SUMMER EXHIBITION 2023
A selection of projects from semester two, 2023 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.
Image: UWA School of Design, Courtyard, 2023 Summer Exhibition opening night speech, 15 November 2023. Photography by Lara Camilla Pinho. 4
CONTENTS 08
Foreword by Dr Kate Hislop
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FINE ARTS AND HISTORY OF ART
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Foreword by Jess Van Heerden
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Fine Arts Fine Arts Honours ARTF3050 Advanced Major Project ARTF2054 Drawing, Painting & Print Studio ARTF2021 Animation and Video
48 50 54 58
History of Art HART3333 Picturing the Self: Portraiture in Nineteenth-century Europe HART2370 Global Art Histories HART2274 Introduction to Museum and Curatorial Studies
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ARCHITECTURE, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN DESIGN
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Foreword by Justin Katsumata Yu
66 68 74 84 96 112 116 120 130 136 148 160 164
Architecture ARCT5011 Independent Research Part 2 ARCT5502 Independent Design Research ARCT5101 Architectural Studio / ARCT5102 Architectural Studio 2 ARCT5201 Detailed Design Studio / ARCT5202 Detailed Design Studio 2 ARCT5536 Photo Real Rendering ARCT5885 Bio-Based Materials in Global Settings ARCT3001 Architecture Studio 4 ARCT3040 Advanced Design Thinking ARCT2001 Design Studio 2 ARCT1001 Architecture Studio 1 ARCT1010 Drawing History ARLA1030 Structures and Systems
168 170 194 202 212 216 222 232
Landscape Architecture LACH5511 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 2 LACH5510 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 1 LACH5422 Landscape Design Studio - Making LACH4421 Australian Landscapes LACH3001 / LACH1000 Landscape Groundings and Resolution Studio LACH2001 Landscape Dynamic Studio LACH2050 Plants and Landscape Systems
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Urban Design URBD5802 Urban Design Studio 2
Foreword by Dr Kate Hislop I write the foreword to this edition of the catalogue as a letter to our students. Under the weight of crises unfolding relentlessly in the world around us we must not forget the power, purpose, poetry and promise of human ingenuity and creativity. Imagination is central to this School’s courses of study, as are the propensities for innovative and critical thinking, for analytical exploration, and integrative resolution. We learn, teach, research, study and practice in fields that rely on these abilities to sustain themselves. A recent trip overseas brought this home to me with surprising and welcome force. Amongst a plethora of iconic and everyday marvels visited, a handful of objects and places of the past replenished my optimism for the future. The Weissenhofsiedlung housing estate (Stuttgart 1927), Barbican Complex (London, by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon 1965-76), and Munich Olympic Stadium (Gunther Behnisch and Frei Otto, 196872), are remarkable for the way that they were expansively envisaged, planned and designed environments. These have endured through crises and change for generations, underlining the constancy of human imagination and ambition, the importance of detailed consideration and empathy, and the transformative potential of creative works. Equally, the Soane Museum (London, Sir John Soane, 1808-12) and a few of the highlights at the Louvre (as well as the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samoth Race and the Venus de Milo) revealed something deeply life affirming – that for centuries people have been engaging in the social, cultural and technical acts of creating art, buildings, memorials, landscapes and places. In a similar way, the work of our students gives confidence that the creative spirit is ever-present and fundamentally an optimistic force with the capacity to shape futures that will be sustaining (and sustainable). In this catalogue we see a sample of the intellect, the poetry and the care that informs their work. I hope you see it too yourselves. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to invest time and energy into pursuits that bring joy, meaning, shelter and security to our societies, although there is always more to be done. My thanks as always to the School of Design staff who led units, mentored projects and supported students. And huge thanks once again to the team of Lara Camilla Pinho, Andy Quilty and Samantha Dye for producing another fabulous issue for the Exhibition Catalogue collection. Dr Kate Hislop Dean/Head of School, UWA School of Design
Image: Barbican Complex, H2, by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, London, December 2023. Photo by Kate Hislop.
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FINE ARTS & HISTORY OF ART
Image: UWA School of Design, Design HUB, 2023 Summer Exhibition opening night, 15 November 2023. Photography by Samantha Dye. 10
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Foreword by Jess Van Heerden What does it mean to be at this moment? To feel to know to care to speak to make to share. The ebbing, undecided sum of gone-bys (countless competing experiences, memories, histories, decisions, failures, triumphs) but equally the illegible markings of to-comes (simultaneous crossroads, hovering pencils, glowing embers). This is a thread that connects the varied explorations of the makers and writers who came through the disciplines of Fine Art and Art History in 2023. Embedded into each of the works and outcomes shown (and not shown) in the 2023 School of Design Summer Exhibition, is an evidence of working outwards. Guided by interests, memories and personal histories, students have forged links between their lived experiences and the wider world. Drawing from unique observations and encounters, students have produced work that negotiates specific questions, assumptions, and concerns (small, large, hidden, looming, suggested) but which leaves room also for viewers to develop their own meanings and significances. Perhaps it is in this exchange, the shared space between maker and receiver, that creative thinking is most powerful. In stepping back from individual works (made or written), gently connected webs begin to emerge. It is clear that investigations and approaches have been enriched and transformed by frequent collaboration and dialogue in each studio and tutorial. This spirit of collaboration and exchange is especially evident in the works produced within this year’s Advanced Major Project unit (exhibited as part of the FAM+23 exhibition), which I was fortunate enough to participate in. Emerging from personal, individual perspectives, I saw my peers observe and respond to their surroundings. Not only sharpening conceptual premises and developing innovative approaches to materials, but, through sharing and discussing ideas, drawing links between alternative ways of knowing and being. Whether “…weaving together the rich traditions of social etiquette from China’s Liangzhu jade culture with the contemporary landscape of social media…” in digital installation form to consider shifts in human communication (Tea [Tsztung] Tsang), a “…multimedia exploration into the interconnections between [the] two seemingly opposing states of existence and non-existence…” (Cait Dowley), or an employment of “…materiality and found objects to navigate the complex weight that generational trauma and colonisation have on identity and belonging…” (Megan Thannoo), each work acts as an invitation for viewers to reconsider how that fit within, respond to and make meaning as a person living, working and feeling in the world today. Dedicated staff have encouraged and nurtured engaged, responsive thinkers. Investigations within the disciplines of Fine Arts and Art History, mark the beginnings of diverse and interesting careers, launching points for a cohort of unique thinkers and creatives who are equipped to respond to their contemporary world, in all of its beautifully confused multiplicity. Jess Van Heerden Bachelor of Arts, History of Art & Fine Arts majors, and Curatorial Studies minor, 2023 Image: Cait Dowley, Diametric II, Limestone, wood ash, mallee roots, cicada shells, film documentation of circular walking (@caitdowleyart).
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FINE ARTS
Image: UWA School of Design, Design HUB, 2023 Summer Exhibition opening night, 15 November 2023. Photography by Samantha Dye. 14
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Fine Arts (Honours) Supervisor: Dr Vladimir Todorovic
ESTHER FORREST
‘The Pet Shop’
Louise, the shop assistant in The Pet Shop, navigates her daily tasks and interactions whilst living with schizotypal personality disorder. Alongside her is Rat, a curious spider-rabbit entity. Guided by directives from an omnipresent computer terminal called “Store Manager,” Louise manages a shop where real and virtual pets coexist. The story extends into the physical space with a diorama, affirming The Pet Shop’s existence in reality. Collaborators: Maxine Wild, flerpy, dyst
Image: Esther Forrest. The Pet Shop. Stop motion film, diorama, mixed media.
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Image: Esther Forrest. The Pet Shop. Stop motion film, diorama, mixed media. 18
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Fine Arts (Honours) Supervisor: Sarah Douglas
LEYLA ALLERTON
‘florrie & friends (Quilted paintings) / bless my cotton socks (Textile poems) / he was a collector of information (Digital catalogue)’ In archiving our personal and collective memory, can we ever be sure that we are preserving our oral histories and other unique artefacts faithfully? Transcription is the standard method to preserve oral histories, but the idiosyncrasies of a person’s speech will inevitably be lost in translation. The artist has responded to the oral history recordings found within her family archives by creating quilted paintings and hanging textile works, exploring the potential for more creative methods of transcription. On a screen, digital representations of physical artefacts are accompanied by illogical descriptions, further questioning the authority of the traditional archive.
Image: Leyla Allerton. he was a collector of information (Digital catalogue) (detail). Single channel video.
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Image: Leyla Allerton. florrie & friends (Quilted paintings) (detail). Oil paint and acrylic on canvas, digital prints on fabric, screen prints on fabric 22
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Fine Arts (Honours) Supervisor: Dr Ionat Zurr
SARAH SOULAY
‘Fem Nuovum’
Fem Nuovum is a speculative soft sculptural installation, depicting a future where a subspecies of human females evolved phenotypic traits for protection, thereby establishing them as the dominant species of human. This is a direct result of society’s unwillingness to protect women from the social, environmental, and institutional dangers it creates. These sculptures are enlarged fictional cellular organisms. They represent different evolved vestigial structures, on a cellular level, in the bodies of these future human females. By using recycled materials, this work also highlights underlying themes of environmental impacts on future humans, and the development of female relationships.
Image: Sarah Soulay. Fem Nuovum (detail). Mixed media sculptural installation using mostly recycled materials.
