Whole Melbourne Catalogue

WHOLE MELBOURNE CATALOGUE Access to Tools

WHOLE MELBOURNE CATALOGUE

WHOLE MELBOURNE CATALOGUE Access to Tools

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Masters of Architecture Thesis Semester 1, 2013 ABPL 90196 STUDENT: Madeline C. Sewall, 543309 SUPERVISOR: Byron Kinnaird Submission: 31.5.13

ABSTRACT

1

INTRODUCTION

3

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

5

ACADEMIC CONTEXT

7

CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE

11

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

13

METHODOLOGY

15

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS

17

METHODS & PROCEDURES

19

01 whole [melbourne] systems

21

02 shelter & land use

33

03 INDUSTRY & CRAFT

47

04 COMMUNICATIONS

61

05 COMMUNITY

69

06 NOMADICS

83

07 LEARNING

95

DISCUSSION

105

CONCLUSIONS

111

ABSTRACT Q

uestioning the viability of traditional architectural practice in the context of current urbanisation, this study proposes a revisitation of the Whole Earth Catalog as an ideological model for a future architecture centred on the empowerment of individuals to become participatory members of an alternative socio-spatial environment. Contextualised academically by historical and contemporary urban theory, emergent solutions towards a human-centred urbanism are generated by social and observational research. Proposing that the chapter title-concepts of the original Whole Earth Catalog transcend their countercultural importance, and are profoundly contemporary in their environmental and architectural sensibility, this study conducts a rigorous fieldwork-based urban analysis employing an analogous seven chapter structure. Geographically limiting the scope of investigation to Melbourne’s city centre and fringing suburbs, the study endeavours to discover, archive, and analyse nuances of the current urban condition, highlighting the individual’s engagement with the environment through the retrospective lenses of Whole Earth Systems, Land Use and Shelter, Industry and Craft, Communications, Community, Nomadics, and Learning.

Celebrating the Catalog’s eclectic nature, this study employs the dynamic research methods of social immersion and Grounded Theory. By conducting research that is multidisciplinary, fragmented, conducted across inconsistent scales, and collected through motley methods, the study hopes to offer a catalogue of ephemeral urban artefacts, interactions and happenings that will provide insight into the temporal conditions of contemporary urbanity. Post-fieldwork analysis develops strategies and typologies that systematises this seemingly chaotic new urbanism, contributing to our understanding of the current city, and allowing us to engage more meaningfully with our surroundings. Ultimately, through the aggregation of urban data, this research becomes an object that will be useful to individuals in stewarding their presence in the larger context of the urban environment, and in becoming agents of future practice. §

Abstract 1

Introduction 2

introduction

I

n a world of urban densification, land shortages, overpopulation and resource scarcity, the profession of architecture is facing unavoidable change. The heydays of sprawling, exorbitant buildings constructed of finite resources are numbered; single-family homes with half-acre yards will be a forgotten living typology, and four-lane highways will become decaying infrastructural fossils mined for their reconstituent materials. Architecture is threatening to be a disremembered practice when the world runs out of space on which to build and materials out of which to construct. It must evolve with the times; it must assume a new role; it must be equipped to answer the calls of impending urban emergencies—of space shortages, food scarcity, and loss of identity.

With urban centrification and densification an inevitable reality, architecture must foster flexibility, incrementalism, impermanence, and relative chaos. The future city is a maelstrom. With economic and environmental instability further weighing on the jeopardised infrastructure of our contemporary cities, the development of a lighter, more versatile, and more responsible urban layer is paramount to sustaining the quality of urban life. This is the brief for a future architecture.

Designers today are trialling innovative strategies for the remedy of increasing burdens on the urban environment. Retrofit, installation, intervention, parasitism, place-making, and nomadism are the dialogue of an evolving architectural language; a language used not only by design professionals, but by the public as well.

As temporality and informality gradually subvert formal building design, opportunities for civilian participation in the contemporary city increase.

At present, we stand at the crux of practice-based evolution; how will the architect negotiate this critical transformation?

Perhaps architecture is no longer a formal profession practiced by few,1 but a tool that can be accessed and engaged by all. Perhaps it is a catalogue: an index of knowledge, persons, places, instructions, skills, criticisms and strategies that educate readers about their capacity to inform the physical environment and engage more meaningfully with their surroundings; about leading conscientious lifestyles, and understanding their role as an individual in the context of a supersystem—the city.

The horizon of formal practice is overcast with portentous clouds of change. This paper will endeavour to discover, analyse and define the dynamic ideology of a future architecture, both through theory and practice. It will consider, assess and aggregate ideas from collective disciplines with the goal of formulating an object that will be useful to current and future urban occupants. § WORKS CITED

1 The replacement of formal professional positions by modern machines, technology, and information shares has been a steady trend over the course of the past century, with several jobs (such as telephone switch operators and punch card calculators) reaching extinction.

Even highly-skilled manual laborers in the global professional environment are vulnerable to technological change, warns Matthew Partridge in his 2011 article, The Computer Says You’re Fired: How Technology Dictates the Way We Work. He writes, “Even when jobs are not being fully automated, software means firms can significantly expand their business without needing to hire,” effectively hollowing-out their salary-earning employees. Partridge cites professions currently under the greatest threat to be: City Trader, IT Administrator, Librarian, Legal Researcher, and Military Pilot.

Matthew Partridge, “Computer Says, You’re Fired: How Technology Dictates the Way We Work,” The Gaurdian 14 May 2011.

Introduction 3

WORKS CITED 2 George McKay, “The Social and (Counter)cultural 1960s in America, Transatlantically “ in The Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art, Social Crisis and Counterculture in the 1960s, ed. Christoph and Harris Grunenberg, Jonathan (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000).

3 Daniel and Larkin Foss, Ralph, “From ‘The gates of Eden’ to ‘Day of the locust’: An Analysis of the Dissident Youth Movement of the 1960s and Its Heirs of the Early 1970s—The Post-Movement Groups,” Theory and Society 3, no. 1 (1976). p. 47 4 The term “dropping out” is a phrase of disputed origin, but consistent definition. Coming into popular use in the 1960’s the term refers to the disengagement of an individual from common society. “Droppers” often abandoned their pedestrian lifestyles in capitalist cities to move to self-sufficient communes with shared responsibilities. The most notable of these developments is the aptly named Drop City, a complex of Buckminster Fuller dome-style houses constructed in a reclaimed cow pasture in southern Colorado. A collective of likeminded persons, the compound practiced and embodied the free-spirited nature of living outside the restrictive bounds of society, touting the keystone apolitical ideas of free-speech and self-expression. In his memoirs of Drop City, John Curl scribes a statement indicative of the resident’s countercultural attitude, “Utopia’s got rules—Drop City doesn’t have any rules.”

John Curl, Memories of Drop City: The First Hippie Comune of the 1960’s and the Summer of Love (iUniverse, 2006). p. 11-12 5 Steven Kotler, “The Whole Earth Catalog Effect: A Looking Back at the Long-Lasting Impact of a Short-Lived Journal That Altered the Course of the World,” Plenty November 2008.

Simon Sadler, “An Architecture of the Whole (‘Whole Earth Catalog’),” Journal of Architectural Education, no. 4 (2008).

6

7 “Counterculture Green: The ‘Whole Earth Catalog’ and American Environmentalism” (2011), “Millennium Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools and Ideas for the Twenty-First Century” (1995), and “From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Steward 8

Sadler, “An Architecture of the Whole (‘Whole Earth Catalog’).” p. 108

9

Ibid. p. 108-129

Background to the Study 4

background to the study

1960s

America is routinely remembered for its emotionally-charged social and political extremes: a cause of chronic tension and volatility. Sentiments birthed by the ongoing Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-sixties, the bourgeoning drug culture, and the escalation of the Vietnam War in 1967 gave rise to a new generation of apolitical, anti-technocratic, and humanitarian youth.2 These individuals, recognised as peaceful albeit avant-garde halcyonians, were the protagonists of the American Counterculture Revolution. Disillusioned by restrictive policies and obedient societies, subculture youth were focal pioneers in the exploration of individual identity. As Foss and Larkin explain, “Indulgence in drug experiences, sex, communal activities, be-ins, sit-ins, demonstrations, riots, busts, trips with no destination in particular, not only gave subculture members a set of common experiences, but also opened up vast new capacities of self-hood for exploration.”3 The dissident youth were a curious, impassioned assembly, sympathetic to the victims of an apathetic government. They stood alongside society’s forsaken members, relentlessly protested the corruption of defenceless ecologies, and gradually formed collective communes that allowed them to distance themselves from the control of governmental regimes and “drop out”4 of society. At the apex of this movement, influential ecologist and journalist Steward Brand created what would become a seminal subculture publication, and the work on which this project is centred: The Whole Earth Catalog.

An unprecedented text, the catalogue aggregated products, equipment, instructions, guides and advice on a comprehensive spread of topics ranging from the ecologically-minded back-to-the-land movement to computer-oriented developments in technological futurism; two disciplines that were at extreme odds in mid-sixties America.5 It was this sort of holistic attitude and universality that gained the catalogue the reputation of being a valuable and intellectual resource, culminating in the procurement of the 1972 National Book Award.

Selling a modest one thousand copies of 1968’s pilot publication, the catalogue ultimately sold more than two and a half million copies under Brand’s thirty year editorship.6 In recent decades, the Whole Earth Catalog has frequented the written works of intellectuals and academics, being heralded as critical publication by notorious contemporary ecological and technological authors such as Andrew Kirk, Howard Rheingold and Fred Turner.7

Although the catalogue was originally intended as an instrument to aid subculture members in their exurban journeys, it soon gained a much broader following of urban and suburban readers looking to “affect change from inside the city.”8 In this way, the catalogue became charged with an architectural agency, evolving into an efficacious tool for individuals to make small-scale interjections into urban macro-scale systems, informing, and- in a sense- designing their immediate environments. 9 §

Background to the Study 5

WORKS CITED Jan Gehl, Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space (Copenhagen: Danish Architectural Press, 2008).

10

Louis Wirth, “Urbanism as a Way of Life,” The American Journal of Sociology 44, no. 1 (1938). p. 190

11

12

Christopher Alexander, “A City Is Not A Tree,” The City Reader (1996). Orig 1968. p. 119

13

Ibid. p. 131

14

Ibid. p. 124

15

Ibid. p. 124

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961). p. 50

16

Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1966). p.16

17

18 Chris Butler, Henri Lefebvre: Spatial Politics, Everyday Life and the Right to the City (London: Routledge-Cavendish, 2012).

19

Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, Collage City (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1978).p. 87

20

Ibid. p. 87

Derived from the word Bricoleur: “Someone who uses the means that are at hand, the objects and tools that she find available to her, those which are already present, and, crucially, which have not been designed or imagined with a view to the particular use to which they will be used. The bricoleur tries by experimentation, trial and error, to adapt them, willing to change them if that seems necessary, or simultaneously to incorporate more than one, even if their forms and their origins are heterogeneous.” “Encyclopedia of Identity, Volume 1,” ed. Ronald L. Jackson and Michael A. Logg (New York: SAGE Publications, 2010). p. 72

21

Academic Context 6

academic context

W

hile Stewart Brand was mobilising the subcultural masses to renounce the city for greener, non-societal pastures, urban theorists began to pen growing concerns regarding the compromised health of urban communities and the perilous decay of street life.10 The seminal mid-century works of Louis Writh, Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander were unanimously calling out for the protection of selfhood in the consuming city matrix, and administering cautionary warnings regarding the hazards of artificiality in the urban environment. In 1938, Writh pre-emptively admonished, “nowhere has mankind been farther removed from nature” than in the urban-industrial metropolis, declaring that, “the rise of cities in the modern world is undoubtedly not independent of the emergence of modern power-driven machine technology, mass production and capitalist enterprise.”11

Thirty years later, Alexander’s 1968 essay echoed Wirth’s misgivings about the symptomatic dissolution of city from nature. Denouncing the urban inclination to construct “artificial cities,”12 the author postulated, “In any organised object, extreme compartmentalisation and the dissociation of internal elements are the first signs of coming destruction.”13 He explained that natural systems, due to hyperactivity and free-association of integrated elements, have the highest potential for organic complexities, which he understood to be the life-giving component of modern urbanisation. This sentiment was shared by Jane Jacobs in her critical publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jacobs supports the validity of Alexander’s “overlapping,”14 “ambiguous”15 natural systems, claiming that “under the seeming disorder…is a marvellous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city.”16

In his 1966 manifesto, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, Robert Venturi resonated Jacob’s celebration of disorder, pontificating, “I am for messy vitality over obvious unity…I am for richness of meaning rather than clarity of meaning; for implicit function as well as explicit function. I prefer ‘both-and’ to ‘either-or,’ black and white and sometimes grey to black and white.”17 Sixties urban and architectural theory was characterised by this distinctive resistance to regulated structure heeding an emergence of support for spontaneity and natural, bottom-up development. An interest in composite systems, hybridity, and an understanding in the merit of urban chaos as a promoter of diverse life indicated a progressive transition in attitudes of urbanism and a holistic approach to design.18 A manifestation of counterculture urban theory, Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter’s 1978 book Collage City openly criticised Modernist urban design for its prescriptive rigidity, declaring that the city cannot be treated as an “an implicit object of contemplation,”19 but, inversely, that it demands evolution into an “explicit instrument of social change.”20 The authors denounce the non-interactive object model, alleging that “the idea of dwelling in ‘goodness’ without the capacity for moral choice” is inherently non-utopian. Endorsing anthropologist and ethnologist Levi-Strauss’s concept of bricolage21 Rowe and Koetter state, “Visually oriented

Academic Context 7

WORKS CITED 22

Koetter, Collage City. p. 52

23

Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966).

24

Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty, Wiley. p.1

25

Ibid.

26

Peter and Williams Bishop, Lesley, The Temporary City (Routledge Chapman & Hall, 2012).

27

Ibid.

David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (London: Verso, 2012). eBook.

28

Derya Oktay, Human Sustainable Urbanism: In Pursuit of Ecological and Social-Cultural Sustainability, vol. 36, Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences (2012). p. 20

29

30

David Harvey, “Chapter 3: The Right to the Commons�

31

Ibid.

