MSD Studio 4_The Ark_SM2_2020 by l m

Weltschmerz: Recent Drawings by Ben Tolman

THE ARK What if you could never leave your building? 1

THE ARK What if you could never leave your building? Can we live where we work? Can we work, play, make, culture, healthcare where we live? What would that look like and how would it change the way our buildings are designed?

vertical ‘containers’ and design new modes of programmatic organisations addressing questions of circulation for people, goods, waste or information. Rather than focusing on questions of formal composition, the studio aims to address the systems that can be set in place allowing us to survive in relative ‘isolation’ but most importantly, thrive. You will be asked to determine which programs are essential and which ones are superfluous.

2020 brought with it a torrent of new challenges and the highlighting of ‘old’ ones in need of urgent addressing. We are now realising that we are all interconnected at the macro and micro level. Whilst at first glance, these problems might appear to sit outside architectural discourse and scope, the reality is the design of our living environments and the speculation on future architectural typologies has never been so critical. The lockdown of our cities has triggered a dramatic collapse of our urban environments, with large sections of our cities now dormant or redundant. While this presents obvious economic and social challenges, this could provide an opportunity to radically rethink our cities. If you are born, live, work, make, consume, play, heal and die in the same space, in a framework of total shared, negotiated, overlapping and fluid mixed use, there is the potential to cut the physical and environmental footprint of human inhabitation.

You will be asked to develop a critical position on architectural program. As the studio unfolds you will develop a proposal for a future living environment which operates as a self contained habitation ‘ark’, a circular urban environment contained within a building that contains all the things you believe are necessary for daily life. You will be asked to form political positions around the things that are most essential to us, what we must give away and how we structure our life around a building. These issues will be explored through processes of negotiation and gamification, reconsidering these approaches as criticals for speculating on new modes of living and the architectural typologies that might support this. The studio will challenge the designer to work through acts of ingenuity or negotiation in an incremental fashion rather than the authoring of a single big idea, or the choreographing of a process. Gamification and non-linear generative processes introduce contingency, the uncertain or the unknown. It allows the designer to suspend judgement, to introduce novelty and to situate design outcomes within a field of interrelated actions and consequences. This will involve working individually and in teams throughout the semester. Final projects will be assessed against a process of negotiation established by your tutor and your peers as the semester progresses.

This studio aims to speculate on the future of our living spaces and the implications these could have for our cities when the need to leave our address is eliminated. In a world where everything is indoors, it would make sense to draw on urbanism and urban thinking as a mechanism for architectural organisation, planning and programming. Conventional architectural and urban design strategies generally view the city as static, when in fact the urban environment is a dynamic field of interrelated elements that are in a constant process of change, resulting in the continual production of new hybrid architectural types and forms.

The Ark will be an opportunity to explore ideas about the future of our living environments through the lens of negotiation, gamified processes and generative experimentation.

This studio will start here and build upon these questions to design a vertical ‘Ark’ in the city of Melbourne. Students will be asked to work within 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. ‘THE BEAUTY OF DECEPTION’ Joelle Leong, Ka Wing Poon p5

2. ‘PSY-ARK’ Charen Rompis, Grady Wang p 20

3. ‘C03DEPENDENCY Hongyu Wei, Kaylin Yee Yeoh, Minjie Liang p 30

4. ‘ARTK’ Jason Qian, Kai Lin p 46

5. ‘SID CITIES’ Rachel Deeb, Yasmin Rousset p 54 6.

‘THE OFFSHORE VESSEL’ Zhi Yong p 66

1. ‘THE BEAUTY OF DECEPTION’ Joelle Leong, Ka Wing Poon

In 2016, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported approximately 24,826 homeless people on Census night, which is an 11% increase since 2011. This issue lead to the public being unsatisfied and unhappy with the state of the streets, claiming that the streets are unsafe and dirty. Thus a protest is instigated in Melbourne on this matter, to provide a solution and rid the streets of the homeless. This then sparked the authorities’ desire to eradicate and conceal all of the unsightly in Melbourne with a superficial solution rather than actually solve its underlying causes. Therefore, a beautification project is to be carried out where a large-scale edifice complex is to be erected: 3000 homeless people would be invited to be relocated into an initial experimental tower in order to appease the public. This tower speculates on two questions: - How the authorities use the lowest budgets to design a façade which boasts the state’s image & captures the essence of Melbourne and its architecture? - How the authorities address the interior living conditions of the informal settlers & how the settlers adapt to this new way of life? Our design proposal attempts to ironically criticise the authorities’ actions of concealment towards informality, standing as a form of protest, while making a political statement on their obsession with beauty and deceitfulness.