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Image: Sarah Soulay. Fem Nuovum (detail). Mixed media sculptural installation using mostly recycled materials. 26
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ARTF3050 Advanced Major Project Unit Coordinator: Sarah Douglas
JESS VAN HEERDEN
‘a_picture_of_a_person/’
Using the artificial linkage of domesticity and femininity as a lens, the work explores the tendency of AI image generation systems (such as Open AI’s DALL-E) to promote values and construct realities that negatively impact particular groups (especially women and people of colour). The generated images, which relate to domestic chores, were created using gender neutral prompts yet overwhelmingly depict feminine-presenting people. Paper sculptural objects masquerade as decorative vases and crockery, household objects that epitomise the constructed female-domestic association and its persistent, nostalgic position in collective memory. Divorced from their expected materiality, delicacy, and consistency, the objects become recognisably strange – simulating the effect of the uncanny DALL-E2 generated images. Arduous domestic practices make visible homemaking’s implicit labour and comment on the consistent privileging of certain values by current computer vision.
Image: Jess Van Heerden, a_picture_of_a_person/, DALL-E2 generated images, paper pulp (made from three years of art history notes), copier paper, cotton thread (machine stitched), wire, paint, board and papier-mâché.
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Image: Jess Van Heerden, a_picture_of_a_person/, DALL-E2 generated images, paper pulp (made from three years of art history notes), copier paper, cotton t 30
thread (machine stitched), wire, paint, board and papier-mâché. 31
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ARTF3050 Advanced Major Project Unit Coordinator: Sarah Douglas
KAI YEE LEE
‘Masked’
Every step we take, every conversation we have, and every trace we leave behind becomes entangled within the intricate web of monitoring. Yet, did we question its implications, or have we accepted it as an inescapable truth? Through a range of mixed mediums utilising computer vision technology, Masked aims to challenge the discomfort of living under watchful eyes, raising awareness of the often-overlooked concept of ‘sousveillance’ where it shifts the narrative from traditional surveillance by authoritative figures to the pervasive role of ordinary individuals intruding upon one another’s lives. The observers, embodied as masks, serve as tools to obscure, and protect, commenting on the erosion of privacy and autonomy in our interconnected world. The interactive experience begins with a suspended masks system, which utilise computer vision technology to track the presence of viewers through a webcam. As someone steps into the space, the 3D masks track their movements, locking their gazes upon them. The second component is a series of abstract 3d printed masks that hold variety forms built using data algorithms. And the final component is a digital work, an animation of a space filled with the masks, with each of the mask revolving and rotating in a slow pace. These 3 components correspond to each other, introducing an extensive sense of discomfort of constantly being watched.
Image: Kai Yee Lee, Masked #2, 2023, SLA 3D printed sculptures, computer vision technology, mixed media.
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Image: Kai Yee Lee, Masked #3, 2023, 3D animation (2 mins), mixed media. 34
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ARTF2054 Drawing, Painting & Print Studio Unit Coordinator: Andy Quilty Teaching Staff: Andy Quilty, Annie Huang & Mark Tweedie
PRIERE COMPUESTO
‘can’t remember it’
can’t remember it is an interpretation of our imperfect memory reconstruction. Recall a time you attempted to draw a scene, a face, or a thing by memory alone – erroneous details arise. Our brains prioritise the efficient storage of memories, resulting in the omission of unimportant details. These omissions create defects and imperfections – an aspect of our minds captured throughout the work. Images within the semester were taken of core events, places, and faces – all of which were then edited to act as the basis of the prints, intentionally loosely recreated onto the printing plates and printed onto paper. Solvent transfers of these images were then used onto their corresponding prints along with marker additions. Misaligned and imperfect, these elements highlight the mind’s tendency to recall specific elements of the past, using points of interest to recall those memories.
Image: Priere Compuesto, can’t remember it, 2023, ink monotype, solvent transfer and marker on paper, 29.7 x 42cm (each).
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Image: Priere Compuesto, can’t remember it (detail), 2023, ink monotype, solvent transfer and marker on paper, 29.7 x 42cm (each). 38
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ARTF2054 Drawing, Painting & Print Studio Unit Coordinator: Andy Quilty Teaching Staff: Andy Quilty, Annie Huang & Mark Tweedie
LUCINDA TASSONE
‘My car stepped on it’
Interested in the analogue processes of drawing, printing, and painting; I have created a series of works across multiple mediums centered around the recreation of digital noise and traditional grain. Attempting to replicate traditional aesthetics in a digital environment, I found enlightenment in the replication and authentic recreation of classical artistic practices.
Image: Lucinda Tassone, My car stepped on it (detail), 2023, digital prints, found ink monotypes on paper, and oil on board, dimensions variable.
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Image: Lucinda Tassone, My car stepped on it (detail), 2023, digital prints, found ink monotypes on paper, and oil on board, dimensions variable. 42
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ARTF2021 Animation and Video Unit Coordinator: Dr Vladimir Todorovic Teaching Staff: Dr Vladimir Todorovic, Annie Huang & Samuel Beilby
JAMIE FLORENCE
‘a space in mind’
a space in mind is a visual representation of the intangible and often overwhelming movements that can occur in one’s mental space. Designed and formed in a stream of consciousness fashion, the work imbues metaphorical and self-referential themes – coming together as a succinct description of the artist’s life at the time of completion.
Image: Jamie Florence, a space in mind, animation, duration 1.25 minutes.
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Image: Jamie Florence, a space in mind, animation, duration 1.25 minutes. 46
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HISTORY OF ART
Image: HART2274 Introduction to Museum and Curatorial Studies visit to Fremantle Prison with curator Eleanor Lambert, and conservator and UWA Art Histor 48
ry alumni Lily Bennion. 49
HART3333 Picturing the Self: Portraiture in Nineteenth-Century Europe Unit Coordinator: Dr Emily Eastgate Brink Teaching Staff: Dr Emily Eastgate Brink & Amelia Birch
FREIDA FRENCH
‘Victorine Meurent: How She Saw Herself’ Victorine Meurent is best known as Manet’s favourite model, the scandalous Olympia (1863), whose direct gaze shocked Parisian society. However, apart from her modelling work, she was a musician who taught music and a talented painter. She had six paintings accepted by the Paris Salon and, in 1903, was inducted into the Society of French Artists. Largely forgotten as an artist, only four of her paintings are extant today. Her Self-portrait (1876), possibly the one accepted by the Paris Salon in 1876, was discovered at the Vanves Flea Market by art dealer Edouard Ambroselli in 2021. This work now hangs in the Rabb Gallery of the Boston Museum of Fine Art and is the only one of her works held outside of France.1 In this small and intimate portrait, we see a woman with a determined expression, glancing sideways to the viewer. There is pride in her look that says she is more than the object she was as a model. How did this demi-monde former model become an artist in, what was in the mid-nineteenth century, a male preserve? What obstacles did she have to overcome to achieve her ambition? And why, despite her fame as a model, was she almost forgotten as an artist? …. Between 1875 and 1876, Meurent attended classes at the Académie Julian, a private art 50
school established in 1868 by Rodolphe Julian.2 It is here for the first time that women received the same training as men, were permitted to draw from male nude models and were encouraged to exhibit at the Salons.3 The cost of training was higher for women because it was believed that a family member or sponsor would pay for a woman’s fees. Fees ranged from 400 to 700 francs depending on whether a student studies part-time or full-time.4 Julian employed well-established artists such as William Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleurry to act as mentors and direct his studios. Most women who attended the Académie intended to become professional artists, respected in the arts community.5 It is not known how Meurent paid for her classes. However, Julian is known to have reduced fees for poor and talented students.6 In 1876 the Salon accepted Meurent’s Selfportrait, a small painting just 35 x 27cm. A head and shoulders painted in a three-quarter profile. Lit from the front right, the light falls across her right cheek and shoulder, casting her right side in shadow. Her auburn hair, worn up with a dark brownish purplish rose with a little pink indeterminate sprig. She wears a yellow offthe-shoulder evening gown trimmed with a bow of a similar hue to the rose. Meurent’s features are similar to those in Manet’s Woman with a Parrot. At age thirty-four, her face is mature and slim. Meurent gives the viewer that familiar direct gaze, which is slightly disconcerting in a three-quarter pose. Her faint eyebrows and blond eyelashes make her hazel eyes stand out and dominate her face. The greenishwhite of the skin is softened by a soft pink glow, which combines with grey shadowing to mould the face. Loose facture and the use of tenebrism combined with the black background are reminiscent of the Spanish
Image: Victorine Meurent, Self-Portrait, (c. 1876), oil on canvas, The Boston Museum of Fine Art.
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painters, such as Velázquez and Ribera, that influenced Manet. Meurent presents herself in an elegant evening dress, her hair worn high with modest adornments. She wears no jewellery. Her lips are subtly coloured, only an edge of her dress bodice revealed. The painting has no distractions. The viewer is only meant to see the face, to confront Meurant as she saw herself - strong, self-reliant, and worthy of respect as a painter. Meurent had six paintings accepted by the Salon, which showed the regard held for her work. Julian was a strong advocate for his students. And it was said, “that space was reserved at the Salon Exhibition for his Académie students”. Therefore, it is possible that Meurent’s connection with the Académie Julian helped her.7 Meurent also took lessons from the Artist Etienne Leroy, a painter of genre scenes. In 1903, Meurent was accepted into the Société des Artistes Français. She was sponsored by Artist Charles Hermann-Leon (Legion of Honour) and Tony Robert-Fleury, a professor at the Académie Julian.8 Clearly, Victorine Meurent had well-connected friends who had regard for her work, yet it remains a mystery why so few of her works exist. Victorine saw herself as, first and foremost, an Artist until she died in 1927, aged 83.9
Endnotes 1. Boston Museum of Fine Art, Victorine Meurant, Self Portrait (c.1876). 2. Eunice Lipton, Alias Olympia: A Woman’s Search for Manet’s Notorious Model and Her Own Desire,1992, p.164 3. Jane R. Becker, Overcoming all obstacles: the Women of the Académie Julian. Rutgers University Press, 1999, p. 3 4. Ibid. p.14 5. bid. p.15 6. Catherine Fehrer, “Women at the Académie Julian in Paris.” The Burlington Magazine (1994). p. 752
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7. 8. 9.
