• Torrens townhouses, building 1 (1967)
  • Torrens townhouses, building 2 (1967)
  • Bahr House, 1 Astley Place, Garran (1966)

Dirk Bolt

Dirk Bolt was born in Groningen in The Netherlands in 1930 and studied architecture at the Delft University of Technology. He moved to Hobart in 1951, and completed his architecture and town planning qualifications at Hobart Technical College. He designed a number of innovative buildings in Hobart while working at the firm Hartley, Wilson and (later) Bolt. Perhaps the two most notable are Christ College, at the University of Tasmania (1961-62) and the brutalist Murray Street State Offices in Hobart (1966-69).

Dirk Bolt moved to Canberra in 1964, where for 6 years he ran a private practice and worked as a planning consultant to the National Capital Development Commission, playing an important role in Canberra’s development during a period of rapid population growth in the 1960s and 1970s.

Bolt’s work for the NCDC included the planning of neighbourhood centres, group centres and the town centre of Belconnen. Some of the neighbourhood centres also included higher density housing. By the end of 1969 Dirk Bolt and Associates had planned or provided advice on 15 suburban centres in Canberra, the planning of the Belconnen Town Centre and preliminary work on the Tuggeranong Town Centre. These projects were primarily planning commissions, with Bolt involved in basic spatial planning and preparation of control drawings.

The detached houses designed by Dirk Bolt in the 1960s in Canberra were founded on proportions based on the golden mean, the flow of space between the inside and outside, the use of natural materials and careful detailing. His approach was to use low cost, basic materials for structural elements (concrete block work, metal deck roofing) and higher quality materials and fittings for things people touched: joinery, doors, windows and associated fittings. Bolt often used recessed, fluorescent pelmet lighting along areas of glazing.

In designing group housing schemes, some in association with group centres, Bolt explored an interest in the urban as well as the built form. Bolt’s central planning themes in group housing were to provide a range of housing types and access to outdoor private space. His rationale was that in each development, providing a mix in the numbers of bedrooms, and hence of family structures and lifestyles, would help promote interaction between people of different ages and social groups. The other key principle was that each dwelling should offer the opportunity to move easily from living areas into private open space. So where gardens were not possible people had access to courtyards or broad terraces. Where these were not feasible, there were balconies.

Bolt’s best multi-unit housing schemes were among the first of their type in Australia. The courtyard housing at Hackett pre-dates similar schemes at Swinger Hill, Urambi Village and Winter Park at Doncaster, Victoria (Graeme Gunn, 1970). The townhouses at Torrens are the first such stepped, three storey developments in Canberra and were designed around the same time as The Penthouses at Darling Point, New South Wales (Ken Woolley, 1968).

In the 1970s, Bolt worked for international development organisations in Africa and Asia, including the UN Office of Technical Cooperation. He consulted to many agencies and governments on planning, development and sustainability. He was appointed Senior Lecturer in Urban Design at the University of Auckland, where he received a PhD in town planning in 1984. In 1987, he returned to the Netherlands and became professor and head of Urban Planning at the University of Twente.

Buildings and planning

  • Christ College, University of Tasmania (1961-62)
  • Church of Christ, Marrawah Street, Lyons (1965)
  • Murray Street State Offices, Hobart (1966-69)
  • Aranda Neighbourhood Centre (1966)
  • Pearce Neighbourhood Centre (1966)
  • Torrens Neighbourhood Centre (1967)
  • Woden South Group Centre, Mawson (1968)
  • Burgmann College, Daley Road, Acton, ANU (1970-71)

Houses

  • Butler House, Beauchamp Street, Deakin (1965)
  • Westerman House, Fuller Street, Deakin (1965)
  • Smith House, Fuller Street, Deakin (1965)
  • English House, 34 Munro Place, Deakin (1965)
  • Berry House, 8 Reibey Place, Curtin (1965)
  • Griffith House, 90 Dunstan Street, Curtin (1966)
  • Goodspeed House, 98 Dunstan Street, Curtin (1966)
  • Hackett Courtyard Housing, Grayson Street, Hackett (1966)
  • Aranda townhouses, Jalanga Crescent and Jalanga Place, Aranda (1966)
  • Bahr House, 1 Astley Place, Garran (1966)
  • Torrens courtyard housing, Batchelor Street, Torrens (1966)
  • Torrens townhouses, Basedow Street and Davies Place, Torrens (1967)
  • Farrer townhouses, Gatton Street, Farrer (1968)

Source

  • Andrew Metcalf, Canberra Architecture, Watermark Press, 2003
  • Tim Reeves and Alan Roberts, 100 Canberra Houses, Halstead Press, 2013
  • G Trickett and K Charlton, Repose: the contribution of Dirk Bolt to Canberra’s architecture, AIA, 20013