The authorities put all budget and resources towards the curation of an idealistic building exterior in an effort to create an attractive metropolis, where architects are tasked only with the design of the facade. Our project site is located adjacent to both the Parliament House and the Premier’s Oﬃce forming a triangular relationship. This site choice was made in order to strengthen our design’s political statement and critique against the concealment of societies’ underlying issues of informality. We took Robin Boyd’s notion of Featurism as a reference; Boyd described Melbourne as a problematic Featuristic city, where there is no overall cohesion and this drives the outcome of a variety of buildings with diﬀerent architectural styles.

The authorities display an indiﬀerent attitude concerning the interior design and living conditions of the building’s inhabitants. We intend to further criticise the authorities’ decisions on this matter where randomness, chaos and flexibility are the interior spatial qualities that we hope to achieve, in order to create a strong contrast with the neat, orderly exterior. The lottery is used as a program organisation method to generate this randomness. Step 1: we use the lottery to generate a drawn number which determines the distribution of regulated programs on each floor. Then we arrange the regulated programs, which are essential for living, strategically on a set grid and stack each level to create a vertical tower. Step 2: circulation is then added throughout the whole building Step 3: We then remove the floorplates in the model, and the void spaces resulting from the stacking of these regulated programs are left to be occupied by the inhabitants of a first-come-first-served basis, where they can decide how they want to appropriate this space whether it be for illicit purposes or not. Void spaces are then appropriated and infilled by the inhabitants to host illicit programs. This process produces the overall floor plan where boundaries between illicit and normal may be blurred. The overall section of the tower where you can see contrast between the exterior and interior, evident in the formless/shapeless circulations and program organisations caused by the authorities’ indiﬀerent attitude towards the tower’s interior. This gives the inhabitants full authority over the interior design decisions, where they must be flexible/ evasive/ anonymous in order to transform the interior. More importantly, it provides opportunities for inhabitants to host illicit activities. 8

Metamorphosis is used as a flexible tactic to allow the illicit to evade, where programs metamorphose under cover and emerge transformed. In order to retain the anonymity of its location, the illicit spaces are constantly changing and transforming over time. Through an observation of the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interior over a period of time, we recorded this adaptation and modification of this space done by the inhabitants of the tower.

Day 0: The first record displays the initial conditions of the building which contains only the most basic unit frameworks which were poorly constructed by the authorities using cheap drywalls and plasterboards

Day 60: After 2 months the inhabitants have started to modify the space to suit their needs, by constructing a ceiling structure for hanging signages. Illicit programs are also beginning to appropriate spaces for use, whilst manipulating the application of signages for concealment.

Day 250: The inhabitants have fully settled down, and now have the abilities to use construction nettings as well as signages, as a device to conceal/disguise illicit spaces to deceive/ shield from others. The perspective shows how construction nettings are utilised for this purpose. The one on the left with lighter/ brighter colour is a normal program that is actually undergoing construction/ renovation. Whereas darker construction nettings (multiple layers) wrap the unit on the right, disguising the illicit program. 14

Day 280: This process of metamorphosis of programs is recorded here 30 days later, where both the normal and illicit programs are constantly changing in order to be evasive.

The authorities set out a survey in which a positive correlation was found between the people’s satisfaction with the state government and this beautification project, where people are pleased with this gradual purification of the streets from the unseemly. Therefore, the project’s initial phase had been deemed successful and ready for commencement onto the next stage. Despite the authorities’ celebrations of success, no proper solutions regarding informal settlers have been made. The crux of the matter persists on and the underlying problem becomes more diﬃcult to solve as time passes. The designers hope that one day the authorities will face their responsibilities and take up the challenge to provide the long-term antidote to the matter of informal settlers within Melbourne. 18