Academic Context 8

ACADEMIC CONTEXT

architects and planners, preoccupied with the trophies and triumphs of culture, with the representation of the public realm and its public facades, had, for the most part, shamefully compromised not only the pleasurable possibilities but, worse than this, the essential sanitary bases of that more intimate world within which ‘real’ people, people as deserving aspects of concern, actually do exist.”22 Contrasting the Modernists’ hyper-pragmatic austerity, Collage City stands for the disorderly, spontaneous superimposition of fragmented social and infrastructural elements, fostering a sympathetically human environment.23 Contemporary sociologist Zygmunt Bauman further explores the concept of a human-centred environment, suggesting that we as a global society have recently undergone a transformation from solid modernity to “liquid modernity.”24 He qualifies his concept of liquid modernity as “a condition in which social forms (structures that limit individual choices, institutions that guard repetitions of routines, and patterns of acceptable behaviour), can no longer, and aren’t expected, to keep their shape for long.”25 The liquid modern man is one of “nomadism;”26 he benefits from the liberations of a technological society by capitalising on the fluidity and flexibility of his condition. This is the person that twenty-first century urbanism is designing for.

Peter Bishop, author of the 2012 book, The Temporary City, speculates that Bauman’s increasingly fluid environment, along with the instability of the global economy, the restructuring of society around new technologies, and the public’s socio-political responses to formal space regulations are drivers that have led to the demand and subsequent success of temporary urbanism.27 Matthew Frederick, creator of the new architectural ideology Radical Urbanism, similarly recognises that the liquid city demands a more accommodating strain of urbanism. Condemning the commonly-accepted practice of urban design as formal, top-down and elitist, he counters that such a prescribed design process is flawed by impersonal, non-inclusive, and economically monocratic outcomes.28 This results in the social sterilisation of cities due to the fracturing of integrated systems by the rigidity of planning codes and the displacement of marginalised user groups by financial regularity. In her 2012 article Human Sustainable Urbanism, Derya Oktay warns that, “privately owned, controlled spaces of modern urban commerce and design are isolating people from city spaces which are important to a democratic and inclusive society.”29 In his book Rebel Cities, David Harvey establishes a consenting position. Harvey articulates his perspective on Radical Urbanism, explaining that “the profound impacts of the recent wave of privatisations, enclosures, spatial controls, policing, and surveillance upon the qualities of urban life”30 have been detrimental to “new forms of social relations.”31 In response, Radical Urbanism proposes an alternate development scheme in which citizens have the liberty to use their own spaces in addition to underutilised public space for any purpose they elect, irrespective of zoning restrictions or aesthetic codes, resulting in the creation of the “new commons”. The belief is that this process would foster a truly mixed-use urbanism, grown organically from the city streets and nurtured by local residents, rather than superimposed and implemented by an unfamiliar governing body.

Academic Context 9

WORKS CITED Mohsen and Doherty Mostafavi, Gareth and Harvard University Graduate School of Design, ed.

Ecological Urbanism (Baden, Switzerland: Lars Muller Publishers, 2012). p. 350

32

Rebar Group Inc., “PARK(ing): Valuble Urban Real Estate, Reprogrammed,” http://rebargroup. org/parking/.

33

34

Berlin Raumlabor, “About,” www.raumlabor.net.

35

TED Confrences LLC, “Marcin Jakubowski: Open-Sourced Blueprints for Civilisation,” (2011).

36

Sadler, “An Architecture of the Whole (‘Whole Earth Catalog’).”

Contemporary Practice 10

contemporary practice

E

xploring parallel, alternative urbanism concepts and fostering unconventional urban use through interactive interventions is the theory-grounded, San Francisco-based design firm, Rebar. In their essay User-Generated Urbanism, they define their title concept as, “the urbanism of the tactician, those devising temporal and interim uses, and seeking voids, niches, and loopholes in the socio-spatial fabric.

These processes are made evident in circular, hybridised, and over-lapping patterns of resource consumption and tend to foster a diverse, resilient social ecology.”32 Unlike policy-oriented Radical Urbanism, User-Generated Urbanism endorses the initiative and responsibility of the individual to take advantage of the socio-spatial opportunities in their specific situations.

One of Rebar’s most successful interventions is the popular PARK(ing) scheme.

Feeding a parking meter in downtown San Francisco, the project called for the installation of a temporary human-scaled green space. The intervention questions the right to space ownership and challenges the scope of urban real estate policy by effectively leasing a private vehicular space for a public pedestrian use. The firm cites their design intention as “improving the quality of the urban human habitat, at least until the meter [runs] out.”33 While Rebar entices urban occupants to engage with their innovative installations, the goal of this paper is to initiate interactions between readers and their surrounding environments based not on temporary interest in transitory objects, but on long-term independent agency in enduring urban spaces.

Similar in outcome but unique in design method is Berlin-based interdisciplinary firm Raumlabor. Understanding the value of local knowledge, the group coalesces themselves with the urban public, “forging active alliances between local actors and external experts.” This unique and productive form of design research allows them to, “…gain valuable information about the history, fears, desires, existential needs, as well as deficits that exist like an invisible network over every spatial situation.”34 In this way, the group capitalises on shared information, facilitating a sort of open-source communication for a common good: a well-informed and human-centred environment.

Promoting this notion and championing the revolutionary potential of knowledge-sharing is Marcin Jakubowski, founder of Open Source Ecology. The PhD fusion physicist turned self-taught farmer and industrial designer developed and published the blueprints for fifty farming tools to be built affordably from scratch.

These instruments, which can be fabricated using easily accessible and replaceable parts, constitute the Global Village Construction Set. By sharing these plans with the global community, Jakubowski enables other individuals educate themselves and attain self-sufficiency.35 This is a goal that was similarly shared by the Whole Earth Catalog, as indicated by the statement of purpose found on the first page of the original edition, “A realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration [and] shape his own environment.” The catalogue sought to empower individuals, and make them accountable for their decisions through the spread of information and availability of tools. University of California professor Simon Sadler interprets this participatory agenda, proposing that “the catalog was itself a sort of architecture, a colloquium for connecting participants to design and the world at large,”34 and a catalyst for “whole design.”36 This project intends to situate itself in above-mentioned interdisciplinary discourse of architecture theory, urban design theory, ecology and social science. It will negotiate this intersection with an architectural agenda, exploring themes of individual identity, human agency and the potential of whole design in the contemporary metropolis.§

Contemporary Practice 11

WORKS CITED 37 Andrew G. Kirk, Counterculture Green: The Whole Earth Catalog and American Environmentalism (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2007). p .11 38

Ibid. p. 3

Manuel DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity (London: Continuum, 2006).

39

Research Objectives 12

research objectives

R

“Information wants to be free.” -Stewart Brand 1984

evisiting the Whole Earth Catalog as a model for an “environmental philosophy tapped deep into conservative impulses like thrift, ingenuity, technical know-how, tinkering, and individual responsibility and agency,”37 this project will explore the contemporary metropolitan environment, observing, recording, collecting, archiving and making-available information with the intention of empowering individuals in an “increasingly homogenised modern culture”38 to be participatory members of an alternative urban society.

This project is designed to be a rigorously investigated, irregularly collected, urban-architectural bricolage that will evaluate the role of the individual, and small aggregations of individuals, in the generation of a human-centred urban environment.

Operating under concept of Deleuze’s Assemblage Theory, this project maintains that in order to conduct a robust investigation, and to archive ephemeral urban happenings that occur exclusively through the temporal complexity of assembled physical and nonphysical systems, it is necessary to amalgamate miscellaneous, discontinuous and fragmented findings.39 This allegation further explored in the upcoming Methodology and Methods and Procedures sections of this paper.

The original Whole Earth Catalog was divided into seven chapters: Understanding Whole Systems, Shelter and Land Use, Industry and Craft, Communications, Community, Nomadics and Learning. As outlined previously in the Background to the Study section, these chapters served as a fundamental framework for the global environmental sensibility that developed in the nineteen sixties and seventies.

It is the contention of this research that these chapter concepts transcend their countercultural importance, and remain topics of paramount environmental significance. More than their intrinsic relevance as themes of current ecological thought, these chapters are profoundly architectural in their comprehensive contributions to the built environment, and remain cardinal concerns in contemporary urbanism.

Using the Whole Earth Catalog as a lens for a contemporary urban investigation, this project will use the structure of the original publication as a framework in which to conduct urban research in the city of Melbourne, Victoria. The objectives of the project include an academic evaluation of the urban environment, a probing consideration of solutions towards a human-centred urbanism, and a speculative proposition for a tool to aid in realisation of a user-informed urban environment.

Ultimately, through an analytical and diverse exploration of the metropolis, the project seeks to become an agent; catalysing nuanced behavioural, ecological, and spatial changes by providing the information necessary for individuals to make specific, small-scale, everyday choices, informing and defining whole design. §

Research Objectives 13

Methodology 14

methodology

E

mploying a two-pronged investigatory strategy inspired by the interdisciplinary research group, the Ghent Urban Studies Team [GUST], this project will scrutinise the urban environment both through pragmatic, interdisciplinary literature analysis, as well as observatory social research and fieldwork. By deploying and juxtaposing these contrasting approaches, the project aims to gain a contextual understanding of the contemporary environment. De Meyer and Versluys of GUST explain that the goal in this procedure is to, “develop a dialectic whereby detail and generalisation stand to each other in a relation of productive tension.”40 It is the hope of the researcher that this immersive, multi-strategy approach will not only result in the collection and communication of current urban happenings, but that it will also yield unexpected insights into the urban condition. In this way, the researcher- an individual in the urban environment- inevitably becomes a subject of their own study, participating in the practice of immersive research. Resultantly, the practice fieldwork explorations will entangle the researcher in the larger study, fostering an intimacy between observation and consideration.41

In the spirit of the original Whole Earth Catalog, this project will utilise a broad sampling of methods, both qualitative and quantitative, to investigate the urban environment. This will allow for the triangulation of findings in order to formulate a cohesive impression of current urban conditions, unbiased by tendencies that may be particular to a single method. The researcher will focus on balancing collected data and observational findings with theory and literature review to engage in the process of Grounded Theory; a methodology in which new ideas are generated as a result of reviewing and assessing evidence.42 Although this project is utilising a traditional social-science research approach in that it is seeking to represent a predicted urban phenomenon, through the acts of critical reflection and grounded theory, the researcher demonstrates a cognisance of the tendency for partiality and receptiveness to unanticipated findings.43 § WORKS CITED

Dirk and Versluys De Meyer, Kristiaan The Urban Condition: Space, Community, and Self in the Contemporary Metropolis, ed. Ghent Urban Studies Team (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1999).

40

41

Alan Bryman, Social Research Methods, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Lars-Johan Age, “Grounded Theory Methodology: Positivism, Hermeneutic and Pragmatism,” The Qualitative Report 16, no. November 2011 (2011).

42

43

Ibid.

Methodology 15

Research Limitations 16

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS

T

he scope of this project has been geographically limited to the city centre and urban fringe areas of Melbourne; a range carefully selected in order to generate a thorough and intimate study of the elected site in the timeframe available. The researcher recognises that this narrow scope is not necessarily a representation of the conditions of contemporary urbanity and the qualities urban life universally, but rather is a detailed investigation of a defined area. By applying rigour to a designated region, the project hopes to discover, archive, and make available nuances of Melbourne’s urban environment. This study does not intend to use the information and analyses collected in this project to make sweeping statements about urbanism on a global scale, but rather to highlight the value of detail and specificity in urban analyses as a tool with which to inform future research in other contexts.

Although this investigation is a limited study of a selected area, in the future, the methodology developed in this project could be deployed on a significantly larger scale through research collaboration. With the help of diverse contributors this project could become a socio-spatial encyclopaedia of international urban conditions, influencing audiences as profoundly and pervasively as the Whole Earth Catalog. §

Research Limitations 17

WORKS CITED Daniel W. Turner, “Qualitative Interview Design: A Practical Guide for Novice Investigators,” The Qualitative Report 15, no. 3 (2010).

43

44

Martin Gerard Forsey, “Ethnography as Participant Listening,” Ethnography 11, no. 4 (2010).

Jeanette Greenwood, “Structured Observation,” in SAGE Dictionary of Social Research, ed.

Victor Jupp (2006).

45

Delbert C. and Salkind Miller, Neil J., Handbook of Research Design & Social Measurement (New York: SAGE Publications, 2002; repr., 6th).

46

FESTA Festival of Transition Architecture, Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt. IV (Wellington: Free Range Press, 2012).

47

Methods and Procedures 18

METHODS AND PROCEDURES METHODS OF INFORMATION COLLECTION

T

he fieldwork-based research component of this project is to be multidisciplinary, fragmented, conducted across inconsistent scales, and collected through various methods in order to promote the discovery of genuine and diverse findings. This information will then be analysed, represented, indexed and aggregated into a composite catalogue for the purposes of communication.

A. Methods of Collection for Social Information

▷ Semi-Structured Interviewing (Qualitative): The practice of open-ended

and semi-directional interaction. Interviews do not have a preconceived

outcome, and are informal with guiding, topical questions. Such

interactions are a valuable source of in-depth information from local experts.43

▷Covert Ethnography (Qualitative): The collection of information by the observation of people in natural settings with the goal of detecting

logical and consistent patterns in apparent disorder.44

▷Structured Observation (Quantitative): A systematic, structured method

of data collection in which the researcher establishes observable

conditions prior to entering the field and records data in a pre-coded way.45

▷Population Sampling (Quantitative): The process by which a researcher

studies a section of the population in question to extrapolate larger social

trends. Caution should be taken to insure that the sample selected is

accurately indicative of the larger population.46

B. Methods of Collection for Objective Information

▷Literature Review

▷Public Archives C. Methods of Collection for Visual Information

▷Photography

▷Drawing

▷Critical Observation PROCEDURES OF INFORMATION COMMUNICATION

T

he study will use the Whole Earth Catalog’s original chapter titles (Understanding Whole Earth Systems, Shelter and Land Use, Industry and Craft, Communications, Community, Nomadics, and Learning) to structure an analysis of contemporary urban conditions, limiting each concept to an edited collection of 3-5 case studies. These entries will serve as an indicative assembly, cataloguing current socio-spatial happenings in Melbourne. In the spirit of the catalogue, the researcher feels that it is appropriate to employ the eclectic methods of visual communication originally engaged by the Whole Earth Catalog, including hand sketching, photography, diagrams and mapping. Each chapter will follow a strict, uniform format in order to increase the legibility of multidisciplinary research and mixed-media illustration; a strategy employed by the book Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt. IV47 to index an extensive range of

Methods and Procedures 19

URBAN APICULTURE CITY CENTRE ROOFTOPS

Whole {Melbourne} Systems 20

MELBOURNE CITY ROOFTOP “Utilising unused spaces and breathing life back into the city.”

