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RMIT Architecture Major Project Catalogue Semester 2 2024
Introduction, Professor Vivian Mitsogianni...06
What is Major Project?...07
Ruins of Repair, Edward Buckle... 09
Sand Sintered Shorelines, Lucas Gauci...11
NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS: THE SUPER GRAPHIC EXPERIEMNNT, Georgia Rumble... 13
Gutless Wonder, Yasmin Fennessy...15
Echoes of Murumburr Country, Billy Swain...17
A GOLDEN WAVE, Sandun Jayasinghe...19
Save our Pool, Madhav varma Alluri... 21
In Tandem, Niamh Anstee... 23 the sun, the [p]ool, and the [p]ivot of a [p]recinct, Audrey Avianto... 25
FOOTSCRAY: MARKET OF CULTURES, Warina Ayoub Issa Oghanna... 27
Breaking Stigma, Byron Baluyot.. 29
Mind the Gap, Jessica Bourke... 31
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Patrick Byrne... 33 We just knew we were having fun, Tania Capovilla... 35
Temporarily Permanent, Kashish Chauhan... 37
Making ___, ___, ___, home and HEIMAT, Jianshu Chen... 39
THE PATCHWORK OF BRUNSWICK DELIGHTS, Jinyi Chen... 41
BOXHILL BRICKWORKS, Jasmine Chung... 43
CIVIC EXCHANGES, Emma Clyde... 45
FIELD OF DREAMS, Zephyr Cravino... 47
Out of Bounds, Jasmine Dickson... 49
Behind the wall, Beyond the river, Alicia Emukule... 51 ‘Wake up’ Bradmill, Mengqiao Fan... 53
Echoes of Tomorrow, Yushan Wang... 123 ANATOMY OF A SUBURB, Mackenzie Hume... 125 Formless, Yonghong Ye... 127
Sub(P)-STATION, Yao Xiao...129
Homes @ Hoddle, Aoxiang Zheng... 131 SYSTEM OVERRIDE, Sienna Ectoros... 133
TECTONIC RESILIENCE, Zeke Zhang... 135
NOT FOR SALE, Georgia Hunt... 137 Twin City, Willie Liew... 139 QiongYu Retret, Renling Zhang... 141
Home In Time, He Huang... 143
EXCJ24, Alice Gooi... 145
Patchwork Collingwood, Yangshu Hu... 147
Democracy Manifest: A Succulent Civic Meal?, William Ly... 149 FOR THOSE WHO WANDER AND LEAVE, Lucas Valle... 151
Supervisors Semester 2, 2024... 152
Students Semester 2, 2024...153
Introduction1
Architecture schools should be concerned with experimentation that challenges the apparent self-evident certainties and accepted orthodoxies of the discipline (in its expanded definition), the underlying assumptions about what architecture is and can contain, and what it should do next. Architecture schools need to ensure that their graduates have all the professional competencies that are required for professional practice and registration, but Architecture schools should also lead the struggle to challenge the default conventions of the discipline. The architecture school should strive to point towards possible futures not yet evident within existing understandings of the discipline and wider cultural/political terrains.
Architecture is about ideas. It is part of a wider cultural sphere and a way of thinking about the world in a broader sense. Knowledge and learning in architecture do not finish in the academy but require continued learning and a level of receptive agility from the architect, throughout the architect’s life. The rapidly changing economic and cultural conditions in the extended fields that architects engage with necessitate this, requiring, but also opening up possibilities for, new types of knowledge, fields of engagement and practices.
The architecture student’s graduating Major Project – a capstone for the formal design degree – should not merely demonstrate the competence and skill they acquired in the course. These are base expectations on entry into the graduating semester. The graduating project is an opportunity to speculate through the work and to develop ideas that will serve as catalysts for future, lifelong investigations.
The project should lay bare considered attitudes, brave speculations and leaps of faith, pursuing these with rigour and depth. We would hope that the projects are ambitious, brave and contain propositions relevant to their time. We would hope that students experiment – in whatever form this might take – and engage with difficult questions, contributing not merely to areas that are well explored, but to what is yet to come. Experimentation though, in the graduating project, as well as in the design studio, comes with the risk of failure. But failure can be cathartic – it is an essential possibility tied to innovation.
At RMIT Architecture we understand well the ethos and importance of experimentation and we have long-standing processes to reward it, importantly through our grading and moderation processes. In the RMIT architecture programs, we call this venturous ideas-led design practice. ‘To be venturous is to be brave and take risks. What we hope is happening here is that students are learning to establish their own explorations which they can constantly reconsider and navigate through future conditions that may not resemble present understandings of practice. Competencies and experimentation can happily co-exist.
We aim to educate students to engage with architecture’s specific characteristics unapologetically, and to not be afraid of its complex, uncertain and liquid nature. We aim to prepare our graduates to engage in and contribute to a broader world of ideas and to eventually challenge our ability to judge with new, challenging and meaningful propositions. This semester we saw some astonishing and brave projects and propositions from a student body deeply concerned with making a positive impact on the world around them and with contributing new ideas to their discipline. We look forward to following our students’ careers as they join our global community of practice and to seeing how the ideas seeded here are pursued and advanced.
Professor Vivian Mitsogianni Dean, School of Architecture & Urban Design RMIT University
1For an expanded version of this text see Mitsogianni, V. (2015). Failure can be cathartic! The design studio - speculating on three themes In: Studio Futures: Changing trajectories in architectural education, Uro Publications, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 25-31
The Major Project Medals
The Anne Butler Memorial Medal, endowed in honour of an outstanding emerging practitioner, is awarded to a Major Project that exemplifies the goals of Major Project.
The Peter Corrigan Medal celebrates the project that is most critical, political and culturally engaged. It is awarded to a student with a strong independent vision in honour of Professor Peter Corrigan who taught successive generations of architects at RMIT for over 40 years.
The Antonia Bruns Medal, endowed to recall Antonia’s interest in the relation between film and architecture, is awarded to a Major Project that investigates the relationship between architectural representation, association and perception.
The Leon van Schaik 25th Anniversary Peer Assessed Major Project Award celebrates Prof. Leon van Schaik’s arrival as Head of Architecture at RMIT 28 years ago. It is decided by all Major Project voting for what they view as the most adventurous and future-embracing project of the semester.
In Major Project, students are expected to formulate an architectural research question and develop an articulate and well-argued architectural position through the execution of a major architectural design project.
What is Major Project?
RMIT Architecture values ambitious, adventurous projects; those that demonstrate new and pertinent architectural ideas or show how established ideas can be developed or transformed to offer deeper understandings. The best major projects take risks and attempt to see architecture anew. Major Project should form the beginning of an exploration of architectural ideas that can set the agenda for the first ten years of original and insightful architectural practice.
The nature of the project is not set, and the scope of the brief and site is established by the student in consultation with their supervisor as the most appropriate and potentially fruitful vehicle for testing and developing their particular area of architectural investigation. Typically, major projects proceed in a similar way to design studios – with the difference being that students themselves set their brief and topic of investigation.
The research question and architectural project will often develop in parallel and it is expected that the precise question and focus of the project will be discovered and clarified through the act of designing. This process is iterative and develops through weekly sessions. Projects are also formally reviewed at two public mid semester reviews before the final presentation.
Major Projects have ranged from strategic urban and landscape interventions with metropolitan implications, through to detailed explorations of building form, materiality, structure and inhabitation; to detailed experimentation in the processes and procedures of architectural production. It is expected that Major Projects will develop a particular and specific area of interest that has grown during a student’s studies, rather than merely complete a generic and competent design. Often these specific interests will develop in relation to those of supervisors – we encourage students to work closely with their supervisors to build on mutual areas of expertise and interest.
It is understood that major projects will differ in scope, scale, kinds of representation produced and degree of resolution; with these factors depending on the nature of the architectural question and accompanying brief. Emphasis should be placed on producing a coherent and complete project, where proposition, brief, scale, degree of resolution and representation work together to provide a balanced, convincing and focused expression of architectural thought.
There is no expectation that Major Project be ‘comprehensive’ in scope. Rather, the aim of the subject is to establish, through the completion of a major design work in a rigorous manner, a well-argued architectural experiment that has the potential and richness to engender future explorations and that will sustain the student for the next ten years of their architectural practice.
A high level of skill and a demonstrated knowledge of existing architectural ideas is an important component of a successful major project, however the goal should not be to demonstrate a professional level of accepted best practice. Rather it is an opportunity to demonstrate new kinds of knowledge and ideas through architectural form.
_Excerpt from Major Project Briefing Notes 2023
Ruins of Repair
Edward Buckle Supervisor: Mark Jacques
It evidenced in the walls of this room, the chairs that we sit on, and the clothes that we wear, yet it lies forever just beyond the horizon line, just past the field of view, perpetually obscured. The reality of our appetite for cheap, fast and expendable consumables is evidenced by the 732sqkm of open extraction sites across the state.
Despite the scale, these landscapes, weaponised at the behest of growth, are seldom seen, kept from view by a convenient tree line, a man-made hill, or an imposing fence line. Taking up residence on the grounds of an active gold mine, this project interrogates the consequence of material choices on people, landscapes and ecosystems and recontextualises the role these turbid and contested territories have in our collective memory.
In drawing these sites into the field of vision, these scarred landscapes give critical purchase to contend with the reality our material and ideological anthropocentrism. It is in the reinvention and recovery of these sites that my project aims to provide the substrate from which reckoning, healing and recognition to occur, giving rise for scar tissue to form where open wounds currently lay.
Anne Butler Memorial Medal Semester 2, 2024
Supervisor Statement
Edward’s supervisor Mark Jacques suggests that his project reveals how material left in the wake of resource extraction might be seen as a resource in itself. Edward’s provocation is a reverse mine – the reconfigured infrastructure of a former gold mine that extracts resources from the waste of its adjacent town. Edward’s project speculates on a new kind of ruin – not one that fetishises decay or that fakes repair, but one that holds the scar of the former extraction site open while imbuing it with new life.
- Mark Jacques
Sand Sintered Shorelines
Lucas Gauci Supervisor: Roland Snooks
Generative Diffusion allows for the complex interpolation of ideas, rapid iteration of design character and forms, and the curation of large datasets. Sand Sintered Shorelines utilises the capacities of AI through the exploration of architectural form and tectonics with geological character and conditions, in conjunction with a series of digital sculpting processes.
Operating on a migrating sandbar estuary, the project seeks to stabilize the sand movements, encourage re-vegetation and restore the natural estuary delta that existed before the broader site was industrialised 80 years ago. A dynamic masterplan, derived from site vector mappings, strategically positions expressive retaining walls and groynes that utilise the natural aeolian and fluvial forces of the site. These structures guide the creation of topographically sensitive water channels, provide wind breaks and reduce sediment movement, allowing for the natural propagation of coastal flora whilst creating human accessible pavilions and a life-saving club.
The project is constructed through a 3D sand printing processes, utilising the very site material to sinter layers into bespoke silicon dioxide blocks, aggregated to form the larger permeable structures, shifting in character as the design and construction processes occurs over 100+ years. Sympathetic with the timescale of natural landscapes, the masterplan constantly adjusts to the requirements of environmental restoration and human access. Design character shifts and evolves as the machine learning models gather and interpole new data and the structures naturally erode back into sand.
Anne Butler Memorial Medal Semester 2, 2024
Supervisor Statement
Lucas Gauci's project, Sand Sintered Shorelines, is a sophisticated exploration of the formal and tectonic potential of generative AI. Lucas employs an experimental approach that negotiates between the algorithmic logic of diffusion, direct modelling processes and the material constraints of additive manufacturing. The project explores how 3D printed sandstone micro-infrastructures interact with coastal environments over prolonged durations, balancing built forms with natural processes of deposition and erosion.