2. ‘PSY-ARK’ Charen Rompis, Grady Wang

Within a few years’ time, it was found that there will be a massive flooding in Melbourne. This event resulted in an extending pandemic that affected Victorians and left them emotionally inept. Our Ark is created to reflect this psychological and mental condition during the 2020 Melbourne lockdown and to critique the lack of attention to the emotional and mental wellbeing of the people. Because everyone is different and expresses, experiences and reacts differently to certain situations, the Ark proposes users free will to gradually explore and experience emotional exposure. Psyark proposes three distinct zones enabling individuals to explore freely: Compression. Neutral. Release. The Compression Zone is the lower area where you first embark the Ark. It is designed as a place for refuge and vulnerability. The architectural strategies were implemented within this zone through the use of double height ceiling spaces and narrow corridor areas as an act of compression. The Neutral Zone is the middle area that acts as a transition place from the lower area to the upper area, where a landscape is designed to encourage a range of emotions through the physical and tangible. The Release Zone allows the human to be immersed in a personal scale, in the intellectual and spiritual. The design incorporated the idea of breaking the grids of conventional urban landscape to create a series of journeys and exploration. Each space is designed with the idea of intimacy, with terraces, staircases and bridges symbolizing traversing from one realm to the other.

-Welcome aboard. Let us show you how to navigate around the psyark. UPON YOUR ARRIVAL to the left-you will walk through the manufacturing area and ACROSS THE BRIDGE is where you will be staying at. YOU WILL HAVE ACCESS TO SPORTS to improve your physical wellbeing. If you wanna go to the top, you can hop on to the ferris wheel from the lower area or you can have access through the conveyor belts from the middle area: This is the rejuvenating area that helps boost your psychological well being. The love hotel in the top area is the icon of our ark.

The middle zone is the playscape that encourages experiences and emotions you would get through the physical and tangible. It is the transitional space between the verticality of vulnerability and the horizontality of self. -It involves an immersion in the tangible, a degree of tactility through the walls and materiality of the transitional space that the body meanders through, as a transitional space from task to recreation . Through the transition to horizontality you are encouraged through bodily movements, engagement with thresholds and engagement through the materiality, enticing playfulness The top zone allows you to immerse yourself in a personal scale, in the intellectual and spiritual. As for the architectural strategy, we started oďŹ&#x20AC; by breaking the grids of conventional urban landscape to create a series of journeys and exploration. Each space is designed with the idea of intimacy that is further elaborated through the artificial landscape. The terraces are all connected with staircases and bridges symbolizing traversing from one realm to the other. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about being immersed in the water, recover, and reborn. The view to your right captures immersion while you meander through the water, it is a place for reflection and introspection on a deeper and emotional level. Within this setting, we aimed to mimic nature with the use of natural paving, uneven ground, and greeneries that are proven to enhance your psychological well being. We used the materiality that does not detract from the immersion of the water, smaller scaled formats of the tile to make the space more human scale orientated. We used a plain white render symbolising purity, in contrasting to the love hotel. For a more individual experience, the terraces introduce nooks and cave-like spaces for a meditative atmospheric bodily experience. The majority of the space below is being used as a bathing area, while the space to the end is designated to be a sauna. 28

3. ‘C03DEPENDENCY Hongyu Wei, Kaylin Yee Yeoh, Minjie Liang

The project focuses on how architecture can provide humans with an alternative way of thinking and shaping the city and landscape while dealing with tragedies beyond their control. In our ark, everybody is working towards a goal for survival. The Ark provides more than just a model for surviving, it aims to sustain humans to be able to live a comfortable life, where people can still enjoy themselves and coexist with nature in a respectful way. Manifesto 1. We will now live in The Ark, protected from the heat, smoke and pollution; 2. The Ark provides a new life, only certain urban programs will be retained; 3. We will be self suﬃcient, each individual responsible for producing their own food for survival; 4. Lifestyles will change. We will practice a living style with limited resources, where access to all things is made in moderation; 5. We will strive to live a comfortable and enjoyable lifestyle while coexisting and respecting Nature. The Ark traps people inside in a never ending loop in which to survive you must accept you’re living in a prison where work is forever ahead of you. The façade is burnt and scarred by the marks of the burning landscape after decades of environmental abuse. As the colourful interiors fade away, humans eventually forget about a time where they were free to roam the landscape, consume everything as they please and live a life of multiple choices. Our Ark represents a condition in which we are the prisoners of our own actions and the punished subjects of our human condition.