S

ince the global epidemic of Colony Collapse Disorder in 2007, bee populations world-wide have been struggling to regain health. This episode is of paramount concern to agriculturalists and environmentalists due to the organisms’ integral role as pollinators in both urban and rural environments. As Aris Petratos told The Age during the outbreak in 2007, “Bees plays an essential role in fertilising plants: without them the food chain would collapse.”6 This feature makes Melbourne’s local agriculture and permaculture contingent on the imperative success of our urban apiculture system. Contrary to popular belief, Vanessa and Mat of Melbourne City Rooftop Honey explain that the urban environment is actually very well suited to beekeeping. The bees are able to access a much greater diversity of plant organisms (250 distinct pollens) in the metropolitan area, contributing to a healthier colony than those often found in rural areas where bee diets are often dependent on monocultures (15 or 20 pollens). The founders of the organisation express their concerns that honey bees may be getting left behind in the conversation about urban sustain-

ability, stating, “as we expand on concepts of growing food in our cities and making them cooler, greener and more sustainable - It is vital to protect honey bees and include them in our cities and sprawling urban landscapes.”7 Since 2010, Melbourne City Rooftop Honey has placed 70 hives Melbourne’s metropolitan area, and has received interest and support for hundreds more.

The organisation is a perfect example of a city-scaled system; by scattering hives in suburbs across town, the pollination and production of indigenous plants is encouraged, local honey is generated, and underutilised rooftop spaces are repurposed. The couple states that in addition to fostering the regeneration of an endangered population, their project is “about utilising unused spaces and breathing life back into the city.”

This is accomplished through systematic use of hive nodes as foci for the transaction of organic material, and bees as regulating agents of work.§

WORKS CITED 6

Miki Perkins, “How Sweet it is,” The Age 04 November 2007.

“Melbourne City Rooftop Honey: A Vision of a Greener More Sustainable Future for Melbourne,” www.rooftophoney.com.au.

7

8

Ibid

**Photography by Left: Lachie Mathison Next page: Charlotte Swinburn

Whole {Melbourne} Systems 21

BEE-FRIENDLY PLANTS Try these plants in your own yard or terrace to contribute to Melbourne’s apiculture sytem.

TREES

FRUITS & VEGGIES

PERENNIALS/SHRUBS

HERBS

Coral gum Crab apple Cherry plum Currawong Cup Gum Gungurru (Silver Princess) Flat-topped yate Grey Box Large-fruited Yellow Gum Jacaranda Yellow Box Red Flowering Gum Red Box Red cap gum River Red Gum Red Ironbark Red Mallee Yellow Mallle Narrow-leaved Peppermint Messmate Meilia Azedarach Snow gum Silky oak Spotted Gum Sweet chestnut Sugar Gum Lemon-scented myrtle Tea Tree Tulip tree Yellow bloodwood Violet honey myrtle White Oak

Blackberries Currants, Black currant/Red Currant Cantaloupe Cucumbers Blueberries Passionfruit Persimmon Peppers Pumpkins Raspberries Squash Strawberries Watermelons Rocket

Angelica Bee balm Bottlebrush California lilac Clematis Cosmos Dahlias Echinacea Echium candicans English Ivy Foxglove Gazania Geraniums Green mallee Grevillea Hairpin banksia Hebe Roses Lavender Lilly Pilly Mountain pinkberry Portugal laurel

Basil Borage Catnip Comfrey Corriander Fairy fan-flower Fennel Happy wanderer Lemon Balm Mint Nasturtium Parsely Rosemary Peppermint Sage Spearmint Thyme Oregano Marjoram Hyssop Sweet Mace Verbena Zinnia

SPRING CORMS & BULBS

ANNUALS

SUMMER CORMS & BULBS

Bluebells Crocus Cyclamen coum Daffodil Fritillaria Hyacinth Iris Muscari Siberian squill Wood Anemone

Alyssum Asters Clover Cornflower Forget-me-not Marigolds Sunflowers

Agapanthus Allium Crocosmia Foxtail Lily Red Hot Poker WINTER FLOWER BULBS

Glory of the Snow Snowdrop Winter Aconite

“Melbourne City Rooftop Honey: A Vision of a Greener More Sustainable Future for Melbourne,” www.rooftophoney.com.au.

9

Whole {Melbourne} Systems 22

Whole {Melbourne} Systems 23

BIKE SHARE AN INTERVIEW WITH GINA MOSS

“I have lived here for five years and it has really changed. I mean, every year, the facilities for cyclists, the lanes; everything improves all the time.” — Gina Moss

What is your involvement with the Melbourne Bike Share?

I worked for 18 months on the Operations Team of the project, which had a very hands-on focus, working on the street. I started there in June 2010, just as the pilot program got approval.

Presumably, you would need quite a few bikes to make the network a successful system; do you know how many bikes you started with?

It was meant to be 600, but in the time that I worked there, I don’t think there were ever more than 450 bikes on the road at a time. Because they are public, there is a constant problem with damage. Even for something simple like a flat tire, the bikes need to be transported back to the warehouse for repair, and that can take a while.

I know that as a trial it is necessary to do it on a small scale because they wouldn’t want to invest in a massive system that might turn out to be unsuccessful, but I think it would also need to reach that critical level where it increases the convenience of it. Because by have lots of bikes, it becomes really convenient, whereas by having a smaller system, the stations are spread far apart from each other making it less convenient.

Are there regulations to where you can place the stalls?

I don’t think that there are regulations, but that it was done through a series of negotiations with Melbourne City Council. RACV and Alta came up with a plan about where they thought would be good, and then the council suggested some available sites. I think, really, it came down to what was easy…because originally we had some trouble with business owners that did not want them in front of their shops, so I think they just sort of put them wherever we could.

What has been the biggest obstacle to the project?

In my opinion, I think the issue with helmets will sink the Melbourne Bike Share. Essentially, to convert more users, it needs to be more convenient than other methods transit because Melbourne public transit is really effective. The bikeshare is already cheaper, it’s more flexible, it’s more environmentally friendly, but what it doesn’t have is- because of the helmets- convenience.

You have to plan to take your helmet with you, or find a place to go buy one. And I don’t see the government changing the helmet laws here. I just don’t; and I think it really limits the flexibility of the program, which is a shame. It’s our Achilles heel.

What benefits does the bikeshare have over other methods of transportation?

The benefit is not having to follow public transit lines, which are restricted to rails and stations. Although there are stations for the bike as well, you can take whatever trajectory you choose. You could pause and go into a shop and continue if you’d like. Also, at $2.80 for a full day, it’s much cheaper.

And then there are other benefits like it’s better for the environment; it’s better for your health; all the same arguments that being a cyclist in a general sense have.

I think it is a much lighter infrastructure for a city to put in. To build a new train line or install a new train station would be a really expensive and long process for a city with a really big investment, whereas with these bikes it is quite fast and affordable. I don’t know how long then tender process lasted for, but in terms of Alta Bicycle Share coming here, setting up and rolling out the bikes, the process actually only took a few months. §

Whole {Melbourne} Systems 24

MELBOURNE BIKE SHARE STATIONS

Whole {Melbourne} Systems 25

Whole {Melbourne} Systems 26

01◉ WHOLE [MELBOURNE] SYSTEMS “Understanding whole systems means looking both larger and smaller than where our daily habits live ... the result is responsibility but the process is filled with the constant delight of surprise.” — Stewart Brand, 1980

T

he first chapter of the original Whole Earth Catalog intended to contextualise the role of the individual in earthly- and even galactic- environments by scrutinizing human scale, influence, and responsibility. Whole Earth Systems focused on cycles and networks; especially those to which humans become significant actors. Mesmerised by technological advancements and political movements occurring on a global scale, the Catalog embodied a reaction to the event that were concurrent to its publication, such as the Space Race, the Cold War, and the American Environmental Movement.

Contemporary thinking has endured a considerable change of scale, with global efforts being made to refocus energies on local environments and individual behaviours. This is especially apparent in urban design theory, architecture theory, and city planning; as mentioned in the Academic Context and Contemporary Practice chapters of this paper. In his essay Smart Urbanism: Making Massive Small Change, Kelvin Campbell expounds that the days of “bigness”1 are over, writing “an understanding…needs to be developed about the nature, scale and dynamics of spatial structure in relation to context.”2 Establishing a parallel position regarding the necessity of gradual reform, Paul Finch writes, “Incrementalism is central to the future of development…small scale strategies and initiatives, if there are enough of them, can become a very big idea indeed.”3 With this contemporized framework of urban systems in mind, Whole [Melbourne] Systems focuses on city-scaled functions operated by individuals or small groups.

Interpreting a system as “a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole; or, a group of interacting bodies under the influence of related forces,”4 this chapter hopes to imply the density of the system-based network in which we are suspended by profiling individual cases.

Selecting examples that are distinctively Melbournian, these entries intend to make apparent the influential forces that constitute the network of systems we exist within. Although they may be considered nuances, systems of this scale are inherent to the creation and maintenance of a diverse, well-functioning and unique city.

In his essay Low Entropy Urbanism, John Thackara reflects on the importance of small-scaled systems, writing “Thinking local and thinking small is not a parochial approach, it is not an abdication of responsibility for the bigger picture. On the contrary, we will get from here to there by a series of small, carefully considered steps.”5 Melbourne represents a manifestation of this statement; a network of thoughtfully implemented, intricately constructed systems. § WORKS CITED Kelvin Campbell, “Smart Urbanism: Making Massive Small Change,” Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal . p. 305

1

2

Ibid.

3

Paul Finch, “Paul Finch’s Letter from London,” Architect’s Journal (2012). p.20

4

“The Merriam-Webster Dictionary,” (Springfield, Massachusetts 2012).

John Thackara, “Low Entropy Urbanism,” in Megacities: Exploring a Sustainable Future (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2010). p.148

5

Whole {Melbourne} Systems 27

FOOD TRUCK NETWORK

T

he food truck movement- a rising global phenomena for the past decade- has found a welcoming audience in Melbourne. Casual, affordable, and social; food trucks fill a substantial gap in the food service industry by providing a unique and constantly changing experience.

The success of the food truck movement is not independent of the increasing pervasiveness of social media. A constant streaming of menu items, locations, and updates allow customers to feel as though they are part of the community, and businesses to maintain wider client bases than may be in proximity to their immediate geographic areas.10 This cycle forms a unique network of transient gastric happenings that is growing denser by the day.

The food truck network functions as a set of roving gastro-social interventions that activate community gatherings and stimulate social exchanges. Arjun Appadurai, social-cultural anthropologist and researcher of gastro-politics, writes that food is a “highly condensed social fact”11 explicating that in its material form, “food presupposes and reifies technological arrangements, relations of production and exchange, conditions of field and market, and realities of plenty and want.”12 Wielding this semiotic power, food trucks act as civic attractors that are able to morph, redistribute, and mobilise food-based social interaction, becoming a “marvellously plastic kind of collective representation.”13 WORKS CITED Zachary Sniderman, “How Social Media is Fueling the Food Truck Phenomenon,” Mashable 17 June 2011.

10

11 Appadurai Arjun, “Gasto-politics in Hindu South Asia,” American Ethnological Society 8, no. 3 (1981). p. 494 12

Ibid.

13

Ibid.

Whole {Melbourne} Systems 28

LOCAL FOOD TRUCKS

SOCIAL MEDIA CONNECTIVITY Facebook / Twitter followers

Whole {Melbourne} Systems 29

Community 30

TACO TRUCK AN INTERVIEW WITH LAURA DREW

Laura Drew, an employee of the Taco Truck, shares her thoughts on food trucks, social media and community.

Do you feel that being a nomadic business has any advantages over stationary restaurants?

Who is the typical client of Taco Truck? Do you have any regulars?

One advantage of being a nomadic business is the avoidance of property rent costs and possible rental increases. The biggest advantage of being a food truck is you can go to the customer as opposed to relying on them to come to you.

Depending on the venue customers vary, however on a normal night a majority of our regular customers would be young adults to middle aged, often young families, fairly wealthy middle-class, with an active awareness and appreciation of community events and culture.

What sorts of spaces do you feel are conducive to food truck operation?

What role does social media play in the business ?

The trend of food trucks here in Melbourne has been made increasingly popular by their appearance at popular events such as festivals, street parties etc. In the warmer summer months trucks can operate at popular gathering spaces such as parks, swimming pools, beaches.

What are your favourite sites?

The best sites for the truck have been at festivals, street parties and private events. A personal favourite has definitely been festivals. This is where the workers can enjoy the atmosphere of the event and have fun, and so in turn reflect a great vibe to the customers.

The trucks daily location would be announced on Facebook and Twitter, so social media plays a very important role in the operation of the trucks. Followers of the truck can be reached directly and customers can also interact with the trucks operators through social media, asking questions, commenting and sharing with others.

How do you think that food trucks contribute to Melbourne culture?

Being such a food orientated city food trucks are proving to be a very successful trend. The fact that these trucks make available good quality and tasty food for anybody and everybody in the city and the surrounding suburbs [also contributes to Melbourne culture]. Trucks can reach people who would otherwise not usually have access to this type of food. The trucks bring communities together over the shared enjoyment of good food. ยง

As a food truck, do you have any obstacles that ordinary restaurants do not have?

Being a truck, we operate in outdoor areas, so the weather can effect trade. Rain and cold can reduce the crowds.

Community 31

Shelter & Land Use 32

02 ◉ SHELTER & LAND USE “Because ‘land use’ too often means ‘use up,’ there is considerable repair work to do.”

— Stewart Brand, 1980

I

n his article Ecology of the City, A Perspective from Science, Steward Pickett considers the complex associations of physical and nonphysical contributors to the urban environment. Illustrating that shelter and land use are not simple, independent issues, but rather function dynamically as part of a larger system, he writes “it is clear that although the parts of an urban system can be examined independently, the parts cannot be separated from one another. Cities and other urban ecosystems are equally biological, social, built and geophysical.”1

“Built” components are the skeleton of the city, forming the “heterogeneous spatial context in which dynamic flows of matter, energy, organisms and information occur;”2 Physical structures, defined by the conventions of shelter and land use, are integral to the nurturing of these flows. In Counterculture America, these conventions saw a pivotal change in approach from large scale planning and blanket strategies to small scale initiatives and localism. Accordingly, the Whole Earth Catalog offered advice on the construction and maintenance of victory gardens, permaculture, worm farming, owner-built houses and earth sculpting, targeting the exurban homesteader.

In the contemporary city, space-sensitive and environmentally-conscientious trends make substantial contributions to Pickett’s “urban ecosystems” and promote a lifestyle that hybridises shelter and land use. Innovative approaches for urban agriculture, building stock reuse, low-energy living, and localism have assimilated the Catalog’s exurban strategies to a hyper-urban environment, defining the Melbournian understanding of this chapter concept. § WORKS CITED Steward Pickett, “Ecology of the City: A Perspective from Science,” in Urban Design Ecologies, ed. Brian McGrath (West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2012).p.163

1

2

Ibid.

