SUMMER EXHIBITION 2021
A selection of projects from semester two, 2021 at The University of Western Australia, School of Design. The University of Western Australia acknowledges that its campus is situated on Noongar land, and that Noongar people remain the spiritual and cultural custodians of their land, and continue to practice their values, languages, beliefs and knowledge. Designed and edited by Lara Camilla Pinho, Andy Quilty and Samantha Dye. Marketing Officer: Kristen Greening. Cover image: Carina Van Den Berg, The Record Finder, 2021.
Image: Summer Exhibition 2021 opening night, 17 November 2021. Photography by Lara Camilla Pinho.
CONTENTS 8
Foreword by Dr Kate Hislop
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FINE ARTS AND HISTORY OF ART
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Foreword by Maya Quinn
14 16 28 48 60 68
Fine Arts Fine Arts Honours ARTF3050 Advanced Major Project ARTF2054 Drawing, Painting & Print Studio ARTF2031 Living Art ARTF1053 Fine Arts Studio: Space, Time & Beyond
80 82 86 90 98
History of Art HART3333 Picturing the Self: Portraiture in Nineteenth-century Europe HART3330 Art Theory HART2274 Introduction to Museum and Curatorial Studies HART2222 Contemporary Art
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ARCHITECTURE, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN DESIGN
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Foreword by Monroe Masa
106 108 114 130 146 154 158 166 170 174 178 186 190 194 200 208 226 230
Architecture ARCT5502 Independent Design Research ARCT5101 Architecture Studio / ARCT5102 Architecture Studio 2 ARCT5201 Detailed Design Studio / ARCT5202 Detailed Design Studio 2 ARCT5513 Near Future Scenarios for a New Architectural Era ARCT5529 Forensic Architecture ARCT5536 Photo Real Rendering ARCT5555 Graduating Portfolio ARCT5589 Architecture of Furniture ARCT5885 Bio-Based Materials in Global Settings ARCT3001 Architecture Studio 4 ARCT3001 / ARCT2001 Vertical Online Studio ARCT3030 Construction ARCT3040 Advanced Design Thinking ARCT2001 Design Studio ARCT1001 Architecture Studio 1 ARCT1010 Drawing History ARLA1030 Structures and Systems
234 236 240 248 256 260 272
Landscape Architecture LACH5511 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 2 LACH4424 Design Studio - Complexity LACH3001 Landscape Architecture Studio LACH3003 Design Through Landscape Management LACH2001 Landscape Dynamic Studio LACH2050 Plants and Landscape Systems
276 278 286
Urban Design URBD5802 Urban Design Studio 2 URBD5806 Urban Design - Capstone Studio
FOREWORD BY DR KATE HISLOP At the end of another year of global pandemic amongst other disruptive forces, it was inspiring to see the strength of the work on show in the School of Design 2021 end of year student exhibition, select examples of which are included in this catalogue. Despite ongoing uncertainties and challenges, it is clear that creative endeavour is not abating. There has been plenty of publicity in the last two years about the impact of COVID-19 on the tertiary sector, and the waning government support for public education. Reassuringly, however, and to the great future benefit of society, students continue to pursue higher education in great numbers. The profile of the student cohort at UWA continues to shift, becoming increasingly diverse in ethnicity, background, gender and age. It is no less the case in the School of Design. This is a powerful thing. Arguably, one of the most valuable aspects of this is the broad understanding that our graduates will have of the world – past, present and future. Breadth of knowledge, alongside appreciation of contextual and cultural character and difference, fundamentally nurtures respect for people and environments. Context is everything. We are proud of the ambitions shared by our staff and students to be innovative, ethical and reflective thinkers and makers. Featured here is work evidencing deep consideration, interrogation and interpretation of factors that are personal and individual, public and shared, global but locally meaningful. The work is analytical, conceptual and propositional. It is speculative, but also material and technical. Media and technologies are manual and digital, with students becoming proficient in a range of formats in their efforts to execute ideas. In an age increasingly characterised by questions and anxieties about the future, there is an empowering optimism to be found in the disciplines who can creatively express and address the issues, identifying ways to contemplate and work through them and, at the same time, to thoroughly enjoy the process. I encourage all of our students to embrace the powerful potential of their creative, critical and interpretative practices that will provide the means through which to face and shape all kinds of possible futures. Congratulations to those who have work published here, and to all who studied at the UWA School of Design in 2021. Once again, we are struck by our students’ achievements, measured in terms of the maturation of their skills and knowledge. Our very best wishes to those who have completed courses and are now embarking upon careers and life journeys. Dr Kate Hislop, Dean/Head of School, UWA School of Design
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FINE ARTS & HISTORY OF ART
Image: Level One Studio 101B, Summer Exhibition 2021 opening night, 17 November 2021. Photography by Samantha Dye. 10
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FOREWORD BY MAYA QUINN Almost two years after a global pandemic, society’s understanding of existing in one place has undergone a collective shift. Art, in this uncertain context, has the unique capability of representing the clash between real, lived experience, and the fiction of imagination. In the School of Design’s Summer Exhibition, student artists have wonderfully explored such liminal spaces. For example, Mathilde Wurm’s 220 Acts of Care amalgamates aesthetics and science in her consideration of the human body. Their sculpture features a precariously balanced pile of monochrome grey red blood cells, evoking a sterile picture of the visceral bodily processes of biological regeneration in the wake of disease. The work makes visible the invisible notions of care and hygiene. What practice, but art, could present so ambiguously such important ideas for our interpretation and reflection? The value of art became abundantly clear with the absence of art-centric community events during the height of the pandemic with the widespread disruptions of COVID devastating the viability of festivals, exhibitions and programs throughout 2020. However, with the easing of chaos in recent months, the Federal Government’s Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund has contributed AUD$40 million towards the re-activation of the arts and entertainment sector. Given the state of travel and border restrictions, it has afforded Western Australian acts and artists a greater chance for sponsorship. The biggest benefactor in WA was the Fremantle Biennale, which received AUD$965, 055 for Ilona McGuire’s Moombaki, a mesmerising drone light show telling original dreamtime stories of Whadjuk Nyoongar Boodjar. It is when we are stuck in one place, that the importance of cultivating home-grown cultural and creative experiences reveals itself to be crucial for community well-being. In the global turn to art engagement as a source of comfort and strength we are also learning, in the face of funding cuts across the tertiary sector to arts and humanities subjects, that resistance can enact change, and though not always directly, art plays a role in its ability to express. It can function as a poignant form of defiance and principle, and be a testament to the persistent power of the arts, and the importance of shared expression in an increasingly isolated society. Maya Quinn, Bachelor of Arts (Majoring in History of Art) 2021
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FINE ARTS
Image: Level One Studio 101B, Summer Exhibition 2021 opening night, 17 November 2021. Photography by Samantha Dye. 14
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Fine Arts Honours Unit Coordinator and Supervisor: Sarah Douglas
ZOË SYDNEY
‘Queer Fabrications’
Queer Fabrications is a series of portraits that have developed out of a new language of queerness as performance. The portrait is most commonly thought of as a “representation”, a word that has become a goal for marginalised communities in struggles for visibility and acceptance. However, the demands of representation are unable to be met by the shifting language, aesthetics, and realities of Queer communities. Queer art is forced to seek an alternative to the rigid categorisations that the structure of identity and representations offer. In Queer Fabrications, the gallery becomes a stage draped with strange materials that encourage the audience to look a little closer.
Image: Zoë Sydney. Queer Fabrications. 2021. Oil and acrylic on repurposed canvas, textile, video, found objects, giclee prints.
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Image: Zoë Sydney. Queer Fabrications. 2021. Oil and acrylic on repurposed canvas, textile, video, found objects, giclee prints. 18
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Fine Arts Honours Unit Coordinator and Supervisor: Sarah Douglas
JULIE ZIEGENHARDT
‘handle with care’
handle with care engages with the capacities by which play can be used as a mechanism for navigating and understanding personal and political degrees of belonging. States of disorientation and alienation that emerge from experiences of temporal dislocation connect in a visual narrative to explore relationships between identity formation, material culture and homemaking. The spaces between the familiar and the uncanny, the permanent and transient, are folded together to question the coherence expected from environments found within and around the self.
Image: Julie Ziegenhardt. handle with care. 2021. Digital illustration, animation, projection, cardboard, pine.
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Image: Julie Ziegenhardt. handle with care. 2021. Digital illustration, animation, projection, cardboard, pine. 22
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Fine Arts Honours Unit Coordinator: Sarah Douglas Supervisor: Dr Vladimir Todorovic
VALENTINA SARTORI
‘More than anything’
More than anything occupies the meeting place between open-ended technological futures and the concrete past and present of trauma. It explores the effects of generational trauma being imposed on, and passed on to, human and non-human creations. Within this space of tension, the work questions the role of reproduction as an immovable given, in the context of technology’s emancipatory potential. Driven by an intersectional feminism, especially Xenofeminism, the role and responsibility of creator and Mother is re-imagined, suggesting the possibility of a world where the inherited infrastructures in which their children reside can be overcome.
Image: Valentina Sartori. More than anything. 2021. Film, 9.5 mins.
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Image: Valentina Sartori. More than anything. 2021. Film, 9.5 mins. 26
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ARTF3050 Advanced Major Project Unit Coordinator: Sarah Douglas
JASON MAXLOW
‘Future Relics’
Future Relics explores the abstraction of a symbolic idea within a historical narrative; expressing through a series of sculptures in laterite stone, re-purposed steel and Jarrah, how a pivotal moment can become misinterpreted, distorted and lost over time. Creative strategies and methodologies explored within this project include the use of positive and negative space, connection and disconnection, the duality of culturally assigned perceptions of value, and personal entanglement within the resource industry. Toying with the notion of the artefactual relic in these sculptural works, often using materials imbued with the power of deep-time permanency such as stone, the artist questions what future archaeologists will think of the sculptural objects they unearth? And what historical narratives will be assigned to them?
Image: Jason Maxlow. Future Relic. 2021. Laterite stone, wood, steel.
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Image: Jason Maxlow. Solution. 2021. Laterite stone, wood, steel. 30
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ARTF3050 Advanced Major Project Unit Coordinator: Sarah Douglas
HUGO FAULKNER
‘Untitled’
Untitled is an audio-visual mediation on sonic materiality’s propensities to deconstruct the hard borders of both our skin and milieu, inviting a more than human connection to place and materials. Streaming data from a coastal fault line that surfaces as a jittered caressing of metal and limestone, Untitled begins as a network of communications that slowly expose both the performativity and agency of sound as noise enthralls materials, conducing them to a membranous function. Within both the visual and sonic noise fluctuations exist a constantly vibrating world.
Image: Hugo Faulkner. Data Scrape. 2021. Arduino, Concrete, Cedar Brick, Limestone, Monitor Piezo element, Sand, Speaker, Stere cabling.
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Image: Hugo Faulkner. Opening Scene. 2021. Arduino, Concrete, Cedar Brick, Limestone, Monitor Piezo element, Sand, Speaker, Stere cabling. 34
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ARTF3050 Advanced Major Project Unit Coordinator: Sarah Douglas
MATILDA NELSON
‘Ada, Here I Stand/On the Ocean Floor, Loop’ On repeat, recycling, a continuum; no beginning and no end. A loop is a process that organises and directs material and immaterial information. With a similar attitude to that of the loop, the grid is also employed to categorise the world. The loom and the computer both adopt systems that require the loop and the grid to function. Matilda’s artwork is an investigation into the relationship between these technologies – of their histories, processes, and characteristics. With respect to the work of 19th century mathematician, Ada Lovelace, Matilda’s work highlights the current gender disparities in the computer workforce and questions how the cycle of inequalities can be stabilised.
Image: Matilda Nelson. Ada. 2021. Jarrah wood, electrics, metal, paper, thread, rubber tubing.
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Image: Matilda Nelson. Loop. 2021. Metal mesh, wool. 38
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ARTF3050 Advanced Major Project Unit Coordinator: Sarah Douglas
PAHNIA ELLISON
‘Hair Aversions’
There is an innate attachment to the hair upon our heads, evident by the substantial amount of time and money spent to keep it looking and feeling its best. Yet, when those exact hairs we cared for end up washed down our drains, stuck for months awaiting our re-encounter when cleaned away, they are rendered nothing less than disgusting. Hair Aversions is a series exploring that exact relationship of hair from the desired to the repulsed. Giving life to disregarded hairs once more in multi-pieced installations, leaving room to question how we shift our relationship with the simple yet complex material – hair.
Image: Pahnia Ellison. Hair Aversions. 2021. Human head hair, yarn, glue, acrylic, hairspray, found objects, ceramic tile and water.
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Image: Pahnia Ellison. Hair Aversions. 2021. Human head hair, yarn, glue, acrylic, hairspray, found objects, ceramic tile and water. 42
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ARTF3050 Advanced Major Project Unit Coordinator: Sarah Douglas
LEYLA ALLERTON
‘MEM BOT | Videotape Archaeology: an installation’ One aimless evening, two young adults dance together in their living room while their children sleep unaware. Seventeen years later, a videotape from that night is unearthed; mesmerising documentation of a charming but ultimately unremarkable event. An artefact of the future, videotapes are steadily becoming an obsolete form of technology. Videotape Archaeology monumentalises a moment of frivolity while MEM BOT dutifully generates novel artefacts. If images have the authority to make history, what is the value of these curious records before you?
Image: Leyla Allerton. MEM BOT. 2021. Handmade fibreboard box, steel rods, enamel paint, printer, paper, computer program.
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Image: Leyla Allerton. Videotape Archaeology: an installation. 2021. 70 photographic prints on paper. 46
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ARTF2054 Drawing, Painting & Print Studio Unit Coordinator: Andy Quilty Teaching Staff: Andy Quilty and Jo Darvall
KAREN GREEN
‘FIFO - connected whilst disconnected’ This artwork expresses the desire of people working away from home to feel connected to family. My personal experiences of living with a FIFO worker and desire to use materials from each of our environments to build a connection, led to the creation of two sets of postcards. In Minesite postcards, a series of drawings utilising material found at the minesite workshop combined with remarks written on the reverse, offer a visual and meaningful insight to daily life working away. Naked Print postcards are a set of prints created through the process of using a personal blend of essential oils smeared onto naked skin and pressed to paper. A combination of painting and erasure of gouache was then used to reveal the invisible oil print. These are intended to be a visual and sensorial link to the comforts of home.
Image: Karen Green. FIFO - connected whilst disconnected. 2021. Engine oil, power steering fluid, dirt, molley grease, lithium grease, lavender oil, rose geranium oil and gouache on watercolour paper. 10.5 x 15 cm.
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Image: Karen Green. FIFO - connected whilst disconnected (detail). 2021. Engine oil, power steering fluid, dirt, molley grease, lithium grease, lavender oil, rose 50
e geranium oil and gouache on watercolour paper. 10.5 x 15 cm. 51
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ARTF2054 Drawing, Painting & Print Studio Unit Coordinator: Andy Quilty Teaching Staff: Andy Quilty and Jo Darvall
AGATHA OKON
‘Bad Sector’
Photos are intended to immortalise a moment and succeed where memory can fail, but they are simply not a suitable substitute. They are a physical reminder of memories, not a representation. As it becomes easier to photograph and document our lives, the authority and credibility of photos as objective must be questioned. This work involves extensive manipulation of both digital and analogue photographs, however the original material was already manipulated by the photographer through decisions made regarding composition, subject and significance. Photographs are typically only taken when the photographer sees something they believe is important or joyful, so can give a false impression of the past if care is not taken. In collaboration with the replicant technology of the modern printer, an attempt is made to return to the truth. The context of these photos has been long forgotten, and so has the individual in these photos, who is supposedly me. Some photos include people I haven’t talked to in many years, who likely are also completely different now. My memories are of individuals that do not quite exist anymore. The backs of photo paper are almost never intended to be looked at, likewise the memories of the moments surrounding the photograph are overpowered by the captured instance. Printing onto photo backs allows for a more accurate physical representation of how memories appear when they are attempted to be recalled, and like those same memories, the photo backs are more fragile than those captured properly. Over time, they will diffuse until they become incomprehensible. We fear the degradation of memory, as a result we try to force something so subjective and transient into an objective format in an act of futility, rather than enjoying them while we still can.
Image: Agatha Okon. Untitled. 2021. Glossy photo paper, paper, masking tape, packing tape, printer ink. 10 x 15 cm (each).
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Image: Agatha Okon. Untitled (detail). 2021. Glossy photo paper, paper, masking tape, packing tape, printer ink. 10 x 15 cm (each). 54
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ARTF2054 Drawing, Painting & Print Studio Unit Coordinator: Andy Quilty Teaching Staff: Andy Quilty and Jo Darvall
KITA HEALY
‘Smile’
Often, we reach to photo albums as a happy reminder of the past. These collections of memories are represented through sweet encapsulations of moments. I wanted to contrast this notion, juxtaposing facial emotions that are stereotypically displayed. I was drawn to this idea by the images I have seen all my life, and how quite humorously, my sister was never theatrical in front of a camera. Gary, my sister’s dad, passed away when she was aged 3, meaning there was a torn nature between who she was before, and after the tragedy we all experienced. There has always been a bittersweetness when looking at photo albums that show the normalcy before the loss, the selection of contrasting references replicates the challenging nature and connotations that I have with this time. It was fascinating to realise that we all have underlying models we build and apply to our expectations, how this interplays into the most candid and unfiltered time of our lives, where baby’s emotions are completely parallel one second to another, but only one is stereotypically put on a pedestal, painted and photographed.
Image: Kita Healy. Smile (detail). 2021. Oil on board. 30.3 x 24 cm.
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Image: Kita Healy. Smile. 2021. Oil on board. 30.3 x 24 cm. 58
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ARTF2031 Living Art Unit Coordinator: Dr Ionat Zurr
JEREMY PASSMORE
‘A Romantic Conversation Regarding the Euphoria of Slavery’ An examination of imposed boundaries and their effect on organic and in organic materials, exploring our relationships, modes of observation, confinement and communication with non-human organisms. www.jeremypassmore.com
Image: Jeremy Passmore. 2021. Mycelium remnants.