Our project depicts an architectural model to provide humans with an alternative way of thinking and living / that reshapes our idea of urban environments and its relationship with surrounding landscapes to deal with environmental tragedies beyond our control. We proposed a speculative Ark where everybody is working towards the same goal But rather than just surviving, our project aims to achieve a balanced lifestyle where people can still thrive and coexist with nature in a respectful way. What if in the future natural disasters happen so frequently that our land and surroundings are not safe for survival anymore? What happens to the city, the suburbs? And are we still able to produce enough food? Currently we take arable land for granted. We overlook the importance of rural areas and the fact that a huge amount of land is required to support a single individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life. Our rapid technological evolution, and shift to a consumerist society has caused extreme pollution and destruction of our living environments. But it is not too late to act. Our project aims to bring to light this condition and shift the way we think about architecture as a building in isolation. People, Buildings, cities, the environment as all part of the same system that supports our survival. Victoria has been dealt with bushfires for a long time. The Black Saturday fires and the super fires in early 2020 have proven that this situation will only worsen. We imagine Bush fires will continue to occur across Australia in an uncontrolled manner turning the lands of Victoria into a burning waste.

People are losing homes, Fauna and Flora are being destroyed at unprecedented levels and food shortage will be a reality in our near future. Therefore, we propose an alternative way of dealing with this tragedy and adapt to this new normal. We imagine people living in arks in groups of 500 inhabitants spread across Victoria as a temporary escape until the surrounding is regenerated and suitable for survival again. To design our ark we collected research to look for solutions to provide suďŹ&#x192;cient food to the residents. We understood the average diet and basic consumption of an average Australian, and looked into more details 32

of the types of food that we wanted to produce and the land needed to produce them. We compared the average land use per capita across several countries and looked into various methods that could reduce land use such as restricting diets and lifestyles. With these in mind we generated several iterations simulating scenarios with diďŹ&#x20AC;erent amounts of residents and diďŹ&#x20AC;erent types of lifestyles. As seen from the diagrams on screen, the land required for this is still too extensive if we were to aim for 500 people living together- which is the minimum number of individuals we considered needed to form a community. Therefore we decided to include other options rather than just solely relying on traditional farming. Through our research we understood in the future, agriculture might be very diďŹ&#x20AC;erent from what it is now and in the past. Where a year in the life of a typical farmer in the 18th century used to heavily focus on activities such as seeding, harvesting etc, now, it would be more reliant on digital and modern technologies.Using vertical farming or lab meat production as the main food production in our ark, we are able to reduce land use by 80% while being able to feed the residents within an average lifestyle in the ark. Our proposal is divided into three main components, the village, the residential area and productive area. This is our final diagram showing the ratio of land use within the ark. In the building, residents are the main consumers depending and relying heavily on both the agricultural area and the village. The village is a space for retail and entertainment, whereas the productive zone acts as the component that supports the survival of the ark. The residential area and the village are elevated and hung above at the top for safety. Referencing a scale, the agricultural zone as the most important component for food production holds the ark in place, while the village and residential areas both heavily depend on it. Here we have a series of diagrams explaining how each component works and relates within The Ark.

At 9 in the morning residents wake up in their homes to get ready to leave for work in the production zone. Our proposed housing units come in modules of 4 bedrooms for either social housing or family units. The residential area is stacked into five separate floors, dividing the 500 residents into smaller groups of 100 on each floor to foster a stronger sense of community. The housing units are built in modules that come in fixed sizes. Residents could simply rearrange the accommodation as required, replacing and editing any elements of the module depending on their needs. This allows for flexible and adaptable living for the users. In the middle we proposed a communal space that connects the two sides together. This space acts as a smaller gathering area for residents on each floor to have casual meetings and interactions between neighbors. The main materials used are timber to create a warm atmosphere. The timber screens create a small division between the corridors and houses to separate public and private within the space. From the residential area the residents travel through the transition corridors that bring them to the production zone for work. The residents start their day by working there. Our food production area is divided into two sections, modern farming and traditional farming. Traditional farming is attached to an ecotourism zone exposed to the outside, whilst the modern farming labs are hidden in the interior, underneath the landscape slab to mimic a natural landscape. 90% of the food is produced through modern farming, which guarantees a safer and more eďŹ&#x192;cient method of feeding the residents. In the ark we produce a series of food to meet as many requirements as possible. However, meat is limited in the ark as through research meat production takes up the largest amount of space and time. Therefore, the types of meat are now divided into seasonal limitations to allow space and time for a certain type of meat to be produced.

