MEGAN VOO - ARETFACTS by RMIT Architecture

STUDENT: MEGAN VOO SUPERVISOR: EMMA JACKSON

A boundary line is defined as the confinement of an entire urbanised area and is used by local governments as a guide for zoning and land occupation. It marks the place where a suburb ends and another territory begins; until a wall or fence is erected, they are invisible. However, in Melbourne, the separations of border lines seem almost non-existent, it is usually marked by no more than a line or a road sign. This proposition questions the legibility of the boundary line to recognize the significance in each suburb’s peripheral. In hopes to give value and meaning when we draw a line, the line seeks to not only function as a device of segregation in each suburb but rather aims to perform as an architectural instrument of access in unlocking the cultural identity of the suburbs.

Can we visualise these fringes and experience it at a personal scale? What if we insert value into boundary lines that does not only act as a segregation mechanism but can also be used as a meeting point. maybe a fence for a volleyball match between two territories or tactiles for floor patterns?

PASCOE VALE

COBURG

The boundary line between the two suburb is different to the normal planning scheme where it is not segregated by the main road or the natural condition of the creek.

PASCOE VALE

COBURG

HUNGRY JACK

SHELL EXPRESS COBURG

It is defined through an invisible boundary between Hungry Jack’s and a Shell Service Station. Both hold a different postcode despite being on the same block, one being Pascoe Vale and the other being Coburg respectively.

What if we switched out the basis of human logic and re-evaluated boundary lines through the respective utilisation of existing underground conditions pre-1788 ?

GEOLOGY

ECOLO

Grassland

Woodland

ASSES

TION CL

EGETA GICAL V

Wetland

UNDERGROUND WATER LEVEL

Alkali Basalt

Siltstone

Basalt

Sandstone

20-50m

10-20m

5-10m

<5m

Trees in general do not like to live in solitude. They are not seen as a separate entity but rather part of a community, with each individual aware of their neighbours, the trees communicate with one another, and they help each other to survive. They have an underground system called the Wood Wide Web (WWW) where they converse to each other through mycorrhizal networks.

River Red Gum Tree (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) REVISED LIST OF MERRI CREEK LOCAL NATIVE

PLANTS

Table A: Local Native Plants Trees (over 6m) Acacia implexa A. mearnsii A. melanoxylon Allocasuarina verticillata

Lightwood (dry sites) Black Wattle (dry sites) Blackwood (dry sites) Drooping Sheoak (dry sites)

Tall shrubs (2m–6m) Acacia paradoxa Hedge Wattle

Acacia pycnantha Golden Wattle (dry sites) Banksia marginata Silver Banksia (tree form) Bursaria spinosa Sweet Bursaria (dry sites) Callistemon sieberi River Bottlebrush (wet

areas) sh Dodonaea viscosa ssp. cuneata Wedge-leaf Hop-bu (dry sites) Gynatrix pulchella Hemp Bush (wet areas) Smaller shrubs (under 2m) Acacia acinacea Correa glabra Goodenia ovata Grevillea rosmarinifolia

Gold Dust Wattle Rock Correa (dry sites) Hop Goodenia Rosemary Grevillea (local provenance only) (dry

sites) Climbers Clematis microphylla Small-leaved Clematis Grasses & other tussock plants Austrodanthonia racemosa Clustered Wallaby-grass Austrodanthonia setaceae Bristly Wallaby-grass Austrostipa elegantissima Feather Spear-grass Austrostipa scabra ssp. falcata Dichelachne crinita Small plants Atriplex semibaccata Calocephalus citreus Calocephalus lacteus Chrysocephalum semipapposum Dichondra repens Reeds & rushes for wetlands and drainage lines Bolboschoenus medianus Carex tereticaulis Centella cordifolia Eleocharis acuta Ficinia nodosa (was Isolepis nodosus)

Slender Spear Grass Long-hair Plume-grass Berry Saltbush Lemon Beauty Heads Milky Beauty-heads (wet areas) Clustered Everlasting Kidney Weed

Marsh Club Rush Common Sedge Centella Common Spike Rush Knobby Club Rush

Eucalyptus camaldulensis E. leucoxylon ssp. connata E. melliodora E. ovata E. viminalis

Melicytus dentatus (was Hymenanthera dentata) Leptospermum lanigerum Melaleuca ericifolia Myoporum petiolatum (was (M. viscosum) Myrsine howittiana (was Rapanea howittiana) Viminaria juncea