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Image: Jeremy Passmore. 2021. Mycelium shaped by confinement. 62
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ARTF2031 Living Art Unit Coordinator: Dr Ionat Zurr
MAKAELA ROWE-FOX
‘IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS THERE WAS SHAPE’ This work takes place on Whadjuk Noongar boodjar. Always was. Always will be. IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS THERE WAS SHAPE looks at how cultures and beliefs affect our realities. The work engages with the inherently fragile nature of borders and boundaries within culture. It explores the layers of connect and disconnect that are embedded within collectives; looking at the isolation of the natural environment from human societies, and divisions between the spiritual and material world. The concrete structure named ‘Hyphen’ is two concrete ‘rings’ that are inherently intertwined; existing as separate yet interlocked entities. Burying one ‘ring’ within the concrete structure ‘Hyphen’, the work attempts to isolate what is intrinsically intertwined. Inviting the question, why are we trying to separate what is fundamentally connected? The work also looks at intergenerational collaboration and grief. Time becomes unkempt when we stray beyond the boundaries of linear time. Collaborating with the past and across lifetimes, the work draws attention to the tenuous borders that maintain time as linear and ultimately rigid. Thank you to Michael Fox for his contributions to this work during and beyond his lifetime. Camera: Sam Fox Art Technician: Andrew Christie Dedicated to Michael and Ann Fox.
Image: Makaela Rowe-Fox. IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS THERE WAS SHAPE. Concrete. Performance Art. Found objects. 2021. Filmed by Sam Fox.
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Image: Makaela Rowe-Fox. IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS THERE WAS SHAPE. Concrete. Performance Art. Found objects. 2021. Filmed by Sam Fox. 66
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ARTF1053 Space, Time and Beyond Unit Coordinator: Dr Vladimir Todorovic Teaching Staff: Dr Vladimir Todorovic, Samuel Beilby and Annie Huang
21330108
‘Metadata Manuscripts’ As infinitely unique as a fingerprint and as accountable as a signature, an ‘iograph’ or ‘input/output graph’, represents acts of ‘Modern Human Labour’. This manuscript of metadata documents the self-portraiture and human/digital interfacing of 30 different users across 45 iographs, spanning a total of 144 hours. They are each signed by the user’s ‘digital self’ – a username or string of characters often representing them in digital communications. By linking a simple draw function to a user’s mouse or trackpad, we can visualise how an individual operates webpages, social media, videogames and creative applications. These graphs are timestamped with the date, time, and length, along with links to various Unique Identifiers (UID) of the machine they were created on and thus, the user. These graphs depict a single layer of ‘residual data’ – data that was originally thought of as useless, discarded data created by our everyday computer interactions. This data has since given rise to a trillion-dollar industry revolving around digital privacy and scrutiny – Surveillance Capitalism. Currently, technology companies harvest and feed billions upon billions of gigabytes of similar user data into machine-learning algorithms, which build ‘predictive models’ – mapping out our actions, behaviours and motions. They do this to sell our ‘Human Futures’ to third-parties; whose biggest winners are the highest bidders. These third-party companies are, in fact, the customers, while the individual user is the product. In this way, ‘Big Tech’ has generated unprecedented wealth, with Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon all holding trillion-dollar valuations. We are heading into an age of a possible ‘Metaverse’ or Internet of Things (IoT). Cryptocurrency, Blockchain and Non-Fungible Tokens are ways we could all soon be transacting information and services. Now is the time to discuss ways in which emerging modern digital technologies can benefit us, the end user.
Image: 21330108. Metadata Manuscript. 2021. Iographs in black ink on plotter paper. 84 cm x 2000 cm.
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Image: 21330108. Metadata Manuscript. 2021. Iographs in black ink on plotter paper. 84 cm x 2000 cm. 70
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ARTF1053 Space, Time and Beyond Unit Coordinator: Dr Vladimir Todorovic Teaching Staff: Dr Vladimir Todorovic, Samuel Beilby and Annie Huang
KITA HEALY
‘Apart’
The idea of automation sparked thought of subconsciously run models in society, where at the surface, these machines were not as prominent although have major implications on contemporary life. This led me down the path of the automation of algorithms. Algorithms have been made to abuse the consumers of social media technology, making their time and attention turn to a product for monetisation and manipulation. The audience think that they are the ones using the platform for entertainment when their content is based off of their likes, interests and even what their eyes are drawn to, especially in reference to Instagram’s recent policies. This structured content creates subgroups of people, as the content is constructed by you, for you and to you. This becomes a vicious cycle where a perpetuation of self-degradation is created, where the opposing opinions, alternate content and challenge is omitted. This stimulated questions like how can people build on themselves? How can they learn? How can they change? We as a society have never been placed in such an instance where we have just been fed ourselves, what would this look like in 10, 20 or 30 years? This is what excited the inspiration for the body of focus in the final project. Themes of isolation, mirrors and atmospheric segregation were constructed into an animation. Each frame was drawn to communicate this disjointed threat that is posed onto society. Every scene is a different world, exposing the nature of this relationship between algorithms and people.
Image: Kita Healy. Apart. 2021. Digital animation, 1:02.
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Image: Kita Healy. Apart. 2021. Digital animation, 1:02. 74
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ARTF1053 Space, Time and Beyond Unit Coordinator: Dr Vladimir Todorovic Teaching Staff: Dr Vladimir Todorovic, Samuel Beilby and Annie Huang
TRINITY ROSE SYMONDS
‘Yacult’
This series was inspired by consumer culture and how companies disguise products in bright colours and fake promises of ‘health’ when the reality is often vastly different. This project started when I noticed the amount of single use plastic my household was using. I chose the brand Yakult as the company advertises its products as ‘the healthy family drink’, which has been disproven due to high amounts of sugar and the amount of non-recyclable plastic waste produced. The comic style references the bright colours and cartoon figures brands use on packaging to make products more appealing to buyers. The images allude to the future of what we consume and the effects this will have on future generations. I have always enjoyed silent comics that allow the reader to create their own narrative with what is given. The work was heavily inspired by one of my favourite comics ‘The longest day of the future’ illustrated by Lucas Varela.
Image: Trinity-Rose Symonds. Yacult. 2021. Digital prints. Dimensions variable.
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Image: Trinity-Rose Symonds. Yacult. 2021. Digital prints. Dimensions variable. 78
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HISTORY OF ART
Image: Level One Gallery, Summer Exhibition 2021 opening night, 17 November 2021. Photography by Samantha Dye. 80
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HART3333 Picturing the Self: Portraiture in Nineteenth-century Europe Unit Coordinator: Dr Emily Eastgate Brink
BYRON ELLIS
‘A Decorative Modernism: Edouard Vuillard’s Intimate Portraits of the 1890s’ The absolute saturation of images into everyday life is a defining feature of the visual experience of modernity. Technological innovation and growth in art markets have meant that there is a far greater supply and demand for images than in preceding periods. This has led to the creation of an ever-present visual culture and the inception of a default way of seeing that is subtle, superficial and second nature. These effects led John Berger to describe the modern self in relation to the visual, declaring that “We live within a spectacle of empty clothes and unworn masks.”1 Although Berger made this declaration in an essay in 2001, his diagnosis arguably extends into the history of portraiture in the late nineteenth century. During his period as a member of the post-impressionist group of young artists self-titled as Les Nabis, Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) produced a series of abstract and decorative portraits of his intimate circle of family and friends. These images all depict interior scenes, and these portraits are striking because of their highly decorative representations of figures and their environment. Vuillard’s ability to synthesise his experience of colour and form with the social relationship of the subjects results in visually compelling spectacles illustrating life in fin-de-siècle Paris. In these portraits Vuillard defies the conventional continuum between specificity of likeness and generality of type, as theorised by Shearer West.2 These portraits, instead, are distinctly decorative leading their subjectspecificity to not be engendered by formal likeness but by composition and design. Vuillard’s designs 82
eschew generality as well, as each figure is dressed and presented with the tailored attention to detail of a dressmaker. More than being “portraits without a face” these compositions demonstrate the decorative nature of modern social relationships, where the interpersonal is conditioned by a pattern of objects and designs, ubiquitous by nature. To frame the works that will be discussed in this essay, a brief overview of Vuillard’s theoretical and personal connection with Les Nabis will be provided. The group was formed in the latter half of 1888, when the young artists studying at the Academie Julian were exposed to the works of Gaugin by Paul Serusier who was recently returning from the artist colony of Pont-Aven in Brittany. With limited familiarity with the works of the Impressionists, a distinct change occurred in their paintings, which were until then composed in the academic tradition. Maurice Denis wrote of the change as being “unforgettable,”3 later devising the maxim “Remember that a picture... is essentially flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order.”4 To conceive of painting in simplification allows for a creativity in style founded in the painter’s internal synthesis of perception and style. During this period, Vuillard expressed similar ideas in the journal he kept from 1888 to 1895: We perceive nature through the senses which give us images of forms and colours, sound, etc. no form or colour exists except in relation to another. Painting is the reproduction of nature seen in its forms and colours thus of the relationships between forms and colours. For that I transfer my eye which has just grasped a relationship of form or colour on the paper or on the canvas, I have to find the same relationship – if I fix on some point or other, I end up looking at some body or other. 20 November 18885
Image caption: Edouard Vuillard, The Suitor or Interior with Work Table (1893), oil on millboard panel, 31.75 x 36.35cm.
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These ideas underpin Vuillard’s “method”, which does not “depend on a passing impression”6 rather the considered observation and expression of perceived natural and formal relationships. Although Les Nabis were a stylistically heterogenous group, their close bonds were shown through serious approaches to theory and shared exhibitions. The core group of Nabi painters: Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Ker-Xavier Roussel and the late-comer Felix Vallotton repeatedly portrayed each other in their paintings and were keen collectors. Additionally, Vuillard and the others formed close relationships with the influential Natanson family, who established and ran La Revue Blanche, one of the leading art and literary magazines of the day. These relationships, along with those of his family, are represented in the following intimate portraits by Vuillard. …. Vuillard returned repeatedly to depictions of his sister and her husband fellow Nabi Ker-Xavier Roussel. The series of portraits he produced including The Suitor or Interior with Work-Table (1893) and the later Married Life (c. 1894) document the development of their relationship closely.7 Vuillard’s representations of his sister give her more authority and agency within each image over time but for the most part avoid the conception of subject-specificity through likeness. The premise contained in The Suitor is simple as it represents Roussel, still in his courtship phase with Marie, peering from around an open door into a workshop where she and another woman are working with cloth. The attention given to the relationship explored within the image is marginal when compared to the environment it takes place in. The wallpaper covering the rear wall of the room is a supreme example of Vuillard’s decorative approach. The pattern composed of reddish floral motifs surrounded by small white and black brush strokes overwhelms the scene.
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Importantly, Vuillard’s treatment of shadow in the image principally through the modulation of wallpaper’s hues on the back of the opening door does not deepen the available space to the figures represented in the painting. Nor is space deepened by the representation of the world outside the work room as through the open window there is only the suggestion of light created by the pattern of white and gold dabs, which is viewed at the same register as the back wall and door. Vuillard’s use of small blocks of colour to create atmosphere is not unique to this painting as it is key to the (albeit darker) mood of The Stevedores (1890) and My Grandmother (1892). The strategic deployment of light and dark is consistent with the broadly flat composition, which allows for the decorative elements to take precedence over the figures. Vuillard’s sister Marie occupies the foreground of the image with her back to the viewer, she is painted in a dark, black and yellow dress, which clothes her subtly, the soft folds in the skirt defined by the increased density of the irregular black circles. As a result of the bold patterning but overall lack of volume in the figure it appears almost as if the dress is collaged onto the rear wall’s decoration. Roussel who emerges around the opening door appears as if he is wedged between two screens. Vuillard had a deep familiarity with the screens in his mother’s workshop for trying on clothes and the painting’s composition recalls the decorative screens he and other Nabis were producing at the time such as the Desmarais Screens (1893). …. The series of decorative portraits Vuillard produced in the 1890s treat their sitters in varied and progressive ways. In many respects, characterisation of a sitter through their clothing or in relation to their environment is not new to Vuillard or unique to him, however the total integration of
the sitter’s likeness into his designs pose a serious modernist challenge to conventional portraiture. Where positive statements made through fashionable clothing and intricate room decoration had hitherto only been made in representations of gentry and aristocracy, Vuillard makes them in relation to bourgeois and petit-bourgeois subjects. In doing so, he projects and reflects the changing social relations of France in the nineteenth century. The social relations engendered by the commodity form run through the portraits discussed in this essay, as sitters are clothed in garments that wear them and sport faceless expressions. Vuillard’s decorative ability exceeds his figures’ inner lives as he paints his intimate relations in states of comfort and discomfort. Were these images not to be considered portraits, they would be a succinct illustration of John Berger’s declaration that “We live in a spectacle of empty clothes and unworn masks.”
Endnotes 1. John Berger, “Steps Towards a Small Theory of the Visible,” The Shape of a Pockel (London: Vintage, 2001). Republished in Steps Towards a Small Theory of the Visible (London: Penguin, 2020), 77. 2. Shearer West, “What is a Portrait?” Portraiture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 21. 3. Maurice Denis in Guy Cogeval, Vuillard. Master if the Intimate Interior (London: Thames and Hudson, 2002), 116. 4. Maurice Denis in A.C. Ritchie, Edouard Vuillard (New York: Museum of Modem Art, 1954), 12. 5. Vuillard in Cogeval, 114. 6. Ibid, 115. 7. Susan Sidlauskas, “Contesting Femininity: Vuillard’s Family Pictures,” The Art Bulletin 79, no. 1 (March 1997), 91.
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HART3330 Art Theory Unit Coordinator: Arvi Wattel
CATHERINE COWAN
‘Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America, [1923] by Aby Warburg’ “Not until art history can show…that it sees the work of art in a few more dimensions than it has done so far will our activity again attract the interest of scholars and of the general public.”1 In 2020 the work of art historian Aby Warburg was credited, at the launch of Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne Virtual Exhibition, with “changing the way we see the World.”2 Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America marks the beginning of Warburg’s works translated into English. This essay examines the significance of the lecture, originally published in 1939 as Lecture on the Serpent Ritual, and its importance and his impact. The 1923 lecture is significant as this recollection of his 1896 cultural ethnographic observations of First Nations practices converges with his years of multidisciplinary research and various theories. It also illuminates his early divergence from traditional art theory and art history. The lecture is regarded as Warburg’s most specific explanation of his art theories.3 The now famous story of an early Renaissance art historian’s trip to the pioneer American West is also significant for its profound impact on his work post 1896.4 Importantly, the circumstances of the lecture were a means of Warburg’s personal salvation, and it was not intended for publication.5 In draft notes of 1923 Warburg acknowledged he envisioned his observations of the rituals of “primitives” supported “the formula for my psychological law…I have been searching since 1888.”6 The lecture, ostensibly about the Pueblo Indians, their art and 86
ritual, engages in an early example of ethnological field work7 and comparative cultural ethnology, comparing Pueblo serpent ritual to the serpent as found in Old Testament references and images and Greek mythological sources and imagery.8 This landmark interdisciplinary work of its time and recently labelled a “cult piece,”9 is rich in the lenses that can be applied to the text – insights into the life of a renown Renaissance scholar10, personal musings on First Nations culture and the impact of American modernity, early comparative cultural studies, art historical arguments and a psychological theory of evolution of visual culture arising from the transcendence of our primordial condition.11 The subsequent products of Warburg’s early divergence from traditional art history assumptions and methodology are key. The lecture provided Warburg with a platform to reflect on his lifelong pursuit of the analysis of paganism.12 Warburg turned indirectly to his earlier theory of conflicts and principles of polarity, set out in his 1888 thesis on Botticelli’s role of the Mimetic in the history of representation.13 In his references to classical
Aby Warburg, Kachina dancers, Hopi Indians rain maker, Shongopavi pueblo, 1900.
