Architecture Graduate Exhibition 2015 by Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning

Architecture Graduate Exhibition 2015

Catalogue for the Architecture Graduate Exhibition 2015. First published in 2015 by the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning of the University of Sydney in conjunction with the Architecture Graduate Exhibition 3 December 2015 – 5 January 2016. http://sydney.edu.au/architecture/graduate-exhibition/2015/ 148 City Road, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. ISBN: 978-1-74210-370-9 Editor: Sandra Loschke Designer: Adrian Thai Printer: PublishPartner © 2015 Architecture Graduate Exhibition 2015 This book, Architecture Graduate Exhibition 2015, and all works depicted in it are © editors and contributors, 2015. All rights reserved.

To the graduating year of 2015:

Congratulations on your achievements throughout your study years and best of luck for whichever path you take on the long winding journey of life.

CONTENTS 007 Editorial - Sandra Loschke 008 Architecture Studio Index 009 Student Index

038 Master of Architecture - Graduating Student Work 065 Master of Architecture - Essays and Thematic Streams: Urban, Sustainable, Digital

CONTENTS

012 Bachelor of Design in Architecture - Graduating Student Work

102 International Intensives - Student Works 112 Tin Shed Exhibitions 122 Graduate Exhibition Studio 124 Research Publications

126 Student Excellence

EDITORIAL

SANDRA LOSCHKE ”What makes a great exhibition?” asks a recent publication.1 When Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery London, posed this question to an artist, he was told this really was “a nobrainer”— all he had to do was show some really good works together.2 Whilst this is precisely what the 2015 University of Sydney Architecture Graduate Exhibition does, making a great exhibition is of course not as simple as this. Beyond curatorial questions relating to the arrangement of the works themselves, the spaces in which we experience exhibitions are of fundamental importance. And this addresses another crucial question, namely, what role does architecture play in the exhibition of objects, and even more interestingly, what role does architecture play in the display of architectural works themselves and their communication to the wider public?

The 2015 graduate projects of the Bachelor of Design in Architecture course rethink exhibitions through the design of an architecture gallery, intended to act as a gateway between Sydney’s CBD and the Domain. Under the topic “Proto-Computational Thinking: Hacking Utzon,” these projects digitally reinterpret Jorn Utzon’s concept for the Sydney Opera House and use this as a starting point for a gallery design. Similarly, graduate students of the Master of Architecture course focus on rethinking the ways in which the University of Sydney Campus presents itself to the City. Critically engaging with the University’s new Campus Masterplan, student projects scrutinise the idea of the exhibition in numerous ways — be it in creating a new “face” and use for the Shepherd Street Car Park building, or engaging with the University’s collections and archives. And finally, this Architecture Yearbook is certainly also an exhibition in a certain respect: it showcases the work of students from the Bachelor of Design in Architecture and the Master of Architecture programmes, and provides a complimentary context for these works by opening up glimpses into the vibrant educational culture of the University: its thematic Masters streams (urban, sustainable, digital), its engagement with Sydney communities, its international studios, and the excellence of its students and staff, evidenced in numerous awards, prizes and research publications.

EDITORIAL

These issues are not only addressed in the concept of the 2015 University of Sydney Architecture Graduate Exhibition, but also in the graduation projects themselves:

The enormous inventiveness and depth of architectural design education at the University of Sydney is unique. It proposes creative answers to the vital problems of our time by transgressing the monotony of standardised solutions and short-lived, fashionable trends. The best architectural research and work challenges us to reimagine the possibilities of the future in profound ways and this is evidenced in this publication. We thank the students for their enormous efforts and dedication. We also thank our colleagues, our partners in practice and our industry sponsors for playing a vital part in helping us to forge new directions in the architectural education of the next generation of aspiring architects. It is with immense pleasure and delight that we launch this review of the year’s work and we wish our graduates the best of luck in their future endeavours.

1 Paula Marincola (ed.), What makes a Great Exhibition?, Philadelphia: Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative/The Pew Centre of Arts and Heritage, 2006. 2 Ralph Rugoff, “You Talking To Me? On Curating Group Shows that Give You a Chance to Join the Group,” in Paula Marincola (ed.), What makes a Great Exhibition? (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative/The Pew Centre of Arts and Heritage, 2006), 44-51 (44).

STUDENT INDEX

BACHELOR OF DESIGN IN ARCHITECTURE BDES3027 - ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B (SEMESTER 2) Co-ordinated by Catherine Lassen and Rizal Muslimin Tutor: Rachel Couper Abass Basim Abass Istvan Bakos Kurtis Bosley Aizhen Chen Vernon Wai-Lun Cheung Emily Gabrielle Chung Marko Cubrilovic Doug Cook Haining Huang Marina Siqueira Eluan Alex Hong Tran Albert Truong Annika Van Leeuwen Kent Williams Youhan Connie Yan Wei Cherry Cao Tutor: Nicholas Elias Naomi Au Ragulan Balasubramaniam Andreea Maria Cercea Alexandra Kate Dawson Marija Despot Myrrhine Alice Fabricius Samuel James Griffith Dong Guo Anna Francesca Hubble Ashhar Ateeq Khan Jonathan Nemedez Athena Newman-Andrews Novia Phandita Antoine Alexandre Portier Priscilla Tang Phillip David Graham Tutor: Lucian Gormley Mubeenah Ansari Kwan Nam Chai Chak Fung Chan Haoqi Gong Yizhou He Jingyi He Sahibajot Kaur Xue Li Wensi Liu Mohammad Isâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;haque Omar Fengkai Qi Shu Wen Qiu Rani Saraswati Aseel Shahpoor Mitchell Tran Yuxiao Wang

Tutor: Alexander Jung James Alexander Cheok Callum Coombe Sean Russell Crowley Qi Qin Feng Sachiko Ishibashi Daniel Alexander Joseph Karin Jia-Lin Ke Camille Kordek Mi-Gyeoung Kwak Alexander James Purdue Ke Han Shen Weilun Su Kin Man Tse Jong-Oh Jono Won Henry Heng-Yi Ye Jason Sean Yenson Minjae Yoo Tutor: Ivana Kuzmanovska Anthony Chami Menglong Chen Matilda Kate Forbes Matthew Russell Galbraith Alexandra Rose Grech Iqra Faria Hoda Danni Hu Jun Ming Kong Shuoyi Li Seyed Farbod Motahari Liezl Christie Pajarin Althea Molina Arguelles-ling Chenyi Shan Xiaoxi Tan Laurence West Hong Zhang Tutor: Catherine Lassen Matthew Asimakis Clare Cornish Alexandra Donnelley Alli Hamzy Victoria Louise King Isabelle Orr Julian Pereira Alexcina Michelle Phillips Caitlin Louise Roseby Ruby Yandan Wang Aaron Mark Woods Andre Denis Yu Li Stephen Ong

Tutor: Alina Minassian Ming Wei Chan Yuzhe Cheng Ryan Kenneth Dobbs Allen Shuo Lun Huang Ki Hyun Kim Samantha Margaret Kirby Grant Jamieson Mills Natalie Murray Jordan Murray Moris Odisho Hyea Ju Sarah Oh Layla Anna Stanley Estelle Tan Siyu Wang Chen Chen Wang Yi Wu

Tutor: Raffaello Rossolini Jwan Al-Saeekh Jeffrey Blewett Aun Tup Chan Maryanne Daher Callum Flitcroft Christopher Foulkes Andre Frino Isabell Jane Grady Gracie Guan Elliot Marsh Benjamin William Moore Yasin Jason Oz Yue Wu Shengyi Xu Sarah Mae-Siew Yap Matthew Fuller Tutor: Thomas Stromberg David Mourad Alfonse Liat Suzanne Busqila Unjai Choi Huiting Zhang Meilun Gao Nicole Isabel Whitfield Rebecca Kwok Yeo Myeong Lee Jing Liu Arielle Marshall Mackenzie Robert Nix Davin Nurimba Onur Sen Daniel Stojanovski Elsie Wang Roger Minglu Li

STUDIO AND STUDENT INDEX

Tutor: Ian Martin Miranda Qiqi Chen David Da Costa Enes Danel Dankha Zac Greentree Hyun-Min Jee Samantha Dinley Jones Jeongwon Kim Katherine Kwak Clarence Lee Jiahui Angie Li Daisy Danica Parto Elizabeth Victoria Relf William Stephenson Whimbrel Wilson Lu Liang Yao Sharon Cheong Lianna Constantinou

Tutor: Ellen Rosengren-Fowler Demetra Alexandrou Conrad Pasternak Hiu Ching Chan Hua Fu Gloria Ngoc Tran Ha Nastaran Heidary Fard Daniel Hills Fen Ni Sarah Jane Ho Sun-Kyoo Kim Wendy Lam Khoa Chanh Nguyen Ariel Ophir-Verheyden Habib Trad Sophie Ung Elise Joy Vollugi

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE MARC5001 - GRADUATION STUDIO (SEMESTER 1) Coordinated by Sandra Loschke Studio 1: The Library of the Future Tutor: Sandra Loschke Sophie Ester Anastasia Canaris Hope Elizabeth Ruth Dryden Nicholas James Grimes Robin Paul Lloyd Courtney Elise Owen Pamela Carolina Maldonado Pierre-Antoine Marie Maitre Andres Almeiro Rodriguez Mark Felix Vukovich Sarah Elizabeth Yates Studio 2: School as a Community Hub Tutor: Helen Lochhead Sadia Afrose Heather Rose Cappie-Wood David Seungwan Choe Charlotte Elizabeth Evans Alexandra Alana Gurman Max Hu Yong Xin Leong Lu Liao Piyangi Nissansala Mallawarachchi Emily Jane Sandstrom Mark Adam Szekely Zhuyun Tu MARC5001 - GRADUATION STUDIO (SEMESTER 2) Coordinated by Francois Blanciak Studio 1: Yamanote Line as Architecture Tutor: Francois Blanciak John Caldwell Yuliya Chistyakova Alice Anne Coleman Marguerite Isabella Farmakis Noa Hackett Stephanie Marie Joanne Hope Emma Catherine Leckie James Moulder Pauline Theresia Winjono Grace Esther Wolstencroft Studio 2: The Cabinet of Drâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Curiosity Tutor: Tim Rivard Irin Ariyatanaporn Amani Badra Yi Qing Cai Felicity Cain Kathleen Harding Man Jennifer Li Tiffany Liew

Christine Looyschelder Emmy Katherine Omagari Bin Lu Lu Wang Lingyu Wang Rern Sean Wong Suk Min Yoon Xin Zhang Chloe Yifan Zheng Rui Tao Zhu Studio 3: Wilkinson Precinct 2020 Tutor: Mathew Aitchison Justin Cockinos Wilson Ka Hei Chung Susan Amanda Farrell Seung Ji Han Khee Young Hiew Karl James Keating Jae Yeon Kim Ah Ra Lee Lin Li Jacqueline Monteiro Dion Sebastian Isan Tan Moult Lin Qian Aleksandar Samardzic Xuanbo Shen Xianlin Shi John Matthew Wilkinson Dmitri Yasenev Alexander Wing-Hong Yuen Ryan Southwell Studio 4: Vibrant Matter Tutor: Genevieve Murray Weizhen Chen Adam Michael Choca Hsien Hui Nicholas Chor Vincent Ping Hei Chung Nan Ding Shiyang He Sunly Heng Veronica Ho Yan Hu James Knight Jong Chul Lee Yucun Liu Thong Hoang Mau Stephany Neskovska Braden Lindsey Pedersen Lin Rong Tang Wei Wei Desmond Yi Yang Zhang Yang Zhang

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE THEMATIC STREAMS MARC4001 - URBAN ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO (SEMESTER 1) Camellia Station Coordinated by Francois Blanciak MARC4001 - URBAN ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO (SEMESTER 2) St. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cathedral Parramatta Coordinated by Peter Armstrong MARC4002 - SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO (SEMESTER 1) Meeting House Coordinated by Glen Hill and Michael Muir MARC4002 - SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO (SEMESTER 2) Challenging Environments Coordinated by Daniel Ryan

STUDENT INDEX

MARC4003 - DIGITAL ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO (SEMESTER 2) The Playful Eyes and the Curious Hands Coordinated by Rizal Muslimin

EDITORIAL

Undergraduate

FIRST STUDIO PRESENTATION 2013 GRADUATING CLASS OF 2015

PROTO COMPUTATIONAL THINKING:

UNDERGRADUATE

Hacking Utzon

Between the digital and the physical, students’ close studies of the Sydney Opera House provided an opportunity for computational design thinking from first principles. Utzon’s design discipline is evident within the building and spans numerous scales, extending for example, from broad strategic decisions to detailed prefabrication ambitions. Conceived as parametric, the thought informing tile cladding geometry can be seen as connected to larger attitudes towards structural conditions and acoustic requirements, including a response to city and site. Utzon’s methodological process, framed as internally coherent or rule governed, offered a context via parametric design tools from which to imagine a small gallery for architectural exhibitions. On the occasion of the Powerhouse Museum’s relocation to Parramatta, this speculative exercise proposed a built ‘window’ or gateway from the city and Domain, to the institution’s new western home. Situating a changing part of the remote museum collection in an urban location associated with its past, building proposals could suggest or represent contained content in experimental ways. Particular attention was paid to the conventions of architectural representation to doubly generate as well as conceptually clarify design possibilities. Through the iterative re-drawing and re-making of what one ‘sees’ and ‘reads’ students were asked to isolate particular components or strategies, leading to more abstract yet specific depictions of studied architectural elements or urban contexts. Digital modelling offered extended tools for imaginative testing and unexplored modes of physical production. Structural, technical and material thinking was encouraged in coherent relation to students’ strategic design intent and with a studied historical and cultural awareness. Part and whole were seen as continuously interrelated. Depth of design development was promoted via a dual emphasis: early analysis of exemplary architectural (proto computational) thinking coupled with intensive, projective exploration. Parametric schemas promoted explicit representation to communicate intuitive-driven designs and toward realised intentions. Precise speculative architectural thought conceived in parallel with multiple modes of making helped frame intelligible, inventive, doubly digital and material propositions. (Previous) Photograph - Gracie Guan. (Right) Analysis of the overlay of the Sydney Opera House skin (chevron tiles) and structure (concrete ribs) - Sarah-Jane Ho. BDES3020 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B (SEMESTER 2) COORDINATORS: CATHERINE LASSEN & RIZAL MUSLIMIN

UNDERGRADUATE

ALEX TRAN The Depths of Buried Past As an epitome of urban development, Sydney possesses a decorated architectural history, constituted by the marvel and scale of surface bound structures. The Depths of Buried Past seeks to address the relative absence of Sydney’s abandoned underground, which now exist as forgotten remnants of Sydney’s architectural past. Focusing particularly on the abandoned train tunnels of St James Station, the objective of this project is to reopen Sydney’s abandoned underground spaces, the existence of which remains largely unknown to the public. In doing so, the tunnels serve as a meaningful connection between the State Library of NSW and the gallery itself by using the tunnels as a public circulation space, relating the repositories of literature and architecture. 1. Exploded axonometric, 2. Long sections. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: RACHEL COUPER

UNDERGRADUATE

ANNIKA VAN LEEUWEN Path and Interlude The galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s landscape recalls a traversing of the site and the Domain beyond. Its long walls puncture the slope, shifting in height and width, and at times pausing with a momentary caesura. Pavilion forests are scattered among the paths, as public and private, open and enclosed spaces start to intertwine. The gallery is not to be read all at once, but rather in fragments, in episodes, with slowness and duration. It gestures to a timeline, where time folds into space, for the individual and the city. A repository of memories in and memories projected upon the landscape. 1. Render of interior exhibition space, 2. 1:500 model.

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: RACHEL COUPER

ALEXANDRA DAWSON Part-Powerhouse Gallery Utzonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ascending stairs propel visitors into the sky and vast harbour beyond the radiant white shells. What lies beneath, however, is at the core of this design proposal. A reversal of this process is, in essence, what this gallery seeks to provide, as a large unfolding stair permits a decent into the sandstone geology of the earth. Such materiality adorns many of Sydneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s public and private buildings, but its presence below all Architectures of the region is what is purely being explored here. Through this process, there is a return to the simple, yet primal architecture of the cave. This subsequently acts as a backdrop to exhibit other constructions, of which now sit upon this prevailing materiality. 1. Long section, 2. Interior perspective. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B,TUTOR: NICHOLAS ELIAS

UNDERGRADUATE

NAOMI AU Architectural Gallery - Hospital Road Throughout history we have always tried to give definition to Architecture, to set principles and rules on how we make Architecture, to draw boundaries and conventions. Yet, we constantly failed as the meaning of Architecture keeps shifting and evolving. The architectural gallery aims to raise the question on the definition of Architecture and to encourage discussion on the matter. This is done through challenging the traditional model of Architecture both structurally and programmatically. The exhibition lies within the architectural failures, the moments where Architecture does not work as it is expected to be. 1. Diagram illustrating the form finding process, 2. Site plan, 3. Concept models.

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: NICHOLAS ELIAS

MITCHELL TRAN Parergon Gallery This project aims to explore the creation of space with minimal visual and physical boundaries. The design endeavours to understand the connection between conceptual explorations and architectural translations, and to express the narrative qualities of architectural design by ensuring a high degree of fluidity between spaces. The integration of programmatic and circulation spaces, along with the minimisation of visual and physical boundaries, will encourage spaces and exhibition material to be understood and experienced as a seamless narrative, reinforcing the correlation between design and its constituents which allude to a greater idea. 1. Exploded axonometric, 2. Building and context model. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: LUCIAN GORMLEY

UNDERGRADUATE

RANI SARASWATI Curiosity This project of designing an architecture gallery takes on the concept of curiosity from its expected function and experiences around the site, as well as being something that could be said to be innate within us. The intention is to create what is seemingly repetitive space above ground which its uniqueness can be found once it is explored further, lead by oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s curiousity. This act of exploration would lead to finding space beneath the grounds, the architecture gallery. These spaces are designed so that one is able to see from above to beneath and vice versa, creating a relationship between the two spaces. 1. Plans and cube variations, 2. Short section.

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: LUCIAN GORMLEY

CAMILLA KORDEK Folding Terrain Site orientation, locale and contextual needs established intent for an architecture of dual uses: part Powerhouse and part public plaza. Abstract interpretations of pattern lines of a folded concrete beam in the Sydney Opera House, were amalgamated to form a master geometric pattern. Pattern studies developed a folded terrain that became habitable. Folding behaviour established the attribute blending. Blending of programs, earth and context occurred, that was then accented with transparent devices. The project aspires to promote continuity between public/private spaces and social cohesion in the city. 1. Diagrams of beam investigations, fold cuts and fold interactions with mass., 2. Diagram of simple folded terrain, 3. Diagram of complex folded terrain. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: ALEXANDER JUNG

UNDERGRADUATE

KARIN KE Shifting Dispositions In tracing the geometric seam lines of the building context, a partition of surfaces, lines and points is generated by a spatial divider of intersecting planes. This manipulation of connecting distances between each point - the seam â&#x20AC;&#x201C; discloses a series of fragmented surfaces that define a new configuration of structural units. Each entity becomes a fragment of many possibilities within a shifted collision of modules that interweave hierarchies of a geometric whole. The scheme envisions the way in which the hybridisation of program can occur through intersecting pockets of circulation and heterogeneous space. The simultaneous deconstruction of program into a system of merging modules allows for the re-establishment of a relationship between the space and the Domain. The implications of the division of space with the connection of seams and fragments create an overlapping of circulation, program, and spatial qualities where the distance between one room and another is constantly in flux. 1. Elevation oblique, 2. Seams and connections, 3. Elevation within site context.