Catherine Fehrer, “Women at the Academic Julian in Paris,” The Burlington Magazine (1994). p. 752. Eunice Lipton, Alias Olympia: A Woman’s Search for Manet’s Notorious Model and Her Own Desire,1992, p. 57. Ibid.
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HART2370 Global Art Histories Unit Coordinator: Arvi Wattel
CAMERON BELL
‘The Emperor’s New Red Cloak: The Problem of Including Hawaiian Cloak Art into the Art Historical Canon’ The ‘Kīpuka cape’, as it has been nicknamed, is one of seven ’ahu’ula gifted to Captain James Cook by the Ka Moi (Chief of the island), Kalani’opu’u in 1778.1 This is a highly symbolic and functional item that was traditionally worn over a long cloak, ‘ahu, and a helmet, mahiole, and of which there are hundreds still extant.2 This cloak is of outstanding aesthetic quality, holds multiple overlapping and interwoven layers of meaning, and has status as a unique cross-culturally significant object while at the same time giving an insight into the artistic traditions of 18th century Hawaiian culture. For these reasons, it is worthy of integration into the art historical canon. Through close visual analysis and tracing the “global life of things as well as probing questions surrounding repatriation of objects and problematising the canon, a new understanding of the Kīpuka cape can be formed. The cloak is made of woven fibres from olonā nettles or coconuts, woven into a patterned frame, is 71cm long and 140cm wide, and filled in with feather work.3 The long black feathers that dominate the back of the cloak are the plumage of the mamo and ‘ō‘ō birds native to the Hawaiian islands, both of which are now extinct.4 The yellow feathers are the rare tailfeathers of the ‘ō‘ō and mamo, and the red feathers are that of the small i’iwi birds native to the Hawaiian islands. The cloak is of a semicircular shape, with a cut-out for the head that ties together with a cord at the collar. The top of the cloak is hemmed with a row of red feathers, which
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is extended down the front seams so that it would make a line of red down the front of the body. The line of red is bordered by a yellow block on which three red triangles facing towards each other are displayed, with another red triangle behind the head facing upwards. The topmost three of these triangles join into the red outline of the garment. The rest of the cloak is comprised of a mixture of long black, brown, red and white feathers all worked together in the same direction. These feathers are pointing downward towards the ground, with overlapping textures and a mixture of organic lines and the natural peaks and troughs formed by the random directionality of feathers used in this way create the appearance of something that resembles solidified lava flows that adorn many of the mountains in the Hawaiian countryside, hence the nickname “Kīpuka” which means lava flow. There is no documentation if this nickname is contemporary to the cloak or if it was given to it in its life since its creation. The Hawaiian practise of bird trapping and feather collection by the elites serve to highlight the status of these ’ahu’ula, as even the materiality and name allude to the rarity and status of these items. The name ’ahu’ula literally translates to “red cloak”. Red as a colour throughout Polynesia is the colour associated with royalty, giving ’ahu’ula a similar meaning to Hawaiians as a purple robe would to Byzantines.5 Even though they are named after the red feathers incorporate into the designs, yellow feathers are actually valued more highly by the elites, due to their rarity. Cummins states that since yellow is not associated with royalty, and the mamo birds do not have any mythological or cultural reasons to be considered especially symbolically important, yellow feathers’ “value therefore stood in direct relation to the labour involved,” alluding to the difficulty in procuring the yellow mamo bird feathers of which each bird inly has a few.6
Image: Hawaiian feather cape presented to Captain Cook, 1778. Photography by Stuart Humphreys.
“Each bird had to be ensnared, plucked of the desired feathers, and released. Because the tail feathers of the Mamo bird were the most highly prized for the yellow in a cloak, the capture of many more of these birds was required to furnish the same amount as red or black feathers.”7 This all amounts to evidence of the status and resources held by those who wore these cloaks. This takes us to the global life of the ’ahu’ula as a “global thing”, as defined in Anne Gerritsen and
Giorgio Riello’s chapter “The Global Lives of Things”: “For our purposes here, it is crucial to recognise the contribution of the critical scholarship on collecting and the histories of collections and museums, especially the value of seeing how, why and where things were put together, understanding the construction of histories and meanings of objects that occurs when creating collections, and recognising the explicit and implicit value judgements about things that always emerge when objects are situated within collections.”8 55
That is to say, we must focus on how the cloak was constructed, where it has been, and what it has meant in these different contexts. The construction and reception upon creation has been discussed prior. An ’ahu’ula is created as a bespoke and one-of-akind cloak for the rich members of the high ali’i class of the Hawaiian Islands, the kīpuka cape specifically created for Kalani’opu’u, the Ka Moi of Hawai’i, before the year 1778. It is made of hundreds of feathers that are highly valued and it symbolises the wealth and status of its wearer, collected by the people of the islands and used to pay some of their tribute and taxes.9 It is also used during war, where it can both identify the wearer, as well as protect them from sling stones.10 The Kīpuka cape was then gifted to Captain James Cook on his third voyage, as he returned to Hawaii during the Makihiki, the festival of the harvest god Lono, and due to his ship’s white sails, or the white cloak he was wearing at the time, the Hawaiians believed him to be an incarnation of the god Lono. There is some debate about whether this is the truth or merely a product of European colonial mythmaking, but either way, Cook was gifted the Kīpuka cape as well as six other ’ahu’ula.11 Upon his death the following year, the capes were shipped to his widow Elizabeth in London, and then of various degrees of unknown whereabouts until the Kīpuka cape is sold to an agent of the Australian Museum in 1894. From this point until the present day, it has remained in possession of the Australian museum, and since sometime between its creation and the present day it was nicknamed the Kīpuka cape. The six other ’ahu’ula gifted to Cook have all been collected by institutions, including the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, which was repatriated to the Bishop Museum in 2020. There has also been a replica of the Kīpuka cape created by the Australian Museum in 2018, in order to display the cloak without fear of destroying it, and
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this creates an interesting notion about the afterlife of things.12 The meaning of the cloak since it left the hands of the Ka Moi has likely been interpreted as a symbol of superiority by the Europeans who possessed it, as well as a piece of exotic curiosity in the century which it was unaccounted for. Since it was collected by the Australian museum, it has been viewed as an object of anthropological and historical interest, and only recently (Cumming’s 1984 article may be the earliest) as an art object worthy of art historical analysis and introduction into the canon. The canonisation of the Kīpuka cape may indeed be impossible, due to the lack of appreciation for the formal qualities of objects with lives similarly detached from the mainstream timeline of Art History focused on the progression of similitude, then the march towards abstraction. As mentioned in her article “Institutional Blessing: The Museum as Canon-Maker”, Hilde Hein claims that: “Objects whose interest is historical or cultural might […] be prized for their aesthetic value as well, but unless they are displayed in the appropriate venue that bestows their identity as art, they are taken as non-art.”13 The idea that objects that do not already fit within the narrative of the canon of art history have an uphill battle to become canonical objects is echoed in the sentiment that “when raised to the status of artwork, an object leaves behind its real-world associations, just as saints abandon their earthly history.”14 This ‘canonisation’ of objects creates almost a new “life of the thing” in which its aesthetic values are celebrated and the meaning it holds now (or at the time of its creation) is highlighted, as it leaves behind the “life of the thing” as well as all of the past meanings by which it has been interpreted throughout that life. Indeed, the whole concept of defining what is and is not canonical ‘art’ is entangled with the supremacist idea of the narrative of art history, as Hein puts it: “The very notion
that art denotes an ontological domain is problematic. Critics of this view contend that aesthetic exaltation manifests the cultural hegemony of a dominant social order.”15 That is to say, how is it responsible as scholars of art history to be judging art objects by how well they fit the narrative of the canon that exists now when the object in question was temporally and spatially isolated from that narrative and was therefore not created with the narrative nor even the concept of art in mind, and is therefore doomed to fail when evaluated using the tools of that system of art historical canon.