- Roland Snooks
NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS: THE SUPER GRAPHIC EXPERIEMNNT
Georgia Rumble Supervisor: Patrick Macasaet
My work aims to situate itself between the very real and the other worldly, positioning it in what I call the “Arena of Gritty Real, Magical Real and Ecological Real.” The Gritty Real refers to global patterns of consumption, production, and political systems; the Magical Real imagines possibilities and patterns of what could be and promotes a lens in which to advocate and recenter the Ecological realities and narratives of site. This project explores a hybrid design process I call the ‘Super Graphic Experiment,’ blending analogue scanning of artefacts with digital spatial and formal explorations in gaming environments and AI video simulations.
I work with these tools but with resistance. The process confronts and resists the orderly obsession of AI and its attempt to reduce the super graphic, complexity of the world into docile, well-behaved objects.1 This approach aims to materialise an architecture that sits in opposition to Australia’s desire to smooth and grid our urban fabric with imported ideas of colonial occupation.2 Through this super graphic experiment, I aspire to unlock new ways of exploring architecture with a gamut of processes that discovers speculative propositions for future productive industries, ecologies and architectures.
While I know that my architecture will never hold all of this, I will try and use the tools and the lens of the profession to enchant us into other realities.
Antonia Bruns Medal Semester 2, 2024
Supervisor Statement
Georgia Rumble’s ‘Centre for Everything’ rises from the coastal grit of Mossy Point (NSW), an uncanny fusion of phosphate fields, AI glitches, gaming simulations and junkspace. Through her ‘Super Graphic Experiment’, Georgia bridges real and speculative worlds – scanning and superimposing cultural artifacts on reanimated fragmented landscapes through digital simulations and gaming worlds. This project unravels as a critical reflection of place and planet, echoing a landscape of ideas and stories where raw ecological realities meet the fantastical possibilities of forgotten futures.
Georgia immerses three sites, from NSW to Christmas Island, the project entwines to form a speculative monument to global histories, local myths and emerging industries. Her hybrid design processes celebrate the untamed, gritty geometries that resist AI’s attempts to clean and control, crafting worlds where the ecological and the magical collide, and architecture doesn’t just build but enchants.
- Patrick Macasaet
Gutless Wonder
Yasmin Fennessy Supervisor: Olivia O’Donnell and Liam Oxlade
There exists in the suburbs a separateness between the land we’ve settled on and our occupation of it, which this project seeks to rectify. The suburban realm of this millennium has left its grassroots forgotten and displaced, leaving individuals disconnected from each other and from our collective history. Through superimposing our reality of suburbia with their native beginnings, an alternative ritual of living is revealed – suggestive of a reciprocal care that spreads rhizomic offerings throughout new and emerging communities. Gutless Wonder uncovers a truth to Australian identity, through an opportunity for collective ownership, and an affection for what we already have. It enables two entities to thrive through a constant balance between loss and gain – driven by a burning belief that the suburbs can be loved.
Peter Corrigan Medal Semester 2, 2024
Supervisor Statement
Yasmin’s project asks us to ‘recognise a threat as an opportunity.’ This threat is the placeless megastructure of the tract housing model - and its cultural byproduct of flat disinterest in ecological specificity or environmental literacy.The opportunity is to transform this ennui into a kind of wonderment through land care, shared ownership and the deft manipulation of known surfaces or atmospheres. Its byproduct would then be a robust cultural identity with its nucleus in Fraser Rise and similar but distinct centres in any of Melbourne’s exurban fringe settlements.
- Olivia & Liam
Echoes of Murumburr Country
Swain Supervisor: Anna Johnson
Amid the untouched environment’s of Kakadu National Park, this project reflects the deep bond between the Murumburr people and connection to their ancestral lands.
Designed in collaboration with Murumburr Elders, the structures draw inspiration from the flowing contours of the Jimjim River and the escarpment boundaries. Each space embodies cultural storytelling, where woven pandanus panels and layered facades breathe with the landscape. These architectural forms provide more than shelter; they become places of gathering, teaching, and shared history, inviting a future where the wisdom of the land continues to guide and connect generations. This project is architecture that listens, reflects, and invites one to feel the spirit of Country
Ultimately, the project embodies respect and deep listening—to the land, to the Elders, and to the stories etched into the environment. It seeks to enrich the relationship between people and Country, empowering future generations to feel rooted in their heritage. This is architecture that speaks softly, inviting reflection and participation in the living story of the land.
Peter Corrigan Medal Semester 2, 2024
Supervisor Statement
Working with the Murumburr people of Kakadu, Billy’s project seeks to find an architecture capable of engaging the cultural and ecological realities of place. In consultation with the local indigenous people and drawing on a rigorous yet exploratory translation of Country and all its systems, Billy’s project becomes a ‘kind of vessel’ for cultural storytelling, a place to share environmental knowledge, cultural practices and stories of Country. In its resolution, representation and ambition this project also tests ideas of architectures long time relationship with narrative.
- Anna Johnson
Billy
A GOLDEN WAVE
Sandun Jayasinghe Supervisor: Mark Jacques
Each wave of the 2004 Tsunami offered something different. The first offered fish, the second offered death, the third offered billions of dollars. Survivors joked that a golden wave had arrived.
In the wake of disaster – what role do we as architects and mouthpieces of policy play in entrenching inequality through built form? Amidst competing interests, we are worn thin, leading us astray from the civic good that we can (and should) do.
In Sri Lanka, the reconstruction of destroyed homes (but not hotels) was prohibited within 100m of the coastline. Perhaps done to preserve life and limb – twenty years later, an enforced ‘tabula rasa’ now serves the tourist industry by hand and foot instead.
This project imagines how formal instruments of power – such as the government gazette – could ennoble architecture along the ‘pleasure periphery’ to exist beyond the value bestowed by tourists. Architecture is positioned as an enabler of access – a mediator between land and sea, local and exotic, public and private. Maybe there is a middle way.
Transcending the geographical limits of my chosen site – an abandoned 1970s modernist hotel in seaside Tangalle, a sensitivity to the local suggests redeployment along any ‘pleasure periphery’. Tactics of egress, infill and reprogramming enshrined in policy enable architects and communities to attack borders, to cross roads, and to reclaim the coastline.
Leon van Schaik 25th Anniversary Peer Assessed Major Project Award Semester 2, 2024
Save our Pool
Madhav varma Alluri Supervisor: Paul Van Herk
"Save Our Pool" envisions a world where pools are not merely structures but charged characters embodying unique desires, ideologies, and tensions. Each pool becomes a political entity, symbolizing competing forces heritage versus progress, public versus privatized space, nostalgia against futurism. These pools, as anthropomorphized characters, clash and negotiate, unveiling deep-seated fantasies and territorial conflicts that reflect broader societal struggles over space and identity.
This project probes into these contested encounters, using the friction between opposing visions as the foundation for speculative architecture. Here, conflict is not a barrier but a radical force a catalyst that drives new spatial possibilities rooted in the social and ideological tensions of these "characters." By embodying each pool with an identity and a stake, "Save Our Pool" reveals architectural potentials shaped by discord and convergence, reframing community spaces as battlegrounds of cultural memory and political desire.
This speculative proposal explores how these conflicting visions can be harnessed in design, transforming pools into layered, dynamic spaces that echo the broader struggle for public ownership, community identity, and collective memory. "Save Our Pool" challenges us to see pools not just as places of leisure but as arenas of social power, cultural resilience, and ideological resistance.
In Tandem
Niamh Anstee Supervisor: Simone Koch
‘In Tandem’ is a project focused on recognizing essential provisions and amenities that strengthen community systems. It explores how these elements can be developed as standalone entities while functioning as an integrated support system alongside housing initiatives. It does not attempt to address the burgeoning sprawl of Melbourne and its housing crisis, but rather produces a scalable and transferable model that emphasises the need for amenities.
This project highlights the importance of adequate and sustainable amenities and seeks to ensure that these elements are prioritised and developed in a timely manner, in conjunction with housing production. ‘In Tandem’ is designed to sit in parallel with, and to be implemented alongside the current Future Homes program that has been introduced by the Victorian Government.
At the core of ‘In Tandem’ is the desire to support the necessary increases in living density in Melbourne whilst promoting new and innovative ways of preserving current community integrity as well as positively supporting the needs of incoming new residents.
This project is not about the architectural design itself but about the program and policy that support and sustain communities.
the sun, the [p]ool, and the [p]ivot of a [p]recinct
Audrey Avianto Supervisor: Anna Jankovic
The Nolli plan of Rome illustrates the city as a binary tension between private and public space. Since then, urbanists have expanded this understanding, proposing nuanced definitions of what is “public” and advocating for a gradient of value through which we define public spaces in relation to building.
Expanding on these ideas, my project asks; what if the “publicness” of space becomes assessed through looser metrics of porosity— ones that are simultaneously tangible as it is temporal, rhythmic and ambiguous, such as the shifting movements of the sun?
This project argues that these qualities are essential for equipping public spaces with greater agility and thereby agency for preservation, resilience and expansion against increasing urban complexity that threatens to undermine their significance in our city. It positions sunlight, along with all city infrastructure that enable our access to it, such as what the City Baths is to Franklin Street, as a fundamental measure of publicness— framing this amenity as a public right, a public good, and a vital instrument for amplifying public life.
Using Franklin Street by Melbourne City Baths as the pivot for a reimagined precinct, the ambition of this major project is twofold. Firstly, reimagining public infrastructure to catalyse broader urban transformation. Secondly, recontextualising the city’s heritage sites as critical protectors of sunlight, safeguarding undervalued open spaces such as its adjacent streets.
Thereby reframing our idea of what is “public” to form the basis of a city that foregrounds public wellbeing, attuned to the rhythms of the sun.
FOOTSCRAY: MARKET OF CULTURES
Name Supervisor: Warina Ayoub Issa Oghanna Supervisor: Adam Pustola
Multiculturism is one of Melbourne’s most defining characteristics and is home to residents from 180 countries, who speak over 233 languages and follow 116 religious’ faiths. My area of study focuses on Footscray which is a suburb located 5 km west of Melbourne.
After WWII, waves of migrants and refugees arrived from Europe and by the 1980s, the area was a major settlement for migrants from Vietnam, Indo-China and more recently Africa. Present-day, Footscray is one of the most ethnically diverse populations in Victoria with 40% of residents born outside of Australia and still remains an entry point for new immigrants and refugees.
The current urban fabric of Footscray has become a product of socio-cultural expression, however, this multicultural fabric of Footscray has not been expressed enough yet architecturally. Therefore, the architecture in Footscray needs to be multicultural. My project aims to create a hybridised architecture that takes cues from prominent migrant cultures present within Footscray to create a market that allows for cultural expression and exchange.
After examining various cultural artefacts, the project aims to create a hybridized architecture by combining these different elements while using the idea of enfilades to construct views and playing with perspective viewpoints as the market is being explored while creating atmospheres that foster cultural expression and exchange.
Suuqa
Breaking Stigma
Name Supervisor: Byron Baluyot Supervisor: Anna Johnson
There has always been a known stigma around Tarneit’s reputation; constantly labelled as the suburb of high youth crime, gang violence, minimal support services, traffic congestion, and language barriers amongst its community. However, there is more to Tarneit than what the media portrays it as.
The “Breaking Stigma” Project recognises Tarneit to be of vibrant people and culture, hidden within their neighbourhoods. This framework aims to re-think a stronger identity for this suburb in an attempt to break the stigma, by designing a more coherent Town centre that is more valuable for its citizen and can allow for this culture to grow and be displayed.