Other than producing food, the traditional farming zone also serves as an ecotourism hotspot, where people can escape their routine, and experience a bucolic, return to nature experience. The ecotourism sits within an open vast landscape, with rice fields, cottages and slopes. The main circulation would be made by the train ride that transports both goods and people across the building. The ecotourism oďŹ&#x20AC;ers a series of attractions for residents to visit. According to the season, diďŹ&#x20AC;erent activities and traditional farming experience are available. Various animals and food are harvested and planted according to seasons. A series of vignettes shows some proposed activities that could be carried out. We proposed structures that hold up the landscape similar to roman aqueducts. They are built along the boundaries and also throughout to collect and transport water to the community. On top sits our main transportation system mentioned before. The structure columns that hold up the plates also combine with a portion of vertical farming inside. The middle of the column transports water down for farming and also from plate to plate. The village zone is imagined as a pleasant and colourful space for living creatures to enjoy. We divided it into four functions, Co-existing and animal preservation , retail, entertainment and manufacture. Emphasizing on the idea that in the ark we would coexist and respect nature, the village is not only designed for humans. In the village we welcome animals to coexist and mainly focus on flora and faunas that require care and preservation. For example our programs are designed to incorporate spaces for animals such as feeding and taking care of them until they are ready to be sent back to their natural habitat. We also have included botanic gardens that house rare floras and preserve seeds. In the middle portion weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve located the retail and trade programs, where the supermarket, restaurants, florist, markets, craftsman shops etc will be placed. In the ark, we practice the barter system where goods will be exchanged among residents. 38

When the fire on the outside burns to a dangerous point, we proposed an alarm system on the top of the tower. This would go oďŹ&#x20AC; and shine a bright light corresponding to the situation. Our alarm system is situated on the most top of the tower It is divided into three main functions, the fire meter, pollution monitors and light signal. The light on the top shines according to the severity of the situation, for example, yellow for mild and red for danger. This not only enables the residents to be aware but also communicates with other arks the situation and calls for help. We also imagine trading would occur with the larger network of Arks across the land, where we would trade important goods that we might not produce in our own ark. Pollution monitors are also installed along the columns of the alarm system. It tests the dust, pollution and smoke level of the day and informs the residents. Finally on the bottom is a meter that shows the level of severity of the fires on the outside and indicates whether it is safe to leave the tower.

Due to imminent danger, we propose a facade system that works in tandem with the alarm. The facade is composed of two layers, a filtration layer, and a fire protection layer. The inner layer of the facade is a layer of transparent filter that is able to filter dust and smoke. The outer layer is made from steel and coated with a layer of fire protection spray that endures heat. On the surface we have also incorporated heat panels that are able to generate heat from the fires, and turn them into electricity to be used throughout the ark. When the fire burns to the danger point, the facade of the building shuts down layer by layer and puts the ark into a state of lockdown. This protects the residents inside and allows them to continue with life as the fire burns.

When the facade shuts down completely, life in the tower goes on while the outside land burns. The Ark traps people inside in a never-ending loop in which to survive you must accept youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re living in a prison where work is forever ahead of you. The faĂ§ade is burnt and scarred by the marks of the burning landscape after decades of environmental abuse. As the colorful interiors fade away, humans eventually forget about a time where they were free to live a life of multiple choices. Our Ark represents a condition in which we are the prisoners of our own actions and the punished subjects of our human condition.

4. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ARTKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Jason Qian, Kai Lin

In a UN conference in the near future, Australia has declared itself as a permanent neutral country and will not take part in any future international conflicts. Following this decision, Australia become an ideal sanctuary for artwork from all over the world, especially from the regions under the threat of constant conflicts. Melbourne quickly stands out among all Australian cities thanks to its long emphasis on culture, which leads to the arrival of waves of artifacts. This become an opportunity for local authorities to properly utilise these valuable products of human culture and truly establish Melbourne as the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cultural capital. In order to accommodate this need, the ARTK is commissioned. It is not only an art museum that contains artworks from all cultural backgrounds, but also a cultural hub for citizens of Melbourne to enjoy their civic life and socialise, a world class artwork repair and maintain centre, as well as a world leading art school that allow students to truly immerse themselves in the atmosphere created by the historical relics around them. Located at the east side of Federation Square, the ARTK sits at one the most accessible and active regions of the city and is sure to attract domestic and international visitors alike. As time pass by, the ARTK along with Melbourne would establish a reputation of being the safe haven and sanctuary for artwork and artists. 46