Endnotes 1. Jen Cork, “Hawaiian feather cape presented to Captain Cook, 1778.” Australian Museum, accessed June 14, 2023, last modified July 14, 2023. https://australian.museum/learn/ cultures/pacific-collection/hawaiian-feather-cape-presented-tocaptain-cook-1778/#main. 2. Tom Cummins, “Kinshape: The Design Of The Hawaiian Feather Cloak.” Art History 7 (1984), 2. 3. Pukui, Mary Kawena, and Samuel Hoyt Elbert, “Olona,” Hawaiian Dictionary. Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library, University of Hawaii Press, 2003. 4. Cork 2023. 5. Cummins 1984, 3. 6. Idem, 6. 7. Ibid. 8. Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello, “The Global Lives of Things: Material culture in the first global age,” in The Global Lives of Things: The Material Culture of Connections in the Early Modern World, ed. by Idem, London and New York: Routledge, 2015, 10. 9. Cummins, 1984, 5. 10. Cork, 2023. 11. Steven Lukes, “Different cultures, different rationalities?” History Of The Human Sciences, 13 (2000), 3. 12. Metcalfe, Logan, Alice Gage, and Jenny Newell, “Ancient Featherwork: The Creation Of The Cook’s Cape Replica,” Australian Museum, last Modified August 7, 2018. https:// australian.museum/blog/at-the-museum/ancient-featherworkthe-creation-of-the-cooks-cape-replica/. 13. Hilde Hein, “Institutional Blessing: The Museum as CanonMaker,” The Monist, 72 (1993), 557. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid.
References Cork, Jen. “Hawaiian feather cape presented to Captain Cook, 1778.” Australian Museum, accessed June 14, 2023, last modified July 14, 2023. https://australian.museum/learn/ cultures/pacific-collection/hawaiian-feather-cape-presented-tocaptain-cook-1778/#main. Cummins, Tom, “Kinshape: The Design Of The Hawaiian Feather Cloak,” Art History 7 (1984), 1-20. Gerritsen, Anne, and Giorgio Riello, “The Global Lives of Things: Material culture in the first global age,” in The Global Lives of Things: The Material Culture of Connections in the Early Modern World, ed. by Idem, London and New York: Routledge, 2015, 1-28. Hein, Hilde, “Institutional Blessing: The Museum as Canon-Maker,” The Monist, 72 (1993), 556-573. Lukes, Steven, “Different cultures, different rationalities?” History Of The Human Sciences 13 (2000), 3-18. Metcalfe, Logan, Alice Gage, and Jenny Newell. 2018. “Ancient Featherwork: The Creation Of The Cook’s Cape Replica.” Australian Museum. Last Modified August 7, 2018. https:// australian.museum/blog/at-the-museum/ancient-featherworkthe-creation-of-the-cooks-cape-replica/. Pukui, Mary Kawena, and Samuel Hoyt Elbert, “Olona,” Hawaiian Dictionary. Ulukau, the Hawaiian Electronic Library, University of Hawaii Press, 2003.
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HART2274 Introduction to Museum and Curatorial Studies Unit Coordinator: Dr Susanne Meurer
JESS VAN HEERDEN
‘Pleasantly Lost (and on the brink of discovery?) at Tripple Power of Plants’ Grappling with the constant flux of contemporary life, in an era where nothing is knowable and it is oh so easy to become overwhelmed by loose ends, it is fitting that exhibitions examining moments of slippage and in-between are currently popular in Boorloo (perhaps identity politics has finally fallen victim to our too-short attention spans). The Tripple Power of Plants (29 July to 10 September at Goolugatup Heathcote) is a whimsical intervention into the gallery space that refreshingly repositions current zeitgeist concerns, suggesting that “not-knowing”1 and instability create opportunities for playfulness, wonder and discovery. This is made possible by the artists’ delightfully unconventional display practices, a perfect pairing with the innovative material investigations and bizarre but friendly forms on display. Many recent exhibitions have sought to make visible moments of uncertainty, destabilising and the blurring of boundaries within a particular theme. Take, for example, two recent shows at Spectrum Project Space (ECU), Nina Raper’s Through Grinding Teeth (17 May – 15 June), and Sam Price’s Overdressed (28 June – 27 July). Each artist works within separate themes, bodily experiences of trauma and recovering memory (Raper), and the relationship between self and the natural environment (and the artist’s experience of disconnect from the Australian environment) (Price). A conceptual convergence can be found in the priority both artists give to investigating moments of fluidity and ambiguity. Or PS Art Space’s current exhibition, 58
Past Their Flesh (25 August – 9 September), for example, a series of formally innovative and thoughtprovoking collaborative two-dimensional works by Curtis Taylor and Natalie Scholtz. Exploring “shifting perspectives”2, this exhibition tackles a long looming elephant in addressing the “…ripple effects of colonialism in Australia and the schematics of (our) skin.”3 Examining how we exist in relation to one another and navigating the conflicting aspects of being human, this exhibition pivots upon points of intersectionality and dynamism. While the exploration of ambiguity is not a new phenomenon in exhibition practices, these exhibitions point to an increased emphasis and urgency in addressing this truly contemporary sensation of living and making meaning upon continually shifting foundations. Spacingout, one of AGWA’s current large-scale exhibitions (27 May – 25 September), is further testimony of this. Spacingout places the experience of uncertainty and ambiguity itself as the central theme. The curatorial statement declares that “… this exhibition lingers in moments of confusion and uncertainty…” and “…foregrounds what so often remains in the hazy background of life and proposes the potential for events to be other than what they are.”4 Pulling unlikely linkages from the depths of the collection, this exhibition leaves one floating and dazed, unsure entirely of how to connect the dots. Situated within this realm, Tripple Power of Plants, a collaborative exhibition by Audrey Tan, Jess Tan and Seb Temple, likewise takes “hazy sensations” as its focus, selecting moments of slippage and fluidity in daily life as its theme. Where Tripple Power of Plants distinguishes itself from Spacingout, however, is its positioning of instability and uncertainty as conditions of wonderous potential, rather than obstacles to meaning making. Unconventional display practices, particularly the total omission of labelling or didactics, and the light-hearted undermining of the ‘white
Image: Jess Tan, Audrey Tan & Seb Temple, Tripple Power of Plants (Installation View), 2023, photograph, Goolugatup Heathcote.
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cube’, are integral to the successful realisation of the exhibition’s optimistic approach to uncertainty. The opening night of The Tripple Power of Plants saw clusters of smiling people scurrying and chatting through, around and between whimsical, delicately colourful works, pausing frequently to consult their floorplan, an illustrated map containing the titles and materials of each work. As if completing a human scale dot-to-dot picture puzzle, the exhibition engages viewers in an exercise of observation and careful contemplation, pulling viewers methodically from one far corner or crevice to another. The curatorial decision to remove didactics and wall text, in favour of a handheld mapping system, facilitated a process of discovery with viewers curiously investigating which works were in front of them and seeking out others from the map. The sporadic placement of works containing multiple parts (in contrast with a standard side by side display of a series) prevents a forced analogous relationship, instead extending questions of the nature of their relationship to viewers. This is exemplified by baby cockroach dancing on a muffin. The forty-six-part series spreads itself so ‘randomly’ throughout the space that all other works are impossible to read in a linear fashion. Almost every work appears gently interrupted by bursts (some staccato, some lingering in larger clusters) of baby cockroach dancing on a muffin. This twinkling, sporadic display of all forty-six pieces defies rigid categorisation and perimeters, suggesting the perpetual fluidity and gentle inconsistencies of contemporary life. The removal of text and labelling also creates an intimacy and familiarity with the art objects on display that is in keeping with the friendly and nostalgic materiality of the works (including homemade paper, dehydrated organic compost and foodstuffs, shiny golf star stickers, softly rounded wooden shapes and coloured pencil and wax crayons). In the informality
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and approachability created by unconventional approaches to display, such as removing text, listing works antichronologically and scattering components of series, a relaxed environment is created which encourages playful learning, giving viewers permission to form their own, alternative connections. Tripple Power of Plants also strays from exhibiting conventions in the placement of each work in space. Works are installed in locations that are not usually associated with permanence or bestowed with interest. This is illustrated by one of the larger pieces of baby cockroach dancing on a muffin, a summergrass coloured object that recalls the shape of a soggy pinwheel, which is propped half up against the wall and the floor near an exit. Or flymode, with one of its nine parts balanced on top of an exit door’s motion sensor. Elements of a gallery space we typically agree to ignore under a ‘white cube’ contract are brought to viewers’ attention. Yet the exhibition does not read as haphazard or lazy, even despite the nostalgic colour scheme, kindergarten-craft evocative materials and childlike mark marking. Perhaps this is because of the multiple bespoke instalments that beautifully litter the exhibition space, such as parts of flymode, carrot_dangle and wild boar remix being inserted into the walls, demonstrating planning, attention to detail and careful execution. The bespoke intervention into the gallery space creates a sense of permanence and authority about the exhibition, urging that the conceptual premise, while lighthearted in its approach, should be taken seriously. When deviating from standard ways of knowing and being there is a risk that viewers may become overwhelmed or overstimulated by the exhibition and disengage with works. Tripple Power of Plants avoids this snare, which has been identified by as a weakness of AGWA’s SpacingOut by reviewers5, by selecting very formally – as well as conceptually – harmonious works. While ranging greatly in size and
technique, every work is united in a consistent use of colour. While there are subtle variations and additions, all of the works consistently pivot around three central colours: a gently blushing pink, a summer lawn green and the faded, murky orange of old timber. The artists/curators, Tan, Tan and Temple, choosing to create each work collaboratively may have played a significant role in this outcome. Such formal overlaps position each individual work as a component of a harmonious whole, rather than objects competing jarringly for viewers’ attention. Curatorial choices in Tripple Power of Plants, such as placing works exciting and irregular manner, force viewers to reconsider the way they usually interact with objects in a gallery setting. Yet the strong unity of the works on display (and their comfortingly nostalgic materials and colours) makes moments of statelessness welcoming and warm. Unfortunately, there appears to have been some last-minute changes to the exhibition set up as one of the rooms listed on the floorplan is closed off, containing none of the promised works. Given that Tripple Power of Plants investigates moments of ambiguity and slippage, this is unnecessarily confusing (especially as viewers are encouraged to use the map as a tool to navigate the exhibition). But considering the otherwise exceptional execution, this inconsistency casts only the weakest of shadows. Tripple Power of Plants is an exemplary exhibition in its use of curatorial practices as an extended artistic device to communicate a conceptual premise. Tan, Tan and Temple’s omission of labels and surprising treatment of space wittily disrupts viewer’s expectations, producing an exhibition that deals with in-betweens. Yet the hazy and undefined exhibition does not produce discomfort, but rather the experience of being on the brink of new ideas, pleasantly lost. In the breaking down of frameworks of thinking, viewers are encouraged to construct
meaning from moments of uncertainty and ambiguity, a microcosmic experience that mimics the joy of meaning making in a time of continual movement.