Shelter & Land Use 33

Shelter & Land Use 34

ROOFTOP PERMACULTURE federation square

Shelter & Land Use 35

Shelter & Land Use 36

FEDERATION SQUARE POP-UP PATCH

P

Creative solutions for the conscientious urban gardener

erched on the rooftop of a five story parking garage, and nestled inconspicuously behind the bustle of heavily-trafficked Federation Square, the Pop-up Patch basks patiently in Melbourne’s moody sunshine. Little Veggie Patch Co.’s Matt Pember, and co-workers Sandy and Dylan are busy tending to vegetables grown arduously and organically through one of Melbourne’s hottest summers on record.

Passionate about the merits of urban agriculture and local foodism, Pember warmly welcomes me to his peaceful patch, and generously speaks with me about his project.

A joint venture between Federation Square and Little Veggie Co, the subscriber garden club allows individuals to hire plots on their rooftop site located in the city centre. They explain that their typical clients include urban professionals, young families and first-time gardeners; anyone with a want to garden, but an inability to do so due to lack of space or knowledge. The Pop-up Patch happily remedies both of these deficiencies with their panoramic urban farm plots, and their combined expertise. There is a decided emphasis on educating the community and mobilizing the trend of small space gardening. Pember states that contrary to general assumption, “It is not true that you cannot have a productive garden in a small space,” and he is certainly justifying his contention.

Perhaps one of the most virtuous aspects of the project is its innovative revitalisation of a disused space. Sandy mentions that the car park had been unused for nearly eight years before they began capitalising on its prime location and valuable solar exposure.

Privately owned by Federation Square, the city council had no jurisdiction over the stagnant site. Resultantly, Little Veggie Co. entered into a progressive agreement directly with the landowners, which designates that the rooftop Pop-up Patch is to grow and supply

organic vegetables for the restaurants of Federation Square in exchange for the space that they occupy. This transaction is a form of alternative trade; a mutually beneficial exchange between two parties. In this case, a non-monetary interchange, using vegetables as currency, replaces the traditional leasing of space. The Pop-up Patch then hires out the remaining plots to individual members of the community to cover the overhead costs of supplies and labour.

Although the Pop-up Patch is a subscriber garden, the organisation does its part to facilitate the accessibility of land for Melbourne’s less affluent by way of reallocation. Dylan explains that by making hire plots available in the city, the club fills an available (but unsaturated) market for paid plots by attracting the wealthier members from suburban communities. This trend reserves space in neighbourhood community gardens for those who cannot afford the rent of an urban hire plot. In this way, the Pop-up Patch initiative is informing and reorganising the physical urban environment with a social agenda, and exercising an influence that extends beyond their immediate site.

Paralleling Steward Brand’s concept of Planet Craft3 (humanity’s responsibility for planet stewardship), Peter Smeets writes in his Perspective of Metropolitan Agriculture, that “Regarding the ‘planet’ aspect… metropolitan agriculture plays an important role in waste management and bio-energy production thus enabling a sound ecological basis for urban development.”4 Participatory individuals- like those of the Pop-Up Patch- are bravely catalysing a much-needed change by setting example for small-scale urban alterations fuelled by human agency.

WORKS CITED Stewart Brand, The Whole Earth Discipline: Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, Restored Wildlands and Geoengineering are Necessary. (New York, New York: Penguin Group, 2009). p. 275

3

4 Steef and Tan Buijs, Wendy and Devisari Tunas, ed. Megacities/ Exploring a Sustainable Future (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2010). p. 153

Shelter & Land Use 37

VICTORY GARDENS CERES PERMACULTURE & BUSHFOOD NURSERY Small space urban and suburban gardening has been a popular trend since the Victory Garden campaigns of World War I and later World War II, which promoted the use of citizen-maintained productive landscapes to supplement strained food supply during the war effort.5 This movement has seen a revitalisation in recent years, not as a patriotic responsibility to the state, but as a conscientious responsibility to the environment. Rooftop permaculture, backyard plots, balcony containers, and guerrilla gardens all make substantial contributions to local food systems by reducing pressures on existing suppliers, and by increasing urban biodiversity.

The horticulturalists and permaculturists at CERES Environmental Park explain that this companion planting is a simple strategy for a more productive garden, and one that they employ in their own market gardens along the Merri Creek.

They advise that planting any flowers amongst edibles encourages pollination of all species.

WORKS CITED Char Miller, “In the Sweat of our Brow: Citizenship in American Domestic Practice During WWII- Victory Gardens,� Journal of American Culture 26, no. 3 (2003).

5

BASIL & TOMATO

CABBAGE & LAVENDER

CARROT & CORIANDER

MARJORAM & ZUCCHINI

SPINACH & STRAWBERRY

EGGPLANT & POLE BEAN

Companion planting is a permaculture strategy in which species with complimentary traits are planted in proximity of each other to promote growth. They may share a mutually-beneficial relationship based on methods of nutrient uptake, pollination or pest resistance.

While often used on an agricultural scale (also called intercropping), companion planting is a value tool for a home gardener. This method can be used in raised-beds or potted plants, making the most of small space gardens.

Try these symbiotic combinations published by the Australian National Academy of Sustainable Agriculture to increase crop yields in your garden.

Shelter & Land Use 39

ADAPTIVE REUSE ABBOTSFORD Shelter & Land Use 40

Shelter & Land Use 41

Shelter & Land Use 42

ABBOTSFORD CONVENT From disused convent to popular cultural precinct.

B

equeathed to the community by State Government in 2004, Abbotsford Convent has realised an extraordinary transformation from convent and orphanage, to celebrated arts and community hub. With a variety of tenants ranging from contemporary artists to professional organisations, the historic eleven building property is a diverse cultural precinct.6

Originally occupied by the Sisters of the Good Shepard (an order of the Roman Catholic Church), the 141 year-old convent provided accommodation, education and work for its female residents.7 Young girls considered to be morally compromised, as well as the elderly and ill lived a self-sustained- although reportedly draconian- lifestyle maintaining a farm and operating a commercial laundry. In 2008, Melbourne-based newspaper, The Age ran the investigatory article “Under One Roof” featuring a collection of first person accounts from residents at the convent, and shedding light on to the austere and alienating conditions that women were subjected to in until as recently as 1971.8 No longer a sombre, walled institution of society’s cast-off members; the convent has undergone a dramatic reprogramming and functional conversion. A beloved community space, the original architecture endures with minimal renovations, now operating as an “inner-city sanctuary where the sounds of children playing, warbling magpies and the smells of warm bread…thread their way around arched windows

and Gothic spires.”9 With the longest continually farmed land in Victoria and a compound of freestanding buildings constructed over more than a century, visitors appreciate the local and cultural history of the space; these factors make the convent a notably successful example of adaptive reuse.

Adaptive reuse is an architecture and construction-based ideology that addresses the value in our existing building stock, and the necessity of maintaining buildings for their resources. Rabum and Keslo assert, “conservation in place is better than recycling or reusing materials,”10 elaborating that the concept of sustainability extends beyond quantifiable material, but must also make considerations regarding embodied energy, financial investment and historical significance. Adaptive reuse represents a principled effort to edit existing conditions for future purposes, minimising the resources used for construction, and diversifying the urban fabric.

Creative adaptive reuse schemes are scattered throughout the city with Brutalist office buildings, heritage structures and industrial warehouses gaining second lives as workplaces, residences and cafes. This recycled sensibility is integral to the success that sustainable building policy will have on Melbourne’s and its surrounding areas.§

WORKS CITED Peter Munro, “ Allegations and Intrigue as Convent Dispute Turns Into an Ungodly Mess,” The Sunday Age 12 September 2010.

6

“Convent Reborn,” Melbourne Times Weekly 4 July 2012.

7

8

Katherine Kizilos, “Under One Roof,” The Age 20 November 2008.

9

Frances Atkinson, “My Space Arnold Salinas,” The Age 17 May 2008.

Stanley and Kelso Rabun, Richard, Building Evaluation for Adaptive Reuse and Preservation (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009). p. 173

10

Shelter & Land Use 43

Shelter & Land Use 44

Shelter & Land Use 45

Industry & Craft 46

03 ◉ INDUSTRY & CRAFT “I like to think of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky” —All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, (unknown)

C

ounterculture ideas on this chapter title-concept were largely focused on the technical skills of craftsmen and homemakers; from tooling to tailoring and leathersmithing to candle-making. The Whole Earth Catalog indicated an emphasis on self-sufficiency, handiness with tools, and proficiency with raw materials. As a resistance to manufacturing and commercialism, the generation responded with a collective consumer’s conscience demonstrated by an apparent affinity for the home-made.

Industry & Craft shows a likeminded evolution of 1970’s thinking using technological developments and current policy as points of differentiation. Melbournian trends seem to share the Catalog’s original agenda of conscientious consumption, as made apparent by a resurgence of the counterculture crafting that characterised the original chapter, as well as development in small-scale fabrication facilitated by modern technologies.

As the twenty first century progresses, industry and craft are becoming increasingly entangled concepts. In his book Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, Chris Anderson explains that modern, accessible fabrication technologies enable individuals to create new products affordably and independently of factory-based manufacturing. Anderson predicts that this will realize a dramatic change in craft, production, and industry, empowering creative individuals to achieve innovation in smaller-scale and wider-spread episodes. He envisions a “new kind of manufacturing economy,…[one that is] bottom-up, broadly distributed, and highly entrepreneurial.”1

Further contributing to the reorganization of industry in Melbourne is the rise of a maker’s culture; a memory of the 1970’s home-made movement. Markets, pop-up shops, and studios showcasing local craftspeople are an everyday part of life in the city. In addition to supplementing our consumer options with locally designed and produced trades, factions of the craft culture have taken on an alternative agenda. Melbourne’s celebrated and internationally recognised street art culture has emerged as a tangential division of the maker’s revolution. This craft insurgency tackles sensitive social, political and spatial topics with paint, yarn, and posters, informing the physical urban environment with archives of temporal urban happenings.2 § WORKS CITED 1

Chris Anderson, MAKERS: The New Industrial Revolution (London: Random House, 2012). p.24

2

Sharon Verghis, “The Culture Makers,” The Australian 03 November 2012.

Industry & Craft 47

COUNTERCULTURE CRAFTING SYDNEY RD, BRUNSWICK

Industry & Craft 48

GUERRILLA KNITTING

A

n emergent form of street art thought to start in the United Kingdom around 2006, “Yarn Bombing,” or “Guerrilla knitting” has become a prevalent happening in Melbourne’s city centre and fringe suburbs. Participants knit or crochet colourful threads into urban installations that appear around urban infrastructural pieces, often taking the form of bike rack cosies or furniture adornments.3

Being made from organic substances such as wool or cotton, “yarn bombs” are often considered less criminal than tradition graffiti due to their capacity to disintegrate naturally over time, and be easily removed if necessary. For this reason, the practice has developed a respectable following in Melbourne, with sites of heavy activity including Sydney Road in Brunswick, and Smith Street in Fitzroy.4 Contrasting many other forms of unsanctioned graffiti, yarn bombing is not intended as an act of vandalism, but rather as a gentle sentiment. A divergence from other entries in this collection, the guerrilla knitting movement is a small-scaled initiative aiming to bring playful, unexpected surprises to the urban environment in an attempt to inject character into the increasingly sterile urban environment, altering the way in which the space is experienced.5 The movement uses peaceful resistance to highlight a growing concern that many Melbournians share regarding the depersonalisation of city streets. § WORKS CITED “Pull Wool Over Their Eyesores: Street Artists are Showcasing Their Knit Wits by Brightening the Cityscape,” Domain 21 July 2012.

3

Mandy and Prain Moore, Leanne, Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti (Consortium Book Sales & Dist, 2009).

4

5

Ibid.

Industry & Craft 49

Industry & Craft 50

BASIC CROCHET INSTRUCTIONS Participate in the movement by using this stitch to create installations. The single crochet is the most basic stitch for making fabric. All the other stitches are variations on this one.

Make a foundation chain one chain more than the number of single crochet stitches called for.

Insert hook from front to back in the center of the second chain from the hook (2 loops on hook.)Wrap the yarn, from back to front, around the hook (this is called “yarn over” and is abbreviated “yo”), draw the yarn through the chain (2 loops on hook).

Yarn over once again. Draw through 2 loops on hook (one single crochet complete) Insert hook in the centre of next chain, yarn over, draw yarn through stitch, yarn over, draw yarn through 2 loops on hook.

Repeat across to end of foundation chain. To begin the second row, turn your work. Chain one for the turning chain (does not count as a stitch). Insert hook from front to back under the top 2 loops of the first single crochet in the row below, yarn over, draw yarn through stitch, yarn over, draw yarn through 2 loops on hook (first single crochet complete). Repeat this step in each single crochet across. **Written directions from Lions Brand Yarn’s Library of Knitting and Crochet Information http://www.lionbrand.com/faq/113.html

Industry & Craft 51

BATCH STUDIO

Industry & Craft 52

SMALL SCALE FABRICATION AN INTERVIEW WITH ROWAN PAGE AND MARINOS DRAKOPOULOS

“Maximising resources and fostering a better design literacy.” —Rowan Page

F

itzroy-based design firm, Batch Studio, focuses on exploring the extensive influences that new fabrication technologies may have on product design.

Excited by the possibilities that their new Docklands space will hold for them, Rowan Page and Marinos Drakopoulos express that they are interested in getting the community involved in their design and fabrication processes, and “making manufacturing more local and more accessible.”

Batch Studio’s shop front window features two Makerbot 3d printers, sitting in a constellation of lampshade prototypes, printed ceramic moulds, and a scattering of tessellated, geometric jewellery. Rowan and Marinos hope that these items will entice the community to come in and engage with the products, the designers, and perhaps most significantly, the design process. They explain that one of the most unique aspects of 3d-printed design is the capacity to make small changes to digital files, producing customised products with little investment. Rowan compares this to timber furniture building, which is time and resource intensive. 3d printing occupies a unique middle ground between one-off artisan pieces and large scale manufacturing (a nod to their name; the studio specialises in small batches and small-scale production); it allows the designers to experiment, edit, and customise items quickly and as needed, without the financial commitment of commissioning manufactured inventory, or the time commitment of tooling and detailing individual pieces.

In addition to producing high-quality 3d printed products, Rowan and Marinos agree that they are also highly interested in using 3d printing as a tool in a larger fabrication process. They point out that the affordability of printer filament allows them to prototype experimentally, which is a luxury that most other media do not have, but can benefit from. Marinos suggests that this allows the “physical outcome to become more like software,” bridging a gap between conception and production. They have found 3d printing helpful in mould-making for resin-casting, modelling for ceramics, and are looking for other fabrication methods to get involved with.