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: ALEXANDER JUNG

ALEX GRECH Site-Lines: Urban Fragments The mapping of key view corridors, leading from the site across the Sydney CBD, has generated the architectural gallery. The principle of the periscope was applied in order to capture and transfer these view fragments that are revealed along a meandering pathway. Hence, the gallery is determined by the existing architecture so that ‘part’ and ‘whole’ become intertwined. The arrangement of programme forms a layered topography that descends from public to private space, leading from an open exhibition of city views to a buried archive of glass plate negatives. Ultimately, the space serves to encapsulate the intricate, multilayered city dynamic through both a visual and experiential exhibition of the Sydney urban fabric. 1. Axonometric, 2. View fragments. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: IVANA KUZMANOVSKA

UNDERGRADUATE

MATTHEW GALBRAITH Gyroid Gallery This project explores the relationship of rectilinear and curvilinear geometry in different dimensions as a reflection of Sydneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban environment where there exists man-made objects that relate to the natural and undulating landscape. In the two dimensions of the plan view, the scheme is rectilinear however as the building propagates upwards, parts of the building begin to rotate about several nodal points, resulting in elegant sinusoidal geometries in elevation. This complex mathematical relationship between the 3 dimensions creates a beautiful array of spatial conditions ranging from intimate moments to more generous spaces in which Sydneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architecture can be displayed. 1. Axonometric drawing, 2. Render.

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: IVANA KUZMANOVSKA

CAITLIN ROSEBY Untitled Inverse casts were taken of the dominating facades that seem to penetrate the Macquarie streetscape. This serves to reveal an unnerving authority and power through the rendering of absence. This process of casting images and their inverses manifests in a strategy to approach the scheme at large, such that the architecture is imagined as a sequence of displacements, where parts are always framed in relation to their counterpart. The void cast transcends notions of absence and instead is read as an equal to the architecture that rests on top to complete its whole. Without the architectural intervention the void is incomplete; functionless - and without the void the intervention may be only read as a shelter. 1. Site plan 2. Axonometric. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: CATHERINE LASSEN

UNDERGRADUATE

VICTORIA KING A Point of all Dimensions The meeting of a horizontal and vertical line describes in its most fundamental terms, a transition between two states. We are made aware of such transitions via the threshold, the inevitable interstice that exists between opposing conditions. Transferred to the site of an architectural gallery, a structure is placed at the fringe of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dense urban fabric. Fluctuating sinusoidal beams form a skeletal armature by which dual programs of gallery and archive envelope. In alternate states they draw into or carve out of the site, simultaneously separated and sewn together by a threshold of public space. 1. Exploded axonometric, 2. Model, side elevation.

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: CATHERINE LASSEN

CLARENCE LEE Plateaus The design draws from the imagery of the natural world: of islands shrouded in mist, sheltered beneath a canopy of trees. As we approach the structure, we descend forth into darkness. It is a physicality only associated with the underground, the weight of our steps as we fall away from light. Facing us we see a series of curtains, concealing the view in front of us, as if shrouded in fog. As we move through the mist we are guided by the feel of the earth beside us, the blurred glimmers of light revealing themselves through a canopy of concrete arches. 1. Axonometric, 2. Section. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: IAN MARTIN

UNDERGRADUATE

GRACIE GUAN The Arch-Museum The beauty, awe and excitement that captivates children when they visit galleries and museums, their constant need to touch, feel and smell the objects that are on display, is insatiable. However, as children mature into adulthood, their playfulness, excitement and curiosity are no longer as apparent when visiting museums, dissipated, as they have grown to act accordingly in a serious space. As a result, the playful nature of architecture with an intensive study on arches and their monumental status is a focal aspect, aiming to revive the inner child in all adults. 1. Axonometric view, 2. View from the amphitheatre, 3. View from the cafĂŠ of the slides and the minor gallery.

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: RAFFAELLO ROSSELLI

ALLEN HUANG ARCH The design explores the themes of the arch in architecture and history through an analysis of geometrical form, structural function and constructional modularity. The architectural gallery acts as a microcosm for the preservation of architectural ideas and form across time. The arch, which is a recurrent form in Sydneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and humanityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architectural history, has been appropriated in different societies and cultures. It has evoked themes of death, religion, power and movement, ultimately symbolising a threshold in time and space that one passes through to enter another time space. The ephemerality of the structure represents a design that is constantly transitory, symbolic of the process of preservation and decay of architecture throughout time. The gallery represents a medium in which the ideas of architecture can be preserved and exhibited within a modern context. 1. Long section, 2. Drawing. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: ALINA MINASSIAN

UNDERGRADUATE 1.

MING WEI CHAN Aqueduct Situated behind the Sydney Mint, this proposal activates an existing unused walkway to create a pedestrian link that connects the dense urban fabric of the Sydney CBD to the natural parkland of the Domain. As a museum for architecture, the architecture becomes the exhibit, as it demonstrates how architecture can be used to shape the behaviours of people in both public and private spaces. Amongst other design elements, the central study of this project was the use of wind and water to determine the experience of the space. The interaction between the velocity of the wind and the fluidity of water creates different atmospheres in each space and delineates between public and private, fast and slow spaces. 1. Exploded isometric.

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: ALINA MINASSIAN

HIU CHING (JENNIFER) CAN Reflection of Architectural Visionary The architectural gallery immerses the theory of merging both the contemporary field of architecture towards the digital media of modern society. The concept explores the integration between the city and the domain through the notion of self-exploration of the human senses of the individual. Manipulating the process of information fed into the brain through different scenarios inside the gallery creates different sensations that confuses each of the senses and enhances them between the self-development of the human interaction towards the built-form and architecture. These important factors explore different phenomenological qualities which the human being explore and interact with spaces differently between each other. The characteristics of these restrictions underline the reactions both positive and negative impacts towards the five senses; touch, smell, sight, sound and taste. Transparency functions between the permeability and the reflection. Interaction between human and built-form of architecture gives a sensation of self-exploration through the gallery and mainly focuses on the materiality aspect of the form. 1. Oblique drawing, 2. Interior perspective. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: ELLEN ROSENGREN-FOWLER

UNDERGRADUATE

SARAH-JANE HO Veiled The Part Powerhouse proposal reframes the gallery experience by turning it outwards, and reconciles the intimate exhibition experience with the performance of a dynamic civic center. The Weave (horizontal plane) articulates a new civic front, which extends into the building as a pliable surface. The Veil (vertical plane) explores the space of the skin by modulating the experience of site in a graduated way. The visitor’s trajectory pulses through a forest of masonry veils, which organises various exhibiting typologies for architectural installations. An outer translucent veil, which floats in the periphery, the “billow”, complements this solid yet diaphanous core. The productive effects of materiality are exploited to create a gallery that is conducive to looking in and looking out, as well as a civic space that is complete with or without artworks. 1. Space of the skin, 2. Process model showing the billow and iterations of the masonry veils, 3. Short section.

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: ELLEN ROSENGREN-FOWLER

SARAH MAE-SIEW YAP Systematic Indeterminacy Dotted lines imply something that once was; they are implicit rather than explicit. They suggest a filter rather than a boundary, a flexible indeterminate system. The proposal is an architecture that nurtures the uncertain, that sustains apprehension that places clarity of the whole slightly out of reach. The focus is not privileging one object over another, rather the state of flux that emerges from the intersection of the multiple elements. Volumes and surfaces are not expressed as solid planes, rather as a conglomerate of lines and points, an atomised form. Experiencing the building becomes an open-ended process of definition and redefinition, an apparatus that requires sight to activate dormant spaces that give the individual agency in seeing. Architecturally this manifests in spaces that blur the line between exteriority and interiority, transparency and obscurity, regularity and the unexpected. 1. Model photographs, 2. Reflection mapping, 3. Exploded isometric. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: RAFFAELLO ROSSELLI

UNDERGRADUATE 1.

JEFFREY BLEWETT Archive of Forgotten Propositions The archive sinks into the land and lies under the long shadow of its surrounds, a transient and permeable existence cut to contain the fragmented vestiges of unrealised propositions. A collection of architectural artefacts are suspended at ground level slowly drifting towards the void. As models and drawings are added to the archive the system sinks under the weight of the collection itself. Analysing the effect of time on the archive - different curatorial structures are realised over time as the suspended models and drawings form a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;naturalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; curation - a vertical cartography of models and drawings, creasing and folding into clusters, which seemingly hovers and falls in the presence of visitor, reconfiguring how curation is approached in a captivating, innovative and beautiful way. 1. Exploded worms eye perspective, 2. Section.

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: RAFFAELLO ROSSELLI

LIAT BUSQILA Gallery of Four Frames The project stems from an initial investigation in site mapping that renders the city as an openended space in which the architecture unfolds in palimpsest layers and fragments. The key issues of context, scale and representation, in this project, are framed through a wider investigation of the double potential of drawing to both represent and generate architecture. These interests are however continually interrogated in relation to the brief, such that the city and gallery may operate mimetically. Thus, the scheme can be seen to operate self-reflectively as a commentary on the nature of the architectural gallery, as both the container, as well as a subject of architectural potential. 1. Axonometric, 2. Process diagram. BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: THOMAS STROMBERG

UNDERGRADUATE 1.

MACKENZIE NIX The Garden Palace - Museum of Destroyed Architecture Aligned with the original site of the 19th century Garden Palace Exhibition Centre in the Botanical Gardens, the Garden Palace on Hospital Rd becomes its doppelgänger. Where the former site housed the prizes of a near and far reaching British Empire, the latter memorialises them as fragments of the destructive forces of Imperialism and Colonialism. In a city where the park had previously represented the cultivation of an ideal European vision of nature within an alien land, here a portion of the Domain is ‘decolonised’ and established as a micro environment of fire dependent Australian plant life. 1. Back-burning,

BDES3027 ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B, TUTOR: THOMAS STROMBERG

UNDERGRADUATE 41

Masters: Graduation Studio

THE LIBRARY OF THE FUTURE

GRADUATION STUDIO

Timber consists of cells, which are arranged in specific ways depending on the different kinds of timbers and the external conditions to which these are exposed. This structure is not sufficiently firm for our intentions. From timber we produce paper (a regrouping of cells), from paper we press boards and masts. The cells are compacted - a new timber has emerged. The material is transformed. (El Lissitzky)

The words liber (book) and lignum (wood) are not only connected by phonetic similarity. Wood - cut, chopped, pulped, bleached and pressed - is the very material used for the production of paper, and as such for books. Fundamentally interconnected, these two words not only represent two extreme ends of intellectual and material processing chains, but they are the inspiration and starting points for this studio project - the library of the future. More specifically, the students are challenged to envisage a research library for the Australian Institute of Architects at Tusculum in Potts Point. The intellectual platform of this studio is the interplay between intellectual consideration and practical experimentation, namely the “knowing what” and the “knowing how” (Michael Polanyi, 1997), or as Paul Carter described it - “material thinking” (2004). Simultaneously working with historical and theoretical considerations as well as material and technological experimentation, the studio’s design approach challenges students to synthesise aspects that are usually considered separately or sequentially within architectural design processes. Through material experimentation, students will experience the material resistance of the “stuff” of architecture, along with the ways in which these experiences lend themselves to new forms of conceptualisation and theorisation as part of a library design. The studio seeks to develop alternative approaches to research and design, allowing students to invent their very own tactics and methodologies. (Previous) Adaptive Timber Skin with actuator - Sophie Canaris and Nicholas Grimes. (Right) Adaptive Timber Skin development prototypes - Sophie Canaris and Nicholas Grimes. Sophie Canaris, Hope Dryden, Nicholas Grimes, Robin Lloyd, Courtney Elise Owen, Pamela Maldonado, Pierre-Antoine Maitre, Andres Rodriguez, Mark Vukovich, Sarah Yates. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO (SEMESTER 1) TUTOR: SANDRA LOSCHKE

POSTGRADUATE

HOPE DRYDEN & ROBIN LLOYD

GRADUATE

Ligo v. 1. tie, bind, 2. bandage, wrap around, 3. unite An emergent issue facing today’s libraries is how to provide a harmonious interface between physical paper space and new digital media networks. The world of endless information browsing brings us far closer to the continuity of the ancient scroll than the fragmentary format of the bound book. Suture – a technique common to the surgeon, the corset maker and the bookbinder – used to recondition split tissues, torn fabrics and scattered pages – has been appropriated in this project to manipulate flat plywood sheets into a networked set of undulating surfaces. This material metamorphosis has been adapted for a new research library at the AIA’s headquarters at Tusculum, generating a set of scrolling spaces that offer the institute an opportunity to unravel to the public. 1. Library ceiling - creases and folds, 2. Auditorium wall. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: SANDRA LOSCHKE

GRADUATION STUDIO

MARK VUKOVICH & PIERRE-ANTOINE MAITRE

GRADUATE

Timber Aperture The design concept for a “library of the future” is an excellent way to link the natural qualities of wood and modern facade technologies to create an interactive architecture. In some sense, designing a shelter for books, printed on paper, with the use of timber is like a “mise en abyme”, as they both come out of the same material. Along with the rise of communication technology and the digital age, libraries are gradually becoming paperless. However, books will always represent a powerful symbol of universal knowledge that will never be forgotten. 1. External render, 2. Prototype.

MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: SANDRA LOSCHKE

SCHOOL AS A COMMUNITY HUB

GRADUATION STUDIO

The purpose of this project was to re-think the proposition of the school in the urban environment and to explore the concept of a learning community. It is timely to re-examine the design of schools - and not just in light of changing methods of teaching and the different expectations of students, but also in the context of a denser more vibrant urban environment, by thinking about how schools can help to build or strengthen communities. The challenge of realising the school of the 21st century is developing an innovative vision that will provide the best learning environment for young people, an environment that allows for individual teaching and collaborative learning environments and readily adapts to future needs. Students investigated the concepts of contemporary school education pedagogy that is focused on collaboration, creativity and communication. They then explored how this pedagogy influences the school design and how the physical environment facilitates and shapes the way students engage in learning. Students also researched and analysed how the school relates and contributes to its urban context and can act as a community catalyst for social engagement - a meeting place. Building on the research and analysis, the students designed a primary school in Ultimo that acts as community hub by incorporating facilities such as library, gym, performance spaces and child care that can be shared with the broader community. The project also allowed for other complimentary uses on the site that serve the local neighbourhood. The exploration of innovative models for the design of new schools in infill areas is a key imperative of the Sydney Metropolitan Strategy. These projects can inform that debate. (Right) Terrace render, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Micro Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; - Max Hu. Sadia Afrose, Heather Rose Cappie-Wood, David Seungwan Choe, Charlotte Elizabeth Evans, Alexandra Alana Gurman, Max Hu, Yong Xin Leong, Lu Liao, Piyangi Nissansala Mallawarachchi, Emily Jane Sandstrom, Mark Adam Szekely, Zhuyun Tu. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO (SEMESTER 1) TUTOR: HELEN LOCHHEAD

GRADUATION STUDIO

CHARLOTTE EVANS

GRADUATE

Stone to Cloud - Ultimo/Pyrmont Public School + Community Hub The Ultimo/Pyrmont Primary School and Community Hub proposes a new pedagogical model at the abandoned quarry, ‘the Hell Hole’ in the city. The spatial realisation of the building follows a stone to cloud gradient, attaching program and function to varying densities. The cloud is seen in counterpoint to the solidity of stone and allowed for the emergence of a program and spatial organisation accordingly. The conceptual drive for the project came from an exploration of the quarry as a site and process of material transfer and creation. The sandstone from the Ultimo/ Pyrmont quarry ‘the Hell Hole’ was originally used in the construction of significant buildings in Sydney providing the foundations for the city. 1. Interior perspective exploring relationship to cliff face, 2. Programmatic axonometric exploring school + community interaction. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: HELEN LOCHHEAD

GRADUATION STUDIO

MAX HU

GRADUATE

Micro-City The Micro City project aims to re-articulate the proposition of a school in the urban environment and to explore the concept of school as a community hub. This project investigates opportunities for a compact high-density public school within metropolitan Sydney - Ultimo to act as a focus and catalyst for local communities while delivering innovative school building design that supports 21st century educational pedagogy. Conceived as a micro city campus, the school is configured as a cluster of ten small buildings that are sited around the quarry face, heritage buildings and existing trees. These small buildings leave a variety of interstitial spaces between them including open playgrounds, intimate courtyards, sunken plazas and narrow passageways at various scales. These interstitial spaces are intended to encourage diversified and spontaneous activities of children. The spatial concept thus proposes a visiting and learning experience alternating between the interior of the school buildings and the landscape outside. 1. Playground render, 2. Overall view and axonometric.

MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: HELEN LOCHHEAD

YAMANOTE LINE AS ARCHITECTURE

GRADUATION STUDIO

The Hezlet Bequest travelling Studio in Tokyo focuses on the relationship between architecture and infrastructure, and investigates Tokyo’s main subway line called “Yamanote,” which links the city’s major train stations with each other in a circular pattern. Considering the Yamanote line as architecture, the studio aims to test the value of architecture against the necessity of transportation as a framework for city growth and operation. Tokyo’s built environment is particular in the sense that its infrastructure often challenges architecture in scale, location and form, rising above ground, registering and superimposing its multiple trajectories in three dimensions. Recent and ongoing projects in Tokyo have intensified the relationship between building and infrastructure in novel ways that invoke an intention to blur the distinction between these two entities. The work involved in this studio consists of a comparative urban analysis of key train station areas in both Sydney (Central, Town Hall, Chatswood, Blacktown) and Tokyo (Shinjuku, Meguro, Shimbashi, Ueno) as a preamble, and on the design of experimental “mixes” between architecture and infrastructure in strategically chosen location along the Yamanote line as a final goal. Each of these station areas embodies particular characteristics that pertain to the topic of this studio, and are called to become the subject of extended group studies that result in individual projects on or near the station and/or railroad that leads to the station. (Right) View from Ameya Yokocho towards Ueno Fureai, ‘Ueno Fureai’ - Noa Hackett & Stephanie Hope. John Caldwell, Yuliya Chistyakova, Alice Anne Coleman, Marguerite Isabella Farmakis, Noa Hackett, Stephanie Marie Joanne Hope, Emma Catherine Leckie, James Moulder, Pauline Theresia Winjono, Grace Esther Wolstencroft. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO (SEMESTER 2) TUTOR: FRANCOIS BLANCIAK

POSTGRADUATE

JOHN STUART CALDWELL

GRADUATE

‘Shinagawa Koso-eki’ Located at the threshold between original earth-form and the reclaimed land of Tokyo bay, Shinagawa station sprawls across a 20 hectare site. Its visible expanse within the Tokyo landscape suggests the possibility of large scale development on some of the world’s most valuable land. By taking Shinagawa station’s horizontal formation and turning it on its side a stacked arrangement of platforms allows for the unlocking of the majority of the site for development. This proposes a new form of station; one that presents the user with the spectacle of structure, the exhilaration of elevated transport, and the prospect of the city. 1. Spectacle, 2. Structure, 3. Prospect. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: FRANCOIS BLANCIAK

ROOF

S o c i a l

W e l l b e i n g

H a n d c r a f t

R e t a i l

A m e n i t i e s 6F

4F| UENO FUREAI

TO AMEYA

YOKOCH

ROOF

TO UENO

JR STATION

4F | UENO FUREAI

DETAIL ISOMETRIC | 1:100

3F | PARK-SIDE CONCOURSE

GF - 2F | CITY-SIDE CONCOURSE + PLATFORMS

入 I 谷 r が i 手y a G a t e

公P 園a ゲr ーk ト G a t e

都C 市 i 出 t 口y E x i t

不 S 忍 h 出 i 口 n o b a z u E x i t

飴 A 屋m 横 e 丁 y a Y o k o c h ō

上 U 野 e 公 n 園 o P a r k

不 S 忍 h 池 i n o b a z u P o n d

GRADUATION STUDIO

NOA HACKETT & STEPHANIE HOPE

GRADUATE

Ueno Fureai The historical district of Ueno sits on the north eastern part of the JR Yamanote Line in the low lying area of Tokyo. Ueno is a gateway to Tokyo from Narita Airport and also a gateway to Northern Japan via the country’s extensive railway system. The development of the upper levels of the JR Ueno station aim to unify the three distinctive urban conditions of the district: the park, the dense city and the market place, of which the station divides the three. The goal of this proposal is to bring cohesion to the urban fabric through a celebration and Fureai “mutual contact” between these conditions. 1. Aerial view, 2. Exploded isometric, 3. City-side entrance.

MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: FRANCOIS BLANCIAK

THE CABINET OF DRS. CURIOSITY: Life Sciences Faculty at the University of Sydney

GRADUATION STUDIO

Someone collects a crocodile, and puts it on the ceiling. This is how it starts. Collecting is the beginning of science, via cabinets of curiosity and their gentlemanly proprietors. Now, the critical sensibility of science looks beyond the artefact or specimen collected to discover the forces of its making, the hidden intelligences concealed within it and the relationships between elements and ideas. This taking apart of collected fragments (both natural and manmade) assembled from around the campus, the city and the world is the central theme of this project. The symbiotic play between disconnected fragments and heterogeneous spaces connecting them are the reality of the world today, and the university. The contemporary university works with enormous amounts of information, within which the only way to work productively is via incomplete fragments and cumulative associations. Architecture similarly is never complete, as an idea or as an entity. Its operation and experience is composed of discrete instances, selected elements and episodic details. These projects are based on the development of fragments, developed at multiple scales in varied media simultaneously. Like meandering through the cabinet of curiosity, the spatial and organisational resolutions of the projects have evolved organically as orchestrated relationships between individual sections, artefacts and operations. The Cabinet of Drs. Curiosity proposes a productive, narrative engagement with architecture and the campus: instead of an inert agglomeration of built fabric and the resultant spaces, the studio projects have discovered opportunities that foster a genuine experiential engagement with the campus, its aggregational nature and the fluid space of education: to afford new readings of the University, as well as novel writings of it. (Right) Section, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Deviant Picturesque: 23 Fragments of Statuesqueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; - Emmy Omagari. Irin Ariyatanaporn, Amani Badra, Yi Qing Cai, Felicity Cain, Kathleen Harding, Man Jennifer Li, Tiffany Liew, Christine Looyschelder, Emmy Katherine Omagari, Bin Lu, Lu Wang, Lingyu Wang, Rern Sean Wong, Suk Min Yoon, Xin Zhang, Chloe Yifan Zheng, Rui Tao Zhu. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO (SEMESTER 2) TUTOR: TOM RIVARD

GRADUATION STUDIO

EMMY OMAGARI

GRADUATE

The Deviant Picturesque: 23 Fragments of Statuesque Decay The notion of re-interpreting the picturesque in relation to the campus was the conceptual anchor for this project. The idea of infecting the campus with disaggregated remnants of campus statues became a way in which the Faculty of Life Sciences could infiltrate existing buildings and infrastructure around the campus. An interrogation of space and the construct of academic infrastructure would demonstrate the disaggregated operational mechanics of such a faculty. A satellite infrastructure for pedagogy was established. The reconstructions of the disaggregated embodiments of the campus statues become cross-disciplinary architectural encounters. These encounters not only help foster past histories and narratives embedded throughout the campus, but also enable interdisciplinary academic propositions through spatial experimentation. 1. 1:100 section, 2. 1:150 sectional model, 3. 1:100 sectional model. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: TOM RIVARD

GRADUATION STUDIO

FELICITY CAIN

GRADUATE

The Speaking Bones of Fossil Park The University Machine is constantly expanding and reinventing itself. Using the site’s construction/ destruction history as the point of departure, ‘The Speaking Bones of Fossil Park’ offers a glimpse into the embedded narratives, while simultaneously reimagining what the future monument of the university might honour. Taking cues from the fossils of time - architectural fragments and materials that have previously occupied the site - a towering monument is created. At the zenith of the tower stands our current epoch’s source of worship – the Wifi Monument. The Wifi Monument overlooks the public space – the Fossil Park. 1. Stacked Fossils of the University Machine, 2. The Wifi Monument.

MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: TOM RIVARD

WILKINSON PRECINCT - 2020 (An Ideas Competition)

GRADUATION STUDIO

Building in a university campus is particular type of architectural problem. A visual survey of the post-war university campus shows a situation where buildings with different uses, ages, sizes and modes of expression are built in close proximity. Almost all university campuses display an anthology of building trends and they also represent the testing ground of architectural and planning thinking of various periods. Depending on their age, university campuses are often developed as an extrapolation of an original organisational structure. As time goes by, the relationship to these original structures can become diluted or completely abandoned through the series of alterations and expansions. One could interpret the architecture and organisation of the university campus as a reflection of the instability of what has become the “education industry”. Under these conditions, architecture and planning – fields equipped to deal mostly with the longterm – are caught up in a continual catching-up with the short-term objectives of the education industry. This instability of programme, which has become the hallmark of the modern university, gives rise to an interesting problem: should university buildings be generic containers for everchanging uses? Or, should they be neatly tailored to their original purpose? In short, should they be loose-fit, or snug-fit? The Graduation Studio, Wilkinson Precinct — 2020, was run as a design competition, and part of a Faculty-wide endeavor to critically engage with the University of Sydney’s new masterplan. The project to design the new Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Design (FAPD) building, gave students the opportunity to ask what is the future of education in our discipline, and what is the future of university buildings more generally? (Right) Internal street render, ‘Faculty of Making’ - John Wilkinson. Justin Cockinos, Wilson Ka Hei Chung, Susan Amanda Farrell, Seung Ji Han, Khee Young Hiew, Karl James Keating, Jae Yeon Kim, Ah Ra Lee, Lin Li, Jacqueline Monteiro, Dion Sebastian Isan Tan Moult, Lin Qian, Aleksandar Samardzic, Xuanbo Shen, Xianlin Shi, John Matthew Wilkinson, Dmitri Yasenev, Alexander Wing-Hong Yuen, Ryan Southwell. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO (SEMESTER 2) TUTOR: MATHEW AITCHISON

GRADUATION STUDIO

PROSPECT AND REFUGE

REDUNDANCY AND EVOLUTION OF SPACE

PEER REVIEW

THE HEARTH

FACULTY OF MAKING

PROXIMITY AND EXCLUSION

ENHANCED STREET PRESENCE COMPLEXITY

VIEW AND CONNECTION

JOHN WILKINSON

GRADUATE

Faculty of Making So much of what we do within an architectural studio is in the pursuit of an idea, one which may never leave the pages that we have poured ourselves into throughout a semester. My idea for a new Architecture Faculty for the University of Sydney holds a large central workshop at its core. This allows for a rich interaction between students and their ability to test ideas at a 1 to 1 scale. It provides the opportunity to truly make our faculty, a Faculty of Making. This semester involved the Master Planning of the new Wilkinson Precinct, to incorporate both the new Architecture Faculty and Sydney College of the Arts side by side. 1. Design principles, 2. Massing experiments. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: MATHEW AITCHISON

GRADUATION STUDIO

RYAN SOUTHWELL

GRADUATE

Dynamic Architecture “You can’t better the future if you repeat the past” Dynamic architecture is a new style that takes advantage of technology and engineering in innovative ways to make the building adapt to the user, instead of having the users adapt to the building. The beauty of this style is as science progresses new opportunities will present themselves. The Sydney University project looks at how we use space in the architecture faculty and how we maximise the use of different spaces. At the heart of the concept houses reconfiguring classrooms, while other additions include sliding walls and collapsing lecture theatres. 1. City Road view, 2. The community staircase.

MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: MATHEW AITCHISON

VIBRANT MATTER The Archive as Actant

GRADUATION STUDIO

Conventional archives tend to define themselves through content-specific, quantitative accumulation of matter, subscribing to an existing, pre-established order. They rarely transform their structures. The productive archive offers an open framework which actively transforms itself and therefore allows for the constant production of new and surprising relationships. (Markus Miessen) The University’s extensive archive, the largest collection of antiquities in the southern hemisphere, is the critical and influential participant in this. The archive as actant is the conceptual framework for the studio. It is the ‘spatial framework’ of the archive - a porous threshold from which new historical narratives can be generated, narratives that are reflective of our time and inform shifting cultural dialectics - that becomes the critical and active participant in our programming of the spaces. The Cultural Precinct is not simply a place of observation but an engaged space of speculation and invention drawing on, critiquing and re-framing the past while posturing on potential futures. The matter of architecture embodies numerous narratives, accumulated visions, it contains cemeteries of dormant or lost ideologies, and visions of a future that is no longer relevant or useful. The turning over of redundant buildings and building typologies and the re-imaging of historical and materially valuable buildings as part of the Universities Campus Improvement Program (CIP) is potential territory for investigation. How does the material nature of architecture act as an archive of sorts? An archive of our time, of our material present or our material future. What reflective and reflexive participant is the matter of the architecture itself to this context? The proposed Sydney University Cultural Precinct asks us to invent a new architectural typology. It asks us to challenge, re-consider and re-construct our idea of a contemporary gallery space, and to re-imagine the museum as an active and participatory domain. (Right) Interventions that transform the existing ‘Matter Matters’ - Shiyang He. Weizhen Chen, Adam Michael Choca, Hsien Hui Nicholas Chor, Vincent Ping Hei Chung, Nan Ding, Shiyang He, Sunly Heng, Veronica Ho, Yan Hu, James Knight, Jong Chul Lee, Yucun Liu, Thong Hoang Mau, Stephany Neskovska, Braden Lindsey Pedersen, Lin Rong Tang, Wei Wei, Desmond Yi Yang Zhang, Yang Zhang. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO (SEMESTER 2) TUTOR: GENEVIEVE MURRAY

GRADUATION STUDIO

NAN DING & YANG ZHANG

GRADUATE

Macleay Museum Our design is to propose a new addition to the existing Macleay Museum that reconfigures the circulation, exhibition space and recreates a new archive that acts as an â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;actantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Our design started from an ideological concept design by considering how to bring the public to explore the archive, as it was initially a secured space. We introduced a linear journey to lead visitors to explore permanent exhibition space. With the consciousness of archive, visitors follow the journey into the archive space. The spatial arrangement reflects in the inner progressive relationship between the self-consciousness of archive and the objective archive space. With the surrounding context, by minimising the influence of Parramatta Road, we designed two tunnels to the underground foyer to start the journey. The old botanic garden was used as the destination of the journey. 1. Overview section perspective, 2. Botanic garden view. MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: GENEVIEVE MURRAY

GRADUATION STUDIO

WEIZHEN CHEN & AMEILA YAN HU

GRADUATE

Under_looping Macleay Museum is located on the border of the University and City. It contains both the usage and learning spirit of student life and also potentially as the gate for outside visitors. The main strategy is participation; to allow not only the visitor but also the students and university staff to really participate with the Macleay Museum. Thus the museum should undertake several new exhibition experiences not only the collection themselves, but also the unfolded archive and behaviours of research. Not like some ordinary museum layout, we tried to unfold the exhibition space and combined them into the corridor area of the exhibition area. Making all the round spaces in-between the corridor as the archive and research space adds another layer to the exhibition experience. The new Macleay Museum we proposed contains 3 main parts, Natural science, History and Arts. We put everything under the original Macleay Museum and by the use of materiality, space arrangement, three different exhibition areas are able to be created in the same layout. 1. Natural Science Museum interior, 2. Detail view of underground museum.

MARC5001 GRADUATION STUDIO, TUTOR: GENEVIEVE MURRAY

POSTGRADUATE

Urban Stream

LIMINAL INFRASTRUCTURE ESSAY BY FRANCOIS BLANCIAK

While the complex relationship between infrastructure and architecture has become a major theme of investigation in architectural and urban theory over the last decade,1 the idea that the city might be considered as a piece of architecture that can be designed, whether from scratch or incrementally through a system of architectural particles, has also recently resurfaced.2 These two seemingly opposed themes have been experimentally combined and investigated as part of the Hezlet Bequest travelling studio in Tokyo during Semester 2, 2015, through a research and design exercise that requested students to consider Tokyo’s Yamanote Line (the railroad that integrates all the city’s major train stations into a circular pattern) as architecture. To do so required to accept the line as a formal object whose physicality deliberately distinguishes an interiority from an exteriority, just as architecture does, and therefore embraces the parasitic dimension of any architectural intervention along this line. This radical stance calls into question the interplay between the notions of limits, centres, and infrastructure, not only at the local level of Tokyo — too often thought of as an urban exception — but at a global one. This essay will attempt to show how these three notions rely upon each other in urban structure, and how one of them can morph into the other over the course of time in urban settings, digging into phenomena that became perceptible during the course of the 1990s, but which in fact took their root in the mindset of the 1960s, and through which the city has become obliterated as a delimited spatial entity. The tendency toward an abstract and deterritorialised conception of the city is not a recent phenomenon: In 1903, the German philosopher Georg Simmel wrote: “Man does not end with the limits of his body or the area comprising his immediate activity. Rather is the range of the person constituted by the sum of effects emanating from him temporally

and spatially. In the same way, a city consists of its total effects which extend beyond its immediate confines. Only this range is the city’s actual extent in which its existence is expressed.”3 Keeping in mind this vast definition, we will try to concentrate on this notion of urban limit. In the age of deterritorialisation, where are the limits of the city? Of which nature are those limits? And if one accepts the idea that a mental city exists distinctively from a physical city: what are the relations between these two aspects? The traditional European city formerly presented itself as a relatively simple diagram: a center protected by fortifications, behind which a canal (such as in 16th-century Bruges for example) circled the city and stressed the morphological coincidence between the urban center, its limits and infrastructure. The etymological roots of the terms at stake indicated an indissociable union between the urbs (the physical territory of the city) and the civitas (the community of citizens who live in it). The ancient notion of physical, peripheral limit of the city, the surrounding wall, separated clearly the urbs from the rus (the countryside), and the urbs constituted directly the enclosure — or reservoir — of urbanity. In this traditional scheme, the opposition between town and country coincides with the opposition urbanity/ rurality. The suburbanisation of the city that followed the industrial revolution did expand the territory of the city outside of its former boundaries, but did not fundamentally affect the bond between the traditional city and its civitas. On the contrary, it strengthened this bond without delocalising urbanity from its primary physical territory. A new order was created, “according to the traditional process of adaptation of the city to the society that lives in it. This process of bursting out of the ancient structures,” as Francoise Choay explained, “exists all through history, in proportion to the economic transformations of the societies.”4 With

the crowding of the middle and working classes in the suburbs, a suburbanity5 is simply established, a form of subordinate urbanity characterised by its physical dependence on the centre. Early on in the development of the internet, in a much-debated article6 which followed Henri Lefebvre’s concept of “explosion of the city,”7 Choay noted that the advent of new modes of telecommunication undid the ancient solidarity between the territory of the city and its inhabitants, enforcing a “divorce” between urbs and civitas. Immersed in the urban, the city disappears as a delimited entity. This radical process of separation between the two notions of the city as a place on one hand, and the city as a system of communications on the other, had been predicated much earlier, in 1964, in a seminal essay called: “The Urban Place and the NonPlace Urban Realm.” Its author, Melvin Webber, an American sociologist and economist, described the revolutionary consequences of our now current technologies of telecommunication upon urban forms. Refuting the physical, local and institutional order of the city, his research culminated in the assertion that “the history of city growth, in essence, is the story of man’s eager search for ease of human interaction ... for it is interaction, not place, that is the essence of the city and of city life.”8 By revoking the necessity of face-toface interaction as a sine qua non for urban life, Webber predicted more than thirty years in advance what the dramatic consequences of widespread internet use would be for the distortion of our collective mental map, within which cities can no longer exist as secluded centers of urbanity, but almost necessarily participate to the homogenisation of the urban world beyond its former boundaries, in many ways implementing what the Russian Constructivist deurbanists (such as Miliutin, Okhitovich or Leonidov) envisioned before political

The mechanism of constitution and pulverisation of limits is a distinctive feature of urban growth; one that is not shared with architecture. As buildings designs are aimed to reach a state of finitude, urban growth (or decay, as in the case of many parts of Japan), can only fluctuate, regardless of individual master planning visions. Here lies the complexity of the task of connecting architecture to infrastructure through design: as the two domains respond to different time frames, finitude can hardly be achieved and requires a thorough understanding of the layers that constitute the city, at nearly all scales. This layered growth mechanism is most observable in the historical evolution of Paris, with the successive implosions of its limits: six different walls have succeeded one another in the course of eight centuries.10 The final construction of the Thiers wall in the1840s is of particular interest in the sense that it has become a form of infrastructure: what defines the inner

With regard to the liminal nature of infrastructure, the case of Tokyo represents somewhat the opposite. Often described as chaotic, Tokyo’s structure rather corresponds to a hidden order; the grasping of which demanding at once close observation and cultural distance.11 Looking at central Tokyo from above, one can observe a concentration of high-rises around its main train station, revealing the polycentric nature of the city, as opposed to a monocentric one that would culminate in a single central business district. The areas surrounding the train station rise in height progressively as the buildings they host approach the focal point of the station, forming beads along the necklace of the Yamanote line. As opposed to Paris, where urbanity is distributed along the vector of the street, in Tokyo it is the punctual event of the station that performs this function.12 Yet, zooming out further, the connectivity embedded in this seemingly more homogeneous network — somewhat idealised by urban theorists — shows its own limits. The conurbation of Tokyo extends far beyond its twenty-three central wards (to the West into thirty different municipalities, to the North into Saitama prefecture, and to the South into Yokohama), and the vast and nearly invisible transportation network that plugs into the Yamanote Line fetches populated areas that forces commuters to spend up to six hours in public transportation every work day. Therefore it is arguable that the Yamanote Line itself reproduces to a great extent, at the scale of Tokyo, the

sort of monocentric concentration that “Western” central business districts impose to their suburbs. By defining an exclusive reservoir, it becomes a vehicle for social exclusion. The situation is again the opposite as that of Paris in the sense that instead of having a limit that became an infrastructure (the Thiers wall), we have an infrastructure that became a limit for the city. And even though it is not as strong a physical barrier as Paris’s Boulevard Périphérique, its effectiveness as an organ of geographic segregation is betrayed by the fact that real estate prices in Tokyo are directly indexed on whether a property is located inside or outside the Yamanote Line. Land value tends to increase drastically within the Yamanote Line, and around its main stations. Historically and geographically separating the High City (the Imperial Palace and its surroundings) from the Low City (lower lands, or Shita-machi), the line registers a geographic form of distinction into a social one in the mental map of Tokyoites, so that infrastructure can be seen not only as connective device, but also as an instrument of social exclusion.