Endnotes 1. Goolugatup Heathcote, ed. Audrey Tan, Jess Tan & Seb Temple, Tripple Power of Plants (exhibition catalogue), Perth: Applecross (2023), 1. 2. PS Art Space, ed. Curtis Taylor & Natalie Sholtz, Past Their Flesh (exhibition catalogue), Perth: Fremantle (2023), 2. 3. PS Art Space, Past Their Flesh (exhibition catalogue), 2. 4. Art Gallery of Western Australia, “SpacingOut,” accessed September 7, 2023, https://artgallery.wa.gov.au/whats-on/ exhibitions/spacingout. 5. Maraya Takoniatis, “Filling in gaps at Spacingout,” Dispatch Review, August 27, 2023, https://dispatchreview.info/Filling-inthe-Gaps-at-Spacingout.
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ARCHITECTURE, LANDSCAPE ARCH & URBAN DESIGN
Image: UWA School of Design, ARCT5885 Bio-Based Materials in Global Settings display, 2023 Summer Exhibition opening night, 15 November 2023. 62
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Photography by Samantha Dye. 63
Foreword by Justin Katsumata Yu It was 8 years ago I arrived at my first lecture as a design student at the University of Western Australia where Philip Goldswain explained Laugier’s Theory of the Primitive Hut. I knew nothing about design, but at that moment became fascinated by the idea that there was possibly a true principle for architecture that is to shade from the sun and shelter from storms – the necessities for primitive life. Although the idea was quickly forgotten as a young student, throughout the years I’ve watched our world change through climate, politics, an epidemic, and now in artificial intelligence, I am reminded of Laugier’s back-to-nature philosophy. Simplicity for design and natural materials for the necessities of life. It’s these stories and lessons through our lives we shall never forget as we learn more about our ever-fragile environment and culture through the incredible staff and diversity of students we are surrounded and supported by. They shape who we are, our style, our own principles of design and architecture, and bring us to be the best version of ourselves. Let’s remember to collaborate, be open to and share ideas, possibilities, and to be confident in the pursuit of what you love. Do what the world needs and not what others want you to be. To have now completed a Master’s of Architecture, it’s a bittersweet feeling. It’s easy to forget how much I have learned and grown as a person. Reflecting on the work by the students this year, I am proud to say that I am a graduate of the School of Design. Without the hard work of the students and incredible staff, this would not have been possible. Justin Katsumata Yu Master of Architecture, 2023
Image: Wooditch Tea House for Photoreal Rendering completed in 2023.
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ARCHITECTURE
Image: UWA School of Design, Design HUB, 2023 Summer Exhibition opening night, 15 November 2023. Photography by Samantha Dye. 66
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ARCT5011 Independent Research Part 2 Unit Coordinator: Dr Kate Hislop Supervisor: Jennie Officer
CHARLOTTE MARTIN
‘Why Do We Live Like This?
Through innovative design strategies referred to as ‘blue’, ‘green’, ‘yellow’ and ‘purple’, the aims of this research are to expose the downfalls of Business As Usual mass suburban housing, and to propose scalable and repeatable modifications to infill housing that could create quantifiable improvements to amenity for both residents and the surrounding environment.
Image: Bedford infill analysis.
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Image: (Left) Bedford ‘purple’ over time; (Right) Bedford infill housing over time. 70
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Image: The ‘Purple-ified’ infill lot. 72
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ARCT5502 Independent Design Research Unit Coordinator: Dr Kate Hislop Supervisor: Lara Camilla Pinho
JESS GIBBS
‘What is the future made of?’ The concept of biobased materials may appear unfamiliar and new to many, but these types of materials have actually been used in construction for thousands of years. However, their significance waned over the years due to the Industrial Revolution(s), the petrochemical industry and globalisation – transformations that led to a significant shift from regenerative to non-regenerative resources extracted and quarried from mines and then transported worldwide. This design research project led by Jessica Gibbs under the supervision of Lara Pinho was conducted over a single semester. It delved into the potential of utilising native seaweed, seagrass and bivalve molluscs species, in Perth for the creation of valuable and locally connected materials. Each year our seafood industry generates a significant amount of waste through processing methods, such as shucking, a process that removes the inedible shell portion of molluscs, such as scallops, oysters, mussels, and clams. However, these shells contain 95-99% calcium carbonate, which can be heated and transformed into lime, an excellent binding agent. Or alternatively, they can be crushed, into fine or coarse aggregates as a substrate substitution. Marine plants on the other hand, have the potential to be farmed and harvested in our oceans, a process that does not require any feeding, the use of harmful pesticides or the clearing of land. Seaweed is valuable due to the polysaccharides found in the cell walls, which can be extracted, dried and requalified to produce an adhesive glue. While seagrass has the potential to be used for insulation or as an acoustic buffer to the tissue structure and air mass enclosed within their leaves. The research investigated and tested several material combinations, using various ratios and methods. The outcomes of each test was then documented and provided in the final submission booklet. Jess hopes that this body of work can demonstrate the tremendous potential of these resources and hopes that the booklet can be built on in the future by others interested in this topic.
Image: Composite material samples.
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Image: Seaweed, seagrass and bivalve molluscs species samples. 76
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Image: Illustrations of seaweed, seagrass and bivalve mollusc processing into composite materials. 78
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ARCT5502 Independent Design Research Unit Coordinator: Dr Kate Hislop Supervisor: Dr Philip Goldswain
TIMOTHY MURPHY
‘Modern Homes, Garden Suburb’ When Perth was selected as host for the 1962 Commonwealth Games, anticipation heightened for the transformative impact it would bring to the burgeoning city.1 In preparation, a village comprising 150 architecturally designed homes was constructed to house the athletes, later transitioning into private ownership. Representing the best in WA planning and architecture at the time, the village remained largely intact for many years.2 However, between 1996 and 2004, a movement emerged seeking heritage protection for the homes, triggering a wave of demolitions as owners sought to avoid the associated regulations.3 Existing literature underscored the cultural significance of the Athletes Village as an artefact of the Games and an exemplary embodiment of both modernist design and garden city planning.4 Nevertheless, the local council believed meticulous documentation, not physical preservation, was most prudent. The argument centred on safeguarding landowners’ rights, stating that the designs no longer met “contemporary expectations,” and the layout of the homes hindered efficient redevelopment.5 This raised the question of whether these assertions held true and if, considering their agreed-upon significance, there might have been a way to preserve and renovate them effectively. This necessitated a deeper exploration into the essential elements that must be retained in such a process and what the “expectations” are that they must meet. The scrutiny of these theories entailed a rigorous process of mapping, modelling, and redrawing.
Endnotes 1. Commonwealth Games Australia, “Celebrating the Legacy and 60th Anniversary of the Perth 1962 Commonwealth Games,” commonwealthgames.com.au, November 21, 2022, https:// commonwealthgames.com.au/celebrating-the-legacy-and-60th-anniversary-of-the-perth-1962commonwealth-games. 2. Aleisha Orr, “Perth Commonwealth Games Athlete’s Village, 52 Years On,” WAtoday, July 25, 2014, https:// www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/perth-commonwealth-games-athletes-village-52-years-on20140723-zw1w2.html. 3. State Heritage Council, “British Empire and Commonwealth Games Village Precinct,” inherit.dplh.wa.gov. au, November 24, 2020, https://inherit.dplh.wa.gov.au/public/inventory/details/95b58e36-1460-469b-9674d294efeeb56b.; Town of Cambridge and Ronald Bodycoat, “Submission to the Heritage Council Regarding the Assessment of the British Empire & Commonwealth Games,” January 2004, 7. 4. Nicola Gibson, “The Village” (2000), 41-45, 59, 67-69.; Lewi and Neille, Fading Events and Places, 15,38-39. 5. Town of Cambridge, Heritage Assessment, 1-7. Image: Athletes Village, 1962 figure ground map.
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Image: (Left) Silver, Fairbrother & Associates, Type B1, floor plan; (Right) Hobbs, Winning & Leighton, Type A, section. 82
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ARCT5101 Architecture Studio Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Fernando Jerez ‘Chillida Leku: Desde el origen (Inception)’
DAVE DEVES
‘Leku Lichtung’
Leku Lichtung is an architectural intervention rooted in the philosophical and spatial ethos of Eduardo Chillida and Martin Heidegger. Focusing on the interplay between concealment and revelation, purposeful compression and expansion of architectural space enhances visibility, and connection to the artworks, landscape, and “being”. Balancing mass and void to enhance the site’s topography and sculpture sightlines, the project encourages a mindful engagement with Chillida Leku’s historic landscape; merging the program of working, exhibiting, and living into integrated “clearings” that blur the lines between public and private realms. Leku Lichtung integrates into the landscape, preserving the site’s historical integrity while aiming to add a layer of contemporary meaning. The design, while being deeply embedded in the surrounding context, seeks to offer a renewed perspective, inviting visitors to not just observe, but to immerse, reflect, and connect with the essence of “place.”