serpent mythology, Warburg points to the Dionysian and Apollonian conflicting elements represented in the iconographic illustrations.14 Warburg’s lecture concludes with his psychological explanation of the evolution of culture. He stated “in the process we call cultural progress…this devotion gradually loses its monstrous concreteness and…becomes a spiritualised, invisible symbol.”15 He intended his lecture to exemplify in this ‘primary pagan mode of answering the largest and most pressing questions of the Why of Things.’16 Thus the lecture moves from illustrated anthropological observations to reveal the depth of Warburg’s scholarship on ancient and medieval iconography, astrology, mythology, Biblical texts and his paradigm of the psychology of the evolution of visual imagery as a function of art. The cultural history methods employed by Warburg ignored the “optimistic progressive philosophies” of the evolution of style17 and supported broadening the scope of visual culture research. The lecture demonstrates Warburg was an innovative early Renaissance scholar at the turn of the twentieth century, pioneering a multidisciplinary approach in the study of Quattrocento imagery. His classical and art historical education included the rigours of the earlier traditions of Giorgio Vasari, G.W.F Hegel, Jakob Burckhardt and Johann Winckelmann and the historian Karl Lamprecht.18 Despite this background and holding no academic position, Warburg was an agent for change. Warburg credits Burckhardt’s genius with devising the empirical task “of examining the individual work of art within the immediate context of its time, in order to interpret as causal factors the ideological and practical demands of real life.”19 Warburg applied this empirical approach in meeting the Pueblo, using cultural historians’ methods of collection of observations, data, drawings and the relatively new technology of photographs. This empirical approach to details of all aspects of the cultural milieu of the Antique and the early Renaissance
underpinned his research and the acquisitions for his research collection, ultimately the Warburg Institute Library. Warburg collected “marginalia” in support of his view that an “image is indissolubly bound to culture” and a variety of document types to understand the cultural complexity contributing to images.20 Warburg proffered an alternative to the linear and pure vision interpretive system of the art object by the influential works of Winckelmann and Heinrich Wolfflin.21 Warburg rejected formal analysis, he did not search for the Zeitgeist, he believed that artwork is an image bound up in culture.22 Warburg’s fragmented output was “emphatically devoted to cultural historical research.”23Warburg was interested in empathy theory as espoused by Robert Vischer and its active use in images.24 Warburg asserted that general evolutionary categories obstructed art history and pleaded in 1912 to “extend methodological” borders in writing “historical psychology of human expression.”25 Warburg’s few published texts provide a resource to interpret the appropriation of classical antiquity by Renaissance artists and also support his conflict theory and that this appropriation was indicative of transcending from the primitive to the modern.26 In this he challenged Wolfflin’s favouring the idealised Apollonian classical staid grandeur.27 These ideas of conflicting elements in the Antique were influenced by the philosopher Friedrich Neitzsche.28 It is these elements of Warburg’s critique of art historical tradition that feminists hail as anticipating “critiques of science and Phallogocentric ideas.”29 Warburg’s enduring impact was the creation of his library, ultimately part of the Warburg Institute, an outstanding research collection acquired to support his research, often collecting outside his narrower interests.30 Today the Warburg Institute embraces visual culture, labelling itself a “leading centre for studying the interaction of ideas, images and society.”31 In 1924, Warburg commenced his Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, using photographs of images he collected, arranged
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on large panels, using his Pathos Formula to trace the “after-life” of classical postures and gestures in Renaissance images.32 Images were frequently rearranged creating an inventory of the “Psychic and corporeal States embodied in the works of figurative culture.”33 He did not finish it. The Mnemosyne Atlas has inspired non-hierarchical atlas creative projects that embody a period of cultural history, an artist’s career and “the universal as it operates in the process of portraying history.34 Indicative of the burgeoning interest in Warburg’s thinking in 2020 an exhibition of 63 panels Bilderatlas Mnemosyne opened.35 What followed after Warburg challenged the academic boundaries of “easy optimism of progressive philosophies without surrendering the right to evaluate and criticise human culture past and present”?36 Decades passed before Warburg was ultimately heralded as a cultural historian who created a new Cultural Science.37 Beyond his art historical scholarship, his work on the memory and the function of images has influenced the disciplines of art history and cultural studies. Warburg’s ideas gained new impact on the art historical discipline in the 1960s, linked to interest of Walter Benjamin and a new critical approach to art theory.38 Interest converged with the publication in English of Ernest Gombrich’s biography of Warburg.39 Warburg’s interest in psychological issues had become more acceptable in a post Freudian era.40 One view is that engagement with Benjamin’s art theories restored Warburg’s place in the discipline of art history.41 Another view credits German art historians for vitalising interest in Warburg in the 1970s to assist in reorienting cultural history.42 Warburg’s legacy also includes his work on symbols and iconological method,43 collections of mythological and religious images and his influence on subsequent iconographers.44 The ongoing research and publications of the Warburg Institute are another legacy. Warburg’s disgust of “aestheticising art history”45 is recognised for opening new avenues for cultural
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studies, for art historical research, especially the role of patrons, the Pathos Formula emphasising artistic borrowings, the theory of the social memory and focusing on cultural influences on the individual artist outside the High Art canon46 rather than the Zeitgeist.47 Pathos Formula is used as a practical method for exploring the usage and life of gesture, emotion and expression48 as well as a Wargburgian Method of “highly critical historical practice” problem solving in relation to the functions of an image.49 Recent scholarly examinations of previously unpublished texts and notebooks, such as the Bilderatlas Mnemosyne and Warburg’s notes on Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur L’herbe,50 suggest we are the midst of Warburg’s ongoing impact. Interest also generates criticism, of note from an ethnographic perspective the lecture omitted a discourse on cultural identity of the Hopi First Nation and branded them as primitives.51 In conclusion, Warburg expanded on the notion of art and gave birth to cultural history/science.52
Endnotes 1. Aby Warburg, [Notes]18 August 1927 quoted in Ernst Gombrich, Aby Warburg: an Intellectual Biography (London: Warburg Institute, 1970): 322. 2. Bill Sherman, [in commentary to] Aby Warburg Bilderatlas Mnemosyne Virtual Exhibition Launch, 26 November 2020. Accessed 2 September, 2021. https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/podcasts/ aby-warburg-bilderatlas-mnemosyne-virtual-exhibition-launch. Note Sherman is the Director of the Warburg Institute. 3. Gombrich, Aby Warburg, 216. 4. Michael Steinburg,”Aby Warburg’s Kreuzlingen Lecture: A Reading”, in Aby Warburg and Michael P. Steinberg. Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016., doi:10.1353/book.82048. 5. Gombrich, Aby Warburg, 226. Although not intended for publication Gombrich notes by 1970 more had been written in English on Warburg’s formative American experience than on any Warburg topic. 6. Gombrich, Aby Warburg, 90-91. Gombrich notes “He saw what he hoped to see.” 7. Ibid. 89.
8. 9.
10. 11. 12.
13.
14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
19.
20.
21.
22. 23. 24. 25.
Aby Warburg and Michael P. Steinberg. Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America, 38-48. Claire Farago, “Silent Moves: On Excluding the Ethnographic Subject from the Discourse of Art History.” 195-214 in Preziosi, Donald. Art of Art History : A Critical Anthology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Accessed September 2, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central. Steinberg,”Aby Warburg’s Kreuzlingen Lecture.” Warburg, Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians, 53. Steinberg, “Aby Warburg’s Kreuzlingen Lecture.” Note Gombrich, Aby Warburg at 310 asserts” By paganism, as we know, Warburg meant a psychological state, the state of surrender to impulses of frenzy and of fear.” Mathew Rampley, “From Symbol to Allegory: Aby Warburg’s Theory of Art,” The Art Bulletin 79(1)1997: 41-55. Accessed August 10, 2021. doi:10.2307/3046229, 46. Also Gombrich, Aby Warburg notes not all Warburg’s ideas, such as the principles of polarity, are made explicit in the Lecture, 224. Warburg, Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians, 39 -47. Ibid. 48-49. Ibid. Gombrich, Aby Warburg, 225, 308. Michael Diers, Thomas Girst, and Dorothea Von Moltke. “Warburg and the Warburgian Tradition of Cultural History,” New German Critique, no. 65 (1995):65. Accessed September 2, 2021. doi:10.2307/488533. 64. Warburg, Aby. “The art of portraiture and the Florentine Bourgeoisie: Domenico Ghirlandaio in Santa Trinita: The Portraits of Lorenzo de’ Medici and His Household (1902),” in The renewal of pagan antiquity: contributions to the cultural history of the European Renaissance. Intro Kurt W. Forster, trans. by David Britt. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999: 186. Edgar Wind, “Warburg’s concept of Kulturwissenschaft and its meaning for aesthetics” (1930):189 -195, in Art History: Making the Visible Legible in the Art of Art History: a Critical Anthology. 2nd ed. (Oxford: OUP, 2009): 192. Ibid. 191. Wolfflin’s scholarship, particularly The Principles of Art History, 1915 remained prevalent up until the 1970s. I note a Symposium held in 2015 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of The Principles of Art History. Wind, “Warburg’s concept of Kulturwissenschaft and its meaning for aesthetics,” 192. Diers, “Warburg and the Warburgian Tradition of Cultural History,”59. Rampley, “From Symbol to Allegory,” 42 ft 17 with reference to On the Optical Sense of Form, 1873. Aby Warburg, “Italian Art and International Astrology in the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara (1912),” in Idem, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity, translated by David Britt, 563-591, Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Research Institute, 1999, 285.
26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.
38.
39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.
Gombrich, Aby Warburg, 223. Mathew Rampley, “From Symbol to Allegory,”47. Ibid. 46 with reference to Neitzsche’s The Birth Of Tragedy. Margaret Iversen, “Retrieving Warburg’s Tradition,” Art History 16 (4): 541. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8365.1993.tb00545.x, 541. Gombrich, Aby Warburg, 18. The Warburg Institute, https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/. Dan Adler, Hanne Darboven: Cultural History, 1880-1983, (London: Afterall Books, St Martins College, 2009):42. Ibid. Ibid., 4. Warburg Institute. Aby Warburg Bilderatlas Mnemosyne Virtual Exhibition Launch. Gombrich, Aby Warburg, 225. Becker, Colleen. “Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel as Methodological Paradigm.” Journal of Art Historiography no. 9 (12, 2013): CB1-CB25. https://www.proquest.com/scholarlyjournals/aby-warburgs-pathosformel-as-methodological/ docview/1503676679/se-2?accountid=14681. Accessed 28 August 2021, ft21. Latsis, Dimitrios. “The Afterlife of Antiquity and Modern Art: Aby Warburg on Manet.” Journal of Art Historiography no. 13 (12, 2015): 1-28. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/afterlifeantiquity-modern-art-aby-warburg-on/docview/1772449400/ se-2?accountid=14681 and Diers, “Warburg and the Warburgian Tradition of Cultural History,” 60 -61. Diers, “Warburg and the Warburgian Tradition of Cultural History,”65. Gombrich, Aby Warburg, 322. Diers, “Warburg and the Warburgian Tradition of Cultural History,” 64. Ibid. 61,63, 65. Mathew Rampley, “From Symbol to Allegory: Aby Warburg’s Theory of Art,” 42. Gombrich, Aby Warburg ,315-17 and Diers, “Warburg and the Warburgian Tradition of Cultural History”, 59-73, both raise issues with this legacy. Gombrich, Aby Warburg, 88. Becker, Colleen. “Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel as Methodological Paradigm.” Ibid. Colleen Becker, “Aby Warburg’s Pathosformel as Methodological Paradigm.” Diers, “Warburg and the Warburgian Tradition,”67. Latsis, Dimitrios. “The Afterlife of Antiquity and Modern Art.” Latsis notes there are 44 typed pages of notes titled “Manet”recently translated. Farago, Claire. “Silent Moves: On Excluding the Ethnographic Subject from the Discourse of Art History.” Diers, “Warburg and the Warburgian Tradition,” 60, 66.
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HART2274 Introduction to Museum and Curatorial Studies Unit Coordinator: Dr Susanne Meurer
ELYSSA HUNT
‘Decolonising the Museum’ In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, museum institutions emerged as ‘active tools of empire’1, displaying and collecting objects deemed to be of value to European tastes.2 When established in European nations, they reinforced colonial and imperial values, positioning ethnographic study as a study of the ‘other’, or the ‘savage’, and therefore justifying European superiority and the maintenance of European colonial empires. Additionally, the establishment of museums in European settler colonies created cultural institutions that elevated European values, promoted the ‘other’ as a curiosity and an object of study, and contributed to the dispossession of land through the physical occupation of space. Museums worldwide house vast collections of objects attained during the colonial period, large portions of which were attained as spoils of war, looting, and other violent acts. Displays of ethnographic and anthropological objects in Western institutions as ‘curiosities’ curated presumptions of ‘otherness’ and ‘savagery’ in nonEuropean cultures,3 justifying colonialism and ideas of European superiority. As a result, decolonising the museum has become an urgent priority. In this essay, I will evaluate measures taken by three institutions to address decolonisation as a priority: The British Museum, Pitt Rivers Museum, and The Australian Museum, through the 2021 exhibition Unsettled. The British Museum is often interpreted as a cornerstone of British culture and identity, housing over four million objects.4 The museum was initially opened in 1759,5 housing an initial collection 90
purchased from Sir Hans Sloane in 1753, which included ‘natural and artificial varieties’, books, coins and artefacts.6 Following this initial opening, the British Museum collection was expanded with objects attained during Britain’s imperial efforts. Colonial processes were ‘inextricably intertwined’ with scientific research.7 Colonial powers embarked on scientific voyages in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with some, including the Endeavour voyage, becoming the catalyst for later colonisation. Additionally, specimens collected scientifically were often displayed as curiosities in Europe,8 curating notions of the ‘other’ while celebrating European scientific achievement, establishing ideas of colonial superiority.9 Additionally, portions of the British Museum collection were attained during periods of colonial violence and looting.10 The British Museum has become one of the most recognisable and referenced institutions within the decolonisation debate, with heavily contested objects within the collection, including the Parthenon Marbles and Benin Bronzes referenced extensively in decolonisation and restitution discussions. Amidst mounting pressure, the British Museum has engaged in multiple ways with these debates.11 Several pages on the British Museum website are dedicated to contested objects within its ‘Explore the collection’,12 and minutes from repatriation debates are available, including requests for the repatriation of human remains collected from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, which were denied due to a lack of evidence13. A particular example on the British Museum website is an Aboriginal bark and red mangrove wood shield, likely collected from coastal Northern New South Wales in the later eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries14. The museum website discusses requests for the wood shield to be returned by Aboriginal community members, acknowledging the significance of the shield in relation to Australia’s colonial past,
Spear Points made from stone, glass and ceramic insulators from telegraph poles, c. 1855-1940, Kimberley region, Australia. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
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but states that the museum would consider ‘lending the shield again’, rather than repatriate, in order to engage with the wishes of ‘some communities’ to have the object on display ‘closer to their originating community.’15 This stance reflects a broader trend within the engagement of the British Museum with requests for repatriation. While some human remains have been returned, the museum appears to be encouraging engagement and research of the colonial implications of objects within its collection, rather than an outright return of said contested objects. As truly decolonising the British Museum would require a complete disintegration of the institution, not returning objects maintains the hegemony of the British museum over these pieces, and over the decolonisation debate, as well as preventing a true restructure of the museum institution. The British Museum, however, has in recent years engaged with the histories of its colonies through the installation of large scale exhibitions.16 Additionally, groups and symposiums appointed by the institution, including the Global, Local, and Imperial Histories Research Group, engage with academics, museum professionals, communities and other individuals to internally examine methods of decolonisation.17 Giblin, Ramos and Grout discuss the installation of exhibitions aimed at exploring cultures and examining colonial histories, most notably Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation (2015) and South Africa: The Art of a Nation (2016). Indigenous Australia was curated by Gaye Sculthorpe, who herself is of Indigenous Tasmanian heritage, although Giblin, Ramos and Grout criticise the curation of South Africa by three white, non-South African curators, as well as its focus on South Africa, a country largely carved up by European powers, rather than on Southern African ethnic groups or regions.18 Therefore, while the British museums continues to engage with debates surrounding decolonizing the museum,
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“First Nations peoples did not want another show about Cook; he was but a small footnote in a more expansive history. Instead, we were asked to take the opportunity for a long overdue truth-telling about our shared past.”30
most notably through research and the curation of major exhibitions analysing colonial narratives, the institution lacks any incentive to properly restructure. As the institution was established on colonial values, in order to properly decolonise it must dismantle these values. While efforts to research and present the collection from the perspectives of the peoples these objects originate from can aid in dismantling the colonial notions of the ‘other’ and of ‘curiosities’, the present system of lending objects maintains the institution’s control over collections that contributed, and were collected as a result of, colonial processes and violence. The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford has a similar history to the British Museum. Established as an archaeological and anthropological collection in 1884, the initial donation of 22,000 objects to the University of Oxford by Augustus Pitt Rivers has since grown to a collection of over 500,000. The collection maintains close ties with the University, with many of its curators and researches also working within the Oxford Archaeological and Anthropological schools. Pitt Rivers Museum has publicly addressed its place as a ‘contested space that calls for innovative curation to engage with more difficult aspects of its history,19 and has taken several steps to engage with its own history and collection, as well as within broader debates around decolonisation and restitution. Dan Hicks, Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, published The Brutish Museums in 2020, discussing restitution and colonial violence in relation to the Benin Bronzes, a contested object within the British Museum collection.20 Rivers 20172022 strategic plan21 lists several plans of action that relate to the practice of The Pitt decolonising what is an incredibly diverse collection of anthropological and ethnographic objects. These steps include ‘mending… historically difficult relationships…
including reconnecting objects with originating communities’, a review of materials from an ethical perspective, an increased access to, and mobility of, collections, and ‘strategic alliances’ with other disciplines, both within and outside the University of Oxford, including postcolonial studies, politics, and engagement with the communities of which objects within the collection originate.22 In July 2020, during a period of closure due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the Pitt Rivers Museum removed from display all known objects containing human remains. A total of 123 objects were removed, including the famous Shrunken Heads (tsantsa), which were a major drawcard for visitors. The removal of the Shrunken Heads/Tsantsa, which had the potential to lower visitor numbers, can be interpreted as a conscious and physical attempt to enforce de-colonial processes within the museum walls. A statement on the Pitt Rivers website maintains that human remains were collected ‘as a way of supporting academic arguments at the time, that ranked some societies as savage and others as civilised. The measurement of bodies… was used to uphold racist and sexist beliefs… our audience research has shown that visitors often understood the Museum’s displays of human remains as a testament to other cultures being ‘savage’, ‘primitive’ or ‘gruesome’. Rather than enabling our visitors to reach a deeper understanding of each other, the displays reinforced racist stereotypes. By removing human remains from display we seek to show our respect for the communities around the world with whom we work.’23 In this case, Pitt Rivers internally analysed its own contributions to ongoing practices of colonial thinking, and, in the process of decolonisation, decided to remove objects that maintained colonial ways of thinking among museum visitors. The museum has also stated that the process is not complete, and with ongoing research and community engagement they
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“Unsettled”. Exhibition at the Australian Museum, Sydney, curated by Laura McBride and Mariko Smith, on view until 27 January 2022. https://australian.museum/exhibition/unsettled/
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may remove further objects. Although established as an anthropological and ethnographic collection of objects collected during the colonial period as a means of enforcing ‘otherness’ and ‘savagery’, the institution has taken considerable steps to identify problematic aspects within its own history, and its own engagement with visitors. Upon conducting internal examinations, the institution has identified problematic aspects of its collections and displays, and has taken the physical step of removing objects as part of the decolonisation process. Although it appears the objects are still within the Pitt Rivers collection, just no longer on display,24 the main concern addressed was the maintenance of the notion of the ‘savage’ to visitors.25 Laura van Broekhoven, director of Pitt Rivers, has stated that in discussions with descendants of Amazonian tribespeople, they have been glad to have a representation of their cultures on display.26 Pitt Rivers has previously repatriated Maori remains,27 and hence the decision to remove the Tsantsas from display comes as an effort to confront the museums role in maintaining colonial views of the ‘other’ within the modern British population. As the decision is recent, whether this is an effective means of combating museum visitors ideas of the ‘other’ and the ‘savage’, as opposed to maintaining display of the objects and instead using them as a point of education, is still unknown, however their removal, and accompanying statement by Pitt Rivers, has garnered considerable public and media attention, prompting discussions both within and outside the museum walls. The final institution I will discuss is the Australian Museum, and more specifically its Unsettled exhibition, which opened in winter 2021. The Australian Museum, previously known as the Sydney or Colonial Museum, was established in Darlinghurst in 1827. Initially a natural history museum, the institution houses over 21 million
‘natural and cultural objects’.28 Its establishment as a Colonial institution in the early years of the Sydney Colony established European cultural values on Indigenous land, its collection maintaining ideas of ‘the other’ and European superiority, contributing to the processes of settler colonialism in Australia. In 2018, the Australian Museum commissioned an exhibition examining the significance of the Endeavour Voyage, 250 years after it occurred, from an Indigenous perspective.29 Laura McBride, a Wailwan and Kooma woman, and First Nations Director and Curator for the Australian Museum, discussed the process of creating Unsettled, stating that ‘First Nations peoples did not want another show about Cook; he was but a small footnote in a more expansive history. Instead, we were asked to take the opportunity for a long overdue truth-telling about our shared past.’30 McBride details a long process of discussion and engagement with different Indigenous communities, leading to the development of the three ‘highest-ranking categories for possible exhibition topics: ‘colonisation and its effects, Australia’s origins and foundation, and addressing the false, constructed history that is pervasively shared in society.’ The most common specific responses were: truth, truth-telling, invasions, wars, massacres, genocide, assimilation, dispossession, resistance, resilience, and survival.’31 McBride also discusses the importance of truth-telling, and grieving, as a means of healing, and the importance of addressing ‘historic inequities’ as a means of closing the gap between Indigenous and non- Indigenous Australians.32 The resulting exhibition, available for digital viewing on the Australian Museum website due to Covid-19 lockdowns,33 is an impactful exploration of Indigenous culture, the ongoing effects of Cook’s Endeavour voyage, and broader colonisation and its impacts on Indigenous cultures. The exhibition begins with a Bill Day poem, addressing a lack of education of
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Indigenous history within white education systems,34 and as the viewer moves through the space, they are encouraged to engage with the legacy of Cook as a means of journeying toward a better future. The exhibition combines artefacts and documents with contemporary art, soundscapes and film. It directly confronts popular misconceptions, including Cook as the first European to ‘discover’ Australia, and emphasises the often understated role of Joseph Banks in the establishment of the Sydney Colony. A large sign states that ‘Australia is the only major Commonwealth country that does not have a treaty with its First Nations peoples’, and several objects engage with the Frontier Wars. Moving through the space, the exhibition engages with the Stolen Generations, missions, and Indigenous deaths in custody. Before leaving, the visitor is encouraged to continue the journey to a shared future by listening to Indigenous peoples, acknowledge their existence on unceded Aboriginal land, to challenge and question beliefs, and support First Nations programs. Although efforts to decolonize other sections of the Australian Museum are not evident on its website, the curation of an exhibition by an Indigenous curator, considering a vast array of Indigenous perspectives, that challenges common views of the Cook landing and its subsequent effects, is a significant step in decolonizing the Australian Museum. The exhibition is aimed at non- Indigenous Australians, with the intent of confronting the past in order to move towards a better future. Viewing Unsettled online, the exhibition is impactful and engaging, and the extensive process of engagement with Indigenous voices prior to installation provides an important step in the decolonisation process. Although the Australian Museum, as an institution, sits on unceded land, and historically was engaged with much of settler-colonial history, Unsettled confronts this. The exhibition provides a step in the decolonisation process, which 96
will hopefully be continued in other spaces within the Australian Museum. The role of the museum as a central institution in colonial processes is a role that is constantly being debated, contested, and analysed, both within museum institutions and in broader public discourse. As the process of decolonising the museum is ongoing, institutions have engaged with the task in different ways. Measures taken by the British Museum to research objects, loan items to communities (that often want them returned), and set up large scale exhibitions that engage with the stories and cultures of items in their collections, as well as engaging with colonial themes, protect the British Museums hegemony over often stolen objects, while engaging somewhat with the decolonial process. The Pitt Rivers Museum, despite a very similar role in enforcing colonial stereotypes, has taken more direct action, actively analysing its own role in contributing to harmful practices and stereotypes, and hence making efforts to engage with communities and remove harmful objects, and appears to be open to ongoing conversations. Lastly the Australian Museum, through its exhibition Unsettled, has contributed to decolonising the museum through the display of a traditionally European Australian story from an Indigenous narrative, however, currently the process needs to extend beyond a single exhibition and into the whole museum. The museum is a Western institution that upholds Western values rooted in Empire, racism and the dispossession of Indigenous lands, and in order to truly decolonise, institutions need to critically analyse their own roles within this history, and make efforts to directly confront and dismantle these values.