URBAN STREAM

territory of Paris today is a set of highspeed lanes, or Boulevard Périphérique, built in the 1970s right on top of the previous location of the Thiers Wall: a major infrastructure that not only connects the city to its surroundings, but that also and most importantly separates effectively its wealthy and well-defined core from its relatively poorer and more ill-defined periphery.

While visionary, Webber’s theory of reduction of the city to a mere system of interactions that could rid itself of face-to-face contact is showing its shortcomings. When in 1964 he stated that: “[f]ace-to-face conversation remains one of the most effective for some purposes, and for this reason certain business establishments seem willing to suffer the costs of congestion in the dense business districts,”13 he in fact realised the very necessity of this mode of communication. Far from receding with our new modes of telecommunication, the physical concentration that the city represents, and its enhancing of faceto-face interaction become increasingly critical aspects of its operation. The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas stressed this fundamental dimension, arguing that the very notion of Being articulates itself around an idea of faceto-face, which creates “primary meaning” 69

support for their experiments was drastically withdrawn. In light of Webber’s thought, we can now consider the internet not just as a telecommunication device but as a true form of urbanism in itself, that emerges from the societal mindset of the 1960s which tended to consider the city as an abstract entity. Webber indeed predicted that new technologies of communication would abolish every form of hierarchy between agglomerations, peripheries and centers; an idea that the French philosopher Paul Virilio built on, fearing that the internet was set to create what he called a “virtual hyper-city,” which would stem from the temporal compression created by telecommunications, a world-wide hyper-centre blurring the distinction between centre and periphery.9 What we can learn from this evolution is that infrastructure can be both what contains the city and what destroys its boundaries and location. It can affect not only the limits of the city, but the very perception of these limits.

and “establishes meaning itself into Being.”14 Tokyo has recently suffered from the limits of our new communication infrastructure: in the past two decades, a growing number of Tokyoites — especially the young — have shown signs of a desire to disconnect themselves from social life altogether, relying only on telecommunications to subsist. This is particularly clear in the behavior of those who have been called hikikomori (shut-ins).15 Taking these reflections on the liminal nature of infrastructure into account, our proposed project aims to affect the physical, mental and social barrier that the Yamanote Line has become, and to address the necessity to reconnect citizens with the physical dimension of the city through building design. This is to be achieved in this exercise by creating sporadic gaps along the line, and investing them with experimental “mixes” between architecture and infrastructure, following the optimistic and historically-proven view that the implosion of urban limits does not represent the death of the city, but a rebirth process.

1 See for example Kazys Varnelis, The Infrastructural City (New York: Actar, 2008) or Neeraj Bhatia, & Mary Casper, eds., The Petropolis of Tomorrow (Barcelona: Actar, 2013). 2 This thesis is developed in Pier Vittorio Aureli, The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011). Aldo Rossi previously introduced the concept of “primary elements” in The Architecture of the City (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1984), 86-87: “primary elements are not only monuments, just as they are not only fixed activities; in a general sense they are those elements capable of accelerating the process of urbanisation in a city.” 3 Georg Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life” in Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities, ed. Richard Sennett (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1969), 56. 4 Françoise Choay, ed., L’Urbanisme, utopies et réalités (Paris: Anthropos-Seuil, 1965), 10-11. 5 Term used by Robert Fishman in Bourgeois Utopias : The Rise and Fall of Suburbia, (New York: Basic Books, 1987). 6 Françoise Choay, “Le Règne de l’urbain et la mort de la ville,” in Jean Dethier & Alain Guiheux, eds, La Ville, art et architecture en Europe, 1870-1993 (Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou, 1994), 26-35. 7 Henri Lefebvre, Le Droit à la ville (Paris: Anthropos-Seuil, 1968), 205. 8 Melvin M. Webber, “The Urban Place and the Non-Place Urban Realm,” in Explorations into Urban Structure (Philadelphia: The University of Philadelphia Press,1967), 86,147. 9 Paul Virilio, La vitesse de libération (Paris: Galilée, 1995), 100. 10 I am referring notably to the 13th-century ramparts of Philippe Auguste, Charles V’s wall in the 14th century, Louis XIII’s wall in the 17th century, the octroi wall of the FermeGénérale in the 1780s, and the Thiers wall, hereby debated. 11 See Yoshinobu Ashihara, The Aesthetics of Tokyo: Chaos and Order (Tokyo: Ishigaya Publishing, 1998). 12 The distinction between the Japanese aerial way of thinking, as opposed to the linear Western mindset, has been emphasised in Barrie Shelton, Learning from the Japanese City: Looking East in Urban Design (London: Routledge, 2012), 32. 13 Webber, “The Urban Place and the Non-Place Urban Realm,” 86. 14 Levinas, Emmanuel, Totalité et infini: Essai sur l’extériorité (Paris: Librairie générale française, 1990), 228. 15 The Japanese government estimates that 700,000 individuals live as hikikomori (people who literally never go out of their apartment or bedroom) in Japan, and that 1.5 million people are on the verge of becoming hikikomori.

URBAN STREAM 71

Students of the Hezlet Bequest Travelling studio discuss their projects with Professor Tom Heneghan at the Tokyo University of the Arts.

CAMELLIA STATION

URBAN STREAM

Infrastructure as an Urban Trigger The Urban Architecture Research Studio explores the complex relationship between architecture and urban space, as well as the dependence of the latter on infrastructure. The project takes place in Camellia, a precinct poised to become the future of Parramatta. Located 1.5 km to the South-east of the Parramatta CBD, it is regarded as one of the most important employment land precincts in metropolitan Sydney, and is currently undergoing strategic planning calling for long-term visions for the area. The North-Western part of the precinct is the point of focus of the design exercise in this studio. Within this given area, three different components have to be designed and connected with each other over the course of the semester: a train station, a portion of the public domain, as well as a connective building, capable of connecting the area to its surroundings. The key idea in this project is to design a cluster of buildings that can act as a trigger for the urbanisation of the entire precinct. This architectural intervention is preceded by thorough research and analysis of this complex urban context, so as to promote an understanding of its historic, social, economic and physical aspects. (Title page) Photograph of 1:20 model â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Camilla Circusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, Benjamin Li & Carter Hu. (Right) Photograph, Francois Blanciak. MARC4001 URBAN ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO (SEMESTER 1) COORDINATOR: FRANCOIS BLANCIAK

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BENJAMIN LI & CARTER HU

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Camellia Circus This project consists of two parts. Part 1 involves the conception of a masterplan for the future development of Camellia in the next 20 years. This includes essential infrastructure layout, commercial development, housing and ecological renewal as well as vision. Our approach to the masterplan is an abstract framework that focuses more thoroughly on specific urban typologies and their statistical frameworks. The final result is not a direct representation of future outcome but an intellectual foundation for the next phase of this project. Part 2 is concerned with the proposition of a large-scale inhabitable infrastructure that incorporates a variety of civic programs and transportation facilities for the urban renewal of Camellia. The building proposes a new scale of public space that responds to the projected growth in population. Our proposal negates the boundary between infrastructure, work, play and living. It embraces a high density model of a city whilst nonetheless preserving generous public open space for its residents. The large area it inhabits demands the building to transcend its architectural scale as a transportation hub or shelter. We believe that public buildings are themselves an act of urban design. 1. Isometric drawing showing the Masterplan for Camellia, 2. Internal perspective. MARC4001 URBAN ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO, TUTOR: THIERRY LACOSTE

URBAN STREAM

GEORGIA FORBES-SMITH & CAMILLA PHILLIPS

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Camellia Masterplan The Camellia Masterplan categorises the industrial site into varying programmatic and topographic bands. Each respond to the historical context of the site: re-introducing mangroves to the wetlands, re-establishing agricultural grounds, re-growing the historic nursery and maintaining industry. The ‘urban playground’ band introduces a new topography. It is divided into thematic strips containing individual programs and a corresponding landscape. Programs include an underground culture, a commercial landscape, community allotments, a learning playground, an artificial terrain for recreation, a mangrove environment and a functioning port. The transportation hub is a monumental object within the ‘urban playground’. It is an axial node, connecting various transport routes with the adjacent programmatic bands. 1. Camellia Station masterplan, 2. Camellia Urban playground, 3. Exterior perspective.

MARC4001 URBAN ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO, TUTOR: THIERRY LACOSTE

ENGAGING WITH COMMUNITIES: DESIGNING INCLUSIVE SPACES FOR WORSHIP IN SYDNEY ESSAY BY PETER ARMSTRONG

Multi-cultural Sydney is a religious market place, where many faiths and traditions compete for adherents, displacing the traditional role of the Christian church. While the contemporary Christian church finds itself in an increasingly secular post-structuralist society, it continues to give the broader community symbols of aspiration in a post-enlightenment world. The different denominations fade into insignificance and the divisive theologies of yesteryear fade away in the face of neo-scientific sectarianism. Despite the regular focus on institutional failings, community expectations of the role of churches are accompanied by demands for the exercise of Christian values, where charity is required while values, which imply disapproval of fashionable social mores, are excluded. Following award-winning designs for St. Patrick’s Cathedral Parramatta by Romaldo Giurgola in 2001 and St. Barnabas Broadway by Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp in 2006, the project for St. John’s Parramatta is the third church project in the faculty, exploring the design process from inception to ultimate completion. The old cathedral St. Patrick’s in Parramatta was destroyed by an arson attack in 1996, leaving only the masonry walls standing. Faced with the dilemma of how to approach the remains of the heritage listed building which dates back to the 1850s, the client appointed the Reverend Peter Williams, a PhD student of our faculty whose research investigated the nature and possibilities of Post Vatican II proposals for the development of inclusive rather than hierarchical worship spaces. The effect of this directive was to abandon the traditional aisled church and instead, build churches that explored alternative plan forms to allow greater participation of the congregation in services. As a result of this approach, the old church was ultimately to be restored as the narthex of a new cathedral.

St. Barnabas Broadway, traditionally the Church of Sydney University, was lost in an electrical fire in 2006. The church building itself was the focal point of a number of other properties used by the church to provide social assistance programs within the ambit of the University campus. On this project, a research-based Master if Architecture Design studio led by myself, assisted St. Barnabas by examining the role of the church in the regional and University community tied to the use of associated properties and resulted in a range of generic designs which were used by the church community to determine both the broader church objectives and finally the brief for the new building. At St. John’s Parramatta the Rector and the Parish Council have a strong vision for the spiritual role of a historic church at the centre of the Macquarie town and the modern city. The Cathedral is a site of great commercial value tied to pre and post 1788 archaeological values and is now situated at the centre of massive expansion of the CBD as part of the Metropolitan Strategy for Greater Sydney. The current studio is engaging with the complexities of pre and post 1788 archaeology, the early history of the colony, the demands of the Greater Sydney Metropolitan Strategy and the complex issues of providing Christian outreach at the centre of Parramatta and Greater Sydney. All three projects began as a blank page, and with clients who expected social and community outcomes but required expert input to formulate architectural approaches and solutions. Each client approached the studio with projects in complex social historical and economic frameworks, providing students with challenging real-life scenarios. Students seized the chance for architectural exploration and community engagement, which afforded them the opportunity to work on major projects at multiple levels, ranging from aspirational to statutory,

yet always within the framework of actual legal and cultural constraints. In turn, their research and design work provided the client body with the knowledge necessary for the formulation of planning and architectural proposals, which lead to eventual commissions. The three projects crystallised a range of conflicting religious, social and physical parameters and gave them a preliminary form to allow debate within the church and broader community. Furthermore, the student projects provide church bodies with multiple versions of generic schemes, possibilities and outcomes, which allowed the development of consensus for action without political or financial cost. Thus the expertise and focused investigations of University proved to entail significant benefits to clients as evidenced in the continued collaborations between the Church and the University of Sydney’s Architecture Faculty.

URBAN STREAM

ST JOHN’S CATHEDRAL PARRAMATTA Develpoment Proposal Study

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The studio has been developed for the Cathedral as an exploration of the ongoing mission of the church in the context of its historic site at the centre the Macquarie planned town. The parish council has been actively considering the development of land associated with the Cathedral since early in 2014. There have been several catalysts for this consideration. These include the problem that current facilities are creaking under present usage and that rapid urban renewal throughout Parramatta has become very apparent over this period, and this observable trend continues to build momentum. The project is located in the heart of the historic centre of Parramatta. The history and archaeology of central Parramatta have continued to act as significant parameters in its development processes. The first church on the site dates from Governor Phillip’s period of office and remains a historic site in the history of Sydney. Now located at the geographic centre of Sydney, the cathedral has a significant role in both city and region. There are substantial development proposals currently under assessment for sites in close proximity to St John’s which point to large increases in the number of Parramatta CBD residents, workers and students and these changes are now imminent. Concurrent consideration of St John’s purpose, vision and mission statements has required Parish Council to think carefully regarding the demographics, growth dynamics and generational changes that exist within the church community and the studio has been developed to explore the implications of these possibilities. (Previous) Breakout and courtyard beyond ‘St John’s Church Complex’ - Dong Ho Lee. (Right) Beacon of light ‘St John’s Church Complex’ - Dong Ho Lee. MARC4001 URBAN DESIGN STUDIO (SEMESTER 2), COORDINATOR: PETER ARMSTRONG

POSTGRADUATE

ANTHONY ZONAGA

URBAN

St Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Anglican Cathedral Strategic Redevelopment Parramatta, a city set to grow exponentially over the coming decades, houses at its centre an iconic cathedral steeped in colonial history. The redevelopment seeks to create adaptable multi-functional spaces to engage with both the existing congregation and the growing population of Parramatta, in addition to the potential development of a mixed-use tower. Carefully considering the manner of which it addresses the public domain, the new three-storey structure wraps around an existing heritage parish hall to create a semi-private courtyard, providing natural light and ventilation to smaller ministry rooms, while large auditoria branch from a central atrium acting as a central breakout space. 1. Aerial perspective, 2. Interior atrium perspective. MARC4001 URBAN DESIGN STUDIO, TUTOR: PETER ARMSTRONG

URBAN STREAM

DONG HO LEE

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St. John’s Church Complex The design of St John’s Church Complex envisions to revitalise the role of a church that once was an iconic beacon in the urban fabric of Parramatta CBD. The design aims to fit in the future development of Parramatta, reconciliating the church and the public domain through activated street frontages along Centenary Square and Macquarie Street. Rather than focusing on spaces such as auditoriums where one speaks for the many, the design seeks to follow the notions of the gospel, emphasising aspects of ‘community’ and ‘relationship’ by the scattered church functions creating a vast communal space for circulation and mingling. The romanesque arch facade symbolically links the new church with the existing cathedral and has a role of a monumental gesture to the public. ‘For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them’ Matthew 18:20 1. Voids, 2. Functional zoning diagram.