SOPHIA MARSON VAPENSTAD
‘How Profound is the A.I.R.’
Visitors partake in the stumbling upon and uncovering of the unknown. Similarly, the production of art can also be a playful discovery rather than a forced deduction. Resident artists roam freely around the grounds, as any place can be a place to exhibit art, different every day of the year. The westward accessible entrance leads the visitors deeper underground without having to go down a single step. The exhibition floor is a blank slate, but the divide between the underground structure and the museum park above is perforated to create dispersed lighting that would differ every day of the year. This proposal includes eight dwellings and a versatile workspace hosting movable workbenches that can be reorganised after the artist’s changing needs. A linear movement that mimics the walks of artist Richard Long is supported by smaller rooms housing functions such as storage, clay work kilns and a photography studio.
Image: Sophia Marson Vapenstad, How Profound is the A.I.R, explored isometric.
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Image: Dave Deves, Leku Lichtung, (Left) Site plan; (Right) Impression. 86
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ARCT5102 Architecture Studio 2 Unit Coordinator: Dr Fernando Jerez Studio Coordinator: Gertjan Groen ‘An Architecture Through Experimenting: Urban Monastery, Walyalup’
GARETH LARSEN
‘MonFlowFreo’ – A Living Limestone Monastery’ The studio focussed on the fundamentals of architecture, space, light, structure, materiality, and tectonics, leading to the design of a monastery in Fremantle. We were limited to working by hand with large scale models supported by sketches and hand drawings. Henry Street was chosen as a sacred route used to transport the dead. For over 65,000 years, First Australians transported the deceased to sand dunes on the shoreline for burial. Since colonisation, funeral processions use Henry Street to transport bodies from funeral parlours to Fremantle cemetery. The organic nature of limestone, a story of compression and decompression, born from the sea, housing many thousands of years of life, is synonymous with Fremantle’s history, diversity, decay and renewal. MonFlowFreo, organically rippling around a natural cloister, celebrates the inherent qualities of the stone, its natural arrangement and hidden voids, and its organic lifecycle ultimately dissolving to sand. Monks awake in the modesty of their rooms lit by a single beam of first morning light. Entering the monastery through an impressive wall, they are reminded that each day is a new prospect and commitment. Proceeding to the chapel, they enjoy the modesty and intimacy of the light entering the sacred space, which by the day’s end, transforms to become a dazzling spectacle of light, proportion and complexity. All doorway openings to the exterior point towards the east framing the path travelled. Voids in the ceiling bring natural light and heavenward perspectives. The central cloister amplifies nature. The day’s journey ends in the West at the library and holy space, where educational and spiritual enlightenment and fulfilment are enjoyed. MonFlowFreo’s private street frontage and large entrance enables monks to appear and pay their respects to processions, and invite mourners to stop for a prayer in a sacred space adjacent to the monastery.
Image: 1:20 concept model, Monastery Chapel.
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Image: 1:50 concept model, Procession Public Prayer Space. 90
Image: 1:100 concept model, Street Frontage and Passing Procession. 91
ARCT5101 Architecture Studio Unit Coordinator: Dr Fernando Jerez Studio Coordinator: Christian Wetjen ‘CHILDS - Community Hub, Information, Library and Digital Studio’
WAZEEFAH JOOMUN
‘Group 50 & 54 Community Hub’
How do you envision a future local community centre? What brings a community together? Situated in Baldivis, the corner of Fifty Road and Baldivis Road has been identified as a new future local hub with recreational activities, schools, and a community hub to accommodate the needs of the future local residents. A brief, masterplan, and schematic design report has been produced by the UWA School of Design team in response to the rapidly growing community of Baldivis and the City of Rockingham brief for the Masterplan development. Group 50 & 54 Community Hub is named after the original names of the heritage buildings on site which were previously used as a primary school in 1924 by the original settlers in the area. The Community Hub incorporates a ‘Green Urban Centre’ to act as the central point of the hub, connecting all buildings and spaces together to work as a micro-community. The connection between all spaces is devised to feel ‘effortless’, creating an easy flow of movement. Designed to become an ‘experience’ in itself, it is a space where the entire community can meet and gather in a social and recreational setting. Its high quality connected public outdoor and indoor spaces allowing a range of recreation and social activities. To promote a sense of place, the ‘Green Urban Centre’ will also tell and celebrate stories of local Aboriginal, cultural, and built heritage through the use of site markers, surface and walls art, and signage. It aims to bring the local community together to create a vibrant and welcoming community. Interconnecting spaces and functions are crucial design elements to this proposal to reflect a strong and well-connected community. The Community Hub also draws a link between the past and present by creating a clear and direct link between the existing heritage buildings and the hub. A feature glass element will distinguish between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’, creating an obvious connection. The existing buildings are fully integrated into the new library and community centre building. The new walls will offset slightly from the existing walls creating the juxtaposition of the ‘old’ and ‘new’. Group 50 & 54 Community Hub is a space for everyone and everything. Image: Group 50 & 54 Community Hub site plan.
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Image: Group 50 & 54 Community Hub, (Left) Plan; (Right) Elevations. 94
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ARCT5202 Detailed Design Studio 2 Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Rosangela Tenorio ‘Studio Timor 4’
EUGENE TIONG
‘Artisan Oasis’
In the rapidly evolving landscape of Timor-Leste, the traditional cultural heritage faces the risk of erasure amidst the influx of modern influences and educational opportunities. Artisan Oasis emerges as a cultural bastion, preserving and propagating traditional Timorese craftsmanship, particularly in Tais making, woodwork, ceramics, and basketry. By retaining key elements of the site and drawing inspiration from the revered Uma Lulik and the symbolic Tais, the architectural design embodies the ethos of ‘Inheritance.’ Echoing the undulating forms of the surrounding mountains, the structure integrates indigenous design elements, notably in the roof’s functional and symbolic significance. The interplay of the three distinct volumes within the site, along with the incorporation of organic landscaping, reflects the vitality and harmonious coexistence of nature and tradition intrinsic to Timorese culture. The thoughtful spatial configuration fosters dynamic interactions in the public areas, while ensuring privacy for the artist residences. With its inviting street-facing design, flexible ground-floor spaces, and serene first-floor sanctuaries, the Design Library stands as a testament to the resilience and perpetuation of Timor-Leste’s rich cultural legacy. Artisan Oasis is more than just a repository of knowledge; it is a sanctuary where the legacy of the past converges with the innovation of the present, fostering a space for cultural rejuvenation and artistic exploration. In the heart of Timor Leste, the library’s walls reverberate with the collective memories of struggle and triumph, serving as a beacon of hope and inspiration for generations to come.
Image: Main entrance.
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Image: Selected impressions, exploded axonometric, sectional perspective and details. 98
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ARCT5201 Detailed Design Studio / ARCT5202 Detailed Design Studio 2 Unit Coordinator: Dr Rosangela Tenorio Studio Coordinator: Andrea Quagliola ‘Surf Resort on Rote Island, Indonesia’
CORBYN BISSCHOPS
‘Nemberala Surf Resort’
The small village of Nemberala, situated on Rote Island in Indonesia, envisions a future where it can simultaneously embrace the growth of surfing tourism while preserving the timeless traditional lifestyle and values that define this secluded island. To realise this vision, a collection of twelve villas are constructed along the periphery of the area, intelligently interspersed with pockets of vegetation. This thoughtful approach to architecture ensures a harmonious integration with the surrounding landscape. At the back of the site, a clubhouse, a bar, and a yoga studio is seamlessly incorporated, creating a hub for connection and community engagement that welcomes both resort guests and the local residents of Rote Island. The design maintains an open expanse at the front of the clubhouse, intentionally preserving the natural beauty of the landscape. This space also functions as a visual shield, discreetly concealing the architecture while allowing it to blend gracefully into the terrain.
LACHLAN WILLIX
‘Nemberala Surf Resort’
Situated in the Indonesia village of Nemberala, the site inhabits the edge of a dense palm grove which frames the ocean beyond. The project aims to enhance this existing condition, with the use two earth wall elements to enclose a section of the grove, creating refuge within the walled garden and prospect towards the ocean. The two walls are inhabited as transitional spaces, which divide the public amenities with the private villas. The villas occupy the exterior edge of the main walls with smaller perpendicular walls breaking down the exterior wall edge and support platforms for villa rooms, which prospect outwards onto the dense grove.
Image: Lachlan Willix, Plan and impression.