My architectural solution derives from a careful study of the surrounding context, site and cultural contemporary elements; where my framework amplifies, and resurfaces unique qualities into something that can be accepted and celebrated into something that is of the everyday.
I look to town centres, to address these social issues, having a stronger focus on catering to the youth, ensuring the required support for specific target groups, whilst providing; safe and enjoyable spaces to generate new social circles. Town centres attract the most public activity, and can allow my architecture to be a didactic form, responding to these social issues at much more of a larger scale
breaking stigma
by Byron Audrie Baluyot
Mind the Gap
Mind the Gap is interested in what might happen if Architects said how things matter. It is my attempt to animate, confront and scrutinise the profession as a discursive framework.
The project is driven by two motivations. One is the belief that meaning arises from the uses that people make of language. The other is a suspicion that there is a gap between what Architects are doing versus what is being discussed within the discourse as Architecture.
Set on a site surrounded by supportive neighbours, I design and sequentially renovate a multiresidential building, all constructed through an animation of the architectural language. This language has been catalogued from the Victoria Chapter AIA Jury Citations for housing projects from the last 25 years (or my lifetime – the hint at something self-reflexive) and is not only ‘common property’ of the profession but also a mirror to what is heard within the walls of a practice and schools of architecture.
The project is a recursive performance and exists as a way to initiate conversation within the profession about what matters, what is valuable and what is worthy of a discussion. I reveal the gaps, try to define them and figure out their status.
Jessica Bourke Supervisor: Peter Brew
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Patrick Byrne Supervisor: Peter Brew
The legacy of Frank Cassar’s dwellings forms the basis of a model in which two counter-spaces coexist on his estate in Fitzroy. Frank’s interpretations of the Residential Tenancies Act and the Building Code resulted in controversial living conditions earning him the title of Australia’s Worst Landlord. Yet, he is simultaneously regarded as being a successful landlord and states that he is doing a service by providing housing to those who need it desperately. There will always be two sides to the same coin.
Interpreting good from bad can put the observer in an ugly position. To highlight this tension, Fitzroy’s newest boutique hotel is co-located with a rooming house. Both are classified by the NCC as Class 3, “a common place of long term or transient living for a number of unrelated people” and as such are subject to the same performance requirements. The two buildings mirror each other; they have the same structure, the same floor plan and the same purpose.
Whilst the hotel may be perceived as a symbol of progress and renewal, it stands as a façade of its context contributing to gentrification and a sterilisation of the existing. Where the hotel privatises public space, the rooming house gives back, a place to truly dwell.
We just knew we were having fun
Name Supervisor: Tania Capovilla Supervisor: Olivia O’Donnell and Liam Oxlade
When we view heritage, we see the remnants of stories, the traces left behind that prompt us to reminisce on who we once were or to imagine what has once lived before us. The truth about our past is a completely invented projection, it displays the distorted product of our emotions and perceptions.
My project begins along a journey of piecing together memories of Footscray’s past. My site of the old Green’s Building will be returned back to the people of Footscray through public interventions and community collaboration. Attracting people through either the desire to reminisce on old anecdotes, or to interest new users by creating this site as a new precinct of Footscray
Whilst the new design of the Green’s Building cannot directly recreate the memories of its past, it can aim to reconstruct the sense of community that allowed these memories first to be formed. With no attempts to smooth over thresholds and contradictions between the existing and the new, whilst also respecting the sites heritage, the Green’s Building is placed back into the hands of Footscray. With hopes for new memories to be formed, and for these memories to eventually become hazy and vague.
Temporarily Permanent
Kashish Chauhan Supervisor: Graham Crist
Within the ceaseless transformation, large-scale construction sheds temporarily mark the landscape, last up to years significantly influencing urban character and leaving deep-rooted impressions on people's minds, raising questions about what is even considered temporary than? A paradox where temporary structures make a permanent impression.
This major project investigates these acoustic sheds and explored how it can be evolved into permanent features, contributing to the neighbourhood during and after construction. Focusing on Box Hill, a suburb poised for significant change due to the Suburban Rail Loop development. A structure evolved through various construction phases mitigates disruption by providing flexible spaces that support local commerce, community events, and recreational activities.
The project integrates gantry crane system, traditionally used in construction, repurposed as a dynamic tool for spatial transformation. This crane extends into adjacent public spaces, allowing modular components to be transported, lifted, and positioned as needed.
Upon completion of the underground works, the structure seamlessly transitions into a permanent metro concourse and multifunctional community hub. The retained gantry crane and modular design ensure ongoing adaptability, enabling the building to evolve over time. This flexibility allows for an unknowable future, responsive to changes in scale, duration, and programmatic requirements.
Making ___, ___, ___, home and HEIMAT
Jianshu Chen
Supervisor:
Mark Jacques
“Heimat”—a term with no direct English equivalent. It most closely translates to "home,” yet it carries a deeper emotional resonance and reflects who we are and what we value:
The necessities of life Our identities
Our ways of communicating The things we are emotionally connected to
So, it comes to the questions how can newcomers, who have left their familiar environments, settle with these needs? What role can architecture and urban development play in supporting this transition?
This major project explores a vision of cities designed to provide spaces and places that make people feel welcome, and feel “at home.”
The process of “Making ___,___, ___, home & HEIMAT” tests a new urban and architectural typology that goes beyond the physical place of home, fostering deeper social and cultural connections within the arrival place.
This typology forms a community-based service loop and incorporates a variety of architectural interventions and agencies, offering arrival assistance, engagement with the host community, opportunities, integration, joy, and much more.
With these catalysts in Springvale, the idea of Making Heimat will continue to grow, along with a sense of integration, a connection to the city, and a true feeling of being at home.
THE PATCHWORK OF BRUNSWICK DELIGHTS
Name Supervisor: Jinyi Chen Supervisor: John Doyle
This project explores a unique urban compositional strategy inspired by Renaissance art, particularly Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. Located on an abandoned site in Brunswick, the design seeks to create a miniature, heterogeneous world that responds conceptually to the constraints of homogeneous urban development. By integrating diverse elements—prototypes from 3D experiments, insights from Brunswick’s historical context, and materials from the surrounding environment—the project forms a layered and adaptable “urban ensemble.”
Drawing inspiration from Bosch’s use of water as an ordering device, the design creates a sense of unity across diverse spaces, supporting a nonlinear spatial flow. This approach mirrors Bosch’s composition, which harmonizes varied motifs within a single frame. The design combines artistic composition and urban planning to encourage diversity, adaptability, and interaction in urban space, aiming to create a dynamic framework that evolves with the community’s needs.
Ultimately, this project proposes a new model of urbanism—one that transcends functional constraints, challenges uniformity, and celebrates the coexistence of varied cultural and spatial elements within a unified structure.
BOXHILL BRICKWORKS
Jasmine Chung Supervisor: Claire Scorpo
Located on the land of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, Box Hill – once celebrated as “The Garden City of Melbourne” - had to radically shift its demeanor to adapt to the new title as ‘Metropolitan Activity Centre’ under the State Government’s ‘Plan Melbourne’ strategy. Box Hill Brickworks, a heritage preservation site, although abandoned by the government, has recently regained its attention within the community due to future developments - namely the Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) and the Box Hill Redevelopment Masterplan.
With its deep historical roots, Brickworks becomes a catalyst for rethinking Box Hill, where culture is prevalent, but threatened. This project questions the viability of the land’s ecology, passive recreation and communal space that is being swallowed up. As the last greenfield site, an opportunity for a significant impact and change on issues regarding Asian identity, culture and mental health stigma in the community are explored.
This project aims to position architecture as a system of care that can provide a model for tailored physical and mental healthcare and education for young and older generations. It seeks to create an abode for personal occupation and community, individual expression and a welcoming environment to explore and celebrate Asian culture and heritage.
CIVIC EXCHANGES
Emma Clyde Supervisors: Anna Jankovic
Melbourne’s urban and sub-urban identity pivots around its relationship to infrastructure. From energy supply systems, post offices, telephone exchanges and transportation infrastructure. These sites and systems are in a constant state of negotiation with both each other and their users. Yet, these points of exchange are overlooked by static planning schemes and conventional 2-dimensional zoning overlays. Neglecting the opportunity these sites can afford in fostering a new kind of planning hybridity.
This project begins to explore these types of civic exchanges, treating the Fitzroy North Bus Depot (FNBD) as an existing, nodal point of exchange in which to leverage additional civic interventions. Whether that be public services, community spaces or residential propositions. The FNBD has the potential to reinstate the value of negotiation within a newly defined hybridised and transient urban environment.
FIELD OF DREAMS
Name Supervisor: Zephyr Cravino Supervisor: Rodney Eggleston & Mathew Stanley
‘Field of Dreams’ envisions a new typology for student accommodation born at RMIT, designed to combat steadily increasing rates of loneliness and social anxiety amongst our youth. Through fostering intimate moments and spontaneous chance encounters, the architecture becomes a catalyst for connection, inviting exploration and interaction in the labrythine landscape of the infinite field.
Positioned within Bowen Street, the design blurs the line between private and public domain, dispersing amenities throughout the site to promote serendipitous interaction. The architecture is designed to trigger the ‘spark,’ it exists to activate the transient interstice, to unite and to instigate the meeting of the two. Accommodation rises at either end of the street, united by the field which facilitates the fluidity of relationships, allowing residents to migrate between rooms and spaces as their connections evolve and change.
Prioritising the occupation of communal spaces, the private quarters are reduced to essentialsencouraging life to be pushed out into shared environments. Each floor operates as its own microcommunity. Playful circulation paths dissolve boundaries and scattered interventions encourage organic socialisation, easing the awkwardness of initial encounters.
Reflecting the built fabric that the field sits within, the intensity of the existing context becomes the fractured skin of the architecture whilst also facilitating passive surveillance. Situated in a site heavily loaded with architectural language and history, the building seeks to frame the context; the street becomes the artefact and the object of the architecture.
The project reignites the magic of human connection, crafting spaces where the architecture of love thrives amid the complexity of daily life.
Out of Bounds
Jasmine Dickson Supervisor: Claire Scorpo
‘Out of Bounds’ presents a reimagined urban model of suburban growth in Melbourne’s expanding corridor, addressing urban sprawl as an entity, and questioning whether there’s a viable opportunity to stop it, reverse it, or turn it back in on itself. The proposal establishes a highly dense, walkable and cohesive framework adjacent to Pakenham East. And experiments with creating a "wall" of urban development to contain expansion while protecting surrounding landscapes and typical small Australian towns, such as Nar Nar Goon, from the ‘sprawl’.
At the heart of this design is a wildlife corridor, a natural buffer that frames Pakenham East’s eastern edge, preserving green space and maintaining ecological continuity. A central train station anchors walkable paths, connecting residential, commercial, and recreational spaces, while cars are redirected to the town’s edges. Housing typologies range from apartments to compact homes, fostering a sense of community with pedestrian-friendly streets and accessible amenities. A civic center featuring a cricket oval, school, and local businesses creates a social core, inspired by the accessible, community-oriented layout of nearby Nar Nar Goon. This suburban model prioritizes sustainable density over sprawl, integrating livable spaces to create a balanced urban environment that harmonizes with its rural surroundings, attempting to rewrite urban sprawl, and preserve the ‘small Australian’ values so clearly cherished amongst the outer fringe.
Behind the wall, Beyond the river
Displacement results from wars, conflict, famine, a failing government, and disasters. Therefore, it is essential to acknowledge people's needs in these circumstances.