MARC4001 URBAN DESIGN STUDIO, TUTOR: PETER ARMSTRONG

POSTGRADUATE 83

Sustainable Stream

SOCIAL EQUITY - CLIMATE CHANGE - ARCHITECTURAL IMPOTENCE? ESSAY BY GLEN HILL

As the influx of refugees fleeing from conflict in the Middle East surges to over 6,000 a day, reactions from the European governments and public have become more clamorous. The range of responses has been extreme: Images of European families opening their homes to grateful refugees contrast images of xenophobic protestors demonising the intruders; images of authorities throwing open their borders to long lines of refugees contrast images of refugee families huddled against newly erected razor wire fences. Narratives of the causes of the ‘Syrian refugee crisis’, as it has become known, are numerous. The simplest and most often rehearsed, blame internecine warfare and Jihadi violence. More complex narratives add to this the culpability of the West in creating the disrupted circumstances that released simmering discontent over political, religious and economic inequity. From the perspective of ‘sustainability’ in relation to architecture, the narrative that caught my attention was an analysis that linked the social unrest in the Middle East leading to the Arab ‘awakening’ to the impacts of climate change. According to Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell of the Center for Climate and Security, climate change has significantly impacted social and political unrest in Syria and exacerbated their transformation into large-scale conflict. While acknowledging the conflict has many direct and indirect causes, their claim is that “global and regional climatic changes have played a role in multiplying stress in the region.”1 For the five years leading up to 2011, Syria’s normally bountiful agricultural regions experienced “the worst long-term drought and most severe set of crop failures since agricultural civilisations began in the Fertile Crescent many millennia ago.”2 According to the United Nations’ 2011 Global Assessment Report,

nearly 75% of the normally productive farmlands of Syria suffered total crop failure, and Syrian farmers lost around 85% of their livestock. The long, unprecedented drought led vast numbers of farmers, herders and agriculturally dependent rural inhabitants to migrate to the cities in search of work. Syria’s urban infrastructure struggled to cope with the influx as the newly arrived poor were “forced to compete with other poor communities—not just for scarce employment opportunities but also for access to water resources.”3 Water shortages due to drought were further exacerbated by the negligence of the Assad regime in managing Syria’s natural resources. By 2014 the surging population of Syrian cities, the collapse of basic infrastructure and the inequitable distribution of resources had resulted in 2 to 3 million people living in extreme poverty,4 and providing fertile ground for social disintegration and internecine violence. There is strong evidence that the long drought in the Middle East was an outcome of climate change.5 Future projections for the region predict an even greater deterioration in climatic conditions for agriculture. The International Food Policy Research Institute projects that at current levels of global greenhouse-gas emissions, production of rain-fed crops in Syria may decline between 29 and 57% in the next 35 years. In terms of dryness, using a scale in which -4 is extreme drought, a report by the National Center for Atmospheric Research projects that Syria will experience readings of -8 to -15 over the next quarter century as a result of climate change.6 The Syrian refugee crisis may be the first large-scale global manifestation of longpredicted scenarios of social breakdown and conflict arising as an outcome of climate change. The flood of refugees into Europe, unparalleled since the end

of the Second World War, illustrates how the repercussions of climate change combined with social instability cannot be contained within regions directly affected by those events. The Syrian refugee crisis is now affecting nations near and far, rich and poor. Remote as it is from Syria, Australia’s response to the crisis contained the same contradictions evidenced in Europe: a charitable offering of 12,000 places for Syrian asylum seekers, mingled with pontification on the virtues of ‘stopping the boats’ of asylum seekers in Australia’s own region. Climate change is predicted to adversely impact human habitats for centuries. Extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, bushfires and cyclones will become more frequent and more devastating. Following Femia and Werrell’s thesis, all extant social inequality and injustice, whether grounded in ethnicity, culture, religion, class or wealth will be multiplied by these extreme weather events. Rather than conceiving of extreme weather events and social instability as aberrations in normal patterns of life it now seems more practical to conceive the future roller coaster of adverse weather events and social upheaval as the ‘normal’ background against which all activities, especially architectural design, must be framed. But what contribution, if any, can architecture make to a future of climatefuelled social crises? Taken individually, the two intersecting root causes of the crises discussed here — social inequity and climate change — are familiar territories for architecture. With the emergence of socialist movements in the wake of the industrial revolution, social and spatial justice became one of modern architecture’s recognisable themes. From early industrial utopias such as George Cadbury’s model village of Bourneville and Ebenezer Howard’s

Innumerable architectural examples in both the environmental and the social domains would seem to confirm Tafuri’s position. In Australia’s region, the city-state of Singapore outwardly appears to have achieved remarkable success in creating a built environment that embodies both a ‘green’ ethos and social equity. Singapore is unique among Asian cities for its ‘clean and green’ image and the successful integration of its ethnically diverse citizenry. Eighty percent of Singaporeans live in the Housing Development Board (HDB) flats, for which

There is however a less recognised underbelly of Singapore’s apparent social and environmental successes. The lifestyle of Singaporean citizens is founded on low paid migrant labour. Migrant workers from the Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh maintain and build Singapore and look after Singaporean families. But they share none of the social, educational or political privileges of citizens, nor do they share in the amenity of Singapore’s high quality urban and residential built environment. On the environmental side, despite its rhetoric about ecological conservation, and despite calls from conservation groups, the state has never mandated the requirement for environmental assessment reports for significant development projects. In this way the state reserves the power to overrule ecological considerations in favour of economic ones, which it has done regularly. The state has also used the green gloss of the urban realm to service the economy, deploying its green image to woo the creative class in order to grow the economy. It would however be unfair to single out Singapore for criticism. Blindness to the marginalisation of other humans is evident in every society, whether in Australia’s attempts to hide the plight of asylum seekers from view, or in Syria’s inability or unwillingness to see the plight of their own displaced

rural community. Nor is this blindness a contemporary phenomenon. For all their wisdom, Plato and Aristotle were unable to see any inconsistency in keeping slaves (or engaged in sophistry to rationalise the practice that made their Ancient Greek life comfortable). For Aristotle, nature produced slaves and masters: “Some people… were born natural slaves and ought to be slaves under any circumstances. Other people were born to rule these slaves, could use these slaves as they pleased and could treat them as property. Natural slaves were slaves because their souls weren’t complete - they lacked certain qualities, such as the ability to think properly, and so they needed to have masters to tell them what to do.”8 Whether the stratification that places one human over another (or the stratification that places humans over nature) arrives from the belief in a ‘natural order’ or the commitment to a ‘cultural order’ is ultimately irrelevant, as the cultural order becomes so habituated that it is perceived as the natural order.

SUSTAINABLE STREAM

The impotence of architecture in the face of significant social and environmental issues would have been of no surprise to Marxist architectural historian and critic, Manfredo Tafuri. Tafuri famously argued that architecture was no more than an instrument of society’s dominant power structures: architects design and build what those with wealth and power want designed and built. A critical, militant or revolutionary architecture would thus seem impossible.

the government has mandated quotas for Chinese, Malay and Indian occupants to ensure a representative racial mix in HDB neighbourhoods and blocks. In terms of the environment, since their independence Singapore’s leaders have deployed architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and planning alongside public education and regulation to create a lush green cityscape. More recently the emphasis of the Singaporean state has shifted from cleanliness and a green aesthetic to more substantive ecological conservation.

With this account, Architecture’s capacity to address social inequity or unsustainable exploitation of nature looks even feebler. Not only does architecture appear condemned to build only what the structures of power allow, as Tafuri argued, but the social and spatial injustices inherent in these structures of power become so naturalised that they are often not questioned, or even noticed. It is impossible to imagine, for example, architects having any opportunity to create quality housing for migrant workers in Singapore or asylum seekers at Manus Island detention centre. Even if contemplated, it would neither be approved nor funded. In its recent design projects, the Sustainable Architecture Research studio in the Master of Architecture Program at the University of Sydney has been exploring the two issues described here as the most potentially volatile of our

Garden City, to Le Corbusiers’ early modernist vision of Radiant City and New Urbanism’s post-modernist vision of Florida, to contemporary public interest architectural projects, architecture has made bold propositions intended to provide quality designed environments for all inhabitants. Likewise, as the built environment was increasingly recognised as the single largest contributor to CO2 emission and global warming, environmental sustainability gradually became design orthodoxy in architectural practice and architectural education. Nevertheless, regardless of any interest architecture has shown in addressing both social and environmental problems, neither domain appears to be improving: predictions about global warming7 are increasingly dire; and social and spatial inequalities are becoming more pronounced.

time: social/spatial inequity and climate change. While there can be no expectation that the studio will find ‘solutions’ to the intractable problems that arrive from iniquitous power relations and shared social blindness, the university environment does have a unique advantage over general architectural practice. Because universities have a tenuous freedom from extant power structures and from the state (always under threat of course), architectural education offers a space of experimentation that would otherwise be closed. This invites the possibility of proposing ‘utopian realities’ (as more recent advocates of the possibility of a critical architectural practice suggest),9 where bold visions are matched to an intimate understand of the local context. Additionally, to agree that architecture operates in the thrall of existing power structures and cultural ways of seeing is not also to agree that architecture does not have the capacity to transform society. Indeed architecture has a remarkable capacity to shape society (the very capacity that is exploited so effectively by capitalism and the consumer economy). Two facets of the power of architecture stand out: the capacity to instill habit; and the capacity to create desire. Instilling habit (discussed in last year’s exhibition publication) generally requires that the architecture be built and inhabited, and is therefore outside the realm of most educational projects. However, deploying architecture to create desire requires only the imagination to invent and project representations of better ways of life, better worlds. Here students excel. In terms of social marginalisation and injustice, when students were invited to find their own ‘clients’ and develop their own program for a local architectural project intended to help the marginalised and disadvantaged, students

demonstrated a remarkable capacity to recognise injustice and find inventive ways to use architecture as a vehicle to create social inclusivity. In terms of ecological sustainability and climate change, the most recent sustainable studio project has taken bioclimatic architectural design beyond merely providing an ecologically sound, neutral, thermal background, to a point where students are using passive design to create thermal pleasure. Rather than promoting the adoption of passive design because it is ‘the right thing to do’, this studio experimentation opens the possibility of constructing the desire to dwell sustainably because it brings pleasure.

1 Caitlin E. Werrell and Francesco Femia (eds.), The Arab Spring and Climate Change, A Climate and Security Correlations Series (Washington, DC: Stimson Center, 2013), 23. 2 Francesco Femia and Caitlin E. Werrell, “Syria: Climate Change, Drought and Social Unrest”, Exploring The Security Risks of Climate Change, The Center for Climate and Security, http://climateandsecurity. org/2012/02/29/syria-climate-change-drought-andsocial-unrest/ 3 Ibid., 27. 4 Wadid Erian, Bassem Katlan and Ouldbdey Babah, “Drought Vulnerability in the Arab Region: Special Case Study: Syria,” in Geneva: U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2010. 5 NOAA, “NOAA study: human-caused climate change a major factor in more frequent Mediterranean droughts,” 27 October 2011, available at http://www. noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20111027_drought.html 6 https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/2904/ climate-change-drought-may-threaten-much-globewithin-decades 7 R.J. Cole and R. Lorch (eds.), Buildings, Culture and Environment: Informing Global and Local Practices. (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2003). 8 See http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/ethics/ philosophers_1.shtml 9 See for example Reinhold Martin, “Critical of What: Toward Utopian Realism,” Harvard Design Magazine, 22 (Spring/Summer 2005): 104-9.

SUSTAINABLE STREAM

MEETING HOUSE

SUSTAINABLE STREAM

The Sustainable Research Studio in the first Semester of 2015 asked students to investigate the meaning of ‘community’ in our multicultural society, today and into the future of the information age and how the essential qualities of acceptance, welcome, and most importantly, the spirit of sustainability can be brought to the forefront of architectural design. Students researched, developed and presented a scheme for a ‘Meeting House” on one of two inner city sites. The Meeting House was to be available for gatherings of a wide variety of community groups and to facilitate a wide range of activities and intentions, proposing community design as one of the cornerstones of sustainable architectural practice. The studio worked closely with Arup Engineers & the Timber Development Association to research and investigate contemporary methods of timber construction and develop appropriate timber technologies. Arup also helped to develop and test a prototype ‘Sustainable Checklist System for Architectural Design’ to serve as a foundation for sustainable practice and a clear model for integrating environmental goals and strategies into every stage of a design project. In particular, four key sustainable themes were addressed during the semester: • community design for growth and change • contemporary timber construction techniques • effective urban place making • appropriate environmentally sustainable design strategies Through research, design development and final presentation students were able to develop an individual approach to environmentally sustainable design for a real inner city site with a well -researched programme and context. The culmination of the studio was the successful end of semester exhibition – ‘Building with Timber in the 21st Century’. (Title page) Render ‘Marrickville Community Centre’ - Chong Pang & Nicholas Chor. (Previous) Street render ‘Tropical Climate Greenhouse’ - Andrew Hogan & Daniel Nolan. (Right) Section perspective ‘Redfern Community Artist Centre’ - Maurguerite Farmakis & Rui Tao Zhu. MARC4002 SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO (SEMESTER 1) COORDINATORS: GLEN HILL & MICHAEL MUIR

SUSTAINABLE STREAM

CHONG PANG & NICHOLAS CHOR

SUSTAINABLE

Marrickville Community Centre Multiculturalism and unemployment are changing Marrickville. This is due to a significant immigrant population and shift from a blue to white collar economy. Marrickville Community Centre aims to foster a sense of community by addressing these issues. To promote multiculturalism, the centre’s assembly hall can be configured for various activities suiting a wide demographic spectrum. Spaces above are hung from trusses to provide a long, column free span. These suspended spaces are created by combining 5x5m modules. Modules are combined, removed or added based on program needs. It is envisioned that these spaces will house learning and support groups to combat unemployment. The only fixed spaces are service cores. Finally, user comfort will also affect the usage of these spaces. Frequently used pleasant spaces lead to interactions that foster community. As such, passive heating and cooling strategies have been introduced. 1. Assembly hall – daycare function, 2. 1:100 physical model with each façade’s design response to the site’s climatic conditions. MARC4002 SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO, TUTOR: GLEN HILL

SUSTAINABLE STREAM

MAURGUERITE FARMAKIS & RUI TAO ZHU

SUSTAINABLE

Redfern Community Artist Centre This proposal aims to bring a focus of activity and a more central destination for the artist community of Redfern, where currently most existing community facilities are dispersed over a wide area and are poorly connected to surrounding neighbourhoods. The design sits within an urban renewal corridor and responds to the scale and form of adjacent fine grain heritage of the site. A throughsite passageway which frames the existing mural wall allows the centre to be a link through to the park, and also creates a clear spatial axis that opens onto a large central courtyard. An open plan facilitates a highly flexible program, allowing for medium scale public functions and large outdoor events. 1. Perspective, foyer, 2. Section perspective.

MARC4002 SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO, TUTOR: MICHAEL MUIR

CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENTS

SUSTAINABLE STREAM

Well-designed environments rarely challenge us. This is a pity, as our senses thrive on diversity. However our engineering codes, our building standards and many environmental rating schemes all celebrate the creation of ‘neutral’ environmental conditions. Environmental neutrality means neither too hot nor too cold, neither too bright nor too dark, neither too noisy nor too quiet. If this can be done with minimal means then it must be a good design. Yet all this points to not just environmental parsimoniousness, but a space that most people will never notice. Now perhaps not being noticed is a good thing, a sort of ambiental modesty if you will. But what architect would ever admit that they strived for thermal boredom or desired to create monotony in every single design they put their fingers on? This semester we asked students to challenge the position of environmental neutrality and, through the act of adapting a car park at Shepherd Street with a new program, to speculate on how to create new and surprising ways to adjust our environments. The studio built on current work within the faculty’s IEQ lab on thermal transience and thermal pleasure. The project took the opposite approach to most studios as students first learnt to create particular microclimates and only then decided on how to occupy that space; in other words, first they created an environmental stage set and then they scripted the play. (Right) Entrance render ‘Tropical Climate Greenhouse’ - Andrew Hogan & Daniel Nolan. MARC4002 SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO (SEMESTER 2) TUTOR: DANIEL RYAN

SUSTAINABLE STREAM

ANDREW HOGAN & DANIEL NOLAN

SUSTAINABLE

Tropical Climate Greenhouse â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;In June of 2015 Sydney University acquired a grant for $33.7 million to research the medical applications of cannabis. The Shepard street carpark is to be redesigned into a multipurpose building centered on the research and production of medical marijuana and other herbal medicines. The research institute will provide a facility for these plants to grow and be harvested; as well as spaces for research as to further understand their healing properties. The tropical and high arid climates required to produce the plants are designed into the building, and are maintained almost entirely passively using innovative design solutions we developed throughout the semester. 1. Diagram of the passive heating and cooling of the structure through manipulation of heat and movement of air, 2. Diagram explaining how short radiation from the sun is trapped within the structure, 3. Render of the Tropical Climate Greenhouse. MARC4002 SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO, TUTOR: RORY TOOMEY

SUSTAINABLE STREAM

JIA YU & YUFENG GAO

SUSTAINABLE

Community Church and Religion Study Centre The project is a Christian Church; it is composed with a forest meditation space on top, a main temple in the middle and a religious study center at the bottom. The idea is to trap heat during the day on the top floors, create a hot and humid microclimate for the meditation space by using the evaporation from the main temple while part of the water drips down to the study center to absorb heat in the study center. Hence the different airflows from both hot humid space and cold dry space could meet up by manipulating pressure ventilation and create fog in the main temple. The cloud in the temple changes spatial and programmatic organisations of the church, provides a new circulation and more private functions to it, however the creation of the cloud is dependent to seasons, weather and time so it becomes an event of the church rather than something occurs all the time. Fog harvesting panels are to be used in the main temple to extract water out of the cloud to be collected for creating the hot humid and cold dry microclimates of another day. Then the transition between water and fog is a circle and the key to the creation of all different microclimates. 1. Sectional perspective, 2. Internal render.

MARC4002 SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO, TUTOR: MATHEW MINDRUP

POSTGRADUATE 97

Digital Stream

The Playful Eyes and the Curious Hands

DIGITAL STREAM

In the intricacy between today’s built environmental issues and numerous means of digital productions, intuitive yet logical design expertise are becoming a rare and demanding skill. In particular, due to the tension concerning analogue and digital methods that tend to place designer at the fork between following someone else’s logic and surrender their intuition, Or playing with their intuition and compromise the logical efficiency. This studio promotes computational design diversity and versatility to level the game between logic and intuition, analogue and digital, mind and hands. Students design their own algorithm and demonstrate how it can be used to synthesise novel designs. The computational iteration provides both explicit and implicit passage for students to internalise the creative process from other ‘designer’, i.e., human, machine or nature. The algorithm also serves as a design agency to externalise student’s ideation process in empowering others to produce novel designs in a playful manner. Throughout the semester, students develop their computational design thinking and habits through visual and physical computation exercises. In visual computation, student challenges their eyes on seeing, perceiving and representing their design logic through rule-based design methods. In physical computation, students rethink and reconfigure the established making techniques computationally through hands-on and codes-on fabrication strategies. (Previous) Central void, ‘Reciprocal Tectonic’ - Danna Priyatna. (Right) Timber wayfinding device derived from parametric rule-based iterations, ‘The Gadigal Grammar’ - Pamela Degabrielle & Tahnee Ironside. MARC4003 DIGITAL ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO (SEMESTER 2), COORDINATOR: RIZAL MUSLIMIN

DIGITAL STREAM

ALEX NANKIVELL & SHI CHEN

DIGITAL

Tracery Grammar The first thing that jumped out at us when starting at the University of Sydney was the strange juxtaposition in architecture we found on campus. Not so much the mix of old and new but rather the importation of a distinctly Northern European style to a very un-northern climate. We became fascinated with the Quad and its Gothic revival buildings. We were especially enchanted by the tracery and stained glass found in its many windows. With this in mind we set out to adapt this gothic design grammar to create a more sustainable and distinctively vernacular Australian design language. This resulted in a project that revolved around an exploration of evolutionary algorithms to generate a subtractive massing scheme and the development of a kinetic faรงade system to serve as passive shading and lighting. 1. Exterior view, 2. Atrium, 3. Generative iterations. MARC4003 DIGITAL ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO, TUTOR: RIZAL MUSLIMIN

DIGITAL STREAM

PAMELA DEGABRIELLE & TAHNEE IRONSIDE

DIGITAL

The Gadigal Grammar The Gadigal Grammar; a design language unique and significant to the Sydney University site emerges through a series of deterministic rule-based computations and iterations derived from the abstracted impression embedded in the concrete of the site-adjacent Gadigal Green. The element created is a passive wayfinding and shading device that takes its form and construction from this language. The element divides the previously impenetrable site, responding to pedestrian desire lines. It exploits the anisotropic qualities of native timbers to create an automated screen and transformative light environment, which reacts to changes in humidity. 1. The Approach | Passive Wayfinding Device, 2. Native Timber | Anisotropic Manipulation in varying humidity.