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Image: Left: Corbyn Bisschops, (Left) Impression; (Right) Design drawings. 102
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ARCT5202 Detailed Design Studio 2 Unit Coordinator: Dr Rosangela Tenorio Studio Coordinator: Dr Beth George ‘Quick, Quick, Slow’
CAMRYN MERCORELLA
‘Gate House’
The studio began with three propositions, which included one-room inhabitations. The first proposition was a deployable unit, designed to move between vacant urban interiors. The second was a tensile structure for rough sleepers, designed for an urban context. The final was a future ruin: a shelter designed to be abandoned in the event of fire. The methods of the studio were manual modes of production: large scale, all in one hand drawings and physical model making were key to the design process. Prior to starting these propositions, we were tasked with understanding our spatial intelligence: two postcards were made, one a room from our memory and one a room by another. These explorations allowed us to create a collective brief: Spaces need to help us feel our relation to others and to help us sense and augment the world around us, in action, over time. Space grounds us, fosters us, curates isolation and connection. It is not static; we move and change, it moves and changes. We have a right to curiosity and engagement, a spirit of play. Touch, objects, and possessions are anchors, connecting us to space. The future ruin was explored in detail for the second phase. A shelter comprised of two swinging ‘gates’ and tensile elements was designed. These fold out from a thickened ‘wall’ to create a shelter that is inhabited by 1-2 people. In the event of fire, the gates are closed, and the site is abandoned. The solid wall and slab of the project are made from river clay sourced from the Scottsdale site, imagining extreme heat may either harden them or destroy them, inviting an evolution and rebuilding over time. The outer gate is clad in fibre cement sheeting, to enclose the parts and belongings in periods of absence. The shelter can be used for shorter periods as simply providing hard surfaces to assemble upon and beside, or the structure can be folded out and shelter set up, to be inhabited for as long as needed.
Image: Selected layers of trace, (Left to Right): postcard 1, postcard 2, future ruin schematic model, deployable unit interior image.
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Image: Selected layers of trace and model images, (Left to Right): deployable unit, tensile structures, future ruins. 106
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ARCT5202 Detailed Design Studio 2 Unit Coordinator: Dr Rosangela Tenorio Studio Coordinator: Gemma Hohnen ‘Post Adaptive Midland’
CERESSA JUBAINSKI
‘Key workers in Midland’
The project brief for the design of key-worker apartments in Midland and the retention of existing on-site public parking, began with design work at masterplan, examining potential for liveability with the existing conditions but also future adaptation and speculation as our car dependency is reduced. Key workers offer an indispensable service, their role holds immense importance in the community and demands an elevated level of responsibility and commitment. It can be an extremely stressful and exhausting job. Key workers must have access to amenities to maintain their physical and mental well-being. In this project, the focus is on improving the quality of life for workers by providing residences that meet their needs and feel like home with easy access to the amenities needed. A place with plenty of light, ventilation, green spaces, and opportunities to interact with the neighbours. All apartments have their living room to the north to get most of the winter sun. Bedrooms are positioned on the southern side to avoid overheating during the night promoting an excellent quality of sleep. Dual aspects are available for every residence. The courtyard is a space for gathering and contact with nature. It also allows distance between the two buildings for at least 4 hours of winter sun to all homes. The selection of materials is consciously chosen, achieving a building with a minimal carbon footprint. GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag) replaces 70% of cement mix in the primary structure. Cupolex is used for concrete slabs which are made from 100% recycled car batteries and use 5-8% less concrete than a typical slab. Bricks have no manufacturing process as they are recycled, lowering the embodied carbon significantly. For acoustic and thermal comfort, Durra Panel is added to the wall buildup, a by-product made from reclaimed straw, replaced the typical wallboard.
Image: Axonometric, Key workers in Midland.
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Image: (Top) Typical apartment types; (Bottom) Section north-south and east-west. 110
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ARCT5536 Photo Real Rendering Unit Coordinator: Dev Mawjee Teaching Staff: Dev Mawjee & Chaz Flint ‘Idyllic Cabin Getaway’
JUSTIN KATSUMATA YU
‘Wooditch Tea House’
Inspired by the traditional Japanese Teahouse, the Wooditch Teahouse is a temple of Australian vernacular. It reflects local materials in response to the climate of the southwest of Australia, where it is situated on a slope overlooking the river. Constructed across 12 micro piles, the building emerges from the hillside, blending with the treetops in harmony with its environment. The design pays homage to Japanese culture and aesthetics, while expressing a unique Australian identity.
Image: Wooditch Tea House entry corridor.
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Image: South elevation. 114
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ARCT5885 Bio-Based Materials in Global Settings Unit Coordinator: Dr Rosangela Tenorio ‘‘A’ Design Studio’
JUSTIN KATSUMATA YU, JORDAN NIVEN, CARLA SPANJA & LUCY NAM
‘‘24/12’ Design Studio’
24/12 Studio is an innovative architectural solution that responds to the needs for adaptability, affordability, and environmental responsibility. The solution is based on the accessibility of standardised sheets, which are combined with fasteners, timber joints, and standard roofing materials to create a modular system of “bays”. The “bays” can be easily multiplied and customized to meet different spatial needs in a fast and economical way. Furthermore, the construction process is very simple, requiring only a CNC machine and basic building skills. The CNC machine not only facilitates the ease of assembly but also ensures accuracy by cutting the required lengths and marking the fixing locations. The design demonstrates how to make the most of a common material such as plywood in a highly efficient way, highlighting its potential to support timber construction that can be easily dismantled, recycled, or reused, reflecting a conscious commitment to sustainability.
Image: ‘24/12’ Design Studio exterior perspective.
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Image: Plan, interior perspective & construction detail. 118
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ARCT3001 Architecture Studio 4 Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Beth George ‘Civil Civic, Northbridge’
JOE KENNY
‘The People’s Palace’ The People’s Palace along James St, Northbridge, draws inspiration from historical theatrical traditions and modern urban adaptability. It combines elements of the innyard theatres of 16th-century England with Bertolt Brecht’s epic theatre, reimagining the conventional performance space. The theatre features two distinct skins. The outer skin offers glimpses of the activities within, inviting passersby to join the unfolding drama. The internal skin is formed through brick archways, creating viewports encouraging interaction between performer and viewer, aligning with Brecht’s ethos of breaking the fourth wall. At the centre of the design is an internal courtyard. Performances unfold here, engaging audiences across three levels of the building, who watch from narrow galleries. Windows to the south frame panoramic city views, merging urban and theatrical vistas. The building’s circulation takes inspiration from theatre fly tower systems. It invites a sense of theatricality by giving the impression that all floors are suspended, much like lighting, scenery or curtains. The theatre’s seating arrangement aligns with the concept of adaptability, allowing attendees to configure their viewing experience. Connected by a first-floor staircase, an old factory has been repurposed into a mixed-use space for creatives and a dressing room for the theatre performers. The ground floor is divided into areas for ceramics, painting, woodworking, upholstery and photography. Suspended above the ground floor are studio areas, providing a retreat from the work below. Adjacent to the old factory, an amphitheatre within the old James Street car park offers a sunken gathering space. A substantial new tree provides natural shading, creating an intimate environment for events and community interaction. The People’s Palace aims to become an extension of the street for creative endeavours, serving as a vibrant hub of cultural exchange and community engagement through a deliberate marriage of historical and modern inspiration.
Image: Theatre isometric.
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Image: Selected sections, details and plan. 122
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ARCT3001 Architecture Studio 4 Unit Coordinator: Dr Beth George Studio Coordinator: Joel Benichou ‘Civil Civic Subiaco: Vertical Market’
MIZUKI ONO
‘Incorporated contrasts - Subiaco Vertical Market’ The opposition between vertical and horizontal is commonly described as the relationship between human beings and nature. The contrast was predominant in the scheme of Unite d’Habitation by one of the most famous architects of the 20th century, Le Corbusier. In Poeme de l’Angle Droit (Poem of the Right Angle), he describes ‘the universe of our eyes rests upon a plain edged with horizon facing the sky. let us consider the inconceivable space hitherto uncomprehended. Repose supine sleep – death. with our backs on the ground...’ Every structure, created by not only humans but living beings, stands erect in front of the horizontal field of nature. The project was to redefine and repurpose the traditional marketplace in a vertical form to address challenges of the 21st century – rapidly changing demands for social, cultural, and commercial interaction. In the dynamic landscape of our society, incompatibilities coexist and, while problematic, they can produce positive synergy. Sometimes inconsistency itself breeds vitality. The open-air facade with scaffolded skin illuminates the coexistence of people inside and out. The free, open structure is governed by a strong vertical element, which is enclosed and standing still in the middle, with the movement in the main open space emphasised by contrast. The vertical market proposal was designed to shed light on intangible feelings, and chaotic experiences, that are often unperceivable.
Image: Vertical Market isometric.
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Image: Perspective views and ground floor plan. 126
ground floor perspective
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ARCT3001 Architecture Studio 4 Unit Coordinator: Dr Beth George Studio Coordinator: Kate Mutzke ‘A Place to Pause’
ELLEN MILLER
‘George St Bathhouse’ The first few weeks of this studio were spent understanding the urban condition of George St, East Fremantle, and designing an intervention to invigorate its public life. The street has many wellness themed spaces - a spa, at least four pilates studios, physiotherapists - but all are privatised and disconnected from the public realm. The public space of the street had become a circulation corridor between the private businesses, and there were few spots to pause unconditionally. The closeness to the harbour drew me towards designing a bathhouse, and when I looked further into the typology, I was struck by their civic nature. Firstly from a point of practicality, as a way to maintain public health and sanitation. And then also spiritually, as spaces to gather to take care of yourself communally. This bathhouse hopes to return the democratic spirit of wellness rituals to George Street. The form developed from a sketch of a section that had a sculptural quality, like it had been carved out to create intimate spaces of rest that wrap the body. And from there developed a sequence of going through the building; Entering past a screen of steam that rises from the rooms below Washing your hands and having the first contact with water Removing your shoes and connecting with the ground Men and women parting into their dressing rooms A thermal progression from warm room to hot room and back again Ascending to a rooftop pool that overlooks the street life
Image: Ellen Miller, George St Bathhouse Model, 2023, concrete and MDF.