My project is affordable housing with additional community functions and accessibility for people facing displacement. It is on the Government of Defense site, the old ordinance site along the Maribyrnong River. This project explores how a site could be transformed to provide necessities and nourishment for those experiencing withdrawal in an isolated predicament.
Through the development of vertical courtyards and soft grid dwellings, privacy is prioritized for communities in vulnerable circumstances. An essential element considered is the connection to the water in the Maribyrnong River, which has allowed the environment to become a place of healing for residents on the site. Incorporating diverse living arrangements allows for connection on the site. This enables cultural understanding and supports the differences in rituals practiced.
The sites' ability to integrate and provide a diverse community with access to community functions enables engagement for the isolated by providing access to existing facilities and creating more programs that are accessible for the needs of displaced people. It enables a resourceful method and provides knowledge, perspective, and insight into the backgrounds and cultures of those establishing new beginnings in a new environment.
Alicia Emukule Supervisor: Lucinda Mason
Behind the wall
BEYOND THE RIVER
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Alicia Emukule
Lucinda Mason
JOURNEY ALONG THE MARIBYRNONG
‘Wake up’ Bradmill
Mengqiao Fan Supervisor: Graham Crist
In the context of contemporary urbanisation, the population is exhibiting a gradual increase, while housing resources are undergoing a rapid depletion, resulting in a concomitant rise in prices. The reduction in the availability of land for construction will result in an increased demand for architects to undertake the renovation of heritage buildings.
At the abandoned Bradmill textile factory, situated at the corner of Forgery Ave road in Yarraville, a pilot project for the renovation of heritage buildings will reestablish this corner as a regional and representative gathering point.
The proposal responds to the historical context by retaining the exterior walls of the original factory including the graffiti. The aim is to reintroduce new cross-programming that are aligned with contemporary industrial development, and These spaces are to be designed with functionality as the primary determining factor, and the utilisation of space to facilitate the construction of new buildings. This project seeks to integrate the concept of recyclability, and transform agricultural waste into building components through reprocessing. It is proposed that the public be permitted to participate in the building renovation process by manufacturing their own components or textures, which could leave new memories here.
The objective of this transformation is to cultivate a vibrant and cohesive community while respecting Bradmill's complex past. In addition to protecting the true traces of the past, the project encourages the co-creation of new collective memories and their complex interactions with contemporary life.
Tower of All Livings
Name Supervisor: Zihan Fan Supervisor: Roland Snooks
Tower of All Livings envisions architecture not merely as shelter but as a living organism, engaging in a continuous dialogue with the natural world and the complex web of life. This project initiates a transformative journey by reclaiming green waste—ashes and remnants left in the wake of wildfires—and reinterpreting it as a circular, regenerative material that embodies resilience and the cycles of ecological renewal. By integrating biomimetic principles, the design invites architecture to extend beyond static form, becoming a responsive entity that welcomes biotic communities, blurring boundaries between built and natural environments.
Central to this endeavor is the use of AI technology, which enables the simulation of nature’s intrinsic complexity, from cellular structures to expansive ecosystems. These algorithms generate forms and patterns that mimic the adaptive intelligence of nature, guiding spatial arrangements and surface textures to enhance compatibility with organic life. Taking this vision further, the project pioneers methods for translating AI-generated outputs into real-world construction processes through 3D-printed formwork, which brings innovative fabrication techniques to life by shaping complex geometries and supporting organic material integration.
Tower of All Livings transcends conventional architectural roles, embracing a philosophy of coexistence where human presence is in harmony with nature and a vast spectrum of biological life. This ambitious vision not only redefines sustainable architecture but also proposes a framework for future habitats where human, natural, and biotic elements flourish together in a resilient, interdependent ecosystem.
Tower of All Livings
RMIT Master of Architecture // 2024 S2 Major Project
Prof. Roland Snooks // Cathy Zihan Fan
Making visible the invisible
Shruti Ghosh
Supervisor: Anna Johnson
Over the recent decades, as we realise and repent the anthropocentric sentiment which has clouded much of our judgement, rationale and attitude towards those that are not us - not human, we are now reasoning with that past. One where the privileges for the non-human were overshadowed with the privileges for the human. In this journey of compensation, somewhere the core ideal behind what it is that truly needs attention, care and a shared privilege has seemingly been lost.
Much of this anthropocentric guilt has shaped the architecture and its response to the ecology to be carried out at a surface level, where the elimination of a tree on site to make way for a building is often seen to be compensated with the planting of a new tree. Or at a more negligible level –reinstating the saturation of the vegetation by affixing a green wall to the façade of said building.
There often appears to be a void within much of the architecture designed to host many rich landscape sites today, where at a deeper level, the architecture and its essence/tapestry/ struggles to grapple with the deep rooted, complex ecological systems that embody the larger site, space and context it sits amidst. Unlocking/Unveiling these overlooked, deep-rooted ecological and tectonic processes, rituals and patterns that make up the ecosystem shared by all, begins to subsequently emerge/open a new avenue of interaction, exchange and connection – all of which begin to embody values of wellbeing and spiritual restoration for the human, wildlife, flora and deeper tectonics of the earth.
In carrying this sentiment into the ecologically rich and culturally significant landscape of Jells Park, the project reveals a strategy where, rather than wrestling with the ecosystem, the architecture instead becomes an active participant in the site’s shared ecology. A deeper spiritual awareness and sense of wellbeing are then carefully woven into the architectural narrative making these qualities intrinsic to the experience of all who traversing the space – in stillness and in stride.
The architecture is no longer a pedestal for the human. It services the ecology as a complete system. From the airborne bird to the decomposing bacteria.
Its Complicated
Hope Glover Supervisor: Laura Szyman
The location of this place is real and the stories I’ve been told are conflicting. The 12 buildings I produced prior to week 10 were in response to the conflicting stories I heard from locals in Nandaly. The fact is that these are the projects that make up my major project and this one building is the final work.
The fiction is that they have always been in Nandaly. This is the final building. It is a building with tension. The tension between the locals and the indigenous community. It is the tension between a key source of income for the region and the indigenous artist whose house they burned down. It is an empty building. The region is not populous, and it is likely to continue to decline. One day it will be a ruin. It is a building with overlaps as everything that the towns around it need and want, collide in one place. The building is a collision between all of the relevant typologies, but it is a narrative object.
From the drawing that draws from the site. To the response that draws from the drawing. To the narrative amalgamation where all of them come together in one place.
A HEALING WING
Isidora Jakovljevic Supervisor: Laura Szyman
This project envisions a new campus wing for the RMIT Bundoora campus. The project focuses on integrating healing principles into the new campus wing through both the architecture and landscape. The core design principles of the project are centred around three forms of healing: healing through spirituality, healing through science, and healing through connection.
The design approaches these forms of healing in a specific way, creating guidelines that help us understand how healing can be approached comprehensively. The architecture embraces the whole person through spiritual, scientific, and social needs, whilst creating a unified environment supporting multiple levels of well-being.
The project is also located alongside the Keelbundoora Scarred Trees and Heritage Trail, where the architecture establishes an engagement with the natural and cultural heritage of the site, allowing a journey through the campus to emerge.
The Multifaith and Wellbeing Centre anchors the design, providing spaces for prayer, meditation & community gatherings. The surrounding pathways and open spaces leading to a security checkpoint, a public toilet and a seating area and when you look across the road down the familiar crosswalk you will find the existing RMIT Campus and the proposed Learning Hub, creating connection through a link of space that invites spontaneous encounters that ultimately encouraging healing through social connection. Alongside these spaces, the project integrates Research and Healthcare facilities that are designed to foster healing through science. The spaces within the buildings emphasis collaborative learning and discovery, where students, researchers, and staff engage with both clinical & educational pursuits.
167 – 169 Cremorne Street
Cremorne has lived its life in the shadows, squeezed between the Yarra River and Richmond. An inner-city suburb with rich architectural heritage which dates back to early settlement.
As one of the city's key manufacturing hubs, it is home to numerous factories and warehouses that fuelled Melbourne’s economic growth.
Today, Cremorne stands at a crossroads.
Cremorne is a place with history waiting to be told, boarded up factories are a reminder of what once was, a place frozen in time, slowly decaying. However, it is also a place of vibrant potential, which must implement its past. A place with a strong community known for art, manufacturing and hard work. The challenge is not just one of visibility but of identity. Unlike more prominent Melbourne suburbs, Cremorne has struggled to create a distinct presence that draws people in and encourages community engagement.
The project seeks to address this issue, proposing a new urban centre that embraces both its industrial past and its potential for the future. The conversion of 167 - 169 Cremorne Street, a factory—a symbol of Cremorne’s industrial roots—into an extension of Cremorne itself, promoting and inviting the surrounding community, creating a civic spark.
Noah Jaffrey Supervisor: Dr Michael Spooner
Mountains May Depart Cinema - Taiyuan Fertilizer Factory Adaptive Reuse
Tailai Kang Supervisor: Jan Van Schaik
Over the past two decades, the rapid urbanization process has engulfed numerous industrial heritage sites. However, as urbanization reaches a high level and expansion begins to slow, the adaptive reuse of existing architectural heritage has emerged as a pressing issue in the architecture industry Taiyuan Fertilizer Plant, a significant industrial relic from China’s First Five-Year Plan and one of the 156 major projects of that period, faces the risk of abandonment amid industrial transformation. This project envisions converting the Taiyuan Fertilizer Plant into the main venue for the Pingyao International Film Festival, revitalizing this industrial heritage through adaptive reuse.
The proposed transformation integrates the renovation of existing structures, redesign of the site, and selective new construction, bringing new life to the area with a contemporary touch. The design draws inspiration from elements such as movie posters, industrial architecture, and local cultural characteristics, creatively combining these symbols to reflect the vitality that the film industry, as a new economic driver, brings to the city. This project also provides a sustainable model for the preservation and adaptive reuse of industrial heritage.
Mountains May Depart Cinema
Taiyuan Fertilizer Factory Adaptive Reuse
Pingyao International Film Festival
Spatial Intervention
Spatial Intervention powerfully addresses inequalities of resources and space in dense urban environments by reclaiming neglected spaces under Chongqing’s bridges. This project proposes a modular, structural framework over the existing urban network, empowering residents to build and personalize their living spaces with simple, affordable, and mobile components. Each discrete, prefabricated element can be adapted, reconfigured, or transported, offering a flexible, futuristic solution for high-density architecture that challenges traditional dwelling concepts.
At its core, Spatial Intervention introduces a versatile block system where each unit can support multiple programs—co-living, communal spaces, urban farming, and more—allowing any purpose to take place within a single adaptable structure. This approach transforms underutilized areas into sustainable, adaptable environments that evolve with community needs. By integrating energy and water systems, including solar-powered infrastructure and water purification, the project ensures resource self-sufficiency while supporting diverse activities.
Designed as a low-cost, high-quality architectural product, Spatial Intervention addresses urban growth challenges globally, transforming abandoned spaces under bridges into vibrant, resilient urban ecosystems. By redefining mobility and reusability in architecture, this forward-thinking model promotes an equitable, sustainable urban future, bridging the gap between community needs and urban infrastructure.
Chun Ho Lau Supervisor: Professor Alisa Andrasek
MEDIATING THE IN-BETWEEN
Name Supervisor: Taylor Lamb Supervisor: Simone Koch
Architecture, in its “as found” state, serves as an archive that speaks to the resilience and adaptability of the spaces we occupy. This project, located in Southbank, addresses the suburb’s lack of essential community infrastructure by designing a new primary school, community arts hub, and NGV art archive. This inquiry guides my exploration of conservation techniques that challenge traditional restoration methods, focusing on preserving elements in their “as-found” state. Aiming to deepen our appreciation for the dynamic interplay between art and architecture, advocating for a nuanced approach to preservation that values both historical integrity and contemporary relevance.