Indigofera australis Olearia ramulosa Pimelea glauca Rhagodia candolleana

prefer well-drained, consistently moist soils

River Red Gum Yellow Gum (dry sites) Yellow Box (dry sites) Swamp Gum Manna Gum (2 local forms)

Tree Violet (dry sites) Woolly Tea Tree (wet areas) Swamp Paperbark Sticky Boobialla Muttonwood Golden Spray

s, creeks, r e iv r g n o l a w o They gr plains. d o o l f d n a ys a waterw

Austral Indigo Twiggy Daisy Bush Smooth Rice-flower Seaberry Saltbush (dry sites)

Dianella sp. aff. ‘Benambra’ Pale Flax-lily (D.longifolia part) Black-anther Flax-lily Dianella admixta (was D. revoluta) Lomandra longifolia Spiny-headed Mat-rush (dry sites) Weeping Grass es stipoid ena Microla Poa labillardierei Common Tussock-grass Einadia nutans Nodding Saltbush (dry sites) Enchylaena tomentosa Ruby Saltbush Pimelea humilis Common Rice-flower Scutellaria humilis Dwarf Skullcap Wahlenbergia communis Tufted Bluebell Juncus australis Juncus usitatus Lycopus australis Marsilea drummondii Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani (was S. validus)

Common Rush Rush Austral Gypsywort Nardoo River Club-rush

d wide a e r p s s e h ranc

branches s pread up, more co mpeti tors

Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha)

Bristly Wallaby grass (Rytidosperma setaceum)

• • • •

pasture good for soil erosion full sun, semi shade dry condition

clay to light sand y loams ✔ waterlogged Seeds are able to persist in the soil for more than five years, germinating after fire.

formes small tussocks & overlap greatly

the root system is deep to allow for survival in tough dry conditions. found in the understorey of open eucalypt forests on dry, shallow soils.

PASCOE VALE

COBURG

MAIN ROAD

LANEWAY

RETAIL

RESIDENTIAL

INDUSTRIAL

GREEN SPACES

Script

Plant Beha-

Suburban Ele-

Raw Re-

River Red Gum

Bristly Wallaby Grass

PASCOE VALE

COBURG

PASCOE VALE

COBURG

Golden Wattle

Mycorrhizal Networks

A new boundary line is generated that attempts to stitch two suburbs together.

EXISTING CONDITION

MAIN ROAD

Coburg

LANEWAY

BOUNDARY LINE

boundary Line becomes an occupied space Pascoe Vale

SUSSEX ST

Pascoe Vale

W E N A

PI CCU

CE A P S

Coburg

BELL ST

Lincoln Knitting mills

single story saw tooth roof

Kodak Australasia pt y ltd factory

Film Testing Backdrop

rnice The brick chimney with its co out and white brickwork spelling the word ‘LINCOLN’. It introduces the separate sites using key design moves from artefacts such as the Lincoln Knitting Mills brick chimney and the saw tooth of the factory, as well as the 3 prominent elements of the Kodak Factory such as the administration building, the bluestone retaining wall and the film testing backdrop. Both Industrial factories represent a suburban landmark by virtue of its prominence on the site and contributes to significant employment and development rates within the two suburbs.

Building 8 - Administration building 29

sydney road

Monee Ponds Creek

pascoe vale road

Merri Creek 31

The gas station is often associated as a place of a quick and go. The newly developed rest stop is a civic space that encourage users to pause, wonder as well as authenticate the built form in which it is experienced. Instead of constructing a new property for a civic space, a service station can be repurposed as a place to gather.

Borderlands is a multi-functional rest stop that acts as a protype of urban infill that pays homage to the historical significance of Coburg and Pascoe Vale. With this new urban infill, the boundary line is able to be visualised at a personal scale. Both covering of different postcodes stitches the fabrics of the suburbs together to generate a common ground for both neighbourhoods. The tactile on the ground reflects the behaviour of how people navigate the service stations.

E RE

SUSEXX STREET

Legend: 01 02 03 04 05 06

Shell Gas Station Coles Express Parking Coles Express Hungry Jack Civic Space Green Space

BELL STREET

SCALE 1 : 270

Pedestrians entering from the junction at Sussex Street in Pascoe Vale get to experience a more organic and convoluted ground condition as well as the roofing that accommodates it as it mimics the original Pascoe Vale Road, following the natural contours of the ground in the formation of its major roads.