The availability of new fabrication technologies empower entrepreneurial designers like those of Batch Studio to be completely self-sufficient; controlling production from design development, to manufacture and retail. This advancement results in the decentralisation of industry, engaging diverse contributions by small-scale actors through locality and accessibility. The pair agree sentiments this topic, explaining that any time you add diversity to a field, you also add opportunity; by broadening the scope and increasing the number of contributors, the potential for realising significant developments is amplified.

Rowan remarks that he hopes their studio will contribute to the larger community by “maximising resources and fostering a better design literacy.” §

Industry & Craft 53

THE SUBCULTURE AESTHETIC INNER CITY SUBURBS

Industry & Craft 54

Industry & Craft 55

STREET ART CITY Informing the urban environment through particiaptory installations

I

n the past decade, Melbourne’s street art has undergone an astounding transformation from illegal, dissident subculture to endorsed, commissioned art form. Sprayed, stencilled and pasted components create a continually-evolving scenography in the city’s laneways; a spectacle that has transpired into a renowned happening in Melbourne delighting residents and tourists alike.

Andy Mac, founder of the Hosier Lane street art gallery Until Never explains that the practice is now enjoying widespread support and encouragement, adding that, “People are way past the idea of asking, ‘Is this art?’ anymore.”6 It is ubiquitously recognized as a value to our urban fabric; an acceptance that is reflected in the publicity that new projects receive, the financial value of each piece, and the governmental policies that have been adopted in response. In the 2012 article, “Paste Modernism,” Journalist Nina Rousseau discusses the capitalist side of this trend, stating that street art pieces in Melbourne are often valued higher than thirty thousand dollars; and indication that Melbourne considers street art to be fine art.7

Reflectively, Melbourne City Council has initiated new policies surrounding the legality of street art, making a distinction between art pieces and tagging. The Council now facilitates the production of pieces by offering an application to building owners who are interested in commissioning works.

Melbourne’s street art is an effervescent tapestry of current events, local happenings and personal whimsy. It is a patchwork, created by participants acting in isolation to make contributions to a larger network; a form of communication between the acting artists and urban occupants. The street art of Melbourne is a shared archive of temporal interactions and urban locality; an exhibition curated by a small group of contributors for the enjoyment of the greater community. Contributions made over time result in the aggregation of an artefact that documents Melbourne’s contemporary culture, and contributes to the larger, global movement of free speech via counterculture art. §

WORKS CITED 1

Nina Rousseau, “Paste Modernism,” The Age 20 January 2012.

2

Ibid.

Industry & Craft 56

Industry & Craft 57

Industry & Craft 58

Industry & Craft 59

Communications 60

04 ◉ COMMUNICATION “Since the moon landing we’ve traveled farther in time and space than the astronauts.

Now, with electronic instantaneousness at our fingertips all night and day, tiny towns in Texas and Utah might as well be the moon for all the temporal stability one can find in them.” –Michael Ventura, Whole Earth Review 1988

T

he 1968 Whole Earth Catalog chapter Communications featured brief entries on technology-based avenues like “electronics” and “calculators” alongside multi-page entries on drawing, photography, film, theatre, dictionaries and writing. In later publications, this discrepancy levelled out, with mechanical media giving way to increasingly digital content. Fred Turner postulates that in addition to the evolution of the Catalog’s subject matter, the nature of its assembly played a significant role in its success as a communicator.

As indicated by Turner in his book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, the Whole Earth Catalog became a pervasive communication network due to its wide-ranging collection of contributors, leading to its national readership. Tuner explains that the Catalog’s diverse contributions from “the world of university-, government-, and industry-based science and technology; the New York and San Francisco art scenes; the Bay area psychedelic community; and the communes that sprang up across America in the late 1960”1 soon led its triumph as “the single most visible publication.”2 Counterculture technology writer, John Markoff, and Fred Turner agree that this open-source knowledge sharing acted as conduit for the technological revolution that ultimately resulted in the creation of the personal computer, and later, the internet. By facilitating the dissemination of information on a large scale, the Catalog acted as a pre-internet wiki.3 This chapter has found that although Melbournians benefit from the effortless and instantaneous methods of digital communication, they also continue to engage non-digital methods of communication. Above all, residents share the goal of the original Catalog; making information, knowledge, and understanding open and accessible to all. § WORKS CITED Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). 73-74

1

2

Ibid. 73

John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counter-Culture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (Penguin Books, 2006).

3

Communications 61

FARM Farmers get fair prices and fair treatment by selling directly to markets.

MARKET Local markets bring communities together and act as distributors.

CONSUMER Consumers gain affordable access to Victorian produce farmed honestly.

Communications 62

AN ONLINE MARKETPLACE OPEN FOOD WEB “To develop, accumulate and protect open source knowledge, code, applications and platforms for fair and sustainable food systems.”

I

nspired by Michel Bauwens P2P Foundation (Peer to Peer), The Open Food Web is a Melbourne-based open-source network established to promote and facilitate the proliferation of sustainable, local food systems. The website is intended to serve as a platform by which individuals interested in and involved with fair food systems can propose, discuss, and exchange ideas.

Open Food Web is a “collaborative online market and distribution system” that helps to put farmers and consumers in immediate contact with each other.

By arranging these interactions, the network hopes to break down the traditional food-supply chain, decentralising product monopolies and rebuilding local economies and local trade.4 Central to the agenda of the Open Food Web is the mutual interest of the farmer and the consumer. Board members (six academics and professionals with backgrounds in food systems or technologies) of the initiative propose that by eliminating as many middle-men and unnecessary transit detours as possible, food products can better serve their communities.

In his video casts, Bauwens speaks of the importance of informing and mobilising the commons to become agents in a social movement. He maintains that the current food market is capitalism-driven and corrupted by privatised organisations that are able to turn profits because of product monopolies. He suggests that the only way to catalyse a change in this rigid system is through the sharing of information.

5 Open-source information empowers

social cooperation by disseminating knowledge efficiently and extensively.

It is this line of thinking that Open Food Web is employing in the development of their new network. 6 Strategies for achieving this well-intentioned goal include the creation and free release of software intended to enable communication between involved parties, the development of regulations to protect the quality and honesty of participatory sources and products, and the maintenance of a technological infrastructure that will provide the framework necessary for these exchanges to become routine transactions in Victoria. This has a distinctive parallel to Marcin Jakubowski’s Open Source Ecology scheme, as mentioned in the Contemporary Practice section of this research. Both projects use contemporary technologies to increase the accessibility of information that is socially constructive and economically necessary.

Open Food Web is currently demoing a platform they have called Eaterprises, in which consumers are able to order products directly from farmers. The board is optimistic that this project will soon lead to the development of a comprehensive software program.7 Melbournians will benefit directly from the diligent efforts of the network by gaining reliable access to fresh, fair food in the Victorian area. The use of digital data networks for community-based initiatives has the potential to revolutionise the approaches and processes used for the distribution of physical and intellectual material. §

WORKS CITED 4

“Open Food Web Foundation,” http://openfoodweb.org/foundation/.

5

“P2P Politics: The Importance of a System Based on Creating Value,” (2010).

6

“P2P: The Grand Coalition of Commons,” (2010).

7

“Open Food Web Foundation.”

Communications 63

DRAWING WALL AN INTERVIEW WITH STEPHANIE EATHER

Melbourne-based artist, Stephanie Eather completed a 9-hour live, from-scratch drawing on the evening of White Night Melbourne in Hosier Lane. She reflects on her experience below.

What ideas were you trying to communicate in your piece, Drawing Wall?

Drawing Wall turned out to be something of a drawing demonstration for the public. As it was a live drawing that developed over a span of 9 hours, the public were mostly able to watch my involvement and progression with the work; how I use my medium; and decision making. It became as much about the process as it did the concluding image, which is an outstanding trait of drawing. My work is focused on observational drawing; however, I use a technique that allows the final result to appear abstracted and chaotic – not an expected impression of the chosen subject matter. Ambiguity plays a significant role in my means of visual communication. I try to provide the viewer with another approach to vision, challenging one’s perception.

What factors help to communicate this idea?

The live drawing took place on Hosier Lane. This location was suited to the rawness of my work. Hosier lane is covered in graffiti, tagging, and other mischievous mark making. Drawing Wall was another active space in which I was intuitively creating.

Approximately 5m long and 1.5m high, a larger scale gave me room/freedom to exert my energy – extending from shoulder onward (not limited to wrist movement) – giving full physical motion and thus allowing spontaneity.

Drawing Wall consisted of large sheets of plywood mounted with canvas (primed) and on top I nailed oversize mat boards. I had other prepared sheets of ply cut smaller to draw on and mount as the night progressed. It became a large scale collage. The different grounds (mat board, canvas, ply) permitted differing textures, complimenting the diversity of the drawing mediums used.

Willow charcoal, conte/compressed charcoal and an eraser were used, giving the full effect of the process of drawing; allowing mistakes to arise and be corrected, and for risks to beneficially contribute. The dry media gives me fluidity and diversity; alternating with thick and thin line and ability to easily and quickly block in areas with tone. All these factors demonstrate the rawness and the physical immediacy of drawing.

How do you feel people responded to your piece?

The responses were refreshing. I received a lot of attention and feedback, possibly due to the amount of people attending WNM. Some were interactive, expressing intrigue, and others would gather and pause in fascination, waiting for the next moment of mark making. Mostly people would describe what they could see within the work and ask what it actually was.

As a method of communication, benefits does drawing have to other visual media?

Drawing is immediate, personal and sensuous. The connection the artist has with drawing is much more intimate and physical than that of maybe video or installation art. This may be due to the fact that drawing is the most preparatory and raw stage of any art making. The artist to artwork connection becomes highly physical –breaking it down to sensing the vibrations delivered through the drawing tool, to the hand, and then to the mind.

Is there any sort of interaction or transaction that occurs between the piece and the viewer?

In addition to fundraising, we see it as an opportunity to engage with more fans, and to meet new people and artists involved with grassroots. It is good to associate ourselves with credible artists like Gotye and The Drones; it raises our reputation.

What was it like to participate in White Night Melbourne?

Exhausting! Although I am flattered by the general public’s enthusiasm and curiosity towards art/ drawing, I found it very distracting and difficult to focus.

Communications 64

MULTIMEDIA EVENT SPACE WHITE NIGHT MELBOURNE “To develop, accumulate and protect open source knowledge, code, applications and platforms for fair and sustainable food systems.”

R

ealising a complete sensory and experiential transformation of Melbourne’s inner city district, the White Night event engaged audiences with its interactive, temporal installations. Redefining familiar buildings with dynamic light projections and animating laneways with artists and performers charged the city’s interstitial building spaces with an extraordinary energy.8

A twelve hour event that took place through the night of February 23, 2013, the program catalysed a complete reinterpretation of the city’s spatial conditions by barricading vehicular traffic and reprograming roads for pedestrian agendas. The Age Newspaper reported than an estimated 300,000 people participated in the event;9 a density that would not have been possible without extension of pedestrian activity onto traditionally transport-based surfaces.

The idea behind the project was to provide individuals with access to art and culture that they do not usually have exposure to, and to communicate these ideas through faculties that are less conventional than a typical museum or gallery interface. By submerging the audience into pervasive eight-precinct exhibitive experience, the urban environment itself successfully becomes a theatre for the performances that occur within it, and the occupants become actors in a cityscaled street play.10 §

WORKS CITED 8

Debbie Cuthberson, “White Night an Arty Delight,” The Age 25 February 2005.

9 Debbie and Northover Cuthberson, Kylie, “Melbourne Captured by the Charm White Night,” The Age 23 February 2013.

10

Debbie Cuthberson, “Melbourne’s Big Night Out,” The Age 24 February 2013.

**Photograph by: Ben Shields

Communications 65

Communications 66

SOCIAL MEDIA BROADSHEET MELBOURNE “We started Broadsheet to explore the specifics of what is happening in this city and how that relates to those of us that live here.” —nick Shelton What is it that makes a city “the most livable”? Big, sweeping infrastructural undertakings, heavily regulated public spaces or hefty government investments in city planning? These are certainly considerations to be made, but in Melbourne’s case, many believe it is the city’s unique identity; an urban profile that is constructed by an aggregation Melbournian minutiae, rather than an organized, comprehensive initiative.

At Broadsheet Melbourne, publisher Nick Shelton acknowledges the tendency for journals to get stuck focusing on the larger picture of the award-winning city, mentioning, “What we’re excited about is not the breathless and imprecise hyperbole, but the specifics.

Not that Melbourne has great coffee, but who’s making the coffee great and where can we get it.” He adds, “We started Broadsheet to explore the specifics of what is happening in this city and how that relates to those of us that live here.”11 Broadsheet is an online periodical that reports on a range of urban life topics, with articles filed under the tabs Food & Drink, Nightlife, Fashion, Arts & Entertainment, Events, and Weekend.12

Popularised by their sleek graphic design, talented photographers and keen writers, Broadsheet has become a surprisingly comprehensive online directory for all things Melbourne.

Now offering the opportunity to create an online profile, My Broadsheet lets individuals to register as members, allowing them to interact with the website’s content more personally. A member can save favourite pages and stories, create lists of new places to try, and link directly into social media, allowing users to share their discoveries with friends.13 Pairing this feature with the company’s Android and IPhone applications creates a fluid network of local knowledge that persons can easily plug into while out in the city.

Broadsheet is a communication network that operates through the digital interfaces of webpages, phone apps, and social media. Transitioning flawlessly between these methods of data sharing, Broadsheet makes the dissemination of local, current information instantaneous, allowing its followers to effortlessly participate in the “specifics” that make Melbourne so livable. §

WORKS CITED Nick Shelton, “Broadsheet Melbourne: About,” http://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/ about.

11

12

“Broadsheet Melbourne,” http://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne.

13

Ibid.

**Photographs from Broadsheet.com.au/melbourne

Left to right, top to bottom: Kristoffer Paulsen, Apte (Unknown), Tara Kenny, Peter Takasiuk, Tim Grey, Fiona Susanto, Peter Tarasiuk, The Man Who Could Not Dream, Josie Withers.

Communications 67

Community 68

05 ◉ COMMUNIty

I

n his essay Identity in the City, Deyan Sujic proposes that “Given the extraordinarily rapid turnover of people and households, urban communities are more symbolic expressions than physical realities.”1 He argues that a static population is a prerequisite to the development of a community.

