piece of his mind
Inside the mind of Peter Ho: PHOOEY Architects' Design Principal gives us an insight into what makes him tick. We asked him to spill his brain & he did ...
My work respons to questiosn like: Can waste be salvaged & become beautiful? Can our stuff find value beyond its original purpose? Kirsty Fletcher's Metcard Fish Mobile (2006) (06) is a great example, where train tickets are revalued beyond their expiry date. It is a trail blazed by Duchamp's readymades such as Fountain (1917) (15), which re-identified & revalued found objects. I'm interested in the sustainable & activist potential of such ideas. I was impressed by the WWF 2007 Black Cloud campaign in China (03) to raise awareness about carbon pollution. Dr Peter Graham's Adaptive Cycle for Surviving Design (2009) (01) & the metaphor of 'nose-to-tail eating' (05) provides sustainable models for design & architecture. With incremental change comes outmoded technologies, which provide creative opportunities: these incandescent lightbulbs (12) will be part of a demonstration sustainable building.
Beauty can be found in the mundane too. Walking through the streets of Melbourne conjures memories of Edmond & Corrigan's former State Library & Museum of Victoria (1986) (07), where the QV shopping centre now stands. At the footy, the tissue & tape banner through which the mighty Kangaroos charge on to the field (08) seems to me a threshold uniting the players & their cheersquad. Beauty is in contradictory places too, such as the opalescent sheen of an oil slick (16). Even the winner of the 2009 DUMP award for bad packaging (09) provides a pleasing sensory experience: rustling the plastic before slicing the fruit & squeezing out its juice.
Works of art also provide daily inspiration. The Pukamani poles of Melville Island (13) tap into a wealth of symbolism & tradition. Michelangelo's Laurentian Library Staircase (1525) (11) is so magificent it has its own room. Alex Selenitsch's Walkaround Horizon (2008) (10), after Sweeney Reed, reveals a 'horizon' in circling the work. Woody Allen's Sleeper (1973) (14) is healthy in its absurdity.
I revel in the unsung mysteries of the world, from the mythic crate men who prowl the streets of Melbourne (04) to the source of the Murray River (02). This photo is from about as high as a rubber dinghy could take us.
Amodeo, L (ed) 2010, 'Inside the mind of Peter Ho', Monument, Issue 95, pp 15-17.