On the other end, pedestrians entering from Bell Street will be welcomed by a perpendicularly rigid roof that is raised on concrete piers through calculated positionings for where the anticipated red gum trees were located. The formation of the roofing on this side follows the characteristics of Sydney Road in Coburg that has its major roads formed in coherence with the Hoddle grid.

The Hungry Jack’s is expressed as a floating box composed of a decorative screen of glazed breeze blocks as well as the corrugated patterns, referencing to the heritage of the administration building of the Kodak Factory. Pipes were installed as ephemeral furniture such as casual seating areas, showcasing the identity of the originally industrialised suburb of Coburg.

In the Hungry Jack’s drive thru, user can experience the boundary line by looking up at the ceiling as a reference to the margins from the intensity of the thread being pulled. As you are waiting in line, the porosity of the build fabric of Coles entice user to stay a little longer luring user to buy something. When pedestrian arrive to the centre of the site, they can experience the ground conditions treated more intricate and columns are thicker for sitting area.

The new laneway generated from the urban procedure cuts through the block of the reappropriated residential area, providing a direct access from the neighbourhood into the site. From a distance, residents can view the familiar image of a large floating roof that represent a service station.

On the edge of the boundary line, the architecture can be used as a device to play and to rest. A playground that draws people from the residential area and use it without having to use the primary function of the space. The singular chimney column with the other being demolished was inspired from Lincoln Mill Factory, act as a meeting point between two suburbs.

The traditional carpark spaces near the Coles Express is now revaluated with the addition of seating area, providing opportunities for leisure and rest for not just user of the carpark but also for the public.

APPENDIX

Block Pattern of Melbourne CBD 1839-2021

1839

1983

The Hoddle Grid was first established in 1837, the patterns of the streets and grids were evenly divided with three rows of squares by eight. The original plan has a strong emphasize on street system with a 30 meters width of main street, 10 meters of little streets that goes east and west as well as internal laneways inside the block.

On the late 19th century, people started to move away from the city of Melbourne due to the industrial revolution as well as the ease of transportation from trams and trains to be able to live in the suburbs. As the density of residential started to decrease, the solidity of the block pattern of the city begins to erode.

Orderly Patterns

Industrial Revolution

1895

Fragmented Pieces The neatly organized pattern of the grid was created to allow the land allotments to be sale to the market as quick as possible and so after a decade, each block was further subdivided into 20 allotments. This has resulted in the block pattern to transform into fragmented pieces and the beginning of consolidation of buildings in the street frontages and voids at the back lanes.

2005

Globalisation The city begins to densify very quickly after IDO (Interim Development Order) was decreed in 1983 with the increase of high density mixed used building in Melbourne and the demolition of existing heritage qualities.

2021 1923

Formation of Laneways The orderly division of the block was never strictly followed, laneways were added by the people for service ways, transportation of supplies by horse, extra workstation for factories, rear access for servants and night soil collectors.

Research Melb Cbd Grid

Vertical Voids In comparison to the plan layout of the Hoddle Grid in 1839, the block pattern today is consolidated with mega block buildings. It still maintains the same clarity and order in its peripheral attributed from the British Empire but the internal laneways have evolved organically by the people throughout the years into irregular vertical voids.

Civic Monumentality

Civic Monumentality Besides the orderly arrangement in Melbourne Hoddle Grid, the block also has a hierarchy system where public civic buildings are located on high ground to indicate power by displaying the highest visual impacts. Building typology such as Supreme Court, Public Library and Church are intentionally constructed on contours descending from hill down to seaport in accordance to building hierarchies to governance. The map above shown that some public reservations and street names after the royal family still remain until today indicating the past reign of British colonial authority. These civic monumentality does not have many laneways due to their large scale and hierarchy in society.

2 1837

2021 1. The Royal Mint (1872), Hellenic Museum (2007) 2. Country Court of Victoria (1852) 3. Supreme Court of Victoria (1852) 4. State Library of Victoria (1854) 5. Melbourne Town Hall (1867) 6. St. Michael’s Uniting Church (1867) 7. Immigration Museum (1998)

2005

Research Melb Cbd Grid

Timeline of the Narrative Evolution of Melbourne’s Laneway

A front page drawing of a brawl, titled ‘Another Stabbing Case’, from The Citizen newspaper on October 13, 1877.