Endnotes 1. John Giblin, Imma Ramos, and Nikki Grout. “Dismantling the Master’s House: Thoughts on Representing Empire and Decolonising Museums and Public Spaces in Practice An Introduction,” Third Text 33, no. 4-5 (2019) pp. 471. 2. Ibid, pp. 880. 3. Dan Hicks, The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bonzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (London: Pluto Press, 2020), pp. 46. 4. British Museum Website, accessed from: https://www. britishmuseum.org/collection. 5. “History,” British Museum Website, accessed: https://www. britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/history. 6. Ibid. 7. Claire Smith, “Decolonising the Museum: The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C,” Antiquity 79, no. 304 (2005): pp. 424. 8. “The Baudin Expedition in Australian waters (1801-1803): the faunal legacy,” Western Australian Museum, 2018, accessed: https://museum.wa.gov.au/fc/aos/dj. 9. Smith, “Decolonising the Museum,” pp. 424. 10. Hicks, The Brutish Museums. 11. Giblin, “Dismantling the Master’s House,” pp. 472-78. 12. “Contested Objects Collection,” British Museum, Accessed from: https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museumstory/contested-objects-collection. 13. “Request for the repatriation of human remains to the Torres Strait Islands, Australia,” British Museum, https://www. britishmuseum.org/our-work/departments/human-remains/ request-repatriation-human-remains-torres-strait-islands. 14. “Early Shield From New South Wales,” British Museum Website, https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/ contested-objects-collection/early-shield-australia. 15. Ibid. 16. Giblin, “Dismantling the Master’s House,” pp. 471–86. 17. Giblin, “Dismantling the Master’s House,” pp. 472. 18. Giblin, “Dismantling the Master’s House,” pp. 476. 19. “Human Remains at Pitt Rivers Museum,” Accessed from https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/human-remains-pitt-rivers-museum. 20. Hicks, The British Museums. 21. Accessed from: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/files/ prmstrategicplan2017-22-foronlineuse-singlepages-ilovepdfcompressedpdf 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Dave Gilyeat, “Pitt Rivers: The museum that’s returning the dead,” BBC, 29 January 2019, accessed https://www.bbc.com/ news/uk-england-oxfordshire-45565784. 27. Ibid.
28. “About,” Australian Museum, https://australian.museum/about/ organisation/. 29. Laura McBride, “Unsettled”, 2021 https://australian.museum/ learn/first-nations/unsettled. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. “Unsettled,” Curated by Laura McBride, 2021, online viewing available at: https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/ unsettled. 34. Ibid. Bibliography Australian Museum, “The Museums Early Days,” 15.07,2020, accessed: https://australian.museum/about/history/. British Museum, “Request for repatriation of human remains to the Torres Strait Islands,” British Museum, 2011, https://www. britishmuseum.org/our-work/departments/human-remains/ request-repatriation-human-remains-torres-strait-islands. Hicks, Dan. “Decolonising museums isn’t part of a ‘culture war’. It’s about keeping them relevant,” The Guardian, 7 May 2021 Giblin, John, Imma Ramos, and Nikki Grout. “Dismantling the Master’s House: Thoughts on Representing Empire and Decolonising Museums and Public Spaces in Practice An Introduction.” Third Text 33, no. 4-5 (2019): 471–86. Pitt Rivers Museum, “Human Remains in the Pitt Rivers Museum,” accessed https:// www.prm.ox.ac.uk/human-remains-pitt-riversmuseum. Pitt Rivers Museum, “Strategic Plan 2017-2022,” accessed https:// www.prm.ox.ac.uk/files/prmstrategicplan2017-22-foronlineusesinglepages-ilovepdf-compressedpdf. Smith, Claire. “Decolonising the Museum: The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.” Antiquity 79, no. 304 (2005): 424–39. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00114206. Unsettled, 2021, Curated by Laura McBride, Australian Museum accessed: https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/ unsettled.
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HART2222 Contemporary Art Unit Coordinator: Dr Darren Jorgensen
BRINDY DONOVAN
‘Ilya Kabakov’s The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment and the Significance of Emptiness’ Introduction A lone cosmonaut propels himself into the unknown through a hole in the ceiling of his apartment. In the small room he leaves behind a makeshift propulsion device, a bed, his shoes and Soviet memorabilia plastered across the walls. Ilya Kabakov’s The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment (1984) provides these remnants of a seemingly impossible event for our imagination to piece together what could have taken place. Using Gardner’s advice to understand the work “on its own terms”,1 this paper provides a philosophical interpretation of the artwork. I am opting for this approach over providing commentary on the artwork’s potential political significance, as such an analysis would rest on contestable assumptions and positivist claims about politics and history that would require more justification than what the scope of this paper could provide. The approach I am taking reflects Kabakov’s own desire for “the work of art to be unnamed and undefined as a playful, yet total withdrawal from representational space”2. As such, I will discuss the influence of the philosophy of Russian Cosmism, the concept and use of emptiness, and the role of the viewer in the making of the artwork and its meaning. Moscow Conceptualism and APTART Moscow Conceptualism can be seen as a response to the predominant Soviet Realism of the early 20th century. The unique socio-political context of the later period of the Cold War and increasing globalisation 98
Ilya Kabakov, The Man who Flew into Space from his Apartment (1984), installation view.
provided artists with the intellectual material with which to produce new conceptual works. Yet, as both Samman3 and Gardner4 warn, it can become too easy to revert back to a reductionist reading through the lens of the Cold War or through a socialism/capitalism false dichotomy. For this reason, I turn to other contextual elements that appear to have informed the practices of these artists. Particularly, how Moscow
Conceptualist artists were reportedly situated in the “quasi-salon culture of the late Soviet period,”5 the intellectual culture that informed the artists and the conceptual basis of their works. Of the Moscow Conceptualists, Kabakov is the most revered. He was part of The Experimental Group of Moscow Conceptualists working on “unofficial” art, as opposed to the “official” art of the Soviet state.6 The particular genre of art that propelled Kabakov into the spotlight, apartment art (or APTART), were installations staged and re-staged in the apartments of Moscow artists.7 As Kolodzei8 explains: Many Nonconformist artists were inspired to escape the ideological confines of the Soviet system not by confronting that system directly but by exploring spiritual dimensions within the self, as if in a void. The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment is Kabakov’s most well-known exemplar of this tendency. The location and space the work is situated in became important aspects of the work. The familiarity of the apartment transformed by fictional persons absent from the piece, and the tension between this emptiness and the presence that somehow emanates from it, were critical elements of these works. The Influence of Russian Cosmism In the wake of Khrushchev-era reforms, Russian intellectual circles experienced a spiritual revivalism.9 The atheistic, scientific realism of the previous era became coupled with an interest in earlier spiritual and cosmological traditions. Of particular relevance to Kabakov was that of Russian Cosmism, a transhumanist philosophy founded by librarian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov. Russian Cosmism was a philosophical project that sought “a metaphysical vision of reality, pursuing a comprehensive theory of
everything”10 and sought to overcome the limitations of human physiology, hoping to circumvent the inevitability of death and defy the laws of physics.11 Kabakov cites this particular school of philosophy as having played a vital role in the intellectual life of Russian artists, referring to it as “the Silver Age of Russian Philosophy” and describing how artists “passed [the written works of Russian Cosmists] around like sacred relics”.12 The widespread attraction to this philosophy provides crucial foundational context for understanding not only Kabakov’s work, but that of Moscow Conceptualists more broadly. Russian Cosmism’s pursuit of a “theory of everything” – totalising knowledge that encompasses the universe and the elusive self – is neither a culturally unique nor antiquated project. What makes Russian Cosmism unique, however, is its dependence and trust in scientifism: the belief that science will provide the answers. Yet, ironically, transhumanism and scientificism are a contradiction in terms. The former is reliant on fiction and imaginative possibilities whereas the latter is historically rooted in a materialist realism. This irony is captured in the artwork. Kabakov’s cosmonaut, in his belief in humanity’s ability to overcome the laws of gravity, launches himself into space. To a realist, the man is most certainly unsuccessful in his attempt (if not dead), but to a cosmist this does not have to be an inevitability. Thus two possible ontologies emerge in the one work. This (non)duality can be identified again also in the name of the work. The Russian title of the work uses the word “cosmos” whereas the English translation uses the term “space”.13 This difference has significance. The ancient Greek roots of the term “cosmos” connotes a place that is “not a spiritual but a material otherworld.”14 In other words, it is “positive” space. Yet, post-space exploration, we know that the cosmos (i.e. space/the universe) 99
is mostly empty. “Cosmos” thus becomes an allencompassing term. The cosmos is expansive yet it is also empty. The (non)duality of the term and what it aims to reify is one lens through which we can read this work. Emptiness and Subjectivity Cosmos and emptiness are at once dichotomous and synonymous terms. Like the stillness before an explosion and the quiet that follows it, this tension is captured in Kabakov’s work. The concept of “emptiness” plays a significant role in understanding this work. In emptiness there is potential. Emptiness acts as “a powerful ‘creative/ deconstructive’ force in Kabakov’s presentation of reality”.15 It is “both nothingness and a subject to be scrutinized.”16 This can be felt in the artwork. In this “empty” installation, it is the absence of the cosmonaut that is the presence that is felt. It is this absence that provides the material for the imagination to engage with the work, or, in other words, for the viewer to engage in “productive subjectivity,”17 to see the work as art and to construct its meaning. In installation art such as APTART, the viewer is situated both outside the work, but also becomes of the work. Whereas a painting on the wall is delineated from the world outside of it by its frame or canvas edge, installation art often blurs this distinction. One must inevitably experience the work in an embodied way. The three-dimensional forms have a presence that emanate outwards, leaving the viewer feeling at once both part of, yet separate from, the artwork. In this way, Kabakov’s installationbased works are deeply dependent on the phenomenal subjectivity of the viewer. In an “empty” installation, there is no “centre” in the way we would typically be able to pinpoint what is contained within a painting frame to be the work of art. Instead, in an
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artwork like The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment, as Kabakov18 explains: This centre is actually nominal. The viewer him/ herself forms a centre by concentrating on his/ her own personal fantasies. The viewer’s own attention and his/her own personal reaction forms the intellectual centre, because there is no physical centre. The empty space left behind remains full of presence and the absence of the cosmonaut paradoxically becomes the object of view. The work becomes actualised in our imagination, and the way we interpret it and the story we tell to fill in the gaps becomes part of the artwork. Conclusion It is this instinctual tendency to place the person at the centre of meaning, even in absence, that I find so interesting about this piece. The transhumanist ideals of Russian Cosmism places humanity at the centre of the cosmos, and it is this ideal that becomes the philosophical basis of The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment. Underpinning Kabakov’s work is a tension and paradox that is at once evasive yet selfanswering. The artwork is simultaneously empty yet full of meaning as the viewer’s subjectivity becomes a necessary and inseparable part of the artwork. The absence of the cosmonaut leaves the viewer only an afterimage of a seemingly absurd or impossible fictional event, yet it is through emptiness that the viewer finds significance and meaning.
Endnotes 1. Anthony Gardner, Politically Unbecoming: Postsocialist Art against Democracy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015), 15, quoted in Nicoletta Rousseva, “Art on Its Own Terms,” Art Journal 75, no. 1 (May 2016): 117. 2. Nicoletta Rousseva, “Art on Its Own Terms,” Art Journal 75, no. 1 (May 2016): 119.
3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
Nadim Samman, “The Experimental Group: Ilya Kabakov, Moscow Conceptualism, Soviet Avant‐Gardes,” Third Text 25, no. 2 (April 2011): 230. Gardner, Politically Unbecoming, quoted in Rousseva, “Art on Its Own Terms.” Samman, “The Experimental Group,” 230. Ibid. Peter Osborne, “The Kabakov Effect: ‘Moscow Conceptualism’ in the History of Contemporary Art,” Afterall 42, no. 1 (Autumn/ Winter 2016): 117. Natalia Kolodzei, “Cosmic Inspirations and Explorations by Soviet Nonconformist Artists,” Leonardo 54, no. 1 (February 2021): 93. Ibid. Ibid, 92. Alessandra Franetovich, “Cosmic Thoughts: The Paradigm of Space in Moscow Conceptualism,” e-flux 99, (April 2019): 4. Kolodzei, “Cosmic Inspirations,” 97. Boris Groys, Ilya Kabakov: The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment (Afterall Books, 2006), 9. Ibid. Kolodzei, “Cosmic Inspirations,” 96. Gardner, Politically Unbecoming, 74, quoted in Rousseva, “Art on Its Own Terms,” 119. Osborne, “The Kabakov Effect,” 117. Ilya Kabakov, “Public Projects or the Spirit of a Place,” Third Text 17, no. 4 (December 2003): 406.
