PRECINCT MATTERS

Location KTA Studio, 6 Lothian Street, North Melbourne

Time Wednesday 4pm-8pm

Site Fishermans Bend Renewal Precinct

Conceptual Agenda

Fishermans Bend is Australia’s largest urban renewal project covering approximately 480 hectares in the heart of Melbourne. This studio looks at the Fishermans Bend precinct as a microcosm testing ground from which different typologies can respond to certain conditions. As a practice studio it will focus on real-world situations, referencing the proposed urban renewal plans for Fishermans Bend, alongside real site-conditions, and context. The current working structure plan for the Fishermans bend is composed of distinct precincts that include Mixed use, residential, office/ commercial and employment and innovation.

By using the Victorian State Government’s Fishermans Bend Framework document published in 2018, the studio will explore alternate models for renewal within the site. Students will engage with the complexities of redeveloping existing industrial sites, the infrastructure that is required to facilitate large urban redevelopment, and challenges surrounding the ecological and environmental found conditions.

Whilst design outcomes will be founded on research around effective precinct planning, projects will ultimately respond to the contextual challenges of the site. The variety of typological opportunities will enable students to respond to unique conditions set as the focus for the studio.

The studio will explore the pros and cons of the adaptation and re-use of existing buildings within the precinct, compared to their replacement with new buildings. We will do so through consideration of some of the following conundrums:

_ Heritage response; pre-colonial history and industrial Heritage (careful reinvention vs blanket preservation)

_Resilience (climate, biodiversity, community)

_An awareness of Country (connection, revealing of, and repair)

_Amplification and complimentary adjacencies

_Productive landscapes, hard & soft strategies – permanent & temporary, free space

_Growing in time, sedimentary site layers

_Systems and logic

Students will work together to assess multiple sites, which will inform their own selection and the development of their own brief. To respond effectively to the problems proposed, all sites will include an existing (heritage or otherwise) structure, will need to include a development proposal, a public realm offer, and positively contribute to, and enhance biodiversity. Students will collaborate with their peers to establish how each individual proposal works together as a wider precinct, and how small parts working together can create a larger whole.

How to get a wheelchair over sand, Park McArthur, (2013)

Focus

The aim of this design studio is to develop proposals speculating on the future of housing – specifically examining how future housing can be adapted to the specific needs of residents with increased needs, including disabilities, part-time and full-time care requirements.

The studio will examine building typologies and challenges associated with accessible and care housing, including regulatory, economic, political, and social factors. It will explore the future of accessible housing design in light of cultural, technological, policy, economic, and climate change trajectories, and investigate the potential for sustainable, net zero, or carbon-positive design.

This studio will run in collaboration with Focus Life as part of a design-led research project with RMIT University School of Architecture and Urban Design led by researchers John Doyle and Roger Kemp. The project aims to develop new models for the design and delivery of accessible and care housing units.

Focus Life offer comprehensive disability accommodation services to individuals residing in the Mornington Peninsula and its surrounding areas.

Wednesday 6 - 10pm 100.06.007

WHO: Simon Drysdale with occasional guests. WHEN: 6pm + Wednesday evenings. WHAT: Healing Centre located in the Mildura surrounds

Weekly THEMES:

1. Flora and Fauna

2. Song

3. Sound

4. Ai - Art. Cleverman

5. Ai - Word. Cleverman

6. The celestial

7. Time

8. Hierachy and ‘the deadly’

9. Wattle and daub

10. National

11. Horizon and curiosity

12. Narrative memory

NOTE: There will be travel which will be over multiple nights at YOUR cost that will be clarified at ballot.

This studio will attempt to immerse you. We will be exploring Indigenous knowledge and the external forces that impact our built environment. The site is located North West of Mildura on Barkindji land and the studio experience will focus on regenerative thinking. The brief will explore the intergenerational opportunities for a men’s healing centre that will host programs that foster engagement with place, and the narrative of occupation.

The studio will provide an opportunity to explore themes of adjacency, articial intelligence (mythologically), decline and medicinal constructs and the potential of respite tourism.

Photo: Benedict O’Flaherty

‘COUNTER ERRORISM.2’