What is the defining characteristic of Melbourne? Some may say street arts, some may say coﬀee, some say the laneways. None of these is wrong, I personally enjoy walking though the royal arcade with a cup of hot latte in my hands with music by street performers playing in the background. However, do you ever wonder if it is possible to bring this to the next level? What if Melbourne has a chance to become one of the world’s cultural capital? Humans are capable of both creating extraordinary artworks and destroying them in a blink. After thousands of years’ conflicts and wars, world leaders have come to an agreement that the senseless destruction of artworks and cultural heritage has to come to an end. In a UN conference in the near future, Australia has declared itself as a permanent neutral country and will not take part in any future international conflicts. Following this decision, Australia become an ideal sanctuary for artwork from all over the world, especially from the regions under the threat of constant conflicts. Melbourne quickly stands out among all Australian cities thanks to its long emphasis on culture, which leads to the arrival of waves of artifacts. This become an opportunity for local authorities to properly utilise these valuable products of human culture and truly establish Melbourne as the world’s cultural capital. In order to accommodate this need, the ARTK is commissioned. The ARTK is designed to be the cultural heart of Melbourne, this new cultural capital of the world. It is not only an art museum that contains artworks from all cultural backgrounds, but also a cultural hub for citizens of Melbourne to enjoy their civic life and socialise, a world class artwork repair and maintain centre, as well as a world leading art school that allow students to truly immerse themselves in the atmosphere created by the historical relics around them.

Located at the east side of Federation Square, the ARTK sits at one the most accessible and active regions of the city and is sure to attract domestic and international visitors alike. As time pass by, the ARTK along with Melbourne would establish a reputation of being the safe haven and sanctuary for artwork and artists. If world peace is not something we can easily help to achieve as architects, then we would have to settle on the second best and maintain a safe corner in the world that could save and archive the past of human culture and history for the future. The ARTK is arranged as a collection of a series of relatively individual zones. Considering its enormous scale, it would be unlikely for people to experience the whole exhibition area. Thus, it is important to have “checkpoints” throughout the journey and arrange the exhibition in phases. Following this reasoning, a resting program that functions as a hotel is added to the building and is being allocated to the middle of the whole project. There are several possible approaches of arranging all these incoming artifacts from all over the world, and we choose to sort this collection and put them into zones and then subdivide them into exhibition groups. The zones are defined by their collection’s time period, while the exhibition groups are defined by the collection’s original geographical location. The rationale behind the zoning strategy is that, in this context, time is definite. Thus, it is possible to have clear “cuts” on a timeline, which is almost impossible to do if we are grouping the exhibition by cultures, as they often interact and blur together with each other. We acknowledge the inaccuracy of this method, as diﬀerent part of the world could be going through entirely diﬀerent events at the same time. However, without having a eurocentrism worldview,

Circulation is the key focus of the ARTK. Based on our research on numerous precedents, we noticed that exhibition spaces are mostly somewhat linear, whether it being regional or the whole building. Keeping that in mind, we designed the spaces to be linked by a linear overarching main route that allows visitors to go through the whole exhibition space zone by zone chronologically and experience the whole collection while mostly not having to walk backwards. it is still possible to identify rough timestamps that are significant and era-defining in diﬀerent parts of the world.

The circulation system is designed to organise our spaces together. In order to provide an optimal experience, the quality of our spaces themselves is also crucial. As a result, we made sure that they are varied enough in diﬀerent aspects. along with that, there are also secondary routes that leads to special exhibitions, resting areas, or serve as “shortcuts” that allow visitors to skip parts of the exhibition that are not interesting enough to them. These “shortcuts” comes in diﬀerent sizes as well. Some would allow visitors to skip exhibition groups within each zone while some others would allow you to skip a whole zone completely if they are truly not interested in a certain period of history. You could go through the whole exhibition and experience the whole of human history from the beginning to present day, or only experience the history of one particular region, or the time period that you are particularly interested in.