By revitalizing deteriorated structures, this project preserves their historical essence while addressing sustainability, creating adaptive spaces that harmonize with urban modernization. This approach reframes the tension between heritage preservation and urban expansion, promoting the idea that historic buildings are opportunities for creative endeavours rather than constraints.
Inspired by mythological allegories, philosophical writings, and artistic precedents, the project’s new heritage act principles ensure adaptability to both present and future needs. Drawing on figures like Jane Jacobs and Jorge Otero-Pailos, the act emphasizes dynamic preservation, community involvement, and the coexistence of past and present. By adhering to the new heritage act rules, the project will attempt to exemplify a balanced approach to urban development—one that respects the past while embracing the future.
BETWEEN BEAUCHAMP AND PENDER ST
Elisa Lai Sang Supervisor: Lauren Garner
This project explores the potential to rethink deeply ingrained perceptions of spatial use in Melbourne’s suburbs through a series of interventions. Service laneways, once an integral part of the suburbs’ waste disposal system, now lie in a state of redundancy. This investigation seeks to give a second life to these neglected spaces and how this can create new opportunities for community engagement and urban regeneration.
Through an analysis of existing suburban conditions such as the corner block, backyard, fence and garage, the project proposes a sequence of actions that renegotiates title boundaries, fosters a sense of community and enhances the public realm.
The blurring of boundaries becomes an integral tool in creating an exchange between public and private spaces. For instance, transforming the typical backyard sheds into spaces that can be used a community hubs or for commercial use.
This exploration highlights the underlying potential that comes from reimagining spaces that are so often overlooked. By envisioning a more interconnected suburban fabric, the project aims to create environments that prioritise collaboration and a renewed sense of community
Echoes of Convergence
Name Supervisor: Rui Li Supervisors: Adam Pustola
Box Hill, a suburb of Melbourne, serves as a significant transportation hub and is an ideal location for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD).
When I investigated the traffic situation in Box Hill central, I realized that although buses, trains, trains, and SRLs were all concentrated within this block, the entire transportation system was still scattered. The circulations between different transportation systems are so inconvenient. At the same time, the circulation of pedestrians, private cars, and buses also intersect with each other. This increases the risk of traffic accidents.
To fully explore the potential of Box Hill as a transportation hub, build a complete, compact, and centralized public transportation system, ensure optimal concentration of people, opportunities, and quality housing, create rich functional formats, and provide more urban space for citizens, I have proposed a new Box Hill TOD plan.
The entire project will be divided into two parts: aboveground and underground. The center is a courtyard formed like a crossing. Due to the train platform being about 12 meters underground, I have divided it into 2 levels. Vertical transportation will include escalators, accessible elevators, and large step stairs to replace traditional stairs.
DESIGN HUB LIVE
Menghan Li Supervisors: Patrick Macasaet
Design Hub Live redefines campus architecture to support the evolving landscape of streaming education and the future of learning. As digital platforms reshape how we connect and study, the physical campus serves as a symbolically and materially significant 'mooring' in an increasingly virtual world, fostering vital connections among students, faculty, industry, and the public.
In this design, the building itself acts as a living exhibition, continuously sharing its culture and achievements with the surrounding city. The design process emphasized experimentation with form, structure, and spatial organization to align with this vision. Through iterative attempts, elements such as organic, valley-like atriums and stepped forms emerged, fostering both open and personalized spaces for interaction and reflection.
The building’s façade functions as a visual connector, merging interior activities with the urban landscape, while adaptable ground and interior spaces support individual study, collaborative events, and industry engagement. This layered approach promotes transparency and flexibility, allowing the campus to remain responsive to new ideas, technologies, and creative endeavors.
6 Feet Within
"6 Feet Within" is a modern cemetery concept designed to address the space constraints of the neighboring Preston Cemetery. Located on a former solar farm site, the project preserves existing trees, weaving the structure around them to harmonize with the landscape. Spanning three underground levels, the cemetery takes the form of a spiraling, flat ramp with a gentle 1:200 gradient, creating an accessible, meditative descent.
The innovative burial approach relies on "concrete lumps," thick-walled structural columns that double as tree planters, burial spaces, and structural supports. Each hollow concrete lump is filled with nutrient-rich soil, hosting a tree that grows from the buried remains. Decomposable sacks encase the bodies, allowing natural decomposition to nourish the trees, merging life and death in a regenerative cycle.
A central entrance building on the south side includes facilities for cremation, funerals, and parking, with a pathway linking to Preston Cemetery. This project reimagines burial by promoting eco-conscious practices, aiming to transform our perceptions of death and provide a sustainable alternative to traditional cemeteries. Through its integration with nature and thoughtful land use, "6 Feet Within" offers a serene, forward-thinking solution for honoring life’s final stage.
Bowen Li
Supervisors: Jan Van Shaik
6 FEET WITHIN
Preston Cemetery Vertical Extension
New Sai Wan
Lin Supervisors: Dr Nic Bao
Amid the relentless pace of urbanization, many infrastructures become relics, unable to adapt to shifting societal needs. This project acts as a social blueprint, fusing architectural innovation with pressing social responsibility to address the critical housing needs in Hong Kong’s Sai Wan Estate. At the heart of the project is a reimagining of residential space that emphasizes both social cohesion and architectural resilience, aiming to meet the challenges of overcrowding, lack of privacy, and insufficient community resources that confront the estate's residents.
Inspired by Hong Kong’s bamboo scaffolding techniques, the design employs an “exoskeletal” framework that respects the estate’s original structure while expanding community spaces. This modular, adaptable approach integrates additional vertical and horizontal spaces, optimizing natural light and ventilation through calculated “solar incisions.” By introducing bridge-like rooms and layered communal spaces, the project redefines neighborhood dynamics, encouraging interactions that bolster community bonds and cater to diverse family structures.
This transformation prioritizes the well-being of residents by enhancing accessibility and providing essential amenities within a sustainable framework. The anticipated benefits extend beyond improved living conditions, offering a viable model for future urban redevelopment. The project’s approach— balancing heritage preservation with modern functionality—illustrates a path toward more resilient, inclusive urban environments, contributing not only to the architectural profession but also to the broader social fabric of Hong Kong. In this way, the project underscores the power of architecture to transcend physical boundaries, serving as a testament to sustainable and human-centered urban growth.
Jingchen
The School, the Fence and the Water Bubbler
Architecture as a support structure are the infrastructural systems intertwined with architectural systems that prompts action within the townspeople. Architectural prompts are at the scale of a connection. It is the water bubbler, and its water pipe, the water tank and the gutter, the battery powered solar panel, the care worker to the elderly, the library to the child, the church to the community.
The fence is a prominent piece of infrastructure found in remote conditions, one that is historically related with notions of productivity and boundaries of care within a landscape.
The water bubbler, evolved from a well, in which all 4 of its sides were unhindered had once gathered people around itself. Now tucked away in cornices of buildings, it has lost its social polemic.
The project embeds actions of care and inspires the need for educational systems in regional townships that are in decline. Elmhurst is one of 24 other regional townships around Victoria with an aging population, and the condition of a closed down school. This project links the necessity of a school to a child, as water to a township.
The fence and the water bubbler are deployed with a looseness yet stoic functionality at the scale of five programs that target population thresholds to eventually support the re-opening of the school. The school as the gateway for a self-sustaining town. The Bush Nursing Centre, several aged care units, care worker homes, a train station and the school extension reverse the cycle of perpetual decline. Understanding that a new connection emerges from the success of the former
Reframing our view of waste, and education beyond the walls of a classroom. The fence is just an offset of a wall, and the water bubbler is just one connection point.
Hannah Lim Supervisor: Simone Koch
Veiled in Rhythm
Yinjie Lu Supervisor: Dr. Nic Bao
In the southwest of China, there is a city called "Chongqing" that has developed rapidly in the past 10 years. Chongqing has become a new first-tier city in China. In the most prosperous area of Chongqing's city center, there is an urban village called "Shiba Ti". The buildings here have been in disrepair for a long time and there are many safety hazards.
Because of the particularity of Chongqing's history, there are many local fireworks street scene cultures, and there are also many indigenous people living here, so the government has not been able to have the opportunity to renovate here.
My design mainly explores the reconstruction of the urban village on the basis of not destroying the urban culture, and explores a reconstruction method that can be applied to the entire community while ensuring that the lives of the indigenous people are not destroyed. In the design, we try to add some novel modern architectural language to traditional Chinese architecture. Then let the whole building blend with the new building.
I will start with a traditional building that has collapsed due to disrepair. I will transform and rebuild it. From this architectural experiment, I will find the balance between modern architectural language and traditional architectural style.
Void Pulse is an architectural manifestation of the intersection among queer nightlife, techno culture, and Béton Brut. Informed by eclectic architectural styles, the project reimagines techno nightclub typologies - emerging as a mythologised refuge of pulsating beats soaring within the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. This project responds to the absence of subcultures intersecting with Brutalist architecture in Australia – and therefore derives itself from the radical clubbing scenes of Berlin and former Eastern Bloc capitals.
Layered semiotics embedded within the tectonics of this speculative project enable Void Pulse to embody both defiance and sanctuary. Opposing itself to reclaiming pre-existing architectures or attempting to create a “new” architecture, the project engages in the process of “recasting” recognisable architectural forms that exist in Australia. These familiar elements are adapted to encapsulate ideologies of escapism, sanctuary, and resistance. Each space is sonically and atmospherically tuned, providing ritualistic experiences that offers a euphoric escape from the confines of conventional society.
Fundamentally, Void Pulse stands as a testament to the transformative power of architecture to create spaces that celebrates the complexities of identity, community, and resistance – inviting all to transcend conventional confines and ascend into a space where euphoria and resilience converge.
Void Pulse
Indra Liusuari Supervisor: Laura Bailey
Squatters Memorial Hall
The idea of housing being inspired by squatters is in some ways oxymoronic, the squatter tends not to build, in fact the ideal architectural project for a squatter is most often one undertaken by someone else. This may be true for a solitary squatter, the history of group squats showcase a level of community not seen within traditional architecture, along with a greater level of independence and autonomy. Within this project, collaboration between a local government and an anarchist communist group that deeply believes in autonomy within a collective.
The necessity of the collective is seen within large scale squats throughout history, but also is evident through the growing number of co-ops within recent years, the co-op protects each member by sharing the cost burden associated with property, however within a building inspired by a squat this is heavily exaggerated.
“Squatters Memorial hall” sees s squatter takeover of the long idle, Sailors and Soldiers Memorial Hall, transforming the old hall into a new union headquarters with dwellings about.
Name Supervisor: Chet Maher Supervisor: Graham Crist
Connecting Burwood
“Connecting Burwood” is a redevelopment of proposed suburban rail loop station project in Burwood. It refocuses the station development on community engagement, aimed at developing stronger community members. Regardless of the stations formation the design of the centre and surrounding park engages current and future uses.
The proposed Burwood SRL station development lacks community-focused spaces, especially those that foster social connection without financial barriers. While the new infrastructure will enhance connectivity and support population growth, it does not adequately address the need for public, noncommercial spaces where residents can gather and interact. This gap is critical, particularly given the presence of young Australians and students in the area due to nearby universities and schools.
The station design will prioritize community engagement by guiding users through public spaces, rather than commercial areas, similar to the Melbourne Central station layout. Testing the immersive community program to create better community engagement, using the format of an immersive retail experience but reconceptualised.