While routine indubitably helps to reinforce a sense of community, the examples in this chapter explore the interactions of transient populations: short-term solutions and temporary platforms for unexpected relationships. While council-sponsored civic centres, sports leagues, and neighbourhood parks are valuable urban spaces, an environment that fosters a simple one-time exchange, encourages a conversation, or lends and opportunity without the prompting of public programming could be considered more conducive to community development. Interactions that occur in privately-owned public buildings are often reserved for prearranged clubs and groups of people, whereas underdetermined spaces may provide the flexibility needed for unfamiliar persons to share interactions. Melbourne is celebrated for these subtle occurrences which successfully create a community-oriented urbanism.

This is a departure from the Whole Earth Catalog’s countercultural concept of community, which, although alternative, was highly programed. The Catalog seemed to have a narrow definition of what a community should be, with most of its emphasis placed the necessity of satellite communes and compounds. Propounding that urban communities were corrupted by rigidity, routine, and commodification, the Catalog emphasised the necessity of an exurban existence, encouraging its readers to flee metropolitan life. This sort of a dramatic change was prohibitive for many who required the stability of urban jobs, economies and families.

Inversely, by reducing the idea of community down to the scale of short-term events, temporary interfaces, and momentary interactions, Melbourne empowers every individual to be an agent in the development of an urban community. § WORKS CITED Steef and Tan Buijs, Wendy and Devisari Tunas, ed. Megacities/ Exploring a Sustainable Future (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2010). p. 181

1

Community 69

Doubleback at the Brunswick Hotel, Photography by SLAM

Community 70

CROWD-FUNDING AN INTERVIEW WITH HELEN MARCOU

Save Live Australian Music (SLAM) is a grassroots collective advocating for the preservation of small gigs, live music culture, and local community. Established three years ago, co-founder Helen Marcou mentions that “the effort has been operating exclusively on goodwill and generosity,” but that this has become an increasingly difficult feat. She explains that depending on their loyal volunteers to pay out-of-pocket for their contributions puts SLAM in challenging position, and at times limits the impact that the organisation is able to make. In search of more resources for their noble advocacy, the collective has turned to crowd-funding. As the campaign comes to a close (currently at 129% of their goal, with forty six days remaining), Helen tells me that the experience has been unexpected, exhausting and empowering.

What specifically does SLAM intend to use the funds for?

SLAM will remain a volunteer-based collective; we are not intending to pay ourselves salaries, or to make a profit, but simply to subsidise our general operational costs. The SLAM Rally that we put on in February costs between $30-70,000 alone, which, as you can imagine, can be difficult to manage without additional resources.

Why did you decide to use crowd-funding as opposed to other funding schemes?

We decided not to apply for government funding because we worry that it would compromise the validity of our position as political lobbyists. As political activists, we need to make sure that we stay in a position to be critical. We have also chosen not to enter into arrangements with private businesses or corporations because we feel that being a grassroots movement, SLAM belongs to the community

Other than financially, can you think of any other benefits that crowd-funding has brought you?

In addition to fundraising, we see it as an opportunity to engage with more fans, and to meet new people and artists involved with grassroots. It is good to associate ourselves with credible artists like Gotye and The Drones; it raises our reputation.

Do you feel that using the internet as an interface for fundraising was beneficial?

Definitely from a social media standpoint, it was; being able to publish information online, and have it available immediately. But we are not social media experts, so it certainly had its frustrations as well. We were concerned about the crowd-funding taking away from our political message, because we are firstly a political campaign, not a mercenary. So we didn’t really advertise it as much as we could have; we only made posts every few days or so. Compare this to a private record label like Pure Pop, which pays salaries, makes profits, and heavily advertises to a targeted group. We raised $30,000 over several months, and they met their $50,000 goal in the first weekend they campaigned.

How is crowd-funding community oriented?

It was really important to us to not just ask for money, but to reciprocate community support with satisfying rewards. On our website we have a whole list of items that you can purchase, from a music download to an album that we had produced especially for this campaign, to a benefit dinner with the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. We wanted to make it fun for the community and fun for the artists as well, but facilitating collaborations and interesting events. It was been a lot of effort; months of work involved. §

Community 71

NEIGHBORHOOD PRODUCE COALITIONS

Community 72

FANDANGO CAFE, NORTH MELBOURNE From private property to public consumption

A

humble mention situated in the back of Fandango’s seasonal menu reaps a bounty of local produce from the surrounding community. Opening in 2006, the café has pickled, candied, and preserved nearly every native edible in the Melbourne area; a practice that makes their café unique, and keeps their menu constantly changing.

The café explains that this interaction with the community started unintentionally. Local residents with an overstock of fruit trees, chilies, herbs or other began bringing in donations of produce, and the café began to make culinary creations out of them, offering in return a jar or two of their creations as a gesture of appreciation. The café now issues an open offer for this exchange: local produce for homemade preserves. This deal is a method of alternative trade, which, unlike monetary transactions, often achieve broader gains by their civic nature.

By gaining private donations for a public venture, Fandango transcends the conventional produce supply industry used by food service businesses, and proposes a deviation from the typical segregation of public and private land use. This has fortified a mutually beneficial relationship between the café and the larger community; the café gains fresh, seasonal and extremely local produce, the customer enjoys access

to these creations by way of their constantly changing menu, and the donor collects on a small percentage of their transformed resource. Not only do these three players interact symbiotically, but the urban environment benefits as well. As Thakara clarifies, “Connecting people, resources and places to each other in new combinations, on a real-time basis will ensure demand-responsive services that, when combined with location awareness and dynamic resource allocation, will have the potential to reduce drastically the amount of hardware needed to function effectively.”2 By appealing to their local neighbourhood, the café is managing to activate a dormant but potentially influential sector of the food supply chain. Residents with edible gardens that do not grow enough product to sell are able to become valuable agents in the urban-scaled food system. Fandango expresses that the community gets excited about the project, and many residents are pleased to not have their uneaten fruit go to waste. My house is no exception to this enthusiasm; we picked the cumquats (picture left) off of the tree in our front yard and deposited them in the capable hands of the Fandango chefs. We are delighted to participate in the development of a sustainable, alternative food project taking place in our own community. §

WORKS CITED 2

Thackara, “Low Entropy Urbanism.” p. 148

Community 73

CANDIED CUMQUAT PRESERVE A simple and delicious recipe for a local favourite; as told to me by North Melbourne’s Fandango Cafe Ingredients: ▷ ▷ ▷ ▷

500g Cumquats 625g Raw Sugar 1 c. Water 1 Vanilla Bean

M

ethod: Soak the cumquats in cool water for thirty minutes. Drain the water off and rise well, ensuring cleanliness. Meanwhile, Simmer water and sugar on the stovetop over medium heat, stirring occasionally to help sugar dissolve. Slice the vanilla bean in half lengthwise, and add the entire pod to the pod. Simmer for five minutes on low heat.

Add the clean cumquats to the pot, stirring to coat in syrup. Simmer ten minutes on low heat.

Remove the vanilla bean, and discard. Spoon cumquats into warmed jars while the mixture is still hot. Pour syrup over the cumquats, filling to just below the rim of each jar. Place the lids on the potted preserves to ensure a proper seal; as the contents cool, a vacuum will form.

Preserves will keep for up to one year when stored in a cool, dry place.

Other add-ins to try: ▷ ▷ ▷ ▷

8 whole cloves 4 star anise 2 small, fresh red chili peppers 500 ml of brandy

Community 74

Community 75

Community 76

Community 77

Community 78

COMMUNITY REVITALISATION THE DOCKLANDS

Community 79

Community 80

DOCKLANDS SPACES “incubating short-term uses by creative enterprises and independent local initiatives on a rent-free basis.”

C

ommissioned by Places Victoria, MAB Corporation, and the City of Melbourne, Docklands Spaces is a (notfor-profit) Renew Australia initiative that seeks to revitalise non-functioning urban spaces with a much-needed emphasis on practicality and immediacy. Renew Australia’s progressive approach circumvents the time-consuming and often prohibitively expensive barriers of masterplan redevelopment by focusing on “incubating short-term uses by creative enterprises and independent local initiatives on a rent-free basis.”3

With more than half of shop windows on the Dockland’s Waterfront City plaza displaying a “for lease” or “for sale” sign, it is clear that the area is struggling to maintain restaurants, shops and other attractors. Resultantly, the timber boardwalks, waterfront benches, and Astroturf lawns lie disconcertingly vacant. The Docklands project is a departure from others revitalisations that the enterprise has undertaken in that the infrastructure is quite new and still has promises of large scale development.

While this plan has the potential to reap significant changes in the next couple of decades, at present, the space is visibly under-functioning. Marcus Westbury of Renew Australia explains that the “It’s rarely observed, but the promise of future change for the better often inadvertently incentivises doing nothing now.”4 Westbury eloquently describes the intentions of Renew Australia’s scheme, writing, “We are ‘borrowing’ buildings that would otherwise be empty from their commercial owners and attempting to fill them with interesting things that will attract life and people to the area on a rolling short term basis. It is a platform for low-cost experimentation

by a gently curated collection of people doing a mix of interesting things.”5 Effectively, the project organises for independent, local initiatives to occupy spaces that are in temporal disuse. This benefits both the tenants- by providing them with a space to base their venture, and an interface through which to engage the public- and the community, by replacing vacancies with creative peoples and projects. The leases are issued on a month-to-month basis, which protects the building owner’s interests.

Flexibility makes change and transformation more available; the proprietor can easily terminate the arrangement if they receive an offer for their property, or decide to use the space for another function.6 In the meantime, however, the vacant spaces act as tools; stimulating a scant plaza with interesting and innovative initiatives, and attracting pedestrian traffic to witness their contributions.

Having issued an open call for “makers, designers, photographers, printmakers, painters, illustrators, architects, milliners, jewellers, publishers, laptop businesses, animators, video or music makers, and other creative types”7 on their website, it appears a simple matter of time before the Docklands becomes a bustling creative district, animated by Melbourne’s up and coming artists and entrepreneurs.

Only a few months in, the results are already looking promising. Westbury reflects, “It is a very satisfying thing to see the vacant windows we have been staring at all these months start to fill up and I look forward discovering, experimenting and exploring the paths where this activity might lead.”8 §

WORKS CITED 3

Renew Australia, “Docklands Spaces,” http://docklandsspaces.org/

4

Marcus Westbury, “Renewing the New? Early Reflections from Docklands Spaces.”

5

Ibid.

Vince Chadwick, “Free Rent a Creative Solution to the Docklands People Shortage,” The Age 26 April 2013.

6

7

Australia, “Docklands Spaces.”

8

Westbury, “Renewing the New? Early Reflections from Docklands Spaces.”

Community 81

Nomadics 82

06 ◉ nomadics “Biosphere people today are tied in with the global technological and economic system. This frees them from the restraints of any one particular ecosystem, since they can draw upon energy and resources from an economic network which extends throughout the entire biosphere” –Raymond Dasmann, CoEvolution Quarterly, 1976

N

omadism is shaping up to be one of the most valuable tools the built environment will have in facing the resource scarcity, overpopulation and urban densification of the twenty first century. Harnessing the spatial, societal, and financial advantages of flexibility, nomadic structures and practices are supporting the experimental urbanism that is revitalising Melbourne.

By evading the high risks and start-up costs of permanent establishments, the city’s young, creative entrepreneurs are able to trial their ideas in the non-committal forms of pop-up shops, markets, and food stalls. Not only does this benefit the business owner, by providing them with an affordable interface through which to access customers, but it favours the customer as well. Consumers gain a specialised and diversified product as more individuals enter the market with unique offerings.

Short-term leases allow both lessors and lessees more flexibility, and the passer-by more variation. Melis explores the potential of temporary structures and ephemeral urbanism by analysing a series of projects and revealing that a transient urban fabric is a rich environment that hosts a broader diversity of social engagements.1

Contemporising the 1970’s Whole Earth Catalog concept of Nomadics, which promoted the idea of self-sufficiency in exurban settlements, Melbournians exhibit a creative approach to urban and suburban resourcefulness.

WORKS CITED Melis Liesbeth, Parasite Paradise: A Manifesto for Temporary Architecture and Flexible Urbanism (University of Michigan: NAi Publishers, 2003).

1

Nomadics 83

Nomadics 84

POP-UP CULTURE THE PEOPLE’S MARKET

O

pening in March 2012 in the Docklands precinct New Quay, and operating under the name “Melbourne Flea”, The People’s Market endeavoured to bring a bit of life and quirk to the underutilised, industrial waterfront.

Brother and Sister Niki and Stephen Filipovic conceived of a temporary market that would revitalise this stagnant area of the city, hosting local artists and food vendors in the form of the site’s own shipping containers.1

With their family and friends helping to retrofit the containers for their repurposed programs, the market site was assembled in just four days. After a successful run in the Docklands, the Market was disassembled and relocated to Collingwood for its summer location, where it opened in December 2012.

For the past five months, the market has attracted a diverse and impressive selection of Melbourne’s big name chefs, artists and farmers.2 Hosting a rotating selection of vendors, and being a transient establishment itself, the People’s Market is a manifestation of Melbourne’s unique pop-up culture. This arrangement benefits both

the business and the customers; with the business having a new audience every several months, and the customers reaping the benefits of local arts and delicious foods in their own neighbourhood. Short-term operations are flexible for local councils, and less risky for tenants.3 Pop-up shops, markets, restaurants and short term leases also go a long way in contributing to Melbourne’s vibrancy because it allows small businesses and lesser-known artists to have access to an audience much larger than they may conventionally be able to engage with based on formal tenancies and regular leases. In speaking with the vendors Anchors Away at the People’s Market, whom occupy a site at the market a couple of days a week, the explain that the market gives them an opportunity they don’t usually have; to gain exposure for their artists and maintain short term residency in a lively, fun community. This generates a level of community interaction that supersedes fixed retail by hybridising the agendas of a market and an event into one destination venue.4 §

WORKS CITED 2

Stephen Russell, “How Bazaar,” The Weekly Review 28 March 2012.

3

“The People’s Market,” http://www.peoplesmarket.com.au/

4

Jade Leopoldo, “Melbourne Flea: The People’s Market,” Everguide 22 February 2012.

5

Russell, “How Bazaar.”

Nomadics 85

PARTICIPATION-BASED EVENT DECENTRALISED DANCE PARTY “It’s like a wedding reception, crossbred with Burning Man, mercilessly invading your city’s streets, subways, and fountains. A celebration of Life and Liberty that rages all night long” —Gary Lachance

W

hile sitting in a quiet Brunswick Street bar on a fresh autumn night, catching up with friends and keeping out of the cold, a fervour of activity on the sidewalk outside turns heads and breaks conversations. Unsure what is happening at first, we watch a crowd form, seeming to gather unsystematically from all directions. Then the dancing beings.