5. ‘SID CITIES’ Rachel Deeb, Yasmin Rousset

With global sea levels rising by 3.6 millimeters annually, the ocean is predicted to increase by a minimum of 1 meter every eighty years. In 100 years due to sea water levels constantly rising, humanity faces the displacement of over 150 million people. With such eminent and uninhabitable consequence so close at hand, SID (Safety In case of Disaster) Cities aims at producing a solution to this inevitable future through architectural design. Through trial and error of previous design submissions, exploring the dynamics of both eﬃcient and haphazard layouts, the SID Cities looks to combine the greatest elements of both to produce an eﬀective circular city. SID Cities have the potential to duplicate across the world creating a grid of travel and trade, each with its own unique characteristics that define a city. Focusing on the replacement of the city of Melbourne, the SID City structures divides its functions into five villages – knowledge, health, entertainment, industrial and political – each of which is crucial for liveability. SID Cities encompasses “disconnect” as our strategy which is to be applied to the building at both a macro and micro level. This is achieved through our second strategy “float”, taking advantage of the earth’s new terrain.

To achieve the possibility of a city situated on the water, nautical contingencies have been explored to inform the design process. The core principles that allows large boats such as aircraft carriers to float are similar to those that must be applied to a large floating city. According to Archimedesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Principle, when an object is resting on water an upwards buoyant force is present, equal to that of the weight of water that it displaces. Thus, if the item is lighter than the liquid mass it has the capability of floating; this is achieved through the use of air pockets. In addition to air pockets, the shape of the boat is a key factor in its ability to float. 59

Designed to disperse the weight evenly the hull is spread over a large area to assure its ability to float. Chamber compartments are fitted into the hull to prevent the risk of sinking. These chambers restrict the spread of water throughout the hull, preventing the ship from becoming heavier than the mass around it. However, the control of this method, as seen used within submarines can allow the city to control its buoyancy through the use of air chambers.

SID Cities have the potential to duplicate across the world creating a grid of travel and trade, each with its own unique characteristics that define a city. Focusing on the replacement of the city of Melbourne, the SID City tower divides its function into five villages â&#x20AC;&#x201C; knowledge, health, entertainment, industrial and political. Each village is designed to be connected through a vertical bubble circulation, where a variety of programs are found including residential housing. This system applies the most significant attributes of the haphazard and eďŹ&#x192;cient tower systems, connecting the villages by a core circulation system and given further accessibility via the sub circulation that runs between two villages. The core circulation system contains both the delivery system and central passenger circulation, constantly rotating through the levels. Additionally, the core holds vital mechanical systems that connect to each floor of the tower; distributing the air vents, electrical systems and water and sewerage pipes.

Replicating one of Melbourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most distinctive qualities, this SID City looks to manufacturing and trading silk fashion. Incorporating the use of silk is ideal for clothing as its absorbent nature and ability to wick moisture creates an ideal fabric for living on the sea. In addition, silk will also assist in forming a variety of biomaterials, such as material applications and silk scaďŹ&#x20AC;olds. By utilising silks sustainable and malleable qualities, this trade will assist in defining the city. Building on the cities infatuation with silk, SID City explores the use of building techniques that celebrates its use. Already, new technology derived from nature are being implemented in modern architecture. Using ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion as a structural precedent, SID City looks at the possible use of robotic fabrication to expand the tower without the use of large labour and construction forces.

These forms are achieved by using a flexible membrane frame, reinforced with carbon fibre. The carbon fibre is placed in accordance to an integrated sensor, determining where the membrane needs strengthening. When spun in such a fashion, the carbon fibre becomes stronger and more durable than steel. Exploiting the methods used by silk worms, SID Cities aims to create a floating city capable of expansion. Utilising the surrounding environment, SID Cities uses a series of sustainable systems to accommodate the lack of land. SID Cities uses a system comprised of wave powered electrical plants, desalination plants, waste management, sustainable fish farming, vertical farms and sand roofs. Working together, these systems supports the tower and allow the occupants to remain detached from the land.

‘THE OFFSHORE VESSEL’ Zhi Yong

Imagine a huge amount of refugees and migrants ‘flocking’ into Australia for help during a world catastrophe scenario. After all attempts to interrupt this undesirable migration had failed, the government, desperate, savagely uses architecture to control and manipulate the migrant flocks and participants in The Ark. Every migrant is now required to go through the oﬀshore processing Ark as many refugee and asylum seeker have been through in order to access Australia. Within 104 weeks, people have to create internal migrant communities, economies and society in the tower. Here they can build their own future and restart their stories by using essential kits and prototype pods provided to self survive. What stories will they create? At the end of their stay they may chose to enter Australia or return to their home countries. As dreams and hopes change, what will they chose? The project is a critique of the processing of migrants and refugees in Australia and aims to expose the problematic of migration and border control.