Kirk’s Lane, now Hardware Lane, was the centre for the city’s bloodstock industry in the mid-1800s.

Timeline 1839 - 1920

Back lanes and gutters are being seen as degraded architecture elements preserve for the poor, full of people with diseases, crimes, prostitution, and rubbish.

Photomechanical print published in Police news, June 9, 1877, Men in a Melbourne laneway, one attempting to open back door.

1920

There was a large contrast and an invisible boundary between the wealthy citizen strolling on the main streets and the poor lurking in the laneways.

1880

However, laneway started to form organically by the people for accessibility such as service ways, transportation of supplies by horse, extra workstation for factories, rear access for servants and night soil collectors, disrupting the narrative of Melbourne as discipline, orderly centre. By the mid-1800s, there were 112 unnamed lanes in the city.

Elizabeth Street in the late 19th century

1870

During the 1850s, the population and urban development of Melbourne grew swiftly, wealthy merchants live in grand mansions while the poor try to survive in cramped back laneways owned by greedy slum lords.

1860

1851

British colonial tries to inscribe social order through spatial regulation in Melbourne Hoddle Grid. Samuel Perry, NSW Deputy Surveyor General established a rule to prevent the people from naming Melbourne’s laneway.

1840

1839

Melbourne Hoddle Grid 1839

Laneways started to become home for soup kitchen, businesses, charities, schools and immigrants’ families.

During the 1880s, there was a large occupation rag trade in Flinders Lanes as well as Chinese and Jewish cabinetmakers accumulating in lanes around Little Bourke and Little Lonsdale Streets. Gordan House in Little Bourke Street become shelter for the homeless until the 1970s.

Flinders Lane and adjoining Degraves St were centre of Melbourne’s rag trade.

Tourism Victoria launches a $14m ‘Play Melbourne’ campaign to encourage visitors to discover something new in streets and laneways.

Laneways had become a public place for urban youth culture. Government started to utilize these urban spaces to promote city tourist attraction and businesses thrive on these areas as opportunity for extra revenue.

In 2016, Herald Sun has depicted Hosier Lane with two different narratives, an art precinct as well as a crime hotspot and thriving drug den. The media constantly framed the homeless people as undesirable who destroy the city image and harmed local business. This article was very similar to a coverage back in the 1800s when Melbourne laneway was described as dangerous, dark, dirty, criminal and a disgrace to the image of Melbourne during the gold rush.

2017

Due to the vacancy of the buildings in the city, the government has launched a new program called the “Postcode 3000 strategy” that includes revitalizing laneways in hope to attract people back into the city.

2010

In the early 2000s, street art movements began to emerge in laneways, bringing colour and life into these back lanes.

2016

2011

2008 2000

In the beginning of the 1990s, Melbourne started to sprawl out of the city grid. Many residents and business choose to live in the suburbs, causing the city to become empty.

2006

1992

1990

Street Art in Hosier Lane

In 2008, Lonely Planet stated that Melbourne’s laneway street art has become of Australia main tourist attractions.

In August 2017, the council has launched a new rule to ban rough sleeping in Melbourne’s city centre. The homeless residents in Hosier Lane were removed by the police. The most vulnerable residents are being kicked out from their only home and these laneways now are being reclaim by the rich that take advantage of their street art to translate cultural capital into dollars. After the incidents in this back lane, some artist stopped creating street arts in the laneway to protest the space if it is not welcome for everyone.

However, as these street arts become increasing popular, it also becomes more difficult for government to keep up with their policies. Strict fines and rules were soon implemented to decrease the number of graffiti on street walls and a year later the council began issuing street art permits.

Degraves St in 1972 (left) and in 2006 (right) transformed into a food and bar hub.

Timeline 1990 - 2017

PARK S

NICHOLS

ON ST

Nicholson Street

Mary Street

MARY ST

Rear Of Nicholson Street

N ic

St re et

r Pa

tre kS

Breaking the Grid to allow accessibility into the Common Ground

Laneways as a Design Guideline

Breaking up Frontages of Buidlings

Concealing and Revealing

Overlapping of carpets could be shared Carports Spaces

Maybe some garage spaces could be removed to provide Courtyard Spaces for residents to meet up.

Maintaining the heritage façade of the streetscapes by puncturing of space in between two shops to liberate the ground for new lanes to occur.