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MARC4003 DIGITAL ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO, TUTOR: RIZAL MUSLIMIN

ALICE MIDDLETON & BENJAMIN JAY SHAND & NOAH SHIRLEY

DIGITAL

A Brutal Story A Brutal Story is as much about uncompromising geometric obsession as its associated material affiliation. A narrative centred upon the likes of shaping, transforming, constructing and scripting, harsher aspects are softened by varied notions of play akin to stamping and uninhibited assemblage. The end product presents itself as an eclectic mix of the predefined and the post-rationalised, inviting a broader audience to shift forms and, ultimately, create both systemised architecture and architectonic detailing when required, with ease. Through a fusion of art and design spheres, this project begins an attempt to revisit the drafting process, expressing a back to basics approach to the creation of combinatory form and function. 1. 1:200 massing model, 2. 1:20 sectional model. MARC4003 DIGITAL ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO, TUTOR: RIZAL MUSLIMIN

DIGITAL STREAM

DANNA PRIYATNA

DIGITAL

Reciprocal Tectonic The project focuses on a reciprocal tectonic exploration that is later applied on a student hub design (Sydney University). The additional roof structure that is composed of reciprocal panels, divides the public and private zone and at the same time houses Sydney University new learning hub while the existing building is converted to student housing. 1. Exploded axonometric, 2. Initial study.

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MARC4003 DIGITAL ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH STUDIO, TUTOR: DINAH ZHANG

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INTERNATIONAL

International

SRI LANKA DESIGN AND HISTORY INTENSIVE New Natures

INTERNATIONAL

Emerging from the cessation of civil war in 2009, Sri Lanka boasts unmatched opportunities for observing and questioning how architecture and the landscape are shaped during and after conflict. Sri Lanka: New Natures includes the research and design-based works of 27 undergraduate and graduate architecture students who participated in a design and history intensive in Sri Lanka in January and February 2015. Intellectual and aesthetic exchanges remained central to the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; experiences on the island. Students visited significant historical and monumental sites from the 11th to the 20th century, including a number of projects pioneered by the noted architects including Geoffrey Bawa, Minette de Silva, Anjalendran, Amila De Mel and Channa Daswatte as well as their associates. We were also privileged to visit the offices and hear lectures from practitioners on-site. The shared dialogues that emerged during lectures, personal explorations and visits to significant sites, many of which are not open to the public, led to a scaled intervention in the heart of Colombo that confronted notions of the border, tourism, hygiene, bodies, sustainability, the filmic, and the reinvention of the post-colony. (Previous) Photograph - Gracie Guan. (Right) Canal site mapping - Annika Van Leeuwen & Liat Busqila. Ragulan Balasubramaniam, Jackson Birrell, Liat Busqila, Stephanie Chiu, Blythe Fairweather, Andre Frino, Matthew Fuller, Gracie Guan, Timothy Huang, Karl Keating, Jun Ming Kong, Clarence Lee, Elisabeth Lester, Jiahui Li, Arielle Marshall, Giselle Marie-Claire Moore, Alice Middleton, Natalie Murray, Mackenzie Nix, Ariel Ophir-Verheyden, Isabelle Orr, Alex Purdue, Caitlin Roseby, Rani Saraswati, Praveena Sivalingam, Annika Van Leeuwen, Sarah Mae-Siew Yap, Ziyan Zhang. DESA3552 SRI LANKA INTENSIVE (SUMMER INTERVAL 2014-15) COORDINATOR: SEAN ANDERSON

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INTERNATIONAL

ANNIKA VAN LEEUWEN & LIAT BUSQILA A series of mappings document the travel experiences and formulate a response to the architecture in which modern and ancient structures are pitted against each other and deconstructed. This approach serves to expose formal workings across different scales as a way of interpreting the sites visited and interrogating how they contributed to the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rich and diverse architectural history. 1. Exploded mappings of ancient and modern sites, 2. Mapping Central Colombo. DESA3552 SRI LANKA INTENSIVE, COORDINATOR: SEAN ANDERSON

INTERNATIONAL

MACKENZIE NIX The Mandala Baths critique how - from the segregation of urban spaces to the marketing of the tourist ‘experience’ - Sri Lanka’s colonial history continues to shape the landscape of Sri Lankan life and how it is percieved by those who enter into it. Influenced by the gated form of a traditional buddhist Mandala - symbolic microcosms that depict the various powers at work within the universe. This project utilises the programs of both an open public bathhouse and a ‘foreigner’s only’ Ayurvedic Massage centre to highlight the existing inequalities between the Tourist and the population of this war-ravaged former British colony. 1. Mandala, 2. Axonometric projection.

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DESA3552 SRI LANKA INTENSIVE, COORDINATOR: SEAN ANDERSON

COASTAL ECOLOGIES ON THE PACIFIC RIM

INTERNATIONAL

Situated at 33o below the equator, Chile and Australia share similar coastal ecologies that require particular long-term solutions in regard to issues of littoral-land dynamics, erosion, and permanent settlements. The goal of this studio is to design a portable erosion barrier that corrects the imbalance between oceanic currents and sand dunes. It would assist in the conservation of marine reserves and act as protection against extreme tidal events such as tsunamis. Digital fabrication techniques will be used to construct the barrier and as a result, the barrier design will be tested at two coastal sites, Valparaíso and Sydney. This postgraduate studio will enhance faculty outreach towards countries in Latin America and is part of a signed international agreement between the University of Sydney and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI Santiago). Bringing together techniques of architectural design, ecology studies, and landscape, this studio merges theoretical precepts with the practical limitations set by sites near sand and water. Both countries must address similar variables of coastal zones that affect climate change adaptations, public ownership, and sea rise levels. This erosion barrier will act a mediator between different site conditions as well as a generator of new hybrid conditions that will fulfill the needs of local inhabitants and long-term visions for each coastal city. Many of these contemporary issues emphasising the merger of architecture and ecology are pertinent to the growth of the architectural profession. Besides the apparent linkages to sustainability and green design, greater issues surrounding global warming and cross-cultural responses to changes in the environment will be stressed. (Right) Mapping - John Caldwell & Emmy Omagari. Felicity Cain, John Caldwell, Pamela Degabriele, Charlotte Evans, Max Hu, Shayne Jewell, James Moulder, Emmy Omagari, Courtney Owen, Ogi Rakic. DESA3552 CHILE INTENSIVE (SUMMER INTERVAL 2014-15) COORDINATOR: JENNIFER FERNG

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INTERNATIONAL

EMMY OMAGARI 1. Humboldt penguin habitat, 2. Model. DESA3552 CHILE INTENSIVE, COORDINATOR: JENNIFER FERNG

INTERNATIONAL

PAMELA DEGABRIELE Fabricated Form 1. Photomontage, 2. Specimen list.

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DESA3552 CHILE INTENSIVE, COORDINATOR: JENNIFER FERNG

Tin Sheds Gallery

Michael Wolf Hong Kong Inside Out

26 March - 17 April

Curated by Lee Stickells

Hong Kong Inside Outside was a photographic exhibition composed of two series of works by Hong Kong based photographer, Michael Wolf. The large scaled photographic series “Architecture of Density”, focuses on the dense urban skylines of Hong Kong. Wolf uses a “no exit” visual style that flattens the perspective by cropping out the sky and the ground. The resulting images transform these urban skylines into seemingly infinite abstractions and uncover the beauty in the city’s monotonous, brutalist architecture. In the smaller scaled second series 100 x 100, Wolf takes the viewer beneath these façades, with intimate portraits of individuals within their dwellings. This series is a study of one hundred interiors in Shek Kip Mei Estate, one of Hong Kong’s oldest public housing complexes in which each apartment measures exactly one hundred square feet. These portraits capture the extraordinarily diverse and unique environments residents have created for themselves in standardised spaces.

Archiving Seasons of Light Erieta Attali on Kengo Kuma

30 April - 26 June

TIN SHEDS

Curated by Erieta Attali & Lee Stickells

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In 2015, the International Year of Light, the Tin Sheds Gallery profiled the relationship between light and shadow by exhibiting New York photographer Erieta Attali’s photographs of renowned architect Kengo Kuma’s famous residential works: Glass and Wood, and Water and Glass. In contrast to traditional photographic representations of architecture as static objects in space, Attali’s focus is instead on capturing the transient spaces between built environments and their surrounding landscapes. This focus is ultimately what lead Attali to Kuma. Kuma comments: “Every other architecture photographer shoots the isolated object; she [Attali] carefully picks out the qualities of the place. It is still an image of a house, but the protagonist is the landscape itself. That is exactly what I am intending in the design.” These shared approaches between Attali and Kuma on landscape and architecture has formed the basis of a collaboration now into its fourteenth year. The exhibition also screened an exclusive interview with the artist and architect by the University’s Head of Architecture, Associate Professor Lee Stickells.

Portraits of Practice Women in Architecture

10 July - 11 September

Curated by Naomi Stead, Maryam Gusheh, Justine Clark, Fiona Young and Gill Matthewson

Parlour: women, equity, architecture is an activist and advocate group that promotes gender equity in the architecture industry. Parlour held its first Sydney event at Tin Sheds Gallery in 2015 with an exhibition that brought their multi-disciplinary research to life through photography and graphic display. One series of photographs captured women architects and the architectural workplaces of three major Sydney practices over a single day. These photographs document the atmosphere, ethos, and material culture of these offices and the individuals who work there, seeking the minutiae of an ordinary day in the life of a (woman) architect. For Parlour, this photographic series these visual accounts of contemporary architectural workplaces are an invaluable â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;visual archealogy of a particular architectural socio-culture at one historic moment, and more specifically have the benefit of increasing the visibility of women architects and their achievements within the architecture fieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

OSF Ochre, Spinifex and Foil

24 September - 6 November

TIN SHEDS

Curated by Gina Levenspiel and Michael Tawa

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Ochre Spinifex and Foil was an exhibition and symposium that presented new pathways in Australian design knowledge, arising from the 2-way exchange of Indigenous and non-Indigenous science. Across the main space of the gallery, visitors will move between the spinifex and foil exhibits, to a darkened tableau of ochres in an adjoining room. The exhibition moved through three design agendas concerning: the ethical exchange of scientific and cultural knowledge (the conservation of ochre); the legal place and protection of traditional intellectual knowledge (the commercialisation of spinifex); and the exercise of discretionary knowledge (the delineation of the architectural dressing). The applied research selected for display was styled by skilled practitioners working in Australian conservation, manufacture and architecture. Ochre, Spinifex and Foil was presented by the University of Sydney Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning in association with the Tin Sheds Gallery in support of the Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2015 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Integrated Strategy Wingara Mura-Bunga Barrabugu, Thinking path to make tomorrow.

ERIETA ATTALI AND KENGO KUMA INTERVIEWED BY LEE STICKELLS Interview from the “Archiving Seasons of Light, Erieta Attali on Kengo Kuma” exhibition at the Tin Sheds Gallery.

Lee: Kengo, could we start with perhaps some discussion of how this project arose, so how the New Canaan House came about for you? Kengo: I got the commission directly from the client. I did not know her before the project and suddenly I got an email from her. Then I got so excited to hear that because it is in New Canaan and it is very close to Philip Johnson’s Glass House. The Glass House, I think, is a very important house, and the location of my project is very similar to the [site] conditions of the Glass House. It is a beautiful place, so I was very happy to hear that. Lee: Kengo, how did you approach the relationship to the site, the fact that it is a very beautiful landscape and it is also a site of some historical significance because of the concentration of mid-century modern houses there, including Philip Johnson’s Glass House? Kengo: Yes, what I did for the site is to show contrast from Philip Johnson’s attitude to the site. Interestingly, for Philip Johnson, the idea is touching the ground. This is a big difference to Mies van der Rohe’s approach to the site of Farnsworth House [which is] totally floating above the ground with a gap between the ground and the house. But Philip Johnson’s house was a study of the ground, of touching the ground. But what I did here was [that] one part is touching the ground, and one part is totally floating above the valley. This is different from Philip Johnson’s house, and different from Mies van der Rohe’s house as well. My

attitude is to respect the [site] condition. This is coming from my philosophy of architecture, [which] is always to respect the condition, and respect the place. I want to show the difference of my method from Philip Johnson’s method and Mies van der Rohe’s method. And this project is very important for me. Lee: A question for the both of you, Kengo, Erieta, could you tell us how this working relationship between the two of you began? Erieta: I was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in the year 2000/2001. When I first came across Kengo’s work in one of the publications at the Avery Library, and I talked about it with Kenneth Frampton and he said, look, if you really want to meet the architect, you have to go to Tokyo. After my time in the US, I was an archaeological photographer for 12 years, so I was working at Knossos Palaces when I said, look, I cannot continue anymore, I have to go and find this guy. And that was in November 2001, and I talked to Kengo about the Glass House in Atami. And that was the beginning … Lee: Erieta, you’ve talked sometimes about some affinities between your own approach and Kengo’s approach in architecture, perhaps both of you could speak about what you have seen in each other’s work that maybe you can relate to. Erieta: Even without studying the philosophy of design in Kengo’s philosophy, because I was

of contemporary architecture. In the work of Kengo, I do not see this, I see the landscape itself. So it is another level of communicating and being a new relation to the landscape.

Lee: I understand that the photographs really do capture these atmospheres, these moments in the projects. About other architect photographer pairings, like Le Corbusier and Hervé, Shulman and Neutra, here in Australia Max Dupain and Harry Seidler, often there is something about the way the photographer is approaching the architecture and what the architect is trying to achieve in the work that seems to click. Erieta: … recently I was in Kyushu [Kengo Kuma’s Kyushu Geibun Kan museum] photographing an incredible work of architecture where every moment was fascination and discovery. You would see the architecture unfolding in different light conditions and seeing so many layers of space, which is incredible. For me, it is a kind of journey throughout the day and everyday, so it is a rare thing. I did photography for so many architects around the world, so it was an incredible journey through spaces within one

TIN SHEDS

Kengo: It is very different from the method from other photographers, shooting the project as an isolated object, she carefully picks up the quality of the place but it is still an image of the house but as a protagonist of the landscape itself. That is exactly what I intended with the design of the house.

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a landscape photographer, I would understand architecture through the landscape itself. I would see architecture as landscape and instead of isolating it and instead of extracting it from nature, I would see it as one. When I saw the work of Kengo, it was one of the reasons that made me approach him, because I was fascinated by this notion that there is no object anymore. It is the landscape itself, it is the world itself and it is all part of it, it is one thing, so that was my fascination. Without forcing it, without pushing it, without thinking about any specific method, it is all happening naturally from my own side. The fact that prior to that, I was an archaeological photographer for 12 years and I worked in many excavation sites and underground tombs, where you would see the remains of the building in relation to the landscape. So my eye was trained to capture ruins or remains of the building and how they related to the landscape because the landscape in antiquity was very important and where it [the building] was positioned, located. So I was trained from a very early age as a professional, allowing me to understand and capture architecture as part of the landscape because of my experience with antiquities. When I first saw the work of Kengo, the Glass House in Atami, for me, it was the absolute fascination, and still remains, the absolute one. The openness and that you can isolate yourself, but at the same time that you are out there in nature, one thing, experiencing the environment, the context. I would reflect and see the work of, for example, Mathias Klotz or Smiljan Radic as ruins in a way, even pieces

building [â&#x20AC;Ś] Lee: You both have an interest in the way architecture can merge with its environment, the way it can dissolve or disintegrate. Can I ask what that relationship between architecture and environment means to you? Kengo: When I visited the site, there was a big tree, a big tall tree, a vertical line of big tall trees, a long strong line as the order. I liked the rhythm. It is different from the forest in Japan, and New Canaanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nature probably is [unique to] New Canaan, so I felt that the design should have a conversation with nature. I believe we can create a continuous move from nature to the interior. It is not separate, it is gradually shifting from the wilderness to the intimate, and finally the house looks as though it melted with the beautiful forest and the beautiful valley. Lee: Erieta, it seems that it was really important in this project because of the architecture and what you were trying to capture. There was a series of photographs; this was not about one iconic image. Erieta: I went to visit the site and I realised that it is impossible to photograph it in one or two days, or even three days, because the forestland is very characteristic and typical of Connecticut and New Canaan, as you said. The atmosphere is so strong there, I mean, I arrived and it was late fall, so it was amazing. You came

across the house as you were floating in the forest. So that was the beginning for me and I decided, in combination of course with the architectural quality and the site itself, that I have to capture it in the seasonal changes and how architecture is related to the seasonal changes. Actually, it becomes one thing moving with the seasons, adapting the course of nature in every specific season. Either it is winter with a snowstorm or it is autumn with red trees. In certain moments of the day, the house totally disappears and what you see is the ceiling and the floor, the wooden structure, where it is the horizontal movement, and then you have the verticality of the trees which is again from the same material, it is wood. So you see actually the wooden floor and the ceiling floating, creating these dialogues with the verticality of the trees because the rest disappears in certain moments of the day and usually this happens in the late afternoon hours. That is why I have decided to photograph against the sunlight towards the sunset where you totally lose the glass. As a material, it disappears. It is an amazing moment for the house. Kengo: According to the change of direction of light and the changing shadows, probably what she found appealing in that house came from the kind of detail. We carefully made that detail [according to the wishes of] the client. She [the client] did not want to have any curtains on the wall. I respected her decision and the exterior and the interior are totally merging. She totally understands what I designed for the house.

Lee: Kengo, did Erietaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photography reveal something to you about your own architecture? Kengo: The influence of the photographer is probably very important for us. Sometimes it shows as a reflection on the glass and the beautiful shadows in the building. She can find appropriate timing for the shadows and for the reflections and that effect can teach me what I should do for the total space and sometimes it is just following the architectural solution. But what she showed me is the relationship between the environment and yourself and sometimes it is shocking for us that this kind of effect really happens in the house. And then after that, for the next project, I try to achieve that kind of special effect between those two things. Erieta: But it is interesting because actually I see what you have designed, I just present to you what you have designed.

Kengo: For me, what happened after the completion is very important. Sometimes the material we use for the building is aging beautifully after the completion and also the building is getting better and better after the completion [â&#x20AC;Ś] But for my building, the time after the completion of the building is more important, it can show what happens afterwards and then it is very exciting as an experience for us to see what happens after that. Erieta: The life of the building, somehow, if we can go this way. Lee: Yes, yes. Erieta: Because the building has a life, and death as well. Kengo: Yeah, I like that kind of, having a life itself.

Kengo: I was surprised to see [it]! Erieta: As I say, it is the visual translation of the architectural design, which is a surprising moment for the architect but actually the architect is the one who thought about it to begin with.

TIN SHEDS

Erieta,Kengo: [laugh]

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Lee: Time seems really critical to understanding the house and the photography.

THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION STUDIO Studio Brief: What makes a great architecture exhibition? It is a commonplace that architecture lends itself particularly well for exhibitions because scaled models and drawings conform to traditional modes of display: the placement of objects on plinths and the hanging of images on walls. If, however, we stop thinking of architecture as a static object and start understanding it as the physical context for lived experiences – be it aesthetic, social or other – we can no longer conceive of the architecture exhibition as a collection of inert objects. Rather we must think of it as an event, as a performance, as a staging of ideas and beliefs that are subject to experience in time and space and interaction with the audience. Clearly, architecture exhibitions are more than simply the sum of their objects but they provide the spatial and material framework, against which aesthetic and intellectual experiences are staged. Seen in this light, the display of models on stands and the hanging of standard drawings and images on white walls are not suitable forms of mediation to fully capture our contemporary understanding of architecture. This understanding is no longer solely based on style, typology and formalism. Rather it is rooted in the spatial and intellectual experiences of users and the problems they face as part of their everyday lives. The topics and format of the exhibition seek engagement with all stakeholders of the built environment. The students developed designs for the Hearth (Undergraduate) and the Tin Sheds Gallery (Master) based on two concepts: the theme of “sea” sought to create a sense of “floating” through the use of horizontal plates, and the theme of “forest” intended to forge an experience of “immersion” with the design of a field of vertical columns. (Right, top) Floating, illuminated platforms for the Hearth exhibition space (Undergradate exhibition). Design team: James Feng, Nicholas Locane, Benjamin Jay Shand. Render by James Feng. (Right, bottom) Colour-coded column forest for the Tin Shed Gallery exhibition space (Masters exhibition). Design team: Hope Dryden, Robin Lloyd. Render by Robin Lloyd. Hope Dryden, James Feng, Isabell Grady, Robin Lloyd, Nicolas Locane, Davin Nurimba, Rani Saraswati, Benjamin Jay Shand, Adrian Thai, Nicole Zee. MARC6204 GRADUATE EXHIBITION, COORDINATOR: SANDRA LOSCKHE

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THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION TEAM

PUBLICATIONS

Matthew Mindrup (ed.). The Material Imagination: Reveries on Architecture and Matter. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015.

Matthew Mindrup, Ulrike AltenmullerLewis (eds.). The City Crown by Bruno Taut. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015.

‘This lively collection of chapters both validates and extends the tradition of Gaston Bachelard’s psychoanalytics of fire, earth, air and water, extended through Marco Frascari’s concept of the materiality of the imagination as an “imagination of and by materials”. While there is no allegiance to a single philosophy or methodology, these authors seem to be of a common mind about architecture’s future - there is one, to begin with ... but a good future is dependent on the imagination as an active and provocative force which, through disciplined ingenuity, may avoid the cataclysm of an earth made unlivable on a number of counts. Architecture has been a part of the problem; these essays suggest it may also be a part of the solution.’

This book is the first English translation of the German architect, Bruno Taut’s early twentieth century anthology Die Stadtkrone (The City Crown). Written with World War I in mind, Taut developed The City Crown to promote a utopian urban concept where people would live in a garden city of ‘apolitical socialism’ and peaceful collaboration around a single purpose- free crystalline structure. Taut’s proposal sought to advance the garden city idea of Ebenezer Howard and rural aesthetic of Camillo Sitte’s urban planning schemes by merging them with his own ‘city crown’ concept. The book also contains contributions by the Expressionist poet Paul Scheerbart, Eric Baron and the architectural critic Adolf Behne.

Donald Kunze, Penn State University, USA

PUBLICATIONS Sean Anderson. Modern Architecture and its Representation in Colonial Eritrea Farnham: Ashgate 2015.

Sandra Karina Löschke (ed.). Materiality and Architecture. London: Routledge, January 2016 (forthcoming).

Modern Architecture and its Representation in Colonial Eritrea is the first books of its kind to chart nearly fifty years of the evolution of Italian colonial cities in Northeast Africa with particular attention to Italy’s first colony, Eritrea. How Italian architecture and urbanism was redefined by and through notions of the modern yielded a complex built environment that served to emulate erstwhile imperial pursuits. Exploring discourses of modernity through literature, geography, landscape and media, the book demonstrates how architecture in the capital Asmara reshaped the creation and reception of Italian East Africa.

Once regarded a secondary consideration, today materiality represents a powerful concept in architectural discourse and practice. Materiality and Architecture extends architectural thinking beyond the confines of current design literatures by deepening our understanding of materiality’s role in architectural processes, the production of cultural identities, the pursuit of political agendas, and the staging of everyday environments and atmospheres.

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It probes materiality-based approaches in architecture from interdisciplinary perspectives and includes essays from Gernot Böhme, Jonathan Hill and Philip Ursprung. Indepth case studies examine works by Herzog & de Meuron, Zaha Hadid, Lacaton & Vassal, and MVRDV, providing a direct connection to practice.

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STUDENT EXCELLENCE

Student Excellence

HONOURS DISSERTATION LIST SEMESTER 1 Sophie Canaris, “The Unseen Spectacle: Architectural Implications of Camouflage Theory” James Moulder, “The next BIG thing…” Yong Xin Leong, “Putrajaya: Space, Structure and Meaning” Sarah Yates, “A Contemporary Nolli Plan; Mapping the Territorial Floor and Skin of the City” SEMESTER 2 Mitchell Robert Page, “Gradients of Intersection; Digital Fabrication and Joint-making” Tiffany Liew, “Poised Ephemera in the Cultural Cosmos: Figuring the Value of Collage for Architecture” Marguerite Farmakis, “Drawing Tokyo in Motion: 21st Century Architectural Representations” Felicity Cain, “Informal Settlements in the Contested City: A Case Study of the City of Aleppo”

STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP, AWARD AND PRIZE RECIPIENTS 2015 Multidisciplinary Australian Danish Exchange (MADE) Scholarships Alasdair Mott, Nina Tory-Henderson 2015 AIA NSW Graduate and Student Awards: NSW Design Medal Jennifer McMaster & Jonathon Donnelly First Degree Design Award (Runner Up) Benjamin Norris First Degree Design Award (Commendation) Felicity May Digital Innovation Award (Commendation) Nan Ding & Yiran Hu; Vincent Ping Hei Chung & Pierre-Antoine Marie Maitre Structural Innovation Award Mr Max Hu, Mr Harry Henshaw-Hill & Mr Hongkai Yuan

Students Award of Excellence Hope Dryden & Robin Lloyd Grand Award Concept and Design Hope Dryden & Robin Lloyd 2015 Design Modelling and Fabrication Awards:

STUDENT EXCELLENCE

2015 Spun AIA Awards:

Innovative use of Digital Fabrication in Design Hope Dryden & Robin Lloyd Innovative use of Fabrication and Materials in Design Mitchell Page Innovative use of Fabrication in Lighting Design Yuxiao Wang Innovative use of Fabrication Methods and Technologies in Design (Commendation) Adam Vandepeer & Nic Hartley Innovative use of Digital Fabrication (Commendation) Ben Tang Innovative use of Digital Fabrication and Materials (Commendation) Allen Huang Innovative use of Digital Fabrication Methods and Technologies (Commendation) Dayie Wu Innovative use of Digital Fabrication Methods and Technologies (Commendation) Sophie Canaris & Nicholas Grimes

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Jurorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Special Commendation Ragulan Balasubramaniam

STUDENT EXCELLENCE Sculpture By The Sea 2015

”Half Gate” by Matthew Asimakis, Clarence Lee and Caitlin Roseby

‘Acoustic Chamber’ by Arissara Reed and Davin Nurimba

STUDENT EXCELLENCE

‘Mirage’ by Deirdre Mair and Harry Stitt

Final year architecture students Matthew Asimakis, Clarence Lee and Caitlin Roseby are the creators of Half Gate, which offers a vision of partial enclosure. Their use of mirrors create an environment in flux; a place where the sky, sea and visitor converge, blurring into one another. Acoustic Chamber is the creation of Arissara Reed and Davin Nurimba, also recipients of a Clitheroe Foundation Mentorship. A Science and Architecture student, Reed has a keen interest in acoustic structures. Nurimba who studies Architecture, has 3D modelling expertise and is inspired by the interplay between art and technology. Their beautiful shell-like sculpture is a walk-in acoustic chamber that echoes its own environment, as well as the sound of the ocean.

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Deirdre Mair and Harry Stitt, double degree students in Engineering and Architecture, have created Mirage. Their three-dimensional sculpture comes in and out of focus, assembling and disassembling, depending on the angle from which the work is viewed. The pair is skilled in metal, wood and digital fabrication, and spent several months in the University’s School of Civil Engineering designing and constructing their piece.

STUDENT EXCELLENCE VIVID 2015

‘Water’s Edge’ by Mitchell Page and Meng (Joshua) Hng Ho

STUDENT EXCELLENCE PUBLICATIONS

Sydney Subjective: The Illegible City - Collection of student essays Sydney Subjective The Illegible City

