pivot Archives - The Fulcrum Agency

Brad Wetherall on PIVOT
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“So, how many degrees are you up to now?
Somehow, this was the jokey comment that stuck with me the most. More than all the sliding door moments, mental HECS debt recalculations, Mondayitis crises of salary comparison that I’ve had in the decade since my pivot from classroom teacher to graduate architect, this question from my Mum’s old school friend that I bumped in to on a Saturday morning grocery shop pokedsome little thought that from time to time makes me question my pivot.
And while it’s important to take the advice of those close to you before big decisions, trust me, the Saturday morning small talk of your Mum’s friend is not the sort of career advice worth considering. If I had have fretted over the thoughts of others, I wouldn’t be working in a job I love, in a career that fits. While it took a little longer to get here and from time to time I reflect on what might have been an easier path, despite what others might say, I know that my pivot was the right move.
Besides, the answer was only three.”
*Brad Wetherall is Graduate Architect at TheFulcrum.Agency
Emma Brain
September 6, 2019
News, Pivot
brad wetherall, pivot
Dylan Smith on PIVOT
Selfie
In football, a switch or a pivot is a powerful move. It’s when the predictable movement of play is suddenly interrupted. Often by an act of daring or brilliance by one player.
A sudden change of direction literary opens up time and space for that player and their team. Which creates opportunities.
It’s the best players, the most exciting and celebrated that can create these chances, sometimes, seemingly out of nothing. As if by instinct. They spin, weave or trick the other players. They move in a way that is unexpected. Often breathtaking.
As a player, it takes courage to take a chance like this. There is a high degree of risk. The outcomes are unknown. You can be made to look silly. To be embarrassed. To have the crowd and the opposition ridicule you.
But when you take a risk, when you pivot, you have the chance to create something special.
*Dylan Smith is the Executive Officer and Founder of the Fremantle Foundation , a philanthropic organisation that focuses on the potential of local giving. Dylan played AFL football for five years with the North Melbourne Kangaroos and Fremantle Dockers.
Emma Brain
August 19, 2019
News, Pivot
Dylan Smith, pivot
Prof. Diego Ramirez-Lovering on PIVOT
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In 2006 I led a four-month study of Guadalajara, Mexico… my hometown. It began as an exploration of vernacular and utilitarian forms of architecture and their connection to social patterns. As the investigation deepened, there was an evolution in thinking from:
what architecture is (as an object or series of objects)…
to what it does (as a contributor to urban processes)…
to urban processes as constituent parts of larger city systems…
to the operation of city systems as complex combinations of the planned and the unplanned.
This was a real pivot point – the beginning of a transition away from a practice focusing on objects toward a focus on systems and the messy realities of cities as complex assemblages of physical, social and economic structures.
It was the start of a new direction – effecting processes of transformation for the informal cities of the Global South.
Emma Brain
August 1, 2019
Pivot
pivot
Tim Horton on PIVOT
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There are two ways to think of a pivot: both as a verb – an act; a change in direction – and a noun; a shaft (yes, or fulcrum) around which something spins.
I prefer the noun as a way of describing my own path through architecture because, what might seem to be abrupt leaps from practice (Public Works cadet, Lahz Nimmo, JPW, Hassell); to policy (advising a South Australia premier on design, planning and development); to regulation (policing professional standards from the Registrar’s seat); and now planning law (as a Commissioner of the Land and Environment Court), has felt more like regular oscillations around a fixation with the profession’s relationship with the external forces that give it shape.
But the initial push in to this different orbit was a mid-week phone call one morning in Adelaide in 2010 that went something like “It’s Wendy from the Premier’s office – will you take a call from the Premier?”. 24 hours later I’d resigned from Hassell and been appointed as a Commissioner. And while I haven’t returned to design practice since, everything that’s followed has been what we know as ‘strategic design’ at some level.
* Tim Horton is the current Commissioner, Land & Environment Court of NSW. His musings on the word Pivot appeared in issue 00 of The Fulcrum Agency’s journal.
Emma Brain
July 1, 2019
Pivot
pivot, Tim Horton