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ARCHITECTURE, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE & URBAN DESIGN
Image: ARCT5885 Bio-Based Materials in Global Settings display. Summer Exhibition 2021 opening night, 17 November 2021. Photography by Samantha Dye. 102
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FOREWORD BY MONROE MASA Another year has gone by, and the ominous threat of Covid-19 continues to have a presence in Perth, reminding us of the previous lockdowns we experienced in 2020. Thankfully, this year’s teaching semesters have retained some form of pre-Covid normality, remaining safe from the full force of the virus that was unfortunately present within other parts of the world. However, its ominous presence was still of a concern; the university implemented a plethora of learning methods that incorporated face-to-face learning with online teaching, ensuring that students who had been impacted from the virus were still able to return to university. 2021 introduced a new presence to the traditional Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts (ALVA) way of life with the experiences I had as an undergraduate, becoming nothing more than a distant memory. I can recall when the workshop was full of blue foam from studio models and the labs were packed to the brim with students, fervently working on their folios. These events were not evident in their entirety during the year, however with the return of students the ALVA Society was there assisting with the changes that were becoming evident within the School of Design. This can be seen by the encouragement they provided the students, hosting various social events. These changes have brought about a new presence to the School of Design, ushering in a new era that will hopefully mature into the new normal for students returning in 2022. The Design Hub returned to full operations this year, providing invaluable information and help to students, ensuring that they had the support they required for their studies. This year the Design Hub introduced a new role for its staff – providing teaching assistance to the first-year studio classes. I was fortunate enough to participate as a Hub staff member. The students from these classes produced some amazing work that was a mixture of both digital and hand drawing. Personally, this semester was difficult and daunting as it marked the culmination of my studies, making the idea of full-time work a reality. I am sure many students who are also finishing their studies this semester will also have their own mixed emotions about their university experiences coming to an end. I feel that we can all take comfort in the prospect that our future endeavours will hopefully contribute in some shape or form to the field of design. Overall, I’m sure that everyone enjoyed the return of face-to-face teaching and the plethora of social functions that were organised by the ALVA Society. To conclude, I would like to congratulate the students for their tremendous efforts and hard work in producing such an array of exemplary designs. As a final note, I would like to commend the staff, who have provided the students with outstanding teaching and support – allocating extra time and effort to assist the students, ensuring that they are able to achieve their very best. As I contemplate on the semester coming to an end, I hope that the perils of Covid will be short lived and wish all the current students and staff all the best in their future endeavours. Monroe Masa, Master of Architecture 2021
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Image: Monroe Sydney Masa. Cénotaphe De La Mémorie. 2021. 105
ARCHITECTURE
Image: ARCT5101 / ARCT5102 Architecture Studio Freescapes display. Summer Exhibition 2021 opening night, 17 November 2021. Photography by Samant 106
tha Dye. 107
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ARCT5502 - Independent Design Research Unit Coordinator: Dr Kate Hislop Supervisor: Dr Nigel Westbrook
MONROE MASA
‘Cénotaphe De La Mémorie’ “And what if there’s nothing? You die and there’s nothing beyond that. Someone might remember you for a little while after but not for long”. Dmitry Glukhovsky illustrates the fragility of individuality and how it is unable to convey one’s memory for posterity. Cénotaphe De La Mémorie aims to establish a new Death Architecture typology, using historical and contemporary precedents to create an ambiguous, yet familiar language that bridges the divide between the living and the dead. The design’s location, program, form, and association with nature contributes to the proposal evoking and emotional response that encourages the individual to reshape their perception of death. This challenges the current perception of the cemetery being an instigator of dying. The proposal attempts to resolve cemeteries nearing capacity, environmental pollution, loss of holistic traditions and psychological trauma, as they are the primary challenges that have impeded the creation of a ‘Tame Death’. The project encourages life and death to intersect on a frequent basis, using society’s acceptance of death to establish a universally attainable collective memory that enables people to cope with the trauma of dying. Cénotaphe De La Mémorie will be implemented in successive stages to ensure that society is gradually exposed to death’s morbidity, allowing them to perceive death as a normalised process that accompanies life.
Image: Cénotaphe De La Mémorie axonometric.
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Image: (Left) Columbarium; (Right) Burial Corridor. 110
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Image: (Left) Irrigation Ash Pit; (Right) Karri Tree Grove. 112
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ARCT5101 Architecture Studio 2 Unit Coordinator: Andrea Quagliola Studio Coordinator: Kirill de Lancastre Jedenov ‘Freescapes’
BEAU ROBINSON
‘Welcome to the Freescapes’ As COVID-19 wreaked havoc throughout the world, the Arts in its various forms provided much of the population enjoyment when most other forms of entertainment, such as sport, were shut down in the initial phases of the pandemic. This was despite the tenuous and casual nature of the “gig economy” rendering many of the main stimulus measures redundant for many participants in the arts. Emerging from the pandemic, society must invest in the social capital of ideas, creativity, and expression. With a significant proportion of Australians spending their time and money on arts before and throughout COVID-19, commercialisation at a grassroots level will help foster and develop a scene that emerges from the pandemic far stronger than it otherwise would have been. COVID-19 decimated the Australian Arts industry, and the pandemic has amplified the inequalities that exist in society. Artists and creatives are aligned with Lebbeus Woods’ principles of ‘Freespaces’ in approaching their craft, pushing the frontiers to carve new niches and bending genres to form an artistic identity. The new landscape for the Perth Cultural Centre explores carving spaces to be used in unique ways, avoiding deterministic design, meant for those who actively intend to occupy them and depending on the type of performance intended for the space. The landscape amplifies the existing qualities of the cultural centre as an arts hub of Perth, making performance and artistic expression an intention of the area, not an intrusion in a landscape that is currently underutilised and disjointed. The former QR code system of the pandemic is recycled in combination with NFT’s as a way of allowing various artists to monetize their works, allowing local governments to better target their grassroots funding. The landscape provides a coherent language between the buildings, becoming a hub of contemporary creation and community driven activation.
Image: Immersive event space.
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ARCT5101 Architecture Studio Unit Coordinator: Andrea Quagliola Studio Coordinator: Santiago Perez ‘[So]mod: Models, Sites + Territories: Architecture as an Agent for Social Regeneration Design for a Disaster Resilience Community Centre’
RIVA-JEAN LANDER
‘Looking Out for the Community’ In April 2020, the current Liberal state government released 356,000 hectares of high conservation value, carbon rich forests to the logging industry. Originally set aside for protection under the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, these forests, which support some of Australia’s most iconic species and secure lutruwita’s (Tasmania) water supplies, are now under threat. This project intends to create a community hub in the rural area of Dorset, Tasmania. The program combines an educational area, co-working space, and a community workshop. The focus is to bring people together, to appreciate the remaining surrounding native forest and learn about how the future of the timber industry can look. The building design is guided by the tension between interior and exterior space. This is reflected in the layout, circulation, and program. This culminates in the breathtaking educational experience of the tree top walk through the native rainforest and the plantation.
Image: Community centre and contour model.
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ARCT5101 Architecture Studio Unit Coordinator: Andrea Quagliola Studio Coordinator: Dr Sally Farrah ‘Projections for a Data Centre in Bunbury’
SKYE NEWTON
‘To The Water’s Edge’
Examining site without physical access leaves interpretation to rely on second hand data; aerial and street view photos, lived experiences relayed on publicly accessible domains – google reviews, social media posts, and word of mouth recounts of the space. This information is then filtered through personal readings of space resulting in a bulk of hyperfixations and informational holes. This proposal is a reading of Bunbury – what cried out to be a point of tension and where to apply a semblance of urban acupuncture. Bunbury is a coastal town yet its built form rejects privileging public access to the coast. The only infrastructure allowing for lingering interactions with the water are car parks dotted along the coast. Affixing a public amenity to the tip of the coast aims to bridge people down to the waterside, critique the proprietorship of the ocean’s edge, the inevitable volume of the building that takes up the skyline of the shore a proclamation in itself. Offered to the public is a place to frame the ocean’s view, connect with water year round regardless of temperature drops or wind gales via the heated pool. The car park is a place of repose for port side workers on their lunch break, families on a Sunday, people who need to sit and look at the tide go out, kids after school, surfers chasing brine, tourists watching the sun set. The building is also designed under the acknowledgment of its expiry. Ocean side structures come with limited habitable time frames before they are swallowed by water, hence the gesture of a heavily grounded concrete structure topped and wrapped by sheer steel, vinyl curtain, and polycarbonate form. This project speculates on a new narrative – of how to reach the water’s edge.
Image: Proposal site plan.
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Image: Territory, local narratives, proposal ground floor plan, proposal exploded axonometric and public interaction detail. 124
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ARCT5101 Architecture Studio Unit Coordinator: Andrea Quagliola Studio Coordinator: Glenn Russell ‘Tidal Pavilion’
ALEXANDRA BOLLIG
‘Tidal Pavilion’
Depending on our perspective, our interaction with the water’s edge differs. From First Nations peoples standing on the edge mourning the passing of souls out to sea, to the settlers searching for new coastlines to land their ships, our combative, and at times, opposing histories find interaction on our shores. Change is inevitable and the water’s edge becomes a place for reflection on what was, what is and what could be. The Tidal Pavilion captures the diurnal tidal motion with the gentle movement of a timber screen with changing levels of protection and visibility offered at distinct water levels. This change, in either protection or openness, creates greater interaction with the reflection pool or the greater ocean beyond, in turn, changing the nature of reflection from an internal to an external perspective.
Image: Interaction between First Nations Peoples’ significant sites and foreign settlers’ coastal shipwrecks.
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Image: (Left) Visibility from North Mole; (Right) Composite model stills. 128
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ARCT5201 Detailed Design Studio Unit Coordinator: Andrea Quagliola Studio Coordinator: Richard Simpson ‘Kings Park Cultural Centre’
MICHAELA SAVAGE
‘Kaarta Gar-up Interpretive Centre’ “We didn’t name Country, that’s the Western way of colonizing land... Country told us who it was. Learning the first place names will tell you the character of that Country. These are the cues for the design and planning industry to start to connect with Boodja [Country].” – Dillon Kombumerri, Addressing Indigenous Heritage Through Design. Following Kombumerri’s philosophy, this cultural Centre takes its design cues from the original place names of the site. Although named Mt Eliza by European settlers, this hilltop location is originally and traditionally known as “Kaarta Gar-up”, “Kaarta” meaning head or hill and “Gar-up,” meaning place of the spider. Whadjuk representative Barry McGuire has described the song lines celebrating the sacred spiders associated with this place, a significant location that provided sustenance for the Whadjuk Noongar people as a place to camp, hunt and hold ceremonies. This Centre aims to resonate with the intricate web of Noongar knowledge, and the interconnectivity of country to culture and language. Using the metaphor of the ‘spider’s web’, the organisation of program and materiality explore different attributes of the web from pattern and circulation, to ideas of connection and visual permeability. Arranged around a central node – the bush-tucker garden – the scheme includes accommodations for administrative staff, as well as galleries, café, teaching, meeting and performance spaces. Circulation through these spaces follows a spiral pattern contained by long curved earth walls. The perimeter of the building comprises solid, perforated and open screens that frame, control and direct views in and out of the Centre. The pattern of the perforated corten screens are derived, with indigenous artist collaboration, from the natural pattern created when circular dew-drops collect on the radial threads of the spider’s web, providing beautiful shadows in the day and forming an eye-catching landmark when backlit at night.
Image: Outdoor performance space.
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Image: (Top) Analysis and perspectives; (Bottom) East elevation (Fraser Ave View). 132
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christmas beetle genus anoplognathus
bob-tail lizard tiliqua rugosa
mortorbike frog ranoidea moorei
carnaby’s black cockatoo calyptorhynchus latirostris
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ARCT5201 Detailed Design Studio Unit Coordinator: Andrea Quagliola Studio Coordinator: Lara Camilla Pinho ‘Homelessness: an investigation into housing as a resource available to all’ flooded gum eucalyptus grandis
thick-head glasswort sarcocornia blackiana
sea rush juncus kraussii
flat topped yate eucalyptus occidentalis
KATHY CHAPMAN
‘A Study into the Effects of Water-Based Design Approaches on Social Housing within the Borloo Context’ Historically, a freshwater estuary covered East Perth’s surface, however, this has since been removed. The design pays homage to the former water body by implementing a series of riverines on the ground floor. Native aquatic plants are utilised to stimulate filtration of pollutants. Native Australian fauna is also encouraged to appear on site by planning vegetation that attracts animals, such as the Western Rosella and the Australasian Darter. This project was developed using evidence-based design techniques, and these were deployed throughout the site to create a warm and welcoming environment. Vegetation and water have both been scientifically proven to increase serotonin levels and decrease adverse emotions. As homeless people have a significantly higher rate of mental illness (36 per cent) than the general population (20 per cent), consideration of mental health was pertinent. This is emphasised in the built form by designating spaces for psychological services. The majority of the ground floor is open space, allowing for a connection between Kensington Street and Brown Street. Current buildings on site are constructed of red brick, and this material is reused to provide contrast to the green vegetation on the ground floor. Due to the unique flora and fauna the site offers, the site will provide a range of activities that the residents can assist with. Lectures and classes on local biodiversity can occur in the meeting rooms available on site, encouraging the local population to partake in sustainable practices. Residents who prefer more solitary activities can assist with the harvesting of the vegetation and upkeep of the water bodies. The current banks of the Swan River have little to no local vegetation, thereby discouraging wildlife to occupy the space. Residents will work with the City of Perth and the Swan River Trust to propagate seeds from the vegetation harvested, planting them along the riverbanks.
Image: Site isometric highlighting native Australian aquatic plants and fauna.
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Image: (Left) Section of building and riverine; (Right) Plan of typical apartment units. 136
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ARCT5201 Detailed Design Studio Unit Coordinator: Andrea Quagliola Studio Coordinator: Gemma Hohnen ‘Architecture (and) Nature / Crisis - Studio 4’
ANDY JONES
‘Adapt to Survive: The Beaconsfield Community Hub’ The favoured narrative, that a building is finished or complete is one hardwired into design, construction, and planning. This concept neglects the rates of social, environmental, and technological change. This proposal for a community building must adapt and react to the climate disaster. The Urban Heat Wave is an immediate impact of climate change and is predicted to intensify and occur more frequently in Western Australia. Buildings must adapt their functions and be adaptable, to meet the uncertainty of future conditions. With materials at a premium, a greater need for a new circular economy building model is growing. The long-life loose fit, adaptable model allows for flexibility and an ability to evolve over time. Alongside, creating the necessary infrastructure for disaster relief in Beaconsfield. An investigation into the site of Beaconsfield and its history, saw the drastic change of land use over 200 years and an appreciation for the immortality of the land since colonisation. These historical changes reinforced the concept of long life, loose fit. The modular building system utilises a circular material economy; the building’s components and materials can be reused and reconfigured over time, to adapt to the changing needs of the Beaconsfield community. An environmental Dowel CLT composite material creates a lightweight structural component for the dimensionally coordinated to a master base grid that allows easy ‘plug and play’ assembly and disassembly. Moveable partitions and collapsible furniture allow internal adaptations to happen at different times of day. The building utilises north facing orientation and framed views to bring the natural landscape inside. Timber and reused concrete work in harmony to maximise emotive wellbeing. The building balances places of refuge and connection, reflection and distraction, which enhances the welfare of the Beaconsfield community during crisis.
Image: West section perspective.
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Image: (Top Left) Ground floor plan; (Bottom Left) First floor plan; (Top Right) East elevation; (Bottom Left) East section. 140
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ARCT5201 Detailed Design Studio Unit Coordinator: Andrea Quagliola Studio Coordinator: Dr Rosangela Tenorio ‘Studio Kimberley: Bayulu’
JULIA KEYMER
‘Bayulu: Build with Country | Build Community’ In addition to producing functional and pleasing spaces, architecture and design has the ability and indeed, the responsibility, to positively impact societies. Through a holistic design response to the challenges and opportunities of a remote community, this project seeks to investigate employment, training and industry possibilities, to enhance social development and wellbeing through planning and infrastructure. As a pilot initiative, this proposal is intended to be adaptable and replicable in similar remote communities in the Fitzroy valley. It aims to provide a scaffold on which to project the identity, culture and values specific to each community, promoting economic, cultural and social resilience and self-sufficiency. With a focus on retaining and enhancing current community infrastructure, landscape and ways of living, this project looks to gently integrate new built environment with the existing. It encourages community engagement in both design and construction, to strengthen shared identity, generate a sense of ownership and unify the people of Bayulu. New infrastructure responds to climate and culture, to produce robust, low maintenance buildings, focused on thermal efficiency, affordability and durability. Adopting familiar construction techniques alongside new building systems can provide training and employment opportunities for the men, women and youth of Bayulu. Flexibility is at the core of the project, with adaptable spaces that suggest, rather than impose, uses. Community directs the function and use of spaces, with the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Structures are open and in close connection to the surrounding landscape, working to retain existing trees and exploit prevailing winds for passive cooling. Enclosed adobe buildings provide air-conditioned spaces when needed, and can be opened up to the surrounding shaded outdoor areas, allowing natural ventilation and true indoor-outdoor activity. This is building with Country to build Community.
Image: Bunuba, Gooniyandi, Walmajarri Country: Map of Fitzroy Valley.
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Image: (Left) Bayulu Community Core isometric; (Right) Bayulu Community Hub plan. 144
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ARCT5513 Near Future Scenarios for a New Architectural Era Unit Coordinator: Dr Fernando Jerez
DUFFY, ROBINSON AND MARTIN; FREEMANTLE, KOVACEVIC, LUNDIN, MCDONOUGH AND SHAHID; JONES, LEDGER AND UNDERWOOD Jarrod Duffy, Beau Robinson and Charlotte Martin ‘Do We Really Die Anymore?’ The project explores a near future scenario where companies such as Facebook collect data throughout the life of their users and reconstruct their profile as an interactive holographic avatar based on this accumulation after death. It is based on the notion proposed by Yuval Noah Harari that people using such platforms are the product and will eventually merge into the accumulated data flow. The future will see the commodification of the deceased’s data in this subscription-based interactive avatar to help families grieve. William Freemantle, Anja Kovacevic, Johanna Lundin, Sophie McDonough and Subah Shahid ‘EDO (Ethically Developed Organisms) Farming’ EDO Farming is a response to a projected population loss of farmers in Japan in 2035. This loss, along with valuable traditional farming techniques seldom passed down to younger generations and the lack of agricultural land needed to sustain future populations will impact Japan’s food security. The solution was the implementation of GMO products and the utilization of urban areas for small-scale domestic farming for families, businesses and individuals, reducing strains on commercial farming through a subscription home-delivery based business. Andy Jones, Evan Ledger and Hannah Underwood ‘Resisting Form - A Short Film’ Imagine if every café, restaurant, bar, and nightclub was indefinitely closed after one emergency news broadcast. Consider all the memories that had been made there and the new memories that can never be – this became reality in 2020. Despite health concerns and social distancing laws, the innate human need for connection and expression is a stronger driving-force that rule-abiding. Fast-forward to a post-pandemic world in 2035. Buildings of varied scale are being used to host what Berlin is famous for – RAVES. A car park is where cars are left by citizens. Until a carpark, in its imperfect glory, becomes a RAVE. The near future will see function that place regardless of form. Intended or otherwise. Legal or not. Image: Duffy, Robinson and Martin. Video still from Do We Really Die Anymore? 2021.