Instinctively and with no discussion we stand up from our table, go outside, and join in. Every person participating appears to be gleeful and uninhibited. There is a retro looking boom box bouncing on a man’s shoulder, cars are waving as they drive by; onlookers are filming the happenstance on their camera phones. We yell to each other over the crowd, “what is this?” but no one answers, because no one really cares.

As the songs play on, one may notice that this apparently unplanned event has some seemingly organized details about it. The first thing I noticed was that rather than coming from one boom box, as I had originally alleged, the music was resonating out of several wireless devices perfectly synched together. Secondly, as the crowd grew larger, the dancing began to overtake the sidewalk of Greeves Street and Brunswick Street, pooling onto the road itself. When this happened, a fellow dancer casually motioned for me to step onto the other side of the white painted line as to not affect vehicular traffic. I thought to myself, “what an especially courteous flash-mob at-

tendee.” As I was mulling that thought over- and at the signal of a person dressed as a banana- each boom box was synchronically picked up, and the crowd began migrating north up Brunswick Street. As the chaos of the assembled dancers dissipated, the banana handed me a business card.

On one side, there was a black and white photo of distinguished American president Abe Lincoln with a seventies radio on his shoulder; on the other side, bold san-serif letters that read “DDP: Decentralised Dance Party.”

In an instant it became clear what had happened. An event that seemed to transpire out of nowhere, in reality, was very intentional. Music being played on an Ipod is transmitted to an FM radio station, allowing an indefinite amount of devices to be employed harmoniously. Covert organisers dress as party goers quietly regulate the entire event, making sure that the crowd does not block roads or become too disruptive.

Discouraging alcohol consumption and keeping events outside allows everyone to participate, despite social status or age. These are the core principles outlined in the Party Manifesto6 of Tom and Gary’s Decentralised Dance Party.

Also known affectionately as the Party Revolution, the DDP is a movement that started in Canada by lifelong friends who are seeking to “crush the despotic party paradigms of yore and launch a new era of free and democratic opensource partying.”7 Motivated by the increasing exclusivity of nightlife, the pair

WORKS CITED

Gary Lechance, “Tom and Gary’s Decentralised Dance Party,” http://www.decentralizeddanceparty.com/.

6

7

Ibid.

Nomadics 86

DDP

wanted to initiate events that were fun, inclusive and available to everyone. The trend quickly caught on, and a Melbournian faction (organised by Rehab Radio) is now trolling the streets and laneways of our beloved city.

As fun and light-hearted as the DDP is, it grew from the much more serious roots of Gary Lachance’s Decentralised Community8: a socio-political homelessness initiative designed to be implemented in Vancouver. The project proposed the development of an open-source, online database cataloguing local conditions of the homeless community. The information would be collected through conversations held between the homeless and the homed, encouraging these traditionally disparate social groups to interact. It is the belief of Lachance that government policies surrounding homelessness usually propose temporary solutions at best, and that the only way to have a truly effective impact on the prevalent condition is to decentralise the relationships between homeless and homed individuals, creating a more homogenous community.

A similar logic (with substantially more dancing) is applied to the Party Revolution. The Revolution maintains that by holding parties “exclusively in public spaces and [keeping them] completely open…everyone of every age, background and style is encouraged to come out and let loose. Together, we create what is certainly the most inclusive party possible.”9 The hope is that this will contribute positively to the condition

of urban life by charging spaces with a temporary energy that may linger after the event has finished. University of Alberta music professor Michael Macdonald furthers this sentiment, explaining how outdoor dance parties become inherently spatial by ”ramp[ing] up the social energy of public spaces in a way that is socially constructive. Our public space becomes a shared experience made possible by those who choose to get involved.”10 A product of modern society, the Party Revolution is an entirely crowd-funded endeavour. With a goal to bring the DDP to every country in the world, the organisation has established funding platforms on the internet facilitate their undertaking. Lachance indicates that this has been surprisingly successful, proudly affirming that “it’s a totally organic, people-powered undertaking.”11 Is seems suiting for a decentralised event to be powered by decentralised currency.

Macdonald suggests that perhaps the success of the Party Revolution is due in part to its “honest”12 and “truthful”13 intentions, stating that it is unusual to come across a completely free, completely open event in modern society.

This certainly seems to be a quality that resonates with Melbournians who have embraced the open-source party, open-invitation dance parties happening every several weeks.14 §

WORKS CITED Gary Lechance, “Decentralised Community: A New Approach to Social Problem Solving,” (2008).

8

9

Lechance, “Tom and Gary’s Decentralised Dance Party”.

Michael Macdonald, “Decentralised Dance Party Documentary,” Cultrual Aesthetics (21 September 2011).

10

11

Alex Ballingall, “The Decentralisation of Partying,” Macleans 16 February 2012.

12

Ibid.

13

Ibid.

14

”Rehab Radio: Home of the DDP,” www.rehabradio.com.au.

Nomadics 87

Nomadics 88

URBAN FORAGING WILD MUSHROOMING Nomadics 89

Hydnum Repandum

Cantharellus Concinnus

Agaricus Bitorquis

Fistulina Hepatica

Polyporus Mylittae

Morcehlla sp.

Nomadics 90

WILD MUSHROOMING “Gathering food in the wild immerses us in the elements, sharpens our senses and reconnects us with our surroundings” —Kelly Christiani

T

he practice of urban foraging seeks to capitalise on feral and native edibles growing in metropolitan areas by harvesting them as a fresh, local and ethical food source. A trend that has grown globally in recent decades, urban foraging is a resourceful alternative to standardised supermarkets and makes use of local produce that may otherwise go to waste. It has become so popular that many participants contribute to online databases mapping fruit trees and edible natives in community forums; publishing information and increasing accessibility through knowledge dissemination.16

For many, the merits of urban foraging extend beyond desire the for free foods.

Journalist Kerry Christiani writes, “Gathering food in the wild immerses us in the elements, sharpens our senses and reconnects us with our surroundings.

Where globalisation has, gastronomically speaking, cast us adrift, foraging anchors us in the here and now.”17 The movement has become about localism, bioregionalism and self-sufficiency.

No form of foraging fosters this connection more directly than the newly popular (to Melbourne) practice of wild mushrooming. Endorsed and celebrated local restaurants like Seven Seeds and Attica, mushrooming turns to nearby bushland and urban parks to harvest the edible earthy edibles. Chef Eddie Seisun of Golden Fields in St. Kilda expounds that foraged mushrooms have an “amazing depth” that is unmatched by their farmed counterparts.18 In addition to their flavourful reputation amongst Melbourne’s restaurants, hobbyists have developed an affinity for the elusive fungi due to their mysterious woodland habitats and delicious rewards. The best time to search for wild mushrooms is a couple of days after rain, and when the weather begins to get cool. Autumn is the most popular mushroom foraging season. Try hunting for the species illustrated here; some of the most popular edible mushrooms in the area. Although foraging on public land is legal in Victoria, caution should always be taken to properly identify any wild plant before consumption, as some varieties are poisonous.19 §

WORKS CITED 15

Sam Wright, “Ripe for the Scrumping,” The Sydney Morning Herald 2009.

16

Kerry Christiani, “The Art of Urban Foraging,” Lonely Planet 10 May 2012.

17

Ibid.

18

Natalie Craig, “Foragers Find Time Flies When You’re Having Fungi,” The Age 29 April 2012.

Nomadics 91

Nomadics 92

Nomadics 93

Community 94

07 ◉ LEARNING “”How to’ will remain an uncompl¬¬etable task as long as we persevere by reproducing and dying. Every heir needs to get into ‘how to’ to get up to speed and take a turn. The Whole Earth Catalog is arguably a crystallization of the state of our capacity to share the collective toolchest.” –Roger Hyde, Whole Earth Review 1995

A

ptly the final chapter of the Whole Earth Catalog, Learning bookends Brand’s opening sentiment, “Information wants to be free.” Printed on the cover of every edition, the phrase Access to Tools concisely conveys the publication’s intentions, which Sadler describes as, “deterritorialis[ing]”1 knowledge, by deeming it a “concern for the citizenry at large.”2

Although the spread of information is a theme woven throughout the Catalog, this chapter focused more specifically on the faculties of. The Catalog emphasised that individuals are capable and responsible for the monitoring their knowledge base, and sought to compile resources that would aid them in this task. This chapter intends to continue this mission, providing examples of learning resources in Melbourne that range from cooperatives to alternative schooling curriculums. § WORKS CITED 1

Sadler, “An Architecture of the Whole (‘Whole Earth Catalog’).” p.108

2

Ibid. p.108

Community 95

FREE UNIVERSITY PRINCIPLES

▷ The Free University combines the academic rigour of a traditional university with the open discussions of a philosophical salon.

▷ The Free University stands for radical equality: the a priori belief in universal equal ity and possibilities of emancipation. ▷ The Free University is free and accessible. It remains politically and economically autonomous from political parties and organisations, government, private bodies, universities and NGOs.

▷ The Free University is based on the belief that people have the responsibility to seek and engage with knowledge. Learning is an act of will and empowerment. ▷ The Free University is an alternative to the exclusive and outcome orientated education sector, enabling the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and thereby freedom.

WORKS CITED 3

Nic Price, “Gratis Campus for All,” Melbourne Leader 28 January 2011.

4

Aurelien Mondon, “A Free University for Melbourne,” Arena Magazine 2010.

5

Liz Porter, “Free Uni Open to All, Bar None,” (30 October 2012).

6

Mondon, “A Free University for Melbourne.”

Learning 96

PUBLIC LEARNING PLATFORM MELBOURNE FREE UNIVERSITY

I

“Knowledge, like freedom, is not given, it is taken” — Aurelien Mondon

n 2010, Gerhard Hoffstaedter, Jasmine Westendorf and Aurelien Mondon recognised a problem in Australia’s tertiary education system, and decided to propose an alternative. The trio of Melbourne-based PhD students perceive that in the past decade, tertiary education has undergone commodification becoming the third largest industry in Australia, and suffering from the development of an “outcomes-based,” ideology. The three share apprehensions regarding the corruption of the Australian education system due to skyrocketing tuitions rendering education elitist and exclusive.3

As indicated in the organisations’ name, The Melbourne Free University welcomes everyone and anyone to its weekly lectures. On a chilly Autumn Tuesday night, I arrive to the first lecture of a six week series on crime fiction; tonight we are speaking about Edgar Allen Poe. Stephen Knight is standing at the front of a room of twenty five or so very assorted audience members, aged student to retiree. Some have done the readings; others, like myself, have not…but there is no need to fret, in Free University, there are no assessments.

University Charismatic Melbourne professor Stephen Knight speaks candidly about 19th century crime fiction authors you could have sworn he knew personally. The affable man recites a comprehensive history of notable writers, citing Edgar Allen Poe’s audience and career in a narrated timeline.

His nature is relaxed and his content informative, punctuated with easy witticisms that trigger audience laughs and sweeping looks around the room that make strangers feel quickly united as a group; a class.

The class is participatory, but no one is called on. Those who are interested in speaking volunteer their thoughts, while others nod in quiet affirmation.

The conversation shifts back and forth

from crime fiction to current events, then back to Poe; repeat, repeat. A cacophony of various accents offers a variety of opinions, perspective and anecdotes. Maybe one of the most extraordinary things about this class is that everyone is engaged, everyone is listening. A lack of required attendance, homework, and assessment means that those who are there are keen.

Aurelien explains to Arena Magazine, explains that absence of assessments is integral to the fundamental intentions of the Free University because it redefines interaction between the teacher and the student. He extrapolates that this dynamic, “mitigates the inequality of the relationship between speaker and audience…The authority of the speaker depends on knowledge alone, not power to assess.”4 This also contributes to the ease of conversations transpiring in the make-shift classroom situated in the back room of a bar in Clifton Hill; individuals are not concerned about the correctness of their statements, but rather with providing each other with personal insights and topical reflections.

The meeting is a forum of free-thinkers uninhibited by the pressures of approval, grades, commitment or tuition.

By taking financial capacity out of the equation, the Free University hopes to attract anyone with an interest and desire for learning. Jasmine says that by “remove[ing] the financial barrier, we are saying anyone can come.”5 Their highly varied curriculum, with courses ranging from political activism to permaculture, also contributes to the diversification of their students.

The Melbourne Free University promotes active engagement of students with their community, and the accessibly of information for all. In an article written for their website, Aurelien sums up the university’s philosophy in a simple mantra scribing , “Knowledge, like freedom, is not given, it is taken.”6 §

Learning 97

Learning 98

AN ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION THE SCHOOL OF LIFE “learning and thinking on your own is one thing but when you’re doing it with a group of other people... whatever problem you’ve got starts to seem less freakish” —Alain de Botton

A

satellite campus of a popular UK programme, The School of Life opened in Melbourne in January 2013. The programme seeks to educate adults in themes that are not covered by conventional school curricula. Programme founder Alain de Botton’s is of the opinion that subjects such as death, love, marriage, ambition, how to choose a career, and how to be happy are more universal and less discussed then strictly academic topics such as history, philosophy and literature. The School of Life offers ten week classes in practical subjects such as these, and seeks to emphasise the capacity of individuals to change their own circumstances, habits and mind-sets.7 Although these courses charge tuition, the School of Life also offers other services and opportunities free of charge,

such as the property’s Conversation Café, and their Sunday Secular Semons.

These community events engage the neighbourhood in critical discussions that are reflective of contemporary society and culture, and facilitate interaction amongst contributors in a way that De Botton thinks is quite unusual, telling the Design Files that “People open up because topics are personal and intriguing.”8 Although he has authored many books that discuss these life skills, De Botton emphasises the value of being in a classroom setting, stating that “learning and thinking on your own is one thing but when you’re doing it with a group of other people... whatever problem you’ve got starts to seem less freakish… the aspect of community is absolutely viable.”9

WORKS CITED 7

Leo Brown, “Alain de Botton Opens School of Life in Melbourne,” 1 February 2013.

Lucy Feagins, “The School of Life Plus 5 Questions with Alain De Botton,” The Design Files Daily 24 January 2013.

8

9

Brown, “Alain de Botton Opens School of Life in Melbourne,”

Learning 99

Learning 100

COOPERATIVE SKILLS SHARE CERES BIKE COOPERATIVE

A

Brunswick-based bicycle cooperative, the CERES Bikeshed, is a volunteer-run education program and resource outpost servicing the local community. Their facilities include a salvage yard of bicycle frames, wheels, parts, a comprehensive collection of tools, and a team of committed volunteers.