This approach ensures that commuters are naturally drawn into the community centre, encouraging them to utilize the facilities and engage with the local environment. The station itself will reflect the atmosphere of the centre, creating a cohesive and inviting experience for all users. There is also opportunity for immediate exit from the station if train users are uninterested. But otherwise, the first look of Burwood when travelling across Melbourne’s train network will consist of a welcoming atmosphere for community connection.
The park that develops after exiting the building is aimed to allow guests to further interact with the site. Drawing the community to connect to the environment in Burwood and beloved community trail, Gardener’s Creek. The park and community centre supports the residential development that follows the stations conception but can stand alone to engage its current users. Facilitating deeper community connections, new or evolving.
Kate McKay Supervisor: Jan Van Schaik
Loughlin O’Kane Supervisor: Anna Jankovic
Architecture’s current material paradigm is heavily disassociated from the material reality of its formation. There is a distinct disregard for the places in which the matter of architecture comes from and the effect it has on that material landscape and the broader territory. It is deemed not in the scope of the object of architecture. Instead, we elect to view a sanitised product devoid of a material history. This disregard has the profession as a significant component of biodiversity and climate collapse of which our industry holds a level of culpability. To reroute, we must consider the shadow places in which architecture depends for formation as part the lexicon and responsibility of the architect.
This project attempts to figure how architecture might begin to shift our current material culture, examining the labour of the architect and how we might find agency here. It rejects an idea of passivity in this role nor sees it exonerated as one lacking sufficient agency
+_ is the pursuit of seeing the additive object and the subtractive object of architecture, acknowledging the effects of both. The project adopts a framework of the path of material from production, to market, to assembly it steps through a series of details that speak broadly to the material matter, material landscapes and our impact on them. It seeks to question how architecture might express a broader care through its labour and seed a less destructive industry
BIO- FAB TECTONICS
Christine O’Neill Supervisor: Roland Snooks
Bio- Fab Tectonics is a body of design research project which investigates biopolymer gels and hempcrete, the application of 3d additive printing and casting strategies. These strategies have been explored through the development of complex methodologies, digital technologies and advanced fabrication techniques.
Bio- Fab Tectonics speculates on possibilities of bio-material architectural outcomes and fabrication strategies. These are demonstrated through one iteration, as a hybrid multi- biomaterial facade system.
This research is driven by process methodology, explored through the application of material and tectonics, aiming to find a sympathetic and complementary relationship between bio-materiality, articulation and fabrication.
As emerging architects, we are feeling the ramifications of unsustainable materials in architecture. There is a renewed interest in circular bio-based design. Although there is an increased interest in circular bio-design in architecture, what are the implications on architecture of these emerging materials and in architectural applications?
Between Two Towers
Parameswaran Supervisor: Lauren Garner
My Project, Between Two Towers, started as a passion project to merge Architecture with Film Creation. Creating a story was always at the center of the project. In the beginning, the project was a story of What If? What if an architect started looking at designs like a filmmaker would?
Cut to Week 15, The project evolved in a not-so-direct path into an experiential story between two landmarks of an old outer Melbourne Town. The two towers, (one literal and one metaphorical) are two of Croydon town center’s most significant, cultural and infrastructural locations. This Project exists as the experience of someone moving from the first point (Devon Street Car Park) to the culturally significant second point (The Oval).
Akshayan
In the Best Interests of
Jaden Park Supervisor: Vicky Lam
In the Best Interests of envisions an architectural consequence that emerges when the best interests of the developer and homeowner aren’t necessarily compromised in favour of the necessary good. Rather, the architect is tasked with a formidable attempt at navigating the neoliberal greed of investors and the equitable needs of housing to craft subjectively valuable lifestyles (and capital assets) for both socioeconomic extremes.
Where Jack Self advocates for abolishing the current homeownership loop with a novel “postcapitalist” framework, this project emerges as a response to our housing crisis by instead seeking to capitalise on capitalism. It diagrams a logistical masterplan that subsidises an affordable housing quota through leveraging the manufactured values of real estate.
Sited at the tip of the Collins Wharf peninsula in the Docklands, water-locked along three borders and isolated to transport networks, it replaces two of the four upcoming apartment developments with a precinct where multi-million dollar marina townhouses coexist directly parallel to an inner lining of courtyard-facing housing units. It concentrates Melbourne’s occupant demographics into a microcosm of four distinct housing typologies in super proximity, curating each to variable levels of adjacency, access, and amenity. In delineating exclusive boundaries yet establishing porous borders, it is a suggestive provocation for our emerging urban outlook.
Temple in the City and Temple of the Future
Zhengqian Peng Supervisor: Lucinda Mason
My project “Temple in the City and Temple of the Future”, rooted in my hometown in China, reimagines a Daoist temple for the present and future, merging traditional spirituality with contemporary architectural thinking. This project challenges traditional temple design by examining the ceremony of a temple visit and reinterpreting its rituals. The goal is to create a more interactive and immersive experience for visitors. Drawing on Bernard Tschumi's idea that 'there is no space without event,' I explore how the temple journey can be divided into distinct spatial fragments. These moments of compression and expansion reshape the visitor’s journey, offering a dynamic and unique experience of the temple.
The design balances dualities, such as sacred and secular, natural and artificial, and spiritual hub and urban space. This approach aims to create a new kind of temple experience that reflects the Daoist principle of yin and yang. In a world where productivity often overshadows spirituality, the project also raises the question about the role of sacred spaces in our cities. It proposes a non-denominational area for public contemplation and reflection. Rather than offering an escape from reality, this space integrates a sense of the sacred within the urban environment. The result is a versatile, open area that connects the city with the spiritual, encouraging a deeper engagement with our surroundings.
PUBLIC RESURGENCE
Daniel Phillips
Supervisor: Liam Oxlade & Olivia O’Donnell
Public Resurgence: a reckoning bought about by the government’s decision to undermine its public infrastructure, seeking to recontextualise the needed amenity to maintain impactful public housing within Victoria’s public housing network & addressing many of the issues impacting residents from the big housing build.
Rewinding the government’s decision to retire, demolish and sell a public housing tower – the Inkerman Street tower, located in St. Kilda. Proposing an outcome that ensures the retention of resident’s homes, intentionally shifting the focus to prioritise models of care and re-investment. Focusing on the intersectionality between residents of the tower and the publicness the tower requires in order to succeed, converging to create outcomes that benefit the needs of residents’ whilst maintaining the value needed to contribute to a public good.
Grabbling with the limitations that face the tower, retrofitting & proposing strategies that encourage the negotiation of space between residents and the public, destigmatising relationships ingratiating all as valuable members of the community. Encouraging a model where social programs allow for the re-investment back into facilitating continual growth, maintenance & repair which will be required to ensure the livelihood needed for the tower’s resurgence.
THE GOAT base camp
Anna Polok Supervisor: Rodney Eggleston & Matthew Stanley
THE GOAT base camp proposes a multi-functional master plan to rejuvenate Natimuk, a small town in regional Victoria. Rural areas are facing economic challenges and population decline. Taking advantage of the nearby Mount Arapiles, a popular climbing destination, the proposal catalyses change. Instead of serving as a transient gateway, this proposal integrates visitors into the town, fostering local engagement and economic benefit. Inspired by rural vernacular architecture, the plan introduces a series of infrastructural elements along Natimuk's main street in four phases: a bus terminal, accommodation facilities, a community hub, and a climbing tower
Each element addresses the specific needs of Natimuk’s diverse community, including farmers, climbers, and artists, while creating pathways for visitor interaction. The design encourages longer stays, boosting local business and enhancing community interaction. By relocating the campground from Mount Arapiles to town, the project seeks to reduce environmental pressure on the park, promoting its rewilding.
The modular framework is adaptable, accommodating different functions and seasonal events. Inspired by the industrial and agricultural character of the region, the design densifies the main street, encouraging pedestrian engagement. Ultimately, this project aspires to establish Natimuk as a sustainable, community-driven destination where nature and culture intersect, fostering both tourism and local identity.
CTRL + ALT + ESCAPE
Name Supervisor: Scott Prestidge Supervisor: Roland Snooks
This project challenges conventional notions of authorship in architecture, questioning contemporary perceptions of designing through artificial intelligence. By focusing on the concept of precedent imitation, CTRL + ALT + ESCAPE leverages AI tools to rapidly generate, iterate, and refine designs that reinterpret architectural structures often relegated to functionality alone. Through transparent and traceable processes, this project aims to reinterpret Soho’s cast iron district’s fire escapes, not just as functional necessities but as aesthetic and additive interventions.
At its core this project delves into how authorship is perceived within contemporary Architectual design. Processes and iterations aim to blur the importance of self authorship and instead places importance on perceived authorship. This project is an instance of an iteration taken to fruition, emerging from a process that aims to manipulate and hybridize precedent to produce architecture that both honors and exceeds the original. Authorship becomes less about a singular vision and more about a collaborative unfolding between human and machine, creating architecture that is informed by both tradition and innovation.
Shellberite, Mate
Charlie Reinhardt Supervisor: Simon Drysdale
This project begins with two questions regarding Australia’s identity, what story do we want to tell ourselves and how do we go about telling that story? To enable this question, a hypothetical was undertaken. A new National border between Western Australia (now Westralia) and Australia. The split is formed out of a seperation between the Democracy and the ever increasing corporatocracy Westralia now positioned as a country with heavily vested interests in the corporate and global economies, and the Australian side heavily invested in the local. With this new border, the existing border crossing along the Nullarbor Plain was zoomed into. This border crossing forces each nation to project an idea of themselves in the context of the remote landscapes of the Nullarbor plain and the new significance of the cartographic line separating Australia and Westralia.
Who gets to decide this story? How do we preference one story over another? Do stories have hierarchies? The Golden Record sent out in 1977, showcased a list of Earth’s life and culture. The Nullarbor plain in this context is like space, the two centres (Perth and Canberra) must contend with producing a golden record to send out to this remote context. This project delves into the complexities and contradictions of the centres of power, which through my investigation, are drawn more vividly at the edge.
Must’ve... Should’ve... Could’ve
Documents which govern public school infrastructure are iterated yearly, becoming a palimpsest of risk-averse requirements which constrain architectural agency and result in pragmatic and repetitive outcomes. This project questions the perception of risk and if such cautious risk management is over determining the benefit and undermining the good which can be caused.
The profession intrinsically understands that the language with which you design a building changes a building. The layering of standards, forms, schedules, specifications, and drawings result in a building which is experienced formally rather than as a means of information transfer - especially in the case of children and schools.
The language of the profession and educational authorities is often inaccessible to those it serves: children. This project aims to redefine these boundary objects by placing the user, children, at the center of the design, by using narrative literature to form schools aiming to evoke sensory delight and invite children to appraise their environment and dare to take a risk.
The school performs compliance on the public perimeter but as the occupant progresses throughout the school, the action begins to rise, the spaces become less familiar, movement, interaction and agency is encouraged. The interventions provide affordances that expand what behaviors are possible within the regularity of the educational environment. Sensory seeking is celebrated, investigation is encouraged, play is inevitable.
As architects, we are presented with both power and responsibility to create spaces which are centered around who they are for and their diverse needs. Must’ve, Should've, Could’ve interrogates attitudes, approaches and engrained presumptions within school design. Challenging the hierarchical imbalances that can often dominate and overshadow the architectural profession.
Sienna Scott Supervisor: Laura Bailey
LITHIC EMERGENCE
My architectural project explores an innovative approach to addressing urban sprawl in Chile by reimagining high-density living on steep, rugged terrains. Drawing inspiration from Chile’s rich mining heritage and the intricate beauty of its mountainous landscapes, this project envisions architecture that is monolithic yet organic, rooted in lithic and tectonic aesthetics.