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Image: Duffy, Robinson and Martin. Video still from Do We Really Die Anymore? 2021. 148
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Image: Freemantle, Kovacevic, Lundin, McDonough and Shahid. EDO (Ethically Developed Organisms) Farming. 2021. (Left) Rooftop; (Right) Instagram app vi 150
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Image: Underwood, Ledger, and Jones. Video still from Resisting Form - A Short Film. 2021. 152
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ARCT5529 Forensic Architecture Unit Coordinator: Dr Nigel Westbrook
DAVID MORGAN CARR
‘Yuanming Yuan (‘Gardens of Perfect Brightness’), Beijing Summer Palace’ This unit employs the methodologies of architectural drawing, modelling and analysis, backed by historical knowledge to undertake experimental reconstructions of lost buildings and urban environments – ‘forensic architecture’. For such tasks, the architect’s tools – the understanding of structure, space and spatial narrative, as well as the underlying optical principles of representation – can unlock what are otherwise inaccessible works of the past. The project shown here, by David Morgan-Carr, deploys such methods to reconstruct a famous Chinese palace and gardens, which was deliberately destroyed by British and French imperialist forces during the Opium Wars. A once monumental complex of palaces and gardens, the ‘Yuanming Yuan 圆明园’ (Gardens of Perfect Brightness) was crafted over generations during the Qing dynasty. Originally constructed as a personal retreat away from the Forbidden City for the Kangxi emperor, the site would be transformed over 150 years into a veritable paradise of worldwide renown during its lifetime, with possibly thousands of individual structures and 3.5 square kilometres of stunning gardens. The ruins of the Yuanming Yuan remain a focal point of Chinese nationalism to this day with almost the entire site left effectively untouched since its destruction. One of the most viable visual records of the Yuanming Yuan exists in a series of paintings (and paired poems) commissioned by the Qianlong emperor in 1744. ‘Forty Scenes of the Yuanming Yuan’, depicting the various crafted vistas across the north-western region of the gardens as they were in 1744. This project explores the history and development of the Yuanming Yuan, focus on the 23rd ‘scene’ titled ‘Lianxi Lechu’ 濂溪樂處 (Lianzi’s Happy Place) – a space of relaxation and meditation created by the Qianlong emperor in dedication to one of his favourite philosophers and as an encapsulation of the Hangzhou West Lake.
Image: View from Yuanming Yuan palace to water pavilion.
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Image: View of eastern walk over lake. 156
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ARCT5536 Photo Real Rendering Unit Coordinator: Craig McCormack and Chaz Flint Teaching Staff: Chaz Flint and Dev Mawjee
LUCA FRAGOMENI AND MATTHIAS WIDJAJA Matthias Widjaja ‘Nulaki Cabin’ Perth NRM is a highly regarded for-purpose organisation in the natural resources management (NRM) sector with a vision to empower people to positive ecological impact. They have successfully operated and supported numerous agricultural, coastal and land-care programs for decades – collaborating with industry, communities and all levels of government (federal, state and local) to deliver solutions to ensure future generations can enjoy the natural resources that make our region special. The getaway cabin located on the Nulaki Peninsula, Denmark, will provide a place of respite for the workers and volunteers of Perth NRM. Gently framing the surrounding context, its rich biodiversity and stunning views, the structure is a manifestation of the organisations value – a self-sustainable cabin utilising natural ventilation, rainwater harvesting and natural sunlight to passively warm and cool the cabin during different seasons of the year. Luca Fragomeni ‘Cullen’s at Wilyabrup’ Cullen’s at Wilyabrup is a secluded cabin located within the densely vegetated forest west of the Cullen homestead. The cabin provides short-stay accommodation, utilising high quality finishes, integrating sustainable design principles and a material palette suitable for high Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) requirements. The project is comprised of a steel structure clad in composite timber, metal roofing and wall cladding, and fibre cement panels. The north oriented cabin has generous openings maximising solar access in winter, natural light and enhancing the visual connection with the surroundings. A raised concrete floor slab provides thermal mass and double-glazed operable windows allow for cross ventilation. These considerations ensure that the cabin can provide high-quality accommodation while advocating for contemporary materials and construction methods that prevent loss of life and property in high-risk areas.
Image: Matthias Widjaja. Nulaki Cabin exterior perspective – south.
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Image: Matthias Widjaja. Nulaki Cabin (Left) exterior perspective – north; (Centre) interior perspective – fireplace; (Right) interior perspective – bathroom. 160
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Image: Luca Fragomeni. Cullen’s at Wilyabrup front view. 162
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Image: Luca Fragomeni. Cullen’s at Wilyabrup kitchen, kitchen-living, and bathroom views. 164
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ARCT5555 Graduating Portfolio Unit Coordinator: Gemma Hohnen
ETHAN ANTHONY AND SOPHIE MCDONOUGH Sophie McDonough ‘Towers in Venice’ Height, land, and light – a project that aims to provide as much of this as possible to the residents of Giudecca and compete vertically with its long running horizontal surroundings. Buildings with bellies lifted, revealing and transforming warrens to large, sheltered vistas for public space – open for opportunity. Private gardens perched on rooftops elevating its residents towards the sun and views of Venice and housing assembled for morning sun and breezes from the neighbouring marina. Ethan Anthony ‘Crisis Studio - The Precedent’ The design aims to define new standards of design using renewable bio-based materials in the form of a mixed residential development. Situated in the coastal city Fremantle, the impact of predicted sea level rise as a result of a changing climate hits close to home. This threat of future climate catastrophe has given rise to an energized movement, aimed at overhauling the design and construction sector. This project acts as ‘The Precedent,’ enriching a derelict area while expressing critical climate crisis design opportunities of the near future. The design introduces mass timber construction in a location primarily dominated by brick construction and uses identifiable key components in design for disassembly. Double height areas to the north and south and natural ground cover, rammed earth planters, deep root zoned trees and breakdown of strict structural pattern distinguish these promising spaces as organic thresholds for a functional timber structure. The design encourages a greater physical involvement of its users with an active heart in the centre of the building, from which cyclists and pedestrians circulate through and large breathable staircases improve activity and wellbeing while shared spaces overlooking the ocean, stimulating community.
Image: Sophie McDonough. Towers in Venice axonometric section of tower showing a typical apartment layout.
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Image: Ethan Anthony. Crisis Studio - The Precedent (Left) Isometric projection; (Right) Perspective section. 168
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ARCT5589 Architecture of Furniture Unit Coordinators: Peter Kitely and Guy Eddington
LYNDSAY O’NEILL AND CHARLOTTE PYLE Charlotte Pyle ‘Reverie Arm Chair’ The Reverie Arm Chair was designed to be all-encompassing, offering you a place to lounge while getting lost in thought. The frame is lean design with soft plush cushions draped over the skeletal form giving it a light and almost weightless presence. As the fabric is draped over the frame it is tucked and pulled in at points, strapping the upholstered elements into place. The design palette was inspired by Australian native plants, featuring soft and earthy tones, while also offering varying textures giving the design a unique tactility. The final form is defined with practicality and simplicity in mind, with all elements designed to work in unison. Product form and function, combined with the key principles of Design for Disassembly (DfD) create a resolved, thoughtfully considered design outcome. Lyndsay O’Neill ‘Rammed Stand and Lily Lamp’ The Rammed Stand and Lily Lamp invites individuals to explore the use of traditionally monotonous furnishings. The Rammed Stand functions as a key stash, umbrella hook and coat stand. However, the objective of its design is for its function to remain ambiguous. The union of materiality and form does not immediately present itself as a coat stand. The Lily Lamp has four light outputs; each creates a unique ambiance which can be farther manipulated by altering how the lamp sits. Both pieces share a strong connection to place. The layers of rammed earth emulate Australia’s dusty red landscapes and the Jarrah for the Lily Lamp is grown along Perth’s Swan river.
Image: Charlotte Pyle. Reverie Arm Chair. 2021. Photography by Matt Biocich.
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Image: Lyndsay O’Neill. Rammed Stand and Lily Lamp. 2021. Photography by Matt Biocich. 172
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ARCT5885 Bio-Based Materials in Global Settings Unit Coordinator: Dr Rosangela Tenorio
JULIA CATALANO, SOPHIA DO, PAUL JUNG AND MATTHIAS WIDJAJA
‘Pavilion Stool – Stool Pavilion’
As the climate crisis emerges, the role of the designer changes – now more than ever, sustainable practices within design need to be championed. Moving forward, good design and sustainability need to be synonymous with each other. Sustainable design is achieved by focusing on three main circular principles.1 1. Design out waste and pollution 2. Keep products and materials in use 3. Regenerate natural systems The Pavilion Stool – Stool Pavilion is a simultaneous response to architectural design and furniture design with sustainability and circular practices at the forefront. By incorporating circular design strategies (such as refurbishment, recycling, re-using, and redistributing) the overall product life of a singular Pavilion Stool can be lengthened – resulting in less waste production and a smaller carbon footprint. Able to be assembled and disassembled at any site, and then flat packed – the Pavilion Stool is designed to be re-used and re-distributed. With the intention of sharing the design onto Open Desk (an online open platform for furniture design) we hope that individuals around the world will create as many stools as they need, when they need, to avoid excessive mass production. The stackability of the Pavilion Stool was an important factor during the design phase. Not only was it important for storage purposes, but the idea that a community of Pavilion Stools could transform into something more was paramount. The Stool Pavilion is created by stacking multiple Pavilion Stools together to create a larger system. Sustainable design is a collective responsibility and encompasses all stages of the design process – from material extraction, design, manufacture, transportation, use and design strategy. The Pavilion Stool – Stool Pavilion is the encapsulation of circular concepts and the manifestation of the hope of a more sustainable future in design. Change begins with an individual, but transformation happens with a community.
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“What is a circular economy?,” Ellen MacArthur Foundation, accessed November 20, 2020, https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/ circular-economy/concept.
Image: Pavilion Stool.
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Image: A circular story and Stool Pavilion. 176
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ARCT3001 Architecture Studio 4 Unit and Studio Coordinator: Lara Camilla Pinho ‘How will we live together?’
FYNN TURLEY
‘A Bath For All: Architecture For Humans + Macaques’ The ritual of bathing is revered within Japan – for both humans and animals alike. With an abundance of geothermal hot springs, wild animals like the Japanese Macaque have become dependent on these baths for warmth, community, and mating. This project proposes a shared hot spring for co-living between a family of six and snow monkeys to encourage interaction, observation, and flourishing between the two species through a shared love for bathing. The project sits along the Yokoyu River in Yamanouchi, a municipality in the Nagano prefecture of Japan. Although widely recognised for its natural hot springs and skiresorts, one of its most remarkable attractions is the Jigukudani Monkey Park, shortly upstream from the chosen site, where Japanese Macaques can be found relaxing in these heated bodies of water. The design approach splits the project into three volumes: the house, the engawa, and the baths. All of which take the form of elongated rectangles, which serves as a gesture that correlates to the river that runs parallel to the project. The long form results in a proposal that deals with topographical level changes in order to define spaces of privacy and pleasure.
Image: Axonometric projection.
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Image: Selected sections and details. 180
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ARCT3001 Architecture Studio 4 Unit Coordinator: Lara Camilla Pinho Studio Coordinator: Steven Thick ‘Re-engaging with Orani’
CARINA VAN DEN BERG
‘Nivola Studio and Residence’
Orani is the birthplace of the renowned modern sculptor, Costantino Nivola. He worked with sand-cast concrete to create abstract artwork of human figures. He is remembered by a mural on the town chapel and a museum dedicated to his work, though the town is otherwise barren with little tourism or industry. The museum is located at the foot of the hill opposite the town, with its white walls, arched windows, and terracotta tile roof. Here, my proposal extends from an existing retaining wall into a footpath that begins the procession toward the studio. This leads you down past the semi-private residences and under a canopy of trees until you arrive at the geometric and programmatic centre point. To your left is a great, stepped curve that falls gracefully down to meet you, only interrupted by a tower that connects each level of the public program, each extending outward at three metre intervals. They branch off and define new spaces with their own geometry, contradicting expectations as you move through, but always referring back to an ever-changing perspective of the curve. Passing through the visitors’ centre, the curve then continues past the main path, embracing and retaining the function space and the sculpture court. However, you are drawn back onto the main path by a large retaining wall that guides you down toward the sculpture studio. The studio extrudes from the sunken ground and is hugged by the wall yet stands alone in its purity. Suddenly, you are focused solely on the studio and its tall, narrow entry. After squeezing through this threshold, you are left in awe of the perfect curved wall that is emphasised by a seemingly weightless concrete dome overhead. The light dances along the curve throughout the day, revealing different parts of the studio, from the sinks to the storage room to the cement mixers. Here, in pure tranquillity, you learn to sculpt like the great Costantino Nivola.
Image: Site plan and site section.
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Image: Proposal plans and sections. 184
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ARCT3001 / ARCT2001 Vertical Online Studio Unit Coordinators: Lara Camilla Pinho and Jennie Officer Studio Coordinator: Dr Sally Farrah ‘How will we live together?’ ARCT2001
GHIM CHONG TAN
‘Indlu Penguin House’
The Indlu Penguin House is located in Simon’s Town, South Africa, and designed to be cohabited by African penguins, a nuclear family, and the public. The African penguins are a migratory species that have selected the Simon’s Town coastline as their second home. They use this space to mate, rear their young, feed, and play safely. The family occupying this space consists of two parents and their 10-year old child. One parent is a civil engineer, the other owns a café, and the child is in grade school. The climate of the area is temperate with mild changes in weather throughout the year. There are many possibilities and opportunities for interaction, and the possibility of ambiguous activities and actions for the family, penguins, and the public. Daily activities, habits, and routines create direct or indirect interactions. On top of the beach, boulders sit on the house. The landscape is connected by ramps, stairs, and boardwalks. Native trees and plants line the boulders so that the landscape surrounds the house. The penguins will nest below the dwelling space where they can lay their eggs safely and close to the sea. The steep slope allows the penguins to both slide and to rest on top of the roof. Afterwards, they can continue down the ramps where they approach penguins and children gathering and playing. The walkway will then lead the visitors to both the deck and tidal pool where all parties can sunbathe, rest and enjoy the view together. Underneath the deck is a space facing the ocean where the family can gather. When the space is submerged, they can view the penguins hunting and swimming.
Image: Indlu Penguin House isometric projection.
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Image: Indlu Penguin House site plan, sections, and perspective. 188
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ARCT3030 Construction Unit Coordinator: Andrea Quagliola Teaching Staff: Andrea Quagliola and Mark Jecks
FYNN TURLEY
‘Polyvalent Theatre Structural Analysis’ Designed by Lacaton & Vassal, the Polyvalent Theatre is a multi-purpose hall that seamlessly integrates itself into its context. The project’s characteristic façade allows for public access to the roof as its ‘sloped’ appearance gives the impression of a hill upheld by a light steel frame structure and its permeability, achieved with glazing, polycarbonate, and inflated film cushions, serves to quite literally reflect the surrounding environment and to orchestrate interesting interior lighting conditions. The chosen structural bay illustrates how air-filled ETFE film cushions create a lightweight network of convex surfaces, providing sunlight to a suspended greenhouse with its own automated systems of ventilation, watering, and shade mechanisms. Part of the ceiling follows the same structural technique, which reinforces this sense of permeability to its surroundings, even both interior and exterior transparent panelling is operable to maximise the interplay between outside and in. The transparency and lightness of the project aligns with its flexibility as a function space; as though the building itself adapts to the needs of its users through automation and operability, resulting in an architecture that can be commanded by its users.
Image: Lacaton & Vassal, Polyvalent Theatre section analysis.
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Image: Lacaton & Vassal, Polyvalent Theatre elevation and axonometric analysis. 192
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ARCT3040 Advanced Design Thinking Unit Coordinator: Kirill de Lancastre Jedenov Teaching Staff: Kirill de Lancastre Jedenov and Emily Van Eyk ‘Perth Places’
JAY HORTON, CAMRYN MERCORELLA, CARINA VAN DEN BERG AND THE EXHIBITION DISPLAY GROUP
‘Perth Places’
Advanced Design Thinking is a multidisciplinary research project with a “hands on approach”. Students choose a group depending on what skill they wish to develop during the semester. Each group of students produces work for the final output: an exhibition. This year, students have explored places in Perth. Places that are anonymous, of an unknown designer, but have special qualities. Places that leave a strong impression when you visit. The final output is a catalogue of Perth places that have been analysed and explained through drawings and diagrams. By finding and understanding interesting qualities in apparently modest places, students become better prepared to recreate similar experiences in their future designs. The exhibition display and proposed atmosphere for the space was designed and built by the students. Exhibition Display Group: Craig Brophy, Nguyen Bui, Louis Burt, Gilbert Chang, Xiaojun Chen, Riley Drennan, Christian Gelavis, Sonita Hean, Thomas Howie, Juliette Isaacs, Ishitha Ishitha Lyka, Will Lui, Simone Marchussen, Ben Moreschi, Bowen Ng, Megha Patel, Jason Ramsden, Eugene Ing Hang Tiong, Sophie Trinh, Jason Zhang and Qiling Wu.
Image: Jay Horton. Perth Places.