The Bikeshed preaches that their mission is to educate the community to build and maintain their own bicycles, and to promote bicycle commuting through the dissemination of the technical and mechanical knowledge. They aim to engage individuals of all skill levels to become a part of the local bike culture, and to help people do things for themselves.

It is this promise of knowledge that attracts the community to the modest bikeshed. Here, a material and intellectual transaction occurs: individuals bring in their bicycles, they borrow tools to make repairs, and they hold a conversation.

These conversations involve the transmission of specialised knowledge from a small group of experts to widespread community, resulting in the empowerment of self-sufficiency. The sequence could be seen as an exchange of physical material for practical knowledge; the community makes donations in the form of bicycles, tools, and parts, and gains knowledge in the form of instructions, guides, and recommendations. Although the exchange happens on a small scale, it makes a substantial contribution to the community’s bicycle repair literacy, contributing to the larger trend of bicycle commuting. This, in turn, reduces pressures on Melbourne’s other transport systems, and decreases the environmental impact of the transport network as a whole.

WORKS CITED The Bicycle Recycle Shed Inc., “The Bikeshed at CERES,” http://www.thebikeshed.org.au/ default.aspx.

10

Learning 101

HOW TO CHANGE A BICYCLE TUBE

1.

2.

REMOVE WHEEL

DEFLATE TUBE

Using an appropriately sized wrench, loosen the nuts that hold the wheel axle to the bike frame. If they have a quick release, simply pop open the lever to loosen and remove the wheel. If changing the back tire, the chain will need to be lifted off of the gears to remove the wheel.

allow all of the air to escape from the tube by pressing down on the inner part of the valve.

5.

6.

REPLACE TUBE

REPLACE TIRE

Ease a new tube around the wheel rim. Partially inflating the tube so that it will hold its shape will make this step easier.

After replacing valve in its aperture, begin easing tire back around the rim. Take care not to pinch the newly replaced tube.

Learning 102

3.

4.

LEVER TIRE OFF OF WHEEL RIM

REMOVE INNER TUBE

Using a pair of tire levers (spoons work as well), wriggle one lever underneath the edge of the rubber tire, leaving it place to create a gap. This will allow you to access the tube. Starting at the gap you have created, insert the other lever under the tire edge, and slide along the wheel rim until you have completed a full rotation. The tire should be easily freed from the wheel.

Remove the inner tube completely from the wheel. For road bikes or similar using presta valves, this may require you to unscrew a small nut at the base of the valve.

Check tire and remove any sharp objects (like glass).

7.

8.

LEVER TIRE INTO PLACE

REINFLATE

Using your thumbs, work both sides of the tire back into the well of the wheel rim. Use the tire levers if necessary.

Finish inflating the tire tube, and secure wheel back on bicycle.

Learning 103

CONTENT REVIEW: FIGURE 1

CHAPTER

1968 TOPICS

Discussion 104

2013 TOPICS

EXAMPLES

DISCUSSION ANALYSIS

T

he conducting of immersive research in the alternative layer of Melbourne’s urban environment revealed divergent perspectives, stimulating conversations, and, in some cases; evidence of overwhelmingly consistent trends. Having accumulated information through a diverse range of faculties and methods, the research required post-collection organisation, analysis, and reassembly to expose the significance of its content. This phase began as the processing of raw data; notes, photographs, scribed conversations, recorded noises, collected items, sketches and film. Sorting, rewriting, reflecting and contextualising with additional sources led to the production of each entry in the seven-chapter body of this research.

Following the curation of these entries, the researcher began to re-evaluate each study beyond the framework of its master chapter. Disregarding conceptual contexts, overarching strategies and recurrent tactics become apparent in examination of the assembly as a comprehensive object. As outlined by the diagram opposite, the entries can be reassessed through classification of a primary strategy (collection, dispersion or diversion), and a strategic typology (agent-based, nodebased, or conduit-based system). The researcher acknowledges that the complexity of the collection makes the assignment of entries to isolated groupings subject to interpretation, and does not intend to suggest that their selected placement is an exclusive definition. Corresponding to the intentions of this project, the researcher has elected to place each entry in the category which they feel is most representative of their social nature.

The strategies of collection, dispersion and diversion refer to the principle manner in which the observed data travels throughout the city. These strategies do not consider scale in their evaluation; data may take the form of people, information, interactions, materials, knowledge, or energy. The application of this framework intends to reduce complex associations into generalisations for the purpose of regrouping and analysis.

Discussion 105

A

ANALYSIS

gent-based systems rely on the agency of individual entities to act in their environments; an integral concept to the agenda of this thesis. In the context of this study, an agent ranges in scale from a honey bee to a human being; each individual contributing to a productive reaction that informs a site. Fieldwork analysis indicates this system typology is enabled through each of the three identified strategies. For instance, crowd-funding is an agent-based tactic that adheres to the strategy of Collection. Crowd-funding utilises the internet as an interface through which to accumulate support in the form of contributions made by individual actors. In this example, the data is currency, which is being collected from separate donors. This can be compared to the dispersion strategy of street art, which is implemented by a small group of artists. Individuals broadcast visual data by using urban surfaces as a communication platform through which to publish their agendas to a larger audience. Finally, compare this to the agent-based diversion strategy of urban apiculture, which uses the installation of beehives to reroute a network of individually-acting agents. With the goal of promoting plant pollination and diversity in the metropolitan environment, urban apiculture diverts honey bees carrying organic data from their original trajectories by attracting them new rooftop habitats.

Node-based systems operate around nodal attractors that function as junctures of environmental data flow. Nodes may be physical sites, mobile organisations, or urban installations that catalyse the exchange of information, interactions, or material. Analysis of research confirms that node-based systems in Melbourne operate through each of the three recognized strategies; collection, dispersion and diversion. Pop-up shops and markets, despite being both temporal and nomadic, function through collection of persons to a point of attraction for the purpose of exchanging data. The data in this transaction may be social interactions, goods, money or experience. Contrastingly, the Learning chapter of this project indicates heavy usage of node-based dispersion strategies in the dissemination of information; the diffusion of knowledge data from experts to community members. For example, the Melbourne Free University facilitates the dispersion of data by organising specialists to conduct open classes for the public to attend. The event of the class itself becomes the node; the attractor of individuals with a common interest to be receptors of transmitted data. This approach is more direct then the node-based diversion strategy, which encourages the movement of data through alternative, though often parallel, systems. Fandango’s neighbourhood produce coalition is an example of this strategy in that it side-steps the conventional food-supply network by engaging the underutilised resource of residentially-grown produce. The diversion of this edible data is facilitated by the cafÊ, which acts as a hub for the movement and exchange information in this node-based system.

The conduit-based system represents a final typology that, despite being less common in the fieldwork, is significant to the function of the comprehensive network.

Unlike the agent-based and node-based systems, which operate around units, the conduit-based system operates through channels. Resembling the function of the other two systems, these channels enable the collection, dispersion or diversion of data. An example of this is the use of radio signals to transmit information in the Decentralised Dance Party between open-source boom boxes. The electromagnetic waves are conduits for sound waves, and the sound waves are conduits for data.

When the sound waves reach the human ear, the ear understands these vibrations as information. In this way, the radio is a conduit-based dispersion system, using radio transmission as a channel for the distribution of aural data. Inversely, the event White Night is a conduit-based collection system, using the visual, aural, and sensory transfer of data as a strategy for the assemblage of 300,000 individuals.

Discussion 106

STRATEGY

COLLECTION

DISPERSION

Discussion 107

DIVERSION

COMMUNICATIONS

INDUSTRY & CRAFT

SHELTER & LAND USE

WHOLE [MELBOURNE] SYSTEM

VICTORY GARDEN Companion Planting

URBAN APICULTURE Rooftop Honey

SMALL SCALE FABRICATION Batch Studio

SUBCULTURE AESTHETIC Guerrilla Knitting

COUNTERCULTURE CRAFTING Street Art

LEARNING

NOMADICS

COMMUNITY

COOPERATIVE SKILLS SHARE CERES bike coop

URBAN FORAGING Wild Mushrooming

CROWD-FUNDING Save Live Australian Music

AGENT-BASED SYSTEM

BIKE SHARING Melbourne Bike Share

PRODUCE COALITION Fandango Cafe

PUBLIC LEARNING PLATFORM Free University

ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION School of Life

ROOFTOP PERMACULTURE Fed Square Pop-up Patch

POP-UP CULTURE The People’s Market

COMMUNITY REVITALISATION Docklands Spaces

ADAPTIVE REUSE Abbotsford Convent

FOOD TRUCKS Companion Planting

NODE-BASED SYSTEM

STRATEGIC TYPOLOGY

SOCIAL MEDIA Broadsheet Melbourne

Decentralised Dance Party

PARTICIPATION-BASED EVENT

ONLINE MARKETPLACE Open Food Web

MULTI-MEDIA EVENT SPACE White Night

CONDUIT-BASED SYSTEM

STRATEGY MATRIX: FIGURE 2

Discussion 108

DISCUSSION

A

HYBRID SYSTEMS

lthough many of the entries in the body of this research are flexible in their placement on the matrix, several of them have been identified as employing hybrid strategies, meaning that they concurrently exercise more than one of the identified strategies. For example, members of the small-scale fabrication collective Batch Studio act as agents by engaging both dispersion and diversion strategies.

Focused on increasing public knowledge and awareness about 3D printing and digital design, the individuals are using their studio space as a facility through which to disperse data. Simultaneously, the members act as agents in the diversion of fabrication from conventional industries by providing an accessible alternative. The Federation Square Pop-up Patch and the Open Food Web operate in a similar way; both collect individual people together for the unified purpose of dispersing edible produce from local sources. The Open Food Web uses a conduit-based system for data transmission; digital information exchanged through the internet to facilitate the dispersion of physical produce. On the other hand, the Pop-up Patch uses a central community garden site as a node for individuals to assemble. Here they receive data through the forms of gardening instructions, community tutorials, and edible produce.

I

PREDICTED TRENDS

n viewing the matrix, it becomes evident that the majority of fieldwork conducted in this research project falls under the strategic typologies of agent-based and node-based systems, with evidence of conduit-based systems being less common.

Agent-based and node-based systems tend to be physical socio-spatial manifestations of temporary urbanism, taking the forms of (often unsolicited) public works, events, infrastructural supplements, interventions, regenerative initiatives, and political responses. As discussed in the Backgound to the Study chapter of this project, temporary urbanism is often linked to economic hardship. It is plausible to suggest that the considerable presence of agent- and node-based schemes in Melbourne is related to the 2007/8 global financial crisis, which affected property value, local finance, and industry. As Bishop advises, economic instability leads to an increase in vacancies, displacement, political activism, and counterculture behaviour, fulfilling both the space availability and socio-political motivations requisite to the instigation of interjections into the formal city.1 The Docklands Spaces initiative illustrates an explicit realisation of this cause-and-effect notion, where an excess of space generates a concentrated interest in urban renewal interventions.

Although conduit-based systems are not currently as pervasive as the other two models in Melbourne’s urban environment, it can be posited that this is still a developing typology for the movement of urban data. Conduit-based systems tend to take less tangible forms, facilitating the transaction of information through non-spatial tactics such as internet, radio, telecommunications, and digital media. Entries in this paper found to be conduit-base systems (White Night Melbourne, Decentralised Dance Party, and Broadsheet Melbourne) can be considered to be highly innovative and technologically forward-thinking. For this reason, the researcher predicts that although underrepresented in this study, as technology continues to permeate Melbourne’s socio-spatial fabric, the typology of conduit-based systems will become more prevalent in future alternative urbanism.§ WORKS CITED 1

Bishop, Peter and Williams, Lesley. The Temporary City Routledge Chapman & Hall, 2012

Discussion 109

Conclusions 110

conclusionS

T

APPLICATIONS

he matrix developed in this research can be used in formal design settings as a guide for engaging more meaningfully and more productively with the transient layer of the contemporary city. Experimental investigations into this subject are of value the fields of architecture, urban design, and sociology because informal data flows in the modern metropolis-for the most part- remain an enigma.

Perhaps more significantly, this paper has applicability beyond the parameters of professional design. The seven-chapter body of this paper provides a catalogue of Melbournian conditions, archiving the circumstances of the at-present city as a reference for current and future readers. Paired with a matrix of strategies and typologies for the effective implementation of socio-spatial agendas, this research becomes an platform useful to any individual looking to affect change in the contemporary urban environment, regardless of profession, background, or motivation.

B

CONCLUSIONS

y using the structure of the original Whole Earth Catalog as a conceptual framework for an urban investigation, this research has uncovered discrete interventions and spatial events in Melbourne’s urban environment. Using the chapter title-concepts of Whole Earth Systems, Land Use and Shelter, Industry and Craft, Communications, Community, Nomadics, and Learning, has allowed the project to engage with a diverse range of ideas that collectively define the contemporary city. This investigation has led to the collection, indexing, and archiving of Melbourne’s current urban conditions, allowing the researcher to study trends and identify themes that occur in this fickle layer of urban temporality.

Post-research analysis of the compiled information led to the identification of strategies and typologies that systematise a seemingly chaotic new urbanism. The recognition of agent-, node-, and conduit-based systems that operate through the strategies of collection, dispersion and diversion contribute to an understanding of the basal tendencies of alternative urbanism. This information has rhetorical applications in architectural and urban discourse, as well as practical significance to professional and nonprofessional individuals with designerly agendas and social sensitivities.

The dissemination of the socio-spatial strategies contained within this research represents a step towards decentralising the profession of architecture and dissolving the exclusivity of design. As modernity becomes increasingly liquified, urbanism must respond with flexibility, incrementalism, and impermanence. With the informality and temporality of urbanism increasing, the necessity of professional designers is correspondingly decreasing. Formal education and national certification may be unnecessary for architects of the future; perhaps the design and implementation of an architecture that is light, plastic, and communal is a responsibility that belongs to the public. This project promotes the idea of public education, and the empowerment of urban occupants become agents and implementers of future architectural practice.

This research- an aggregation of thoughts, inspirations, prototypes, insights, typologies and strategies of alternative urbanism- is a tool. It is an agitator for social change; it is a guide for contemporary urbanity; it is a license for human agency. §

Conclusions 111

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PERIODICALS "Broadsheet Melbourne." http://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne.

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———. "White Night an Arty Delight." The Age, 25 February 2005.

Cuthberson, Debbie and Northover, Kylie. "Melbourne Captured by the Charm White Night." The Age, 23 February 2013.

Feagins, Lucy. "The School of Life Plus 5 Questions with Alain De Botton." The Design Files Daily, 24 January 2013.

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