The design proposes structures that blend seamlessly with the natural environment, emerging from the terrain rather than disrupting it. This is achieved through advanced construction methods, such as 3D printing, that allow for immersive and adaptable spaces reflecting geological narratives.
The proposal does not aim to replace existing informal settlements (campamentos), but rather draws inspiration from their adaptive spirit to develop a forward-thinking architectural language. The concept emphasizes residential and mixed-use spaces that leverage verticality without presenting as vertical sprawl. Integrated into mountain slopes, these structures include spaces carved into the rock, serving various infrastructure needs and embracing natural forms to create functional yet atmospheric environments.
By focusing on the philosophical essence of blending built forms with rugged terrain, the project challenges conventional urban expansion. It suggests that architecture can exist as an extension of its environment, echoing Chile’s landscape and mineral identity, while addressing the need for sustainable and harmonious urban growth.
Andy Sanhueza Smith Supervisor: Alisa Andrasek
Ambitious Acts
Ambitious Acts examples the fallacy and reality of communicating architecture to the public and to the profession. It is placed upon the development of the city that constantly disrupts our ability to adapt to its change, all whilst missing the opportunity to give back to the local as well as the delight in the architectural prospect.
Placed on the corner of Queen St and Franklin, 3 parcels are set to become a developers dream in the shape of a hotel, this current model privatises the space and adds to the plethora of skyscrapers across Melbourne's skyline. Assuming that we can do more, the proposed buildings combine an apartment block, student accommodation and public square.
We are victim and witness to the events of the built environment, and Ambitious Acts is a collated attempt to example what is currently the model of development as an architectural process and its product as a public experience. The process of the project examines the project itself, when we engage with how a building comes into fruition, we are given a chance to convey our ability as image makers. Faced within limitations of a singular individual, a time frame and a heritage site, the process was to build a building that reimagined its potency as a piece of architecture whilst also providing a framework for the public and the concept for development.
The project is not about the success of the building but recognition of the inevitable (of development), and using the inevitable to our best ability, transforming it into something like an exhibition of what we can see and what we understand of architecture.
Name Supervisor: Imogen Smith Supervisor: Lauren Garner
Luminark (Lumin+Ark)
In Melbourne's CBD, the drive to maximize residential density has often compromised social connection and community spirit, with rapid growth leading to limited sunlight access and reduced vibrancy. This project seeks to reverse that trend by introducing innovative spaces that enhance both residential living and community engagement, turning the challenges of restricted amenity into opportunities for connection and rejuvenation.
The design includes a sun and star bathing area that evokes a summer sky in winter, offering warmth and brightness, and transforms into a cool, starlit space in summer. A shaded outdoor cinema enables daytime screenings, while an artificial stargazing zone allows for a rare view of the stars, despite urban light pollution. An intimate gig venue with headphone listening creates a shared yet personal musical experience.
Lastly, a library archive collects and preserves abandoned books, creating a peaceful sanctuary for reflection. By reclaiming darkness as a tool for innovation, the project revitalizes Melbourne’s urban landscape, fostering connection, well-being, and a unique experience of place.
Name Supervisor: Chotipong Thititum Supervisor: Peter Knight
In Melbourne's CBD, the push to maximize residential density often comes at the cost of social connection and community spirit, within new developments and surrounding areas. Rapid growth has issues like limited sunlight of vibrancy. This project aims to reverse that trend by incorporating strategies that enhance both residential living and community engagement, turning the challenges posed by reduced amenity in neighboring buildings into opportunities for innovation and improvement.
Mindscape Sanctuary
Name Supervisor: Yijing Su Supervisor: Simon Drysdale
In the heart of the bustling city, this peoject stands as a sanctuary for those seeking relief from the relentless pace of urban life. Far from offering a temporary escape, this wellness hub is cra��ed to support true, las��ng well-being combining the principles of biophilic design and neuroscience to address mental, physical, and social health.
Imagine stepping into a world where nature and community converge: lush greenery, natural light, and calming sensory elements surround you. From the Respite Hotel for res��ul short- and long-term stays to Traveler’s Aid for those needing immediate support, Mindscape Santuary offers diverse pathways to recharge and reconnect.
The central Five-Senses Therapeu��c Courtyard invites you to engage with soothing sights, sounds, and scents, while Counseling and Mental Health Services provide space for both personal reflec��on and group healing. Community takes root in shared spaces—like the community kitchen, medita��on areas, and riverfront courtyard—encouraging connec��on and belonging.
Mindscape Santuary isn’t just a place; it’s a nurturing environment that fosters resilience. Here, visitors can find a rhythm that harmonizes with their own, crea��nga founda��on for well-being that endures beyond the walls of this unique urban retreat.
Patient Bodies
Isabella Westwood Supervisor: Vicky Lam
"A disability critique on formalism would question the values instilled into the concept of form itself as a type of experience…" Gissen, David. 2023. The Architecture of Disability. U of Minnesota Press.
In an environment of ‘Codes’ and ‘regulation,’ the nature of the profession is to pursue our conceptual ideas and design for the bodies we have at the forefront of our being; leaving behind the empathy required when faced with something un-default.
What is default becomes fatalistic to the bodies that exist in difference – the default through the lens of architecture treats these conditions as ‘passable requirements’ rather than essential design ideas.
‘Patient Bodies,’ begins to describe the default characteristics of the Architectural profession regarding disablement and impairment.
These are Bodies that have endured and avoided, patiently existing in a world that constructs and extrudes without them.
Offering something convalescent through design without reducing these bodies to a series of issues requiring solutions.
Sink City
Name Supervisor: Olivia Wright Supervisor: Peter Brew
In his poem ‘Song of Requisition’, Yu Xin wrote; “One whom picks the fruiting shall think about the tree, one whom drinks water, must not forget where it came from.”
This is Sink City.
A place where we hope to forget the joinery that thoughtfully conceals the sinks connection to the city, and rather reveal it. A place where we go down below the surface, to see that we exist far more connected than we are prompted to do so.
In Sink City, we see the architect as a magician. Whilst really looking at the ordinary, instead of a disappearing act, we realise that half of our world, as we currently know it is already missing. And this world that we know has the capacity to support it. If we are willing to look at it differently, we could see different things. Things that are already there, we just need to be willing to recognise them.
Echoes of Tomorrow
Name Supervisor: Yushan Wang Supervisor: Anna Johnson
“Echoes of tomorrow” is a revitalization program for the historic village of Furong in China. The site is in Furong Town, Zhejiang Province, China, a village with a history of more than 1,000 years.
In the process of industrialization and urbanization over the past few years, traditional villages have disappeared in large numbers. In fact, most or more of the population in China still lives in rural areas. And this change has also led to more young people leaving their hometowns and going to big cities to work and earn money, and the resident population of these traditional villages is gradually decreasing, which makes the traditional villages lack of motivation to maintain their own development. Since most of the people in the village are elderly and children, the project will focus on the needs of the elderly and children. It will present an open mixed-age community to promote communication among people and avoid the formation of an age gap.
The villagers lacked awareness of cultural heritage protection, which invisibly destroyed the cultural treasures and made it difficult to continue. The backward development and stagnation of thinking have led to the villagers' powerful desire to improve their lives and live in buildings like city dwellers.
The whole project hopes to reflect the recall and respect for the past, while also showing the expectation and yearning for the future. It conveys the balance and connection between cultural heritage and modern life, reflects the importance of tradition in the new environment, and provides a better and more convenient living environment for those who remain in the past.
ANATOMY OF A SUBURB
Mackenzie Hume Supervisor: Simone Koch
The potential of sustainable suburbs lies in resisting the need to fix, instead employing a hybrid approach of architecture and urban planning to positively disrupt, shift values and help to dwell. Architecture is the enabling catalyst not an ultimate solution to South Parkville’s dense aging population. A lack of local services undermining its walkability, salvageable by de-glorifying the perfect suburb and implementing adaptive re-use land strategies.
Negotiating excess and access in the in-between moments via a reversed density model where the elderly are rehomed into a central ‘village’. An influx of hospice, surgery recovery, retirement living and childcare within a 170m2 block is the epicentre of the scheme, meant to support and heal through occupying discarded backyards, dilapidated sheds and overlooked laneways. Grocery stores, pharmacies, cafes, public toilets, book shops and shop houses also generated to build a network of symbiotic services and incidental moments.
An urban ecosystem which glorifies the mundane. The delivery of this scheme is one of generosity at its core, demonstrating how architecture can care for people and place as much as society provides for it. A transferrable system employed through integration with a remaining purity. An enhanced suburb of blurred edges and gentle invitations.
Formless
“Formless”, based on the traditional Chinese concept of "Shanshui," aims to create a highly adaptable complex of "fuzzy architecture." Located at Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market, this project serves as a counter-response to the proposed $1.7 billion development plan for the site. In today’s urban environment, high-density areas are often filled with repetitive "shoebox" buildings, forming a monotonous "white noise" skyline. This project takes this phenomenon as its starting point, drawing from elements of "Shanshui" culture to create a structure that "disappears" into the natural environment, seamlessly blending in and breaking the traditional definition of architectural form.
The project is envisioned as a sustainable, dynamic, and adaptive structure that can better respond to future urban needs and the challenges posed by climate change. The overall structure is composed of a series of stacked and offset cubic module frames, forming an organic architectural shape. This design adds depth to the building and breaks away from the typical monolithic structure. By stacking these modules in various orientations, the concept of "Fuzzy edges" is created, blurring the boundaries between internal and external spaces and encouraging interaction between occupants and the environment.
CLT, used as the primary building material, aligns with sustainable building practices, providing the necessary structural strength for high-rise construction. The modular layout creates multiple outdoor spaces, such as terraces, balconies, and small gardens, allowing occupants to access open-air environments at various heights, enhancing their sensory experience with the building and improving the quality of life in high-density urban settings. With its multifunctional design and sustainable material choices, the building is no longer just a space to house people but becomes part of the urban ecosystem, forming a vibrant "Vertical community."
Name Supervisor: Yonghong Ye Supervisor: Professor Alisa Andrasek
Sub(P)-STATION
Name Supervisor: Yao Xiao Supervisor: Dr Nic Bao
Sub(P)-station is a substation building renovation project located in Shenzhen, China. My design hopes to change the negative image of the original site, explore the possibility of integrating the substation site and facilities into the urban landscape, and help the building integrate into the site environment and residents' lives.
Substations are important infrastructure that benefit society and serve citizens. The power supply radius of a 110 kV substation is about 1500m. If it exceeds this range, it may lead to reduced power quality and unstable voltage. Which means that substations and related facilities are widely distributed within the city. However, these sites and buildings refuse to integrate into the urban environment and public life. These building volumes are usually enclosed or surrounded by walls.
In the process of site renovation and design, this project determined the development focus of the project by analyzing the site's environmental factors. Open some areas and contents of the building to the city and nearby residents. Trying to dispel the negative image of substations in the minds of the public. In terms of the building's form and design language, we fully refer to the site environment and adjacent building features and integrate them into the architectural form to increase the integration of the site and the environment. Transforming the substation into a docking station gives the community a new function. The substation is no longer a place that people are afraid of, but a place where the public must visit to say ’What's up’.
Homes @ Hoddle
Name Supervisor: Aoxiang Zheng Supervisor: Jan Van Schaik
Homes @ Hoddle reimagines urban housing on public land, offering an inclusive, multi-ownership community within a continuous green landscape. Moving beyond conventional block layouts, this high-density development disperses smaller buildings across a park-like setting, forming a "village" where architecture and nature coexist seamlessly. Each building reflects its ownership model—Built-to-Sell, Build-toRent, Affordable, or Social Housing—yet connects through a network of shared pathways, green spaces, and social amenities, fostering walkability and environmental sustainability.