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Image: (Top) Camryn Mercorella. Perth Places; (Bottom) Carina Van den Berg. Perth Places. 196
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Image: Perth Places exhibition display. Designed and built by students from display group. 198
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ARCT2001 Design Studio Unit and Studio Coordinator: Jennie Officer ‘Everyday Innovation’
DOROTHY LANE
‘Beaconsfield Maisonettes’ Given a site in the suburb of Beaconsfield, the objective of this studio was to design innovative six-pack housing through the selection and testing of three principles. My choice of principles was ‘maisonette’, a neighbourly typology suited to the existing suburban character of Beaconsfield, ‘a single light source effects multiple spaces’ chosen to push innovation towards efficiency, and ‘a central garden courtyard’, which plays off the footprint of local suburban green space at the smaller scale of a house (see diagrams). With these principles in mind, my design developed into two maisonettes, each containing a 1 Bed, 2 Bed, and 3 Bed dwelling. A large open green space set between the maisonettes encourages social interaction and neighbourliness among the inhabitants while each maisonette brings the outdoors in by the central garden courtyards. The courtyard principle gave me the opportunity to incorporate giant ‘chimneys’ with each having the three-fold purpose of providing ventilation, a single light source, and a courtyard. Each chimney has a garden with access on the ground floor and windows to the floor above to provide light and natural ventilation to both levels. Taking on board the studio requirement for ‘design while respecting the sun’ in our Western Australian climate, the outer windows are pulled up at an angle to only allow direct sunlight to enter during the colder moths of the year and to prevent it during the hotter months (see diagrams). The maisonettes front Davis Park with the Archetypical house silhouette and provide continuity of urban greenery through the inclusion of a front garden bed.
Image: Beaconsfield Maisonettes.
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Image: Beaconsfield Maisonettes. 202
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ARCT2001 Design Studio Unit Coordinator: Jennie Officer Studio Coordinator: Dr Nigel Westbrook ‘Supplement’
MARNIE ALLEN AND CAMERON CROCKER; MICHAEL COOK AND JACOB KAYE
‘Research Centre as Supplement’
A design is the application of an architectural language to create form, syntax and sometimes meaning to an architectural program. Cracking the code to this language, and playing with its rules, permits its deconstruction and recombination. Abandoning that language leads to miscommunication – the failure to connect and to create new permutations. The virus fails to replicate and evolve. Architecture is about a lot of things – construction techniques, responding to functional needs, responding to the need for sustainable practices in the context of climate change, but none of these things in itself constitutes architecture. Architecture is elusive. In this studio, without denying the many other interpretations of what constitutes architecture, we will investigate the extent to which architectural design can be understood through the lens of language. The project by Jacob Kaye, like those from Marnie Allen and Cameron Crocker, and Michael Cook, took as its genesis a house by Kazuo Shinohara, a genius perhaps without parallel in the post-war period. His project adapted the studio brief of a research institute to its nondescript Tokyo neighbourhood of powerlines, narrow streets and noodle bars. Beyond this context, the project drew upon the design concept of the Uehara house, in which the concrete structure greatly exceeds its functional necessity, as though it belongs to some long disappeared, ‘real’ monument of ideal forms, rather than the transient, ephemeral world of the present. Like Shinohara’s projects, but also in keeping with other Japanese projects, Jacob’s Institute veils its interior from the gaze of the street. It is like a geisha, presenting a dissembling ‘face’ to the public while preserving its private identity. Screens of cedar battens clothe the walls and roof surfaces. Sections of them may be slid open like a shoji screen to selectively reveal the interior space, while permitting deliberate interaction with the outside world. Dr Nigel Westbrook, 2021
Image: Jacob Kaye. Sectional perspective of Research Institute, Uehara.
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Image: Marnie Allen and Cameron Crocker. Deconstruction of Kazuo Shinohara, House on a Curved Road, Uehara district, Tokyo Japan, 1969. 206
Image: Michael Cook. Analytical Isometric of Kazuo Shinohara,Tanikawa house, Nagano Prefecture Japan, 1974. 207
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ARCT1001 Architecture Studio 1 Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Kate Hislop ‘Shade | Shelter | Assemble: Highview Park Recreational Facility’
LIBBY CLOUGH AND LACHLAN GOLDIE Libby Clough ‘Highview Park Recreational Facility (Suburban Lions Hockey Club)’ This project required students to explore architecture’s conceptual, social and functional capacities through the design of expanded facilities of the existing hockey club at Highview Park and to improve the amenities. Proposals were to include grandstand/ covered seating, a clubroom and other amenities such as change-rooms, BBQ facilities and storage. Proposals were to form a relationship with the existing pavilion and to further improve the site’s accessibility and shade. Lachlan Goldie ‘Highview Park Sporting Facility’ The project area was defined by the boundaries of Highview Park. The project called for a significant expansion of the facilities and amenities at the hockey club pavilion. The increased provision of shaded seating was essential, as was improving change rooms and accessibility to the site and facilities. The two hockey fields remained for the shared use of hockey club/s and the nearby primary school, as well as locals who use this as a dog exercising area.
Image: Libby Clough. Suburban Lions Hockey Club modified site plan.
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Image: Libby Clough. Suburban Lions Hockey Club floor plan (ground floor) and longitudinal section AA. 210
Image: Lachlan Goldie. Highview Park Sporting Facility floor plan, south elevation, and western section. 211
ARCT1001 Architecture Studio 1 Unit Coordinator: Dr Kate Hislop Studio Coordinator: Craig McCormack ‘Shade | Shelter | Assemble: Highview Park Recreational Facility’
COOPER ANDERSON, JOE KENNY AND ELIZABETH TWEEDIE Joe Kenny ‘Highview Park’ The design is intended to be a part of the surrounding nature, rather than installing a “building” in nature. To achieve this, both the interior and semi-exterior spaces are under one continuous roof. The interior buildings all sit below the roof to allow for natural light and air to enter. The materiality of these buildings’ changes with their use, ranging between concrete and glass, and a sloped grass hill allowing the design to become a part of the landscape where the communities can come together. Cooper Anderson ‘Highview Park Recreation Facility’ The proposal retained the shell of the existing building and reworked the internal layout. An extension of the existing roof deck created an elongated platform that would allow for viewing, shade, and for the remaining components to be configured above or below the platform. Materials used were consistent with the existing structure, with brick being the primary element in conjunction with glazing panels, glass blocks, and concrete. Elizabeth Tweedie ‘Highview Park Recreational Facility (HPRF)’ HPRF was designed to respond to existing physical and social contexts through comparisons of metric standards and architectural precedents. Conceptually inspired by BAST’s E23 cuboid form, strong horizontals and solid colour that impresses on approach, HPRF retains the roofline and platform of the hockey pavilion familiar to existing users. The functional capacity was explored with the addition of grandstands and a gym, enhanced changing rooms and improved accessibility.
Image: Joe Kenny. Highview Park site plan.
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Image: Cooper Anderson. Highview Park Recreation Facility first floor plan, ground floor plan, and long section. 214
Image: Elizabeth Tweedie. Highview Park Recreational Facility east elevation. 215
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ARCT1001 Architecture Studio 1 Unit Coordinator: Dr Kate Hislop Studio Coordinator: Dr Nicholas Kletnieks ‘Shade | Shelter | Assemble: Highview Park Recreational Facility’
GIULIA CELI, SAADMAN KHAWRIZMI AND MARCUS TAN Marcus Tan ‘New Spirit’ The project aims to inject a new spirit of dynamism and fluidity into the existing context, a layered facade that takes on multiple roles is conceived. It simultaneously functions as a grandstand, while enclosing the interior space, generating unique lighting conditions, and creating expressive apertures for entrances and visibility. A similar logic was applied when arranging program, layering, and condensing spaces to lower the building’s physical footprint. The result is a tension between formal languages, mediated by the infection of the old with the new, seeking to preserve while providing a needed update. Giulia Celi ‘Nedlands Hockey Club Grandstand and Sports Complex’ The Nedlands Sports Complex is an addition to the existing Suburban Lions Hockey Club, providing seating and viewing areas for game watchers. The design was inspired by global sports complexes such as Waterfront Clubhouse by Abin Design Studio and ETC House by Rakta Studio. The Sports Complex consolidates many amenities into one three- story building that allows for grandstand viewing on both sides and accessible viewing areas above. Lift and ramp access provides much needed accessibility that was not available in the existing building. The new complex can serve as a hub for sporting teams and the wider community. Saadman Khawrizmi ‘Modernist Mid-Century Lions’ Inspired by the mid-century modernist architecture, the existing hockey club has long lines, generous overhangs and minimalistic linear lines, all keeping with a mid-century style. The low profile of the new proposed building alongside the renovated existing building maintains the suburban nature of Nedlands, creating a family-friendly atmosphere. The simple nature of the scattered ‘pavilions’ allows groups of people to congregate together and also a wide array of options when choosing where to the view the games from.
Image: Marcus Tan. Exploded isometric of proposed New Spirit clubroom.
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Image: Giulia Celi. Site plan of Nedlands Hockey Club Grandstand and Sports Complex. 218
Image: Saadman Khawrizmi. Plan of Modernist Mid-Century Lions Hockey Club. 219
ARCT1001 Architecture Studio 1 Unit Coordinator: Dr Kate Hislop Studio Coordinator: Suzie Zuber ‘Shade | Shelter | Assemble: Highview Park Recreational Facility’
BRONWYN DAVIDSON
‘Suburban Lions Hockey Club Expansion’ The design ensures all of the requirements of the brief are met with a particular focus on the separation of spaces to allow for maximum potential usage of the building. The design allows for sporting and non-sporting activities to take place simultaneously as well as providing a larger community space for events such as parties and a barbeque area. There is increased access to the building in the form of accessible pathways as well as passive cooling throughout the building. There is a careful focus on ensuring the design integrates well with any potential future buildings on the site.
Image: Suburban Lions Hockey Club Expansion south elevation.
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ARCT1001 Architecture Studio 1 Unit Coordinator: Dr Kate Hislop Studio Coordinator: Ali Javid ‘Shade | Shelter | Assemble: Highview Park Recreational Facility’
TIM YOAN LI YING AND MIZUKI ONO Tim Yoan Li Ying ‘Redesign of Hockey Pavilion, Highview Park Recreational Facility, Perth’ The pavilion required a transformation to modernise the basic building into a multifunctional pavilion using simple yet impactful geometric forms. An important element of the redesigned version of the Hockey Pavilion was designing a space that would blur the line between the interior and exterior demarcations. The relationship between the indoor and outdoor allows for a certain versatility in these mixed-used spaces. The Barcelona Pavilion designed by German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the Habitat Recreation Centre designed by DFJ Architects are the two main precedents studied in the redesign of the Hockey Pavilion. Both projects effortlessly encapsulate an open space plan with basic and effective geometric forms that are present in the project. Mizuki Ono ‘The Extension’ The design is inspired by the contour lines of the site, the concept is strongly related to enhancing the relationship between the site and the hockey pavilion. The design process began by drawing the grandstand, as this was the main part of the project and it was necessary to observe how it worked when incorporating the first and second floor. By making the sectional model, the design process focused on solving issues between indoor space and the grandstands around the building. As a result, the front void on the second floor allows light to enter, as well as letting people enjoy the game from inside the building. In addition, due to the lack of a formal relationship between the existing building and the site, the grandstand is designed in a way that it directly continues from the ground.
Image: Tim Yoan Li Ying. Model of redesigned Hockey Pavilion.
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Image: Mizuki Ono. The Extension (Left) Ground plan; (Right) Site plan. 224
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ARCT1010 Drawing History Unit Coordinators: Dr Sally Farrah and Dr Philip Goldswain Teaching Staff: Dr Sally Farrah, Marcus Brett, Samantha Dye and Hazem Halasa ‘Illustrated Essay’
SUSAN EYSAAUTIER, GABRIELLE FARRANT AND MACKENZIE PERKINS Students were asked to discuss the following statement: If ‘ritual equals architectural form’, then buildings used for religious observance directly reflect the events that take place in them. This essay required to illustrate and support their observations through comparative drawings of one assigned contemporary religious building and one historic religious structure. Students were asked to illustrate their argument in the form of analytic diagrams, sectional isometrics, and narrative sections. Case studies ranged from c.3000 BCE to the twenty-first century, and students had to both understand and experiment with various drawing scales, in order to compare case studies of various size. Orthographic drawing and diagrams were employed as modes of comparison and critique. The verbal observations of the essay are seen as a parallel language to the visual observations presented through students carefully constructed and curated drawings.
Image: Mackenzie Perkins. Comparative sectional isometrics of (Left) the Tejorling Radiance Temple (2018); (Right) the Konark Sun Temple (c.1250), originally drawn at 1:50 and 1:500
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Image: Susan Eyssautier. Narrative section showing the contrast between skin and core in Jørn Utzon’s Bagsværd Church (1968-76), originally drawn at 1:400. 228
Image: Gabrielle Farrant. Sectional isometric of the Bevis Marks Synagogue (1701), originally drawn at 1:200.
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ARLA1030 Structures and Systems Unit Coordinator: Santiago Perez Teaching Staff: Santiago Perez, Marcus Brett, Samantha Dye, Tejasvi Murali and Vittoria Strazzeri
ADELE BRAND, LIBBY CLOUGH, JD OTTO AND KEALI PYVIS The final project challenged students to adapt a structural precedent pavilion and typology within an assigned, locally accessible site. Students developed the basic structural and material systems for a proposed shade pavilion or canopy structure with modifications to both the site and structural precedent. This assessment illustrates understanding of intertwined systems affecting the conceptual, spatial and environmental aspects and impacts of structures and materials in the landscape. The final project combines site analysis, structures and materials towards an applied proposal, adapting a structural system precedent towards a proposed canopy structure to be located and integrated with a previously analysed site (project 1). The project combines learning objectives from two previous assessments, synthesizing knowledge of site with basic structural and material systems.
Image: Adele Brand. Hand drawn axonometric. Structural pavilion for Jacob’s Ladder, Perth Western Australia. Original structural precedent: Belvedere for Koblenz by Dethier Architects.
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AXONOMETRIC Mountain Pavilion
Structure, Site & Material Systems: Project3 Mountain Pavilion ARLA1030: Structure & Systems, 2021
Image: (Top Left) Keali Pyvis. Structural study model of Aluminium Centenary Pavilion by Jean Prouvé; (Bottom Left) Libby Clough. Structural study model of Feldkirch Recyclin 232
Structure, Site & Material Systems:
Project 3: Interventions & adaptations
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Name: JD Otto Student Number: 23224161
ng Centre by Marte.Marte Architekten; (Right) J.D. Otto. Axonometric drawing. Pavilion Modifications for Site in South Africa. Original Piushaven Pavilion by Civic Architects.
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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
Image: Landscape Architecture display. Summer Exhibition 2021 opening night, 17 November 2021. Photography by Samantha Dye. 234
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LACH5511 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 2 Unit Coordinator: Dr Maria Ignatieva Supervisors: Dr Maria Ignatieva and Christopher Vernon
WANXIN XU
‘Playground for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Exploring the Way to Create Play Spaces Assisting Autism Treatment’ Nowadays, more than 200,000 people in Australia have a form of autism. This condition, for which there is no complete cure, has a significant impact on patients’ daily lives and also has a huge effect on society. Early intervention in childhood is the best way to alleviate ASD symptoms and improve the skills of patients to reduce the adverse effects of ASD on them. The use of play equipment to increases the communication opportunities between children with autism and their peers, to enhance their socialisation ability and to further reduce the stigma and discrimination of autism. Sensory elements are added to stimulate the senses of children with autism, these include natural elements and sensory gardens where plants enhance children’s sensory experience. The playground’s sensory element design and game design can be combined with sensory integration therapy, play-based therapy, aromatherapy and more to achieve auxiliary treatment of children with ASD and become a venue with therapeutic functions. In Perth, the topic of autism has not received great attention. Children with autism do not have their own independent schools, and most education support centres share campuses with local primary schools. This increases the opportunities for autistic children to communicate with their peers, but it also allows designers to tailor their space for them because they need to consider the applicability of other children. Children with autism are the responsibility of society and deserve our attention. Meanwhile, how to take care of children with autism and facilitate them playing with other children and creating suitable play spaces for them is also a problem that landscape architects need to continue to think about.
Image: Perspectives of sensory garden.
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Image: Perspectives of sensory garden. 238
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LACH5424 Design Studio - Complexity Unit Coordinator: Hans Oerlemans ‘WHAT IF Beaufort Street Precinct’
AMY STEWART
‘Footprints: Lowering emissions and increasing walkability on Beaufort St’ The existing condition of the Beaufort Street precinct prioritises the movement and activity of vehicles above all else, with wide traffic lanes dominating the public space and pushing pedestrian activities to the fringes of the streetscape. The purpose of the strategy is to return the precinct to its historical roots as a place that supports a great diversity of public uses where pedestrians and residents feel comfortable and welcome in the space. The Beaufort Street precinct is situated on the site of a once extensive chain of ephemeral wetlands that stretched across the Swan Coastal Plain. The lakes of Hyde Park, originally named Boodjamooling are one of only a few remaining remnants of this system. While traces of the wetlands can still be seen in the soils of Perth, the urbanised nature of the Beaufort Street precinct has erased surface level connections to the unique ephemeral system. This design strategy aims to reconnect the precinct to the deep environmental systems present on site, creating a greater sense of place of Beaufort as a wetland precinct.
Image: Quendas in an ephemeral wetland habitat.
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Image: (Left) Plan and sections; (Right) Beaufort St perspective. 242
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LACH5424 Design Studio - Complexity Unit Coordinator: Hans Oerlemans ‘WHAT IF Beaufort Street Precinct’
TUULI SAVOLAINEN
‘Regenerative Suburbia’
Today’s suburbia is faced with big scale challenges such as global warming, biodiversity loss and population health problems. At a micro level the car dominance creates traffic congestions, unsafe environments, noise, and air pollution, while at times leaving behind a huge reservoir of underutilised space in the form of quiet, overly wide streets amid the suburbia. How could this huge reservoir of underutilised space be better used for the benefit of both people and the environment? What key moves would assist the whole precinct and its different conditions to tackle both macro and micro level issues? How to transform the precinct within a 25year timeframe with minimal resistance? Based on a thorough analysis, Regenerative Suburbia transforms some of these underutilised street scapes into connected strings of parks, backyard gardens and extended living rooms where people can occupy the space the way they see fit. The plan consists of three main street typologies; Park Lanes, Boulevards and High Street where the designs vary based on zoning, traffic conditions, and connectivity. All typologies increase green cover as much as possible to create a carbon sink, cool the environment, improve biodiversity and stormwater management while creating beautiful spaces for people. Secondly the car dominance is diminished, and the streets are given back to people in the form of shared streets and public transport. Finally, each street allocates empty space for people to apply degrowth through tactical urbanism. Through temporary testing to permanent structures, these spaces are reserved for kit-of-part type modules that can contain anything from veggie gardens, composting facilities and EV charging to food carts, outdoor gyms, and playgrounds. There is an argument that the ‘eco-city’ must emerge from below, not top-down. In this way, the people are given the power to reflect the changes they wish to see in their world.