The icon demands recognition. case in the destroyed foyerthis of association. the ANZ Tower Sydney’s CBD. The centrepiece Some twenty yearsthe ago, uponwere theAsteps of point their city’s Olympic Museum, twoquoting Sarajevans addressed their expanded “while people sleeping” onlyis furthers It is in worth Barthelme’s (1981, fellow city-dwellers, delivering a atrium readingisofa large what hasblister, since become one of Lebbeus Wood’s most passag57) description at length here: “Sometimes a bulge, or sub-section would carry allstep the wayoft-cited east tobranches the river of this monumental, light-filled marble staircase. Each white, sculptural curves and es. its From smouldering of aofcity siege rang the words resonate in thehour heartsrush, of many, acting on ownthe initiative, in the manner anin army’s movement on athat map,would asDuring seen inthe a headquarters remote from the outwards, weaving into theheart structure of the walls bordering theor lunch a cleaner is as a poetic touchstone for aspiring architects forofyears come. ‘Ispace. am through, anwithdraw architect,’ wrote Woods ‘a confighting. Then that part would be, as iteach were, thrown backtoagain, would into new dispositions; the next stationed thepart base ofcannot the stairs. As wave pedestrians passes he swiftly mops the(1993), steps, wiping structor ofat worlds…I know your name. Nor candisappeared you of know An archetypal manifesto, the are morning, that have made another sortie, or altogether.” Again, its voluptuous randomand polishing with would deft movements. Repeat. The absurdity thismine’. scenebelieve a few in questions. thewords physical emotionally charged, incisive, and laced withthe the buoyancy of dream those who themselves ‘part ofIs the solution’ ness, in its freedom and movement, we see balloon as the state, asraises the unregulated unconscious imposimage of 1993) a company so critical to itsmimicking subsequent brand that itThis requires this of micromanagement? Does (Woods, capable of effecting substantial change. of level the as benevolent creator of ing itself on theand circumscribed self, Breton’s (1924, 9) image assertion thatarchitect “the imaginary is perhaps on this the suggest image has shifted from being an important factor to aand definition of architecture itself And ‘worlds’ (Woods, 1993) is by means architectural media the narrative contained thereinof frequently point of that reasserting itself, of no claiming itsunique; rights”. The balloon’s pressure against theiconic steel and concrete the? city’s accord architect the superficial role omniscient creator. In about his 1978 masterwork Delirious New Rem Koolhaas buildings, its light and of pneumaticity, mirrors the attempt thewe unconscious to breach the artifice we have critically,the what doestouch this icon worship imply theof way design, consume andYork, appreciate contemunabashedly describes himself asit‘Manhattan’s ghostwriter…’ (Koolhaas, 1978, p.can 5), filling three hundred andDeten built, inarchitecture? a manner similar to Redon’s “Strange Balloon”. Of course, theis,city’s children take quickly toimplies. the balloon. porary First of all, is important to define what an icon what it be and what it pages from with athe narrative that is,meaning for the part, of speculative. Koolhaas seizes the extant city its history, Their minds are unregulated; they do most not know mental weinterpreted place on ourselves. For them, and the rived Greek eikon, “likeness” or the “image”, anrestrictions icon can be asofaand representative and bends them tonot his idiosyncratic rhetoric, deftly his musings with fact and ‘[providing his] ending’ balloon does conjure suspicion. Instead, thepeppering children jump quickly onto the landscape its surface. It isin as symbolic tool used to the validate concepts or ideologies 1995, 906). In this respect, icon isown a part (Koolhaas, 1978, p. as 5). In playground a measured tone of beguiling detachment, (1978, p. 35) describes the ‘Barrels much a playground itself, despite the(Pearsall absence of theKoolhaas colourful metallic andthe timber signifiers thata larger representational framework, would bechildren reductive toconcerned, suggest they a feeds binary,men “x y” of Love’ attractionthe at child’s Coney Island:yet Atitfar either end a small are staircase leadsthat up toballoon an entrance. One usually announce circus. As as the thetogether is a form real landscape, “in=into the relationship. icon must have a asubject reference; otherwise it fails towomen function a representative tool. As the machine, the other women. Itbeis impossible to remain standing. Men and fallason top ofif each other. The same way thatThe a broomstick can horse”to (Couturier 1979, 187). The adults – or “grown-ups” we are to speak unrelenting rotation the machine fabricates synthetic intimacy between who would never otherwise foolishly fail to see of this fun, this be pleasure. Themore “certain timidity, the lack ofpeople trust” exhibited thewhich part ofhas thea such, the –architectural icon could described effectively with a semantic definition: “aonsign have met. scene in the would have taken place circa 1890;inKoolhaas born Theory, in 1944 adults may The perhaps beportrayed attributed tothing the passage balloon’s inability to be coded, and cleanly interms the parking space providcharacteristic common with itthough signifies” (Pearsall 1995, 906). If fit framed of was Semantic Rotterdam, yetin1981, writes oftoaIndeed, pastthe reality lived by (as he refers himself. another writer might have described ed 55). “pleasure”, Barthes cited in Tschumi 1994, 83) wrote, “does readily it is(Barthelme not strictly accurate refer to the as icon asas a sign, which to aWhere “whole” but rather as not the signifionly those aspects of the capable of substantiation, Koolhaas writes with aconcept, stridency that betrays his former surrender to analysis”. Butpast there is something more, some conditioning that has taken place, that makes the adult er which seeks to represent something, the signified (Saussure 1966, 67). The architectural icon comes into existjournalistic only careerwith andthe is easily conflated with historicity. Manhattan isisa free malleable entity thatWe yields toto theBreton: image concerned facility of everything, and not with what andautonomy delimited. look ence through its ongoing relationship with three factors – context, presence and –however andThis is supplemented he envisions for it, andthreat, he as one architect and storyteller may redact andterrain dictate he chooses. “Threat is piled upon yields, abandons a portion of the toitsbeexistence conquered. imagination by a range of no socio-political forces. As Australian art critic Terry Smith states: “Actual buildings are tanWhence stems this one-dimensional notion of the architect as an empowered figure under willcentral, worlds and which knows bounds is henceforth allowed to be exercised only in strict accordance withwhose the laws of arbitrary cities are(Breton rendered inert? such aconditioned conception takesthe root in the studios and halls of educational institutions, utility.” 1924, The socially creature ismost made anxious byofthe balloon, this of anomalous obgible embodiments of 3-4) theArguably complex functions they house, visible point concentration the complex in which design briefs frequently commence and demonstrate wilful ignorance the the soject come fantastic physical reality. With(Smith time, upon though, we findrasa thatthe most adjust. The balloon offers thatofopportuarray of powers with them” 2006,a7.tabula Similarly, icon is notstudents theasubject, but itformal represents cio-cultural fabricassociated from which is inextricable. Within such cloisters, learn the requirenity for mislocation selfarchitecture thatrapid Barthelme (1981, 57) so loves, a welcome change toand thethe rigidly patterned life subject. However, inofthethe wake of globalisation, shifting diplomatic relationships consequences of ments city construction, not on of thethe people who will them; of than the way thatwhere iconic were of the for city: “Why don’t we gobut stand top, and take the air, and maybe walk about a bit, itbuildings forms for a tight, capitalism, this scenario changing. Now icon asinhabit the sign rather signifier, confused the conceived of, but not façade theismanner which they wereisinseen fact used. The schism between architect’s will to create curving line with the of theinGallery of part Modern Art–”. The dream allows usathe anthe alternative (an escape?) to subject ofreality its representation. Aeveryday: critical ofever iconicity is the way which to its and the instead practical of the city dweller is carved deeper bymay beliefs that must tocontext, aasleep. client the brush-and-polish aesthetic of the indeed, the artist beinsaid toone bebuilding most‘[n]ever atreacts worktalk whilst which architecture…[your in turnconstructions allows it to be classified as an open, closed Whilst avoiding the about client] will not what or youcomposite have to sayarchitecture. about architecture’ (Mies der Rohe, Those social which seek tounderstand interpose themselves between our conception of the real van and itsblanket reality 1959). whom, then, is as thethe resulting environment andof to which whom embraces doeswas its story and the right tocity its context, retelling are form inarchitecture”, the text “Abuilt, frustration evidenced byand those officers termgiven ofFor “public ancity’s openauthorities. icon suggests adegree building its physical social belong? Most commonly traced to Walter Benjamin’s ruminations upon the poetic oeuvre of Baudelaire, the into whose province such manifestations normally fell… secret tests conducted by night convinced them that whereasisone rejects it and the is insular in nature could city be seen asphantasmagoria, closed. Most fallan somewhere in between and flâneur onewhich who ‘[perceives] man-made, familiar asis aeither autonomous, potentially little nothing could be done into the way ofdegrees. removing orstatus destroying thea balloon.” (Barthelme 1981, 55) The auexist or as figures composite architectures varying This result of142. predetermined design paramfear-inspiring world of objects independent of [themselves]’ (Lauster, 2007, p. Emphasis author’s own). thority attempt first to destroy (suppress) the balloon (unconscious), then, failing such attempts, regulate eters, suchinas‘empirical, program, sensual aesthetics and urban condition, or equally how people choose to use orlonger a building Engaging observation followed by recognition and analysis’ (Boutin, 2015, p.abuse 17), be the flâneur its existence. Barthelme seems to suggest that the hegemony of such social constraints will no enough: after the architect These positive orthin negative associations may architectural, thea views their surroundings a critical lens thatthe positions them an real, important narrative voice; façade ‘it isbut not that the acid spike relinquishes of the through dreamcontrol. will soon puncture veneer ofasthe muchnot as be Disneyland’s will architecture icons will actively them. An stroll important point toyet bear mind that the grape? combination of given’, Boutin p.18), ‘that everyone can and cleverly’. Such a projection ofWe themust city one daywrites fail of and fall (I(2015, suppose toreinforce everyone’s shock). Why naively, do you want me toinmake aispalatable is apparent inofthe discography New York-based whose songs a vivid urban environunderstand, course, thisofoutlook of an experience, orThe however we choose to saybeframe it,read is not abstract in the same these variables leads to that the icon generating innerband context ofNational, its own. This could as an identity linked to ment through the ‘disembodied, alienated (Boutin, p. 13)everything of the flâneur. Theswim narrative persona craftsense that Kandinsky’s artistic exploits aregaze’ understood. It2015, is, rather, quite concrete. We as directed, within object-oriented ontology (OOO), a philosophy which suggests that is an autonomous in and of ed by lyricist and vocalist Mattand Berninger demonstrates multiple qualities ofable the that theentity citystring, should be the lanes set out by the white orange buoys, but aterms, friend might just be toflâneur; snip the dividing such itself has its own meaning. In nuanced architectural this implies that a architecture building cannot be understood portrayed inboth a manner sowatch perceptively within a loose discipline external to is startling. As here Berthat wewhich can stop and thecan regulating lose their form. A certain likeness occurs through its relations and be readlines asshiny a come concept in and its own right. The ramifications this separate ninger’s (2008) narrator through [their] city’ describe an urban landscape thatofis complex and between theexternal balloon and‘[tiptoes] the Surrealist objects of Dali, Manthey Ray, and Oppenheimer. The deliberate decentralizaidentity can be effectively explored the architecture of lacritiques tour Montparnasse, a 210-metre-tall corporate at times openly hostile; a cacophony of ‘external stimuli’ (Gregori, 2005, p.any 72)and thatall heavily impacts theof individution of the object, its removal and through deliberate misunderstanding, understandings what is skyscraper in Paris, France (Tour Montparnasse 2015). Built on the siteNew of ambition the city’s hub the al. The National’s ruminations, those of Koolhaas, frequently centre upon York city,cultural owninnarrational. Aslocated Dali (1935) wrote inlike The Conquest of the Irrational, “my sole pictorial isyet to their materialize by rative isofcuriously Berninger’s flâneur isthe disillusioned, and ‘[walks] through the Manhattan alleys means the most imperialist rage of (2010) precision the images of concrete irrationality”. Weback might to urban Dali’s 19th and early 20thinverted. Centuries, the tower was built under Pompidou government on the of alook 1960s of the dead’ having untie Manhattan’ (Berninger, 2005). Gone isthe thefact optimism of Delir(1942, 319-320) egg table astoprecedent here:Given “The first thing to size do isand make arambunctious mold table out of celluloid renewal program for‘[tried] theitsMontparnasse area. significant thatof it isa Paris’ skyscraper, ious New York, and in place, the realisation aits city suppressed. As Boutin (2015) theonly flâneur’s posi(preferably a Louis XIV table), exactly as if oneof were going to make a cast. of writes, pouring plaster into the the term landmark springs to their mind, especially if of we follow the definition ofInstead American urbanist Kevin Lynch: tioning within thethe city affords characteristic perception of the ‘shared restlessness, fragmentation, and varimold, one pours necessary quantity of white eggs…” What one is left with, following the artist’s di“Spatial can establish elements landmarks inconventionally either of two ways: byafter theinelement visible ation of prominence the moderna metropolis’. Conversely, the lofty height from which the architectural narrator perceives the rections, is perhaps most extraordinary …soascontrast that the with work acts asmaking an object the world, but from many byat setting up human a local nearby elements, i.e. are anot variation infigures, setback and height” city precludes observation theby same scale. Suppression and constraint not, Berninger would suggest, rather as anlocations... allegory, aormeans which to convey secondary meaning through symbolic actions, and (Lynch(Trussler, 1960, 80).1993). The tower certainly establishes spatial prominence in this respect, competing with both Haussconditions unique to the built environment. Within the shadowy streets andof quotidian terrorstoof The National’s events This piecemeal approach, perpetuated as hegemony content, seeks develop the work spiky streetscapes, the young individual themself iswhite afloat withsuch the apple, ‘terror and flight’ (Bowen, 1988, p.though, 24) from referents:urban the woman in the dress, the snake. Quite realistically this mann’sits Baroque plan and classic Parisian icons as thethe Eiffel Tower. This contrast leadsoftoWestphal’s themode Tour agoraphobic This ‘exiled condition‘ (Gregori,- 2005, 72) islevel byisThe National’s narrator, of perceivingpatients. art, in which interpretation is understanding, isap.high only ofone use ifvisibility an felt artist complicit, choosing to Montparnasse having several levels of “imageability” it has‘Afraid ofacutely from street scale totypifying percepwho repeatedly voices feelings of alienation and isolation. of everyone’ (Berninger, 2010) and depict only what is identifiable from the historical canon to construct and construe their work. That a work of art tionan of identifiable the city acontent, whole(2015) (Lynch 1960, 85). Through its spatial andvery urban transgression, it becomes aanclosed icon. the flâneur thatasBoutin describes themeaning, ‘unseen seer’, the the narrator distorted and has or single, reducible is cultural output that of understands art is as“Its elite activThis acontextuality is only reinforced by‘You itsasvarious levels ofafor visibility - toidentity follow idiom, sub-text is obscured by thethe glimmering city itself. get mistaken strangers by yourKoolhaas’ own say, friends’, Berninger (2007) ity. Those with capacity to decipher the work, or interpret as we more commonly must naturalise both it fuckits context” (Koolhaas & Mauriff, 1995, Despite being opened to refers the public recent can sings against angular ‘When pass them atselectively night under the silvery, silvery Citibank lights’.it Adand intent,an by alludingguitar elsewhere (we502). sayyou that a work of art says something, or to, orin seeks to years, capture…). be barely classed a composite building, much lessthat an his open one. Ultimately, its the uninspired to emphasise dressing the listener directly, assumes narrator’s experiences are idea universal, and their narrative Susan Sontag (1966, 5) writesBerninger well on this issue: “What the overemphasis on of attempt content entails is the retelling therefore ‘both and fantastical’ (Cohen, 2013). Such an approach is vastly opposed that of the perennial, never consummated of interpretation. And, conversely, it isthrough the habit of alone approaching works ofit difference through scalerelatable cannotproject justify its height or aesthetic - acontextuality size doestonot make architectural narrator, who seeks toan distinguish themselves from the masses. Notably, Berninger’s art in order to interpret them that sustains the fancy that there really a thing as theof content of lyrics a work ofequalart.” antowards effective or engaging icon. Topaper equal degree, iconicity hinges onis the presence aofbuilding as aerr physical, ly ennui and inanity; on they may read as little more than eloquent rambles the drunk, yet when In the same essay, she summates that “to interpret is to restate the phenomena, in effect to find an equivalent for functional and social factors themselves originally influencedgiven by is context. Inby turn, affects its consumpset toaspulsing, staccato instrumentals, interpretational replaced aitarchitect pervasive atmosphere it” 1966, 7). entity, The weakness liesany in lackunder of autonomy to the work: isthis rarely taken as itself,ofa tion(Sontag an architectural image. Designed andthe built theaambiguity supervision American Minoru Yamasaki anxiety. Berninger’s vocals vacillate between abut sombre, detached baritoneofand the hysteric, disembodied yelps of spatially and temporally manifested object, rather as compilation of symbols (other things). Barthelme to logic 1970,Burgess Trade Center New York America, a pertinent example of after this afrom man1964 in (2013)World describes National’s music as City, ‘a collection ofiswaves thatcritic never break’, points to torment. this inthe hisoriginal characterisation of The several ofinthe more educated New Yorkers. The who observes process (WTCof2015). Before events of 9/11,itmulti-faceted the were the city, tallest buildings in the world at which ‘catharsis never comes’.isthe Like the observations the their discography provides the underside the balloon quick to flâneur’s dismiss as aTwin poorTowers substitute forbriefly theof“radiant Manhattan sky” (Barthelme ‘glimpses light coming edges, and aperception sense of the chaos’ (Burgess, 2013). 1981, 55). of Totheir the critic the through balloon isatanthe imposture, a stand-in forperfect the starorder actor among of monoliths the New York In looking 417 metres, immense scale contributing to their as architectural (Thenight. Editors of EnUnlike Koolhaas him,World Berninger ishe unconcerned a narrative thevisibility citybelly, thatofwhich, contiguously too quickly to his before pre-determined codes, overlooks softcrafting walnut hues of theof balloon’s as we cyclopaedia Britannica 2015, Trade Center). Like thewith Tour Montparnasse, thesechiarostrucmaintains ‘perfect order’ (Burgess, 2013), this with act discord tohigh create aural know fromthis the narrator, are pleasurable to imageability be instead beneath.tempering The balloon must asreinforcing referent forstartling our dominant critic, to his dettures meant they also had several of throughout Manhattan, physiscuro. Comprised ofobserver the ‘musical lexicon’ (Boutin, 2015, p. 18), the stories thetheir city into the riment. To another –image anlevels academic, might assume their tone – theofballoon is burrow simply the next cal presence. As such, their acted as we a manifestation offrom lateresulting American power andrung military listener and in therein remain, continuing to resonate long after the last lyric sung,capitalism, and the final chord out. logical step a particular or philosophical movement: “without the isexample of through _____, itthe is projection doubtful that aggression (Smith 2006, 1).artistic standard tower (Barthelme typology elevated above structure of Amongst the many thrills of speculative fiction, the latentwas thread of plausibility such talesexperience are often ______ would exist today inThe its present form” 1981, 56). Again, the with pointwhich is missed, the these values onto thethe building. The World Trade Centerlens as building and of a an system became inseparable, cementing undercut greatest. Through retrospect’s fictions the past proved disturbingly accurate either lostisoramongst overlooked. Our narrator-artist, however, hasa have not produced allegory, a cultural work that places conjectures of a future— our present— often inaallsignificant casesthe bizarre. Amongst the ranks of presence such eeitself with certainty known Rather, theand balloon asks sticky question: “what happens when their iconic status inagainst the global eye. phenomena. Yet this begsdystopian, the question: is physical and socio-political rily prescient stands English novelist Ballard,anwho in the fourteen pages his 1961 Billennium, one says factor that authors artdetermining is not aboutthe something, butJ.G. is something?” (McCaffery 1979, 69-79). There is story no equate content here: the only or importance icon? Ofuncomfortably course not! Weofcannot simply bigger crafts a Malthusian nightmare ofvalue andof urban city the narrator has produced only anoverpopulation object, encountered in itsdensity buoyant, rubber form.redolent We donever of contemporary course find“If precewith better when comes to relevancy iconicity. According to Bernard Tschumi, ita is this easy: I’m living. Following ait period in the lives ofand two young characters, Ballard portrays densely populated city in dent toto such practice. Since Duchamp, whose Trojanmale horses are placed within the space of the gallery to subtly asked do a small museum in an almost untouched valley in Burgundy to celebrate a nearly forgotten but very crisis, inthe which ‘someone timid ofartists [their]have rights couldtobesubvert literallywhat squeezed out of existence’ (Ballard, 1961,p. 125) unravel well-knit sought Brian O’Doherty has termed “museum perimportant battle, I’m modernist, still expected to create an that will somehow resonate withwhich may oror may notinterhave and housing is strictly rationed to ‘cubicles’ p. 125) larger than 4m2 inwhat area. Blocks of these are ception” (1988). Within the gallery, works of(Ballard, artimage seem1961, bracketed bynoquotation marks, clarify dispel happened” (Eisenman & Tschumi 2013, 103). Would this war memorial be any less of an icon than the Twin in turn set upon streets congested with traffic that ‘had long since ceased to move’ (Ballard, 1961, p. 127). What nal discontinuities, detaining art within the historical canon (safely away from misinterpretation, which would be initially as mere isofquickly realised be skilful satire that magnifies urban conditions bothwith exintolerable forupon those whocaricature “take their art seriously”). Robert Rauschenberg, most notably, seemed content Towers appears based differing levels presence? Of to course not! Tschumi’s comment also suggests the potential tant and, to apparently, longstanding. Ballard’spublic framing of Rauschenberg, theand cityhistory becomes an important polemic that embodies this trend away from as the approach to art.opinion With look in or andmay find all have manner of things: for icons be used a piecemeal device for shaping - we what may not happened -a urban anxieties recurrent in own thecombined present day, Ballard’s portrait of2012, the 75). city heterogeneous objects, loosely withsome little 54 to years no is concern for Billennium. association. Referring to Rauschenberg’s potential consistent with his analysis that architecture afollowing “perverse instrument of use” (Tschumi dweller posits the detriments of an urban environment upon the individual, and, in doing so, narrates both the mid-1960s paintings, O’Doherty (1988, 193) wrote: “Take for instance the conjunction of two news photos: an Thisand unseen connection between architecture and social purpose introduces the idea of relativity amongst icons. city the repercussions thereof. In what The now reads as a parody of xenophobic attitudes, characters athlete winning race and a space sports photo, depending on who’s looking atthe it, story’s can say:representrunning, To continue the aexample above, wecapsule. can compare original World Trade Center with the new fixate upon population figures— ‘a million increase in just one year’ (Ballard, 1961, p.designs 128)— and what sports, winning, losing, growth run, track, Olympics; thethe space photo: astronaut, weightlessness, capsule, race, Apollo, ing the Towers and itscan after-image. On the are oneconfined hand, there areverb, the twin 9/11 Memorial pools at Ground this willTwin mean for them. Like livestock, toand their ‘housing batteries’ (Ballard, 1961, p. 127), winning, moon. Each word functionresidents simultaneously as noun leading to multiple readings depending isolated within miniscule, 1961, p. 128). When spill onto the street itphysical is in they ‘anpresence endless on thecompleted viewer’s state of mind and‘rooms’ thatMichael of(Ballard, theArad zeitgeist over histhey shoulder.” Where previously might Zero in 2011 byjoyless architects and looking Peter Walker (WTC 2015). The reduced clamour voices and shuffling feet’ (Ballard, 1961, 125), that akintoto Berninger’s ‘valleys of the dead’ (Bersearch forof answers in gallery gift shop How-To booksp.as (“How To Look AtAmerica’s Art”, “What The Cubists Were Really of these sunken voids makes them more pronounced adead’ monument grief, equating literal absence ninger, 2010) isloss. manifest yet vacant; theupon air isthe ‘stale and (Ballard, 1961, p.Towers, 128) thetake crowd themselves Saying”, “What is Post-Modernism And Who Does It Best?”, etc.),bygallery-goers mayand now their everyday with figurative This relies context generated the Twin establishing an effective mere spectres, ‘dusty and project shapeless’ (Ballard, 1961, p. 127). In Ballard’s world as inof Berninger’s, individual is concerns with themthese into the exhibition rooms, rather than checking them at use the door. Interestingly, within continuity between icons. In‘has spite their differing physical scales, the absence as the presence in the the subsumed by the swelling crowd, noofmore energy react’ (Gregori, 2005, p. 72)to to external stimuli, and is current gallery context, we may no longer be sure if thetofire extinguisher placed next Koons onthe thenation’s fourth memorial reinforces link, accentuating theor symbolic presence of Billennium the WTC preand the post-9/11 in condemned totoaprotect life this of us apathetic transience. The character of is Barthelme, twice rehoused in increasingly floor is there in the case of fire, anlead artifact of post-modern satire. of course, removes collective consciousness. the current WTC redevelopment project missed the Narrative chance to expomake homuncular quarters overUnfortunately, the story’s course and meets each a blasé acceptance. his work from the suffocating “context is content” space of uprooting the gallery,with placing ithas instead within the New York sure of theHere, city’sthe shortcomings iscomment, bolstered by the of ‘bruising (Ballard, 1961, 126) thatwith characterises cityscape. balloon mingles with the grit the city,crush’ confronting Newp.isYorkers its physical form a similarly poignant architectural instead stridently adopting thethe “bigger better” attitude. NearlyBillenall of nium’s claustrophobic landscape andTwin the(1981, ‘physiologically unlocalised ofamount permanent overstimulation and and material existence. Asdwarf Barthelme 54) in notes: “There wascondition a certain of initial argumentation the proposed five towers the Towers scale, especially the recently completed WTC 1 1961, at 541.5 meexhaustion’ (Bernard, p. imageability 206) that it. The pallor and ‘shuffling’ (Ballard, p. 125) about the ‘meaning’ of2014, the balloon; this accompanies subsided, because weforegoing have learned not tosite. insist on meanings, andsignals they area tres, their focus on dominant violating the “sacred ground” of the Overall, the project lethargy ofasBillennium’s inhabitants by-products of prolonged spatial discomfort within discussion a city soa rarely looked for now,approach, expect in yet casesare involving the simplest, safest phenomena… extended point“business usual” decision to afor new commercial precinct the‘crammed… site was oflanterns such that only aleast narrow remained’ 1961, p. 128). The purpose of hung Ballard’s hyperbolic descriptions is less, or atseems less interval purposeful thanthe the(Ballard, activities of implement those who, example, green andatblue paper tragedy inappropriate. obvious metaphors, Santiago Calatrava’s bird” twofold: tohighly depict a city grotesquely inhabitable; and secondly toincluding magnify latentoffears pre-existing his from thefirst, warm grey underside of thePainfully balloon”. Barthelme disposes quite swiftly the question “flying of within meaning, station and stacked boxes of BIG’s WTC 2, fitthat, neatly Smith’s concept of thewith image economy, iconomy: readers. present-day existence of to the population and housing crises inadvertently adumbrated byorBillennium finding itThe a the rather tiresome question ask, and ininto fact, it achieves nothing respect to evaluating the cement position relevant the city, over a century after its first publication. is notasthea work. Toitsrefer backas toa our discussion… and so we find, then, that Barthelme treats theThis a scenario in which the valueprevious of narrative an icon isofbased upon itshalf aesthetic image (Smith 2006, 2.) Gage isnarrator particularly first time fiction has presaged ‘reality’, certainly will not be lambasting the last. In 1875, Weekly published patient, inthat psycho-analytic sense of thisand word. Finding himself without a itsexual outlet, the narrator reacts critical of athe simplistic diagram-as-architecture-as-image approach, as anHarper’s easy technique to justify the short story ‘In an Elevator’, the symptoms ofwill claustrophobia four years before the publication of against the inadequate realitytobefore negotiating in his mental space a satisfactory existence. Implicit in the cursory ideas and them a describing clienthim, inof the hope that “get” 2015, 101). In the case Ball’s seminal De sell la Claustrophobie. As with the musician or lyricist, seems, the fiction functions asofa argument of Barthelme is the discovery Freud, as tothey the progress ofaitdesign the self(Gage in favour ofwriter pleasure-producing

Summary of Pop!, or, Ridiculing the Post-Modern in Barthelme’s ‘Balloon’ by Harry Stitt

October 2015

‘Pop!, or, Ridiculing the Post-Modern in Barthelme’s Balloon’, offers a playful critique of hermeneutics as conventional mode of meaningmaking. It seeks specifically to undermine the notion of textual singularity, instead deferring to a more general form of interpretive relativism. The essay offers five equally plausible critiques on Donald Barthelme’s 1981 short fiction, ‘The Balloon,’ which all seek to, through some form of structuring of the text, identify a single narrative strand in its unfolding. The first of these leads off Andre Breton’s 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, the second follows from Susan Sontag and Brian O’Doherty’s theory of art as object, the third reads as Freudian sexual metaphor, the fourth a poststructuralist critique of the notion of text, and, finally, the fifth reads the balloon as a literal, technological accomplishment in the history of inflation aviation. Pairing humour with deliberate obfuscation, the essay plays off Barthelme’s self-referential description of his fictional object as ‘concrete particular,’ instead suggesting that, as Sophie Psarra has written, ‘meaning is indeterminate and socially produced, subject to contextual histories, nostalgic symbolisms, multiple identities and freedoms.’

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