By redistributing density and blending the boundaries between housing types, the project creates a unified, resilient urban ecosystem. Distinct yet harmonious façades signify each ownership type, erasing visible divides and promoting community cohesion. Shared outdoor areas, communal facilities, and micro-communities encourage social interaction while maintaining the privacy essential for high-density living.
Financially sustainable through cross-subsidization, this model ensures longterm affordability and inclusivity, making it a replicable prototype for future urban redevelopment. Homes @ Hoddle is not merely a housing solution; it’s a transformative approach that respects Collingwood's social fabric, offering a welcoming, adaptable space where residents can live, grow, and connect. This project sets a precedent for inclusive, nature-integrated urban living, redefining high-density development as a space of belonging and community.
SYSTEM OVERRIDE
Name Supervisor: Sienna Ectoros Supervisor: Dr Michael Spooner
An oeuvre of false starts and culminative conclusions, this project’s curiosity is piqued by the prospect of how the discontinuation of one thing might act as a means of illuminating the invention of the next thing. Caught amongst the tension between evasion and indulgence, this thesis begins by revisiting a series of architectural projects, relocating them, identifying their most successful aspects and then blending them as a way of observing how buildings sit within and shape the spaces around them.
Occupying the remains of the Old Melbourne Gaol and in pursuit of a new RMIT University gateway, these iterative evaluations begin to manifest as a microcosm of the campus. This constant reworking not only considers how all things are subject to change through time as cultural and social needs develop but introduces a model for how an architect might wrestle with evolving client briefs, regulatory frameworks and unstable building typologies in conjunction with the delivery of public good. A constant reflection emerges, creating a condition that is continuously reframed, the problem reintroduced, and the system overridden in an attempt to extract the project's full potential which might then recommend a model for care within architecture.
TECTONIC RESILIENCE
Zeke Zhang Supervisor: Alisa Andrasek
Tectonic Resilience presents a scalable approach to resilient urban redevelopment, using Yutie Village in Chongqing as a model. Isolated on a steep hillside near the city’s core, Yutie Village faces social and physical detachment, leading to the abandonment of much of its buildings. Government demolition plans risk erasing the village’s unique cultural heritage. This project addresses these challenges through a multi-resolution framework that integrates urban, human, and material dimensions into a cohesive, adaptable system.
Inspired by organic systems, the design operates across scales, with each scale addressing specific issues to create a unified whole. Modular components of sustainable materials like cross-laminated and recycled timber enable gradual, eco-conscious transformation that respects the village’s historic character. This incremental approach revitalizes Yutie Village, preserving its identity while enhancing functionality.
The proposed framework establishes a resilient system that adapts to diverse topographies and cultural contexts, offering a scalable model for sustainable urban development. Through this project, Tectonic Resilience provides a solution that not only aims to rejuvenate Yutie Village but also serves as a universally applicable, adaptable urban model.
NOT FOR SALE
Not For Sale describes an architectural model of re-inserting publicness into the big housing build redevelopment scheme by acknowledging the pre-existence of public land.
This project is not a solution to the supply-demand shortage and does not propose an alternative to the state-led erasure of public land, but instead speculates a formal condition that nostalgically nods to the presence of land that was once publicly owned.
Not For Sale makes some assumptions including the significance of public land as a site for recreation and interaction among community. It draws tangents between public land as a necessary condition for thriving communities to develop and public housing as an important vehicle for the inclusion of vulnerable communities into desirable and well-connected inner-city locations.
Although this project does not propose to reclaim any land to the public realm, it instead forces newly constructed and privately owned community housing to behave in public ways, fostering a sense of community among residents, neighbours and passers-by, all while critiquing the state-led erasure of public housing land.
Name Supervisor: Georgia Hunt Supervisor: Vicky Lam
If architecture is a movie, then the destruction would be a tragedy Twin City explores the tension of preservation and legacy. Pushing the boundaries through exploring the fabric of the city, where the site of intervention sits next to the Nicholas Building. The project started as an extension to a decaying building, broken tiles and faded colours.
Through an extensive research of the city, uncovering history, recounts and photographs. The project explores a range of time from pre-colonial to the future. What becomes a restoration of the past condition to the future of the city. Twin City is an archive focusing on the preservation of architecture history
The design is influenced by the urban context and contrasts from the Hoddle Grid. Six axises converge to the single point with a palimpsest of records of maps extends vertically from the site. The new archive follows the typology of the Nicholas Building through its form, circulation, courtyard and facade.
The archive building connects to the Nicholas Building and extending the legacy while on a crucial civic site it creates a new monument for the public as it welcomes the entrance from the city.
Twin City
Willie Liew Supervisor: Adam Pustola
QiongYu Retret
Name Supervisor: Renling Zhang Supervisor: Peter Knight
My project is a civic and cultural hub in Kaifeng City, designed to reconnect the city’s modern identity with its historical roots in the Northern Song Dynasty. Situated near iconic landmarks like the Long Ting Pavilion and Qingming Festival Landscape Garden. The site serves as a symbolic and functional bridge between heritage and contemporary urban life. My design addresses Kaifeng’s evolving urban landscape, balancing a modern architectural language with traditional Chinese spatial principles.
The landscape seamlessly connects the proposed building with the surrounding heritage buildings, incorporating elements such as symbolic moat that recalls ancient city defences while offering accessibility. The architectural form layers a wave-like roof that echoes the mountain forms in traditional Chinese paintings, while a rectangular modern volume on top represents the city’s forwardlooking identity. This duality Honors Kaifeng's legacy without direct replication, achieving a balance that speaks both to historical pride and future ambitions.
Inside of my proposed building, a central atrium functions as a community and cultural space, symbolizing a “city within a building.” This core hosts galleries and shops to reflect rich texture of urban life while offering visitors a modern landmark to engage with Kaifeng’s heritage. Fostering a cultural renaissance through contemporary design.
Home In Time
Owning a home is a dream for many young people, not only as a place to live but also as a stable investment. But when the property bubble bursts and economic downturns lead to falling property values, pay cuts or unemployment, the mortgage can become unaffordable.
Jack Self believes that the "impotent and complicity" of architects has turned the dream of home ownership into usury, because architects, as the ultimate executors, should not consider financial instruments as completely "in any way seperate from the architectural model", whereas the financial nature of real estate is deeply rooted.
The collapse of the real estate value system is caused by numerous actors and factors, but fundamentally it is because the real estate market, based on home ownership, facilitates the value extraction activities described by Mariana Mazzucato. Housing, as the vehicle for these activities, is expected to be a 'good product' that circulates well in the market.
Ownership implies the recognition of the potential economic value of architecture, while the rejection of ownership in favour of use opens up more possibilities for putting value creation back at the heart of space-making.
Housing needs should be met quickly and affordably. The ownership model is therefore collapsing, as it symbolises so-called permanence at great cost, which can hardly be achieved. The discussion about the right to housing is becoming more urgent.
If ownership, defined in terms of building area, is transformed into a right of use measured in time, can the system of property value be recalibrated and reconstructed?
He Huang Supervisor: Anna Jankovic
EXCJ24
As culture adapts to skyscrapers, the eradication of lifestyle habits and the demand for tourism have led to rapid urbanization, village houses lose their value. The land had to be expanded by creating artificial islands so the village could be cleared for new infrastructure. EXCJ24 is a form of activism that seeks to revitalize the clan jetties through a series of architectural operations that blends with novel technologies and to give back the place and its significant history as the establishing point for Chinese communities.
It explores an architectural attitude in viewing characters as irritants in the design of speculative architecture through immersive environments. It considers in terms of the interest of the character, simulating a bottom-up approach of activism to revitalise the clan jetties againts the image of modern living painted by local developers.
The irritants served as a provocation in better understanding and projection of architectural polemics. It is designed strategically to have a tale to tell in how they might experience the architecture and to influence new rituals, thinking and behaviour acting as spreaders of a new virus. The crafting of each character including names, business, incidents and events takes into consideration of the existing site context, history, culture, religion and true events fictionalised for dramatic purposes.
Name Supervisor: Alice Gooi Supervisor: Patrick Macasaet
Patchwork Collingwood
In the face of Melbourne’s rising public housing needs and the ageing heart of its estates, Patchwork Collingwood is a bold reimagining of the Collingwood Housing Estate—crafted to breathe new life into this community. This project envisions medium-density housing not just as a response to urban growth, but as a catalyst for a thriving, interconnected neighbourhood where people can truly feel at home.
Patchwork Collingwood is about reclaiming a sense of belonging and accessibility. It’s about turning existing barriers into bridges, fostering genuine connections between residents and their surrounding neighbourhood. By weaving together creative spaces and lively public zones, this project sets out to address critical gaps: the lack of engaging community spaces, limited housing options, and the disconnection created by the towering high-rises.
Through a series of deliberate architectural moves, Patchwork Collingwood bridges the gap between an isolated neighbourhood and the broader urban context. Additionally, this project not only focuses on preserving public housing but also investigates ways to transform it into a dynamic and adaptable urban landscape that reflects the needs and aspirations of both current residents and the wider community.
Name Supervisor: Yangshu Hu Supervisor: Claire Scorpo
Democracy
Manifest: A Succulent Civic Meal?
William Ly Supervisor: Paul van Herk
This major project is a civic center that grasps towards a more authentically messy representation of democracy in the suburb of Box Hill. Manifesting in the form of a heterogenous mediator/’meal’ of loaded architectural interfaces, the civic center becomes a table set for conversation and ill-informed debate.
The title is adapted from an Australian meme wherein a larrakin is arrested outside a suburban Chinese restaurant. He proclaims with stentorian indignation “This is democracy manifest!... what is the charge… eating a succulent Chinese meal?”. This major project echoes public outcry for live democracy in the context of Box Hill, a surging metropolitan activity center in Melbourne’s east, with a notably large Chinese community.
The work takes a position against politically neutral and architecturally neutralizing edifices of civic institutions. Instead, ‘trust’ is founded here via self-deprecation and the foregrounding of compromising qualities. A fact checking office coated in ‘smears’. A ‘fishy’ voting center. A censored ‘democracy sausage’. In bursting the bubble of ‘transparency’ as the standard gesture towards architectural engagement of the public in civic buildings, this project investigates the ‘succulent’.
Through the design process, initial programs and intents are mixed in the dissonant translation, but literal moments persist as legible analogies for democracy manifested in Box Hill.
FOR THOSE WHO WANDER AND LEAVE
Lucas Valle Supervisor: John Doyle
‘For Those Who Wander and Leave’ explores the intersection of architecture, time, and community, creating a responsive environment that mirrors the fluidity of urban life. Inspired by Home Economics at the British Pavilion in the 2016 Venice Biennale, it prioritizes time-based occupancy, embracing the transient and varied rhythms of modern existence. The design adapts to diverse durations of stay— from hours to years—inviting brief visits, extended residencies, and seamless transitions between them.
Positioned in North Melbourne, the site integrates the city’s pulse through a primary entrance on Queensberry Street, which opens into vibrant third spaces, such as a coffee shop, co-working area, and lounge zones. These spaces serve as dynamic, communal environments that foster connection and interaction, supporting both residents and visitors alike.
The residential units along the eastern side capture light and views, while wave-like floor slabs unfold in a spiraling form, inspired by depictions of the Tower of Babel, guiding circulation and creating moments of connection among private and shared spaces. The building is envisioned as a layered microcosm, where routines intersect, third spaces encourage shared experiences, and the entire structure evolves with its inhabitants.
This project ultimately welcomes those who wander, linger, or pass through, shaping their journeys and becoming part of theirs in return.