Image: Regenerative Suburbia perspective.
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Image: (Left) Regenerative Suburbia isometric; (Right) Street typologies: Park Lanes & High Street. 246
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LACH3001 Landscape Resolutions Studio Unit Coordinator: Gillian Rodoreda ‘People and Place: Kooya Reconciliation Cultural Garden’
JACQUI DELLA VEDOVA
‘Ni Wangkiny Cultural Gardens’
Positioned within a vibrant urban setting in Beaconsfield, an Indigenous charity secured (reclaimed) a plot of land to provide safe, affordable, and secure housing for Indigenous Elders in a ‘culturally sensitive village-style setting.’ The site is nestled in and amongst the Elders’ houses and embodies significant Indigenous cultural contexts, through time and proximity, broadly and directly. Our studio was entrusted with designing a culturally sensitive garden for the residence, and their invited guests. Ni Wangkiny Cultural Garden has sought to encapsulate the stories embedded in the land, through subtle gestures of memory through design. Specific plants were chosen to commemorate the late founding members of the charity, honouring totems through rebirthing habitats, signifying family ties through signature planting and revegetating to return the land back to its roots where bush tucker and bush medicine plants once flourished. The design also privatises the public boundaries but provides internal interfaces for the residence to create a culturally safe and inviting space with a men’s circle and yarning circle being the central activation devices for the community zone, and intimate rooms created at the residence boundaries. Repurposed Jarrah and Wandoo from the Old Fremantle Bridge is to be used on site forming a memory of the bidi (tracks) the Whadjuk Noongar people once navigated to the cross the Beeliar (Swan River mouth), returning the timber home to its land and people. These subtle memories seek to encapsulate stories, evoke reflection and interaction with Country and provide a learning ground for invited guests.
Image: (Top Left) Section West to East (Men’s Circle); (Top Right) Section South to North (Intimate Room); (Bottom) Section South to North (Residential Zone, Community Zone, Bush Zone).
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Image: (Left) Masterplan; (Centre) Contour manipulation model images; (Right) Men’s Circle perspective. 250
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LACH3001 Landscape Resolutions Studio Unit Coordinator: Christina Nicholson Studio Coordinator: Gillian Rodoreda ‘People and Place: Kooya Reconciliation Cultural Garden’
LISA LIU
‘Wanju Koolark (Welcome Home)’ We acknowledge the Wadjuk Noongar people on whose lands we gathered to learn and to share for this studio. We are grateful to the Mandjah Boodjah Aboriginal Corporation in particular for the opportunity to learn to see and engage with Country more deeply and respectfully. Wanju Koolark proposes a culturally/environmentally responsive landscape, specifically for Noongar Elders, within a suburban village in Beaconsfield, Walyalup. It is a place where Elder’s feel that they are ‘welcomed home’ – a place infused with cultural memory, is safe and nurturing, allows for the gathering of family and the telling of stories. Within the landscape there are quiet, intimate spaces for rest of the body and the enlivening of the spirit. The southern portion of the garden suggests an ‘opening’ of both hearts and landscape. Here the community is welcomed to share in the learning and celebration of Noongar culture, with the renovated men’s space and yarning circle providing culturally appropriate spaces for coming together. Local planting is crucial, as significant cultural ‘memories’, to engage the senses, enclose or frame space, provide shade and habitat, and to integrate familiar bush foods and medicines with specific ‘harvest’ times to mark the six seasons.
Image: Wanju Koolark seasonal harvest time – bush medicine and tucker.
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Image: (Left) Wanju Koolark masterplan; (Right) Sections - south to north. 254
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Legend: WL-A
Wetland Mix A
WL-B
Wetland Mix B
WL-C
Wetland Mix C
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Embankment Mix A
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Embankment Mix B
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Low Shrubland Mix A
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Low Shrubland Mix B
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Parkland Mix A
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Parkland Mix B
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Parkland Mix C
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Swale Mix A
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Wetland
Swale
Viewing Platform
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Waterplay
Research centre
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Swale
Carpark
Waterplay Feature
Underground water pipes
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PL-C LS-B
Wetland
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Swa
Existing trees
Research centre
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LACH3003 Design Through Landscape Management Unit Coordinator: Dr Maria Ignatieva Swale
ELVINA KOH
‘Wetland Design – UWA Nedlands Campus’
Underground water pipes
The aim of this project is to design an ephemeral wetland with a small-scale waterplay area that could benefit the environment and community. The 3 key design principles include: 1. Improving the water management system and creating a sustainable water source; 2. Increasing biodiversity and strengthening ecological linkage; and 3. Engaging the community and raising awareness.
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ale
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To improve the water management system, the stormwater and greywater from surrounding buildings will be collected and undergo filtration process to purify the water for consumption, irrigation, use in the kid’s water play area. The recycling and reusing of water will help to create a sustainable water source and alleviate water shortage issue caused by climate change. To improve biodiversity, native plant species from the Karrakatta and Vasse plant communities will be planted and wetland fauna species will also be introduced to the proposed wetland to enhance the biodiversity in the area. The constructed wetland will also serve as an ecological corridor linkage to nearby parks and reserves. To engage the community, a research centre will be established near the wetland area to engage students and staffs from UWA to conduct studies on the wetland and fauna species. Workshop will be conducted and open to public to raise awareness on the cultural and environmental importance. An educational waterplay area will be constructed next to the wetland to create a playful learning space for the kids from the early childhood centre and the surrounding community. The surrounding shrubland also provides a sensory learning space for the kids as they can see, touch and smell the native flora species. Furthermore, the wetland will provide a recreational space for students, staff, and the surrounding community to enjoy in between their free time.
S-A S-A Image: Proposed wetlands sections.
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Image: Proposed vegetation analysis. 258
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December Anigozanthos manglesii Baumea juncea Baumea preissii Carex appressa Carex tereticaulis Casuarina obesa Cyperus gymnocaulos Juncus kraussii Schoenoplectus validus Ficina nodosa Anigozanthos humilis Conostylis aculeata Conostylis candicans Austrodanthonia caespitosa Banksia grandis Hakea varia Kunzea glabrescens Melaleuca rhaphiophylla Juncus pallidus Eremophila glabra Dianella revoluta Patersonia occidentalis Philotheca spicata Astartea scoparia Hypocalymma angustifolium Melaleuca seriata
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LACH2001 Landscape Dynamic Studio Unit and Studio Coordinator: Rosie Halsmith ‘Landscape as Infrastructure’
JOYCE VAN LEEUWEN
‘Green Infrastructure Ashfield & Ashfield Flats’ The Green Loop & Green Links Ashfield was built upon precious ancient wetlands and sits on Whadjuk Noongar country. This area has always been an important meeting place for Noongar people and consisted of lakes, fertile wetlands and woodlands. While most of the natural landscape has been replaced by the suburb, the Ash¬field Flats still offer an example of what life and the landscape along the riverbanks may have looked like before European settlement. Today the Ashfield Flats are an important biodiversity hot spot nearby the city of Perth. The implementation of a green infrastructure strategy in Ashfield, allows for the natural landscape to be drawn into the suburb and connects it to the existing green spaces along the river, as well as the Ashfield Flats. The design of the Green Loop & Green Links aims to connect visitors, the community and the suburb, from the train station and various community sites to the wetlands, the Derbal Yerrigan (Swan River) and the surrounding green spaces. It is designed with respect for the natural landscape, ecosystems and the community, past present and future. The Green Loop & Green Links represent a physical and sensory connection to the landscape. Grounded in the trees and vegetation native to this area, supporting biodiverse ecosystems for people, birds and wildlife to enjoy.
Image: Masterplan Green Infrastructure Ashfield & Ashfield Flats - The Green Loop & Green Links.
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Image: The Green Loop - Ashfield Parade (Left) Detail plan; (Right) Perspective. 262
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LACH2001 Landscape Dynamic Studio Unit and Studio Coordinator: Rosie Halsmith ‘Landscape as Infrastructure’
KEN CHENG
‘Colstoun Road Transformation, The New Main Street in Ashfield’ This project transforms Colstoun Road to the new main street in Ashfield, establishing an ecological corridor and urban forest in the suburb. The new main street connects the existing amenities and Ashfield Parade, providing a link from the Ashfield train station to the Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River) and enhancing the existing areas. Colstoun Road acts as a functional main street for residents and visitors with pedestrian and cycle paths surrounded by vegetation and reinterpret the main street in Ashfield. Visitors are encouraged to walk within the suburb and three walking radius zones are designed to provide a diversity of activities and integration with commercial, recreational and ecological uses. The scheme aimed to engage visitors to explore the natural environment in Ashfield, linking to Ashfield Flats and the Swan River, to experience the unique sense of place by nature.
Image: Colstoun Road, The New Main Street, masterplan.
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Image: Colstoun Road, The New Main Street, (Left) detailed plan; (Right) sections. 266
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LACH2001 Landscape Dynamic Studio Unit and Studio Coordinator: Rosie Halsmith ‘Landscape as Infrastructure’
FRANK BARRETO ROJAS
‘Ashfield & The Place of Water Connection’ Set along the banks of the Derbal Yerrigan (Swan River), Ashfield is currently an environment depleted of connection – yet is one with immense natural beauty. The flats are a little-known wonder, yet to locals who frequently use this Boodja, it is a great place for gathering and enjoyment. The proposal of The Place of Water Connection imagines a central corridor to connect the flats and river to Ashfield station and beyond (Perth). The use of activation among its ‘new’ central vein and resurfacing of stormwater drainage in the form of a living stream carries all fauna – including humans – through the suburb from the station to the river and vice versa. The planting scheme encourages connection between the vegetation complexes and entices residents to continue the landscape through to the private realm by using endemic plants suitable for smaller spaces. Species from the flats are also used in strategic locations to allow fauna to travel through the grid. A cultural wall along the green corridor is used to encourage ‘learning through experience’ and allows for users to familiarise themselves with local culture, flora and fauna. As part of the process of creating green infrastructure, disconnection was obvious, but the aim was to also create new green areas and restoring existing ones. Phases beyond are considered to increase connectivity within the flats, restore and improve existing natural habitats, create a grid for a green mesh within the suburb, as well as foresight design with landscape centric schemes for densifying suburbs along the fringe of the Derbal Yerrigan.
Image: The Place of Water Connection - Ashfield.
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Image: (Left) Masterplan Ashfield – All Phases; (Right) Sections. 270
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LACH2050 Plants and Landscape Systems Unit Coordinator: Christina Nicholson Teaching Staff: Christina Nicholson and Robyn Renton
SOFIE NIELSEN
‘Bridging Two Landscapes’ Proposing a Planting Upgrade for an Existing Park in Perth The design of processes was utilised during this project; informed decisions and ideas expressed through visual communication helped to create wonderful biodiverse places with dynamic systems. The understanding of landscapes; the elements and processes within, the things that move through and influence them, changes through time and how to identify and select plants in order to design rich and enduring landscapes also helped during this project. An overall strategy for reduction of water use, urban heat island effect, management and unused turf and an increase in biodiversity and canopy cover was developed. Within the overall strategy, three areas were enhanced: a nature playground; a communal picnic area and an intimate hangout area. Existing vegetation, and what to retain or remove was considered. A new plant palette to compliment and support the existing one was also developed. It was not an entire redesign, so consideration of what vegetation works on site currently, what could work better or what was missing was given. Consideration of how the site could be richer in terms of planting, biodiversity value and visitor experience were also undertaken. Designers of landscapes must be able to see, interpret and understand key principles and functions of landscape systems.
Image: Nature play biodiversity bed.
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Ground Cover
Small Shrubs 0.5 - 2m
Medium Shrubs 3 - 6m
Large Trees 6 - 30m
Carpobratus virescense (Q)
Allocasuarina humilis (Q)
Acacia xanthina (C)
Banksia menziesii (C)
Banksia dallanneyi (Q)
Calothamnus quadrifidus (Q)
Hakea prostrata (Q)
Banksia grandis (C)
Frankenia pauciflora (C)
Baumea juncea (Q)
Spyridium globulosum (Q)
Eucalyptus decipiens (C)
Angianthus cunninghamii(Q)
Rytidosperma caespitosum (Q)
Melaluca teritifolia (Q)
Eucalyptus todtiana (C)
Leucophyta brownii (Q)
Atriplex cinerea (Q)
Xanthorrhoea presessii (Q/C)
Corymbia calophylla (C)
Image: (Left) Plant Palette; (Right) Intimate forest - a mosaic woodland of Eucalyptus and Banksia species. 274
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URBAN DESIGN
Image: Urban Design display. Summer Exhibition 2021 opening night, 17 November 2021. Photography by Samantha Dye. 276
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URBD5802 Urban Design Studio 2 Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Robert Cameron ‘Business as (Un)usual’
NUR MOHD ROZLAN
‘Transition City’
Conflicts, environmental changes, rapid global development – these are some of the factors that result in forced displacement of people throughout the world. As a signatory to the Refugee Convention and Protocol, Australia has a role to play in providing refuge to these vulnerable populations. The future Australian dream is one where disadvantaged immigrants will be given the best possible start in beginning their new Australian life. A charter city in Port Augusta that helps facilitate this transition, the location chosen as it’s a crossroad between east and west, has a climate suitable for future inhabitation, existing train infrastructure that allows for easy transportation of people across the region and a history of playing host to temporary visitors through being a major servicing hub in the region. In the new city, newly arrived immigrants have access to secure housing, opportunities to choose and learn a trade from a plethora of industries, attend university, be supported by adequate services and need not rely on private automobiles to get around. Their stay will be a temporary one – that is until a place to settle permanently in another part of the country has been found, such as a regional town or a nonmetropolitan city. Consequently, this city will constantly have a changing population, enriched by the different people and cultures that come through. The new city intervention will be structured in a grid, along which run rail networks that help build the city, such as through transporting housing modules and construction materials. The form allows for the city to expand as needed, constrained by the airport to the west and existing water bodies. This organisation only provides a framework however, while still encouraging the city to grow as organically as possible and residents to add their own personality to the city.
Image: Concept plan.
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Image: (Left) Public domain; (Right) Private domain. 280
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URBD5802 Urban Design Studio 2 Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Robert Cameron ‘Business as (Un)usual’
OLIVIA HUITEMA
‘Mandjoogoordap – Meeting Place of the Heart’ Moving into the second half of the 21st century, Australia will face challenges related to social, political, economic, and environmental forces. The impact of these challenges remains unknown. We can only make educated guesses, based on the latest modelling, as to where and when events like extreme weather, droughts, skills shortages, pandemics, and political unrest may occur. Essentially it is very hard to plan for an unknown future. What we do know however, is that a robust social fabric is essential when these things happen. If we look to places that have trust in their leaders, a strong sense of identity and connection to place, we see resilience in times of hardship, collaborative rebuilding, and unity in shared goals. The reimagined Australian dream is not one of property ownership, competition, and long commutes. When we tie our identity to the physical manifestations of capitalism, the outdated dream of the BBQ, the boat, and the backyard, we lose what really matters: community, connection, and respect for Country. The city of Mandurah, originally Mandjoogoordap, is a city woven by gabi (waterways), a city with a mandjoo koort (village heart). Bindjareb people of the Bibbulmun nation are the original inhabitants and traditional owners of the land in and around the city, which abounded in fish, game, berries, and fruits. During these times, Noongar people would travel down the waterways to the shores of Mandjoogoorap to meet potential partners from other local groups. Hence the name Mandjoogoorap, meaning ‘Meeting place of the heart’. With respect for Country as a core guiding principle, Mandurah will become a meeting place once again. A re-imagined Australian dream will unfold that builds on existing infrastructure to become a model city for retrofitting and a socially thriving centre for art, culture, and sustainability excellence. A re-imagined Mandurah envisions a city connected by transit and intertwined with public spaces, green areas, environmentally responsive design, playgrounds, and public art. It will attract migrants and immigrants, both domestic and international, seeking a different life than that offered in the sprawling, car-dependent capital. The foundation for the design involves a combination of green urbanism, new urbanism, and incorporated principles for increasing social capital and respect for significant cultural sites. Image: Mandjoogoordap 1km2 precinct plan.
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Image: (Left) Mandjoogoordap public domain perspective; (Right) Private domain perspective. 284
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URBD5806 - Urban Design Capstone Studio Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Robert Cameron ‘Business as (Un)usual’
DILLON GORTON
‘Me-tropical-is’
The thought of Australia’s vast north conjures immediate fears of immense distance, staggering remoteness and an aggressively extreme climate. There are major gaps in consistency when it comes to infrastructure like communication, skills and training, and transport networks, as well as qualitative attributes such as knowledge, income distribution, Indigenous representation and governing regulations. However, these difficulties can be overcome through a considered, holistic development approach to the whole region, connecting the dispersed communities through a central logistical, financial, and bureaucratic hub. Australia’s north sits in a privileged and unique position in the developed world as it operates at the intersection of the two great regions of global economic and population growth – Asia and the Tropics. A new global city in the north presents an opportunity to deliver an exemplar twenty-first century tropical metropolis with all the high-quality brand advantages associated with being part of Australia. Residing in a highly strategic location that embodies the true potential of the region, the human-made environment of Lake Argyle in the eastern Kimberley presents an ideal location to explore these possibilities and investigate what a built response might look and feel like. A truly unique and remarkable landscape, the gigantic dam has created a thriving new eco-system teaming with wildlife and natural resources and is truly indicative of the under-utilised possibilities of the northern environment. With a prospective population of around 150,000 inhabitants just within the immediate site, and the availability of wider scale expansion of the whole lake area, the development will harness the potential of this massive freshwater body to find a sensitive balance between the requirements of industry, protecting and enhancing the natural environment and providing a variety of quality housing.
Image: Multi-modal circulation corridor.
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Image: (Left) Lake Argyle harbour precinct masterplan; (Right) Perspectives. 288
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Image: Heathcote Blue performing at the Summer Exhibition 2021 opening night, 17 November 2021. Photography by Samantha Dye. 290
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