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ARCT3040 Advanced Design Thinking Unit Coordinator: Emily Van Eyk Teaching Staff: Emily Van Eyk, Dr Rob Cameron & Bradley Millis ‘Scarcity’ Advanced Design Thinking is a collaboration between three studios producing different content for a chosen theme— scarcity. Students examined the idea of limited resources via objects, rituals, and construction techniques. They considered how shifts and advancements in design thinking can elicit far reaching economic, environmental, and social consequences. Each studio worked in teams and offered an independent inquiry with a distinct set of skills and outcomes. Rituals for Scarcity explored the effects of design intervention to alter minor ritualistic behaviour in a bid to combat identified scarceness in our daily lives. Tools to assist water wastage, small acts to induce compassion, or the ability to engender community through the process of baking and sharing bread. This theme was developed through TikTok format film and accompanying publication. Deconstructed Objects explored the contextual scarcity of everyday items and traced the origins, narratives, and consequences of ubiquitous objects over differing societal and geographical bands. The unintended impacts of the once essential RATtest, or the gamification of romantic interaction via dating applications. These ideas were developed into product design and data visualisation. The final group, Exhibition Making, designed and built a display to enhance the concepts within, while also addressing scarcity in real terms via materials, fixings, and the exhibitions afterlife. The installation uses stabilised rammed earth and plywood plinths, low carbon materials with moulded or tension joints, no fixings or glue. The pieces can later form furniture, planters, or pavers. Works are spotlit using 3D printed shrouds for efficient, robust, and reusable fittings. The installation presents these ordinary objects and rituals alongside the designed products, publications, and films. Displayed on earthy, archaic surfaces illuminated with a divine singular beam, the works offers a sense of rarity and prestige, not commonly bestowed on prosaic items— these are special, these are important, these are scarce. Students: N. Kaushik, R. Tan, C. Rushika Tumuganti, Z. Fiore Hart, D. Van Der Stelt, B. Webster, D. Van Biljon, A. Giampaolo, H. Rupp, C. Stanwix, C. Masula, M. Ono, T. Li Ying. C. Anderson, J. Beazley, W. Ewart, A. Chitiva, A. Lovegrove, C. Byk, D. Boon, E. Creek, E. Springate, E. Nixon, G. Farrant, G.Nabila, G. Celi, H. Pileggi, H. Lin, I. Harrison, J. Kenny, J. Fazzari, J. Shen, J. Fung, K. Wang, K. Lei, K. Aldepolla, M. Ryan, P. Lin, P. Compuesto, R. Flecker, S. Richards, T. Knight, A. Subi, C. Williamson, C. Basso, C. Laurence, E. Tweedie, E. Miragliotta, F. Sim, M. Perkins, M. Hon, R. Zare, S. Khawrizmi, S. Flint, S. Wehrli, S. Eyssautier & Z. Hammond
Image: Narratives of Water Scarcity.
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Image: Rituals for Scarcity. 132
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Image: Tinderopoly. 134
Image: Choose Your Own Pandemic. 135
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ARCT2001 Design Studio 2 Unit and Studio Coordinator: Jennie Officer ‘+ - x /’
JOHN NOTLEY
‘Personal Spaces’
The proposed Personal Spaces scheme strives to provide public housing residents the opportunity to infuse personality and individuality into their domestic spaces, whilst still facilitating the growth of communal relationships between residents in a multiresidential complex. The project revolves around a central semi-open atrium, with each of the ten dwellings pin-wheeling from the corners. Every dwelling has a dedicated ‘personality space’ - a room with no specific program – that can be opened out to the communal centre by large upward swinging doors. These personality spaces are rooms for hobbies and passions which owners can choose to keep intimate (by leaving the door closed) or express these passions to the rest of the residents (by opening them out to the atrium). The floors of the atrium have had the areas between each facing set of personality spaces cut out, to create two large triple height volumes, permitting vision and engagement between residents on multiple levels, which further facilitates the growth of a building wide community and prevents those living on individual floors becoming trapped together. A walkway between these two volumes contains both the stairwell and a large communal kitchen for each level. Individual dwellings are fitted with kitchenettes for convenience, and to allow for more insular lifestyles if desired.
Image: Section through atrium and personality spaces.
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Image: (Left) Use diagrams; (Right) Perspective views. 138
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ARCT2001 Design Studio 2 Unit Coordinator: Jennie Officer Studio Coordinator: Dr Tatjana Todorovic ‘+ - x /’
KIRSTY BENNET
‘It Takes a Village’
The design brief focussed on housing for the public good. We were challenged to design ten dwellings, in a typology of our own choosing, that would consider the needs of the community and that might be replicated on similar sites. I found that there is a significantly larger number of single parent families living in Hamilton Hill compared to the average. We all know the saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ but what if people don’t have a village? Where can they go for everyday help? It is imperative that single parents are provided with support as they do the important work of raising children. I endeavoured to design a ‘village’ where single parent families could live side by side, supporting each other, in sustainably designed homes that reduce living expenses, with a shared ‘backyard’ and a sense of security. The site is a sloped double block in the middle-ring suburb of Hamilton Hill. The large mature tree in the middle of the site was retained, providing the ideal place for the ‘backyard’ where children can play safely away from traffic. The homes and backyard are accessed via a central footpath, promoting connection among the residents. The terraced homes, positioned end to end, are splayed out at the dual street fronts and compress together as you journey towards the central backyard, which then opens up to the large green communal space. The homes are a mix of one, two and three bedrooms, all benefitting from north facing living areas and adjoining private outdoor areas. Timber panelling wraps around the second level, providing shade for the ground floor, deep set windows and vertical pivot screens to east and west facing windows.
Image: Model of It Takes a Village.
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Image: (Top) Elevations; (Bottom) Site plan. 142
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ARCT2001 Design Studio 2 Unit Coordinator: Jennie Officer Studio Coordinator: Alex Stevens ‘+ - x /’
MIRANDA HARTONO
‘Wirra Boodja Terraces’
The project is a response to the collective concern and recognised need for housing within the Aboriginal community in Perth, specifically in Hamilton Hill. The envisioned housing framework seeks to reimagine living spaces that serve the unique needs and values of the Aboriginal population, while simultaneously honouring their cultural and environmental connections. Designed as a tribute to the land it occupies, this multi-residential medium-density housing project embodies the spirit of togetherness. Its name, Wirra Boodja, meaning ‘Gathering Place’ in Noongar, is a reflection of its purpose. Key design considerations include an embrace of the site’s natural conditions, strategic positioning of buildings and parking to minimise excavation, retaining all mature trees on site and the orientation of structures to maximise exposure to northern sunlight. The grounded design further strengthens connections to the earth through terraced landscape elements and integrated native vegetation. Emphasising permeability and openness, the design acknowledges the cultural significance of sightlines, creating connections to the external environment which enhance the ability to monitor external spaces and maintain visual access. In section, the design integrates a split-level concept, aligning the architectural structure and landscape elements with the natural contours of the site. This creates a terrace-style layout for both the outdoor landscaping and the building, minimising the need for extensive excavation. This integration not only enhances the built form and site response but also assists in controlling costs for this Aboriginal housing initiative.
Image: Wirra Boodja Terraces, perspective.
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Image: Wirra Boodja Terraces, plan and section. 146
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ARCT1001 Architecture Studio 1 Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Philip Goldswain Studio Coordinators: Marcus Ormandy Brett, Dr Philip Goldswain and Alec James, Gemma Hohnen & Bradley Millis ‘Conceptual and Compositional Strategies: UWA Centre for Environmental Studies’
DANIEL ASHBY, SUSANNA CHE, SHANNEN DELOS SANTOS, CHARLIE NEWNHAM, ADRIAN NG, EMMA STEWART, RYLAN SUTIONO & KEISHA WINATA All four studios shared a common brief, site and set of ambitions for the semester. Collectively they explored a number of formal strategies (subtractive, additive, folding) for the design of a series of small buildings on the nearby Park Avenue site which was to house a proposed University of Western Australia’s Centre for Environmental Studies. The design process built on the skills, strategies, spaces and forms from an earlier project which had examined the limits of a material, the nature of its manipulation and how that might suggest an architectural form. The site contains the oldest UWA built structures and more importantly it is a sensitive and rare site that maintains one of the few visual and actual links between Kings Park/Kaarta Gar-up and the Derbal Yerrigan/Swan River and Matilda Bay/Godroo. Students considered its indigenous history and knowledge while using non-indigenous approaches and designed buildings to house the Centre’s modest requirements: a library, a number of laboratories, reading room as well as meeting spaces that promoted a collaborative working.
Image: Adrian Ng, plan.
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Image: Rylan Sutiono, (Left) Axonometric (Right) Section. 150
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Image: Susanna Che (Left) Plan oblique; (Right) Plan. 152
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Image: (Right) Shannen Delos Santos, plan; (Left) Daniel Ashby axonometric. 154
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Image: Emma Stewart, (Left) Ground floor plan; (Right) Upper floor plan. 156
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Image: (Left) Keisha Winata, plan; (Right) Charlie Newnham plan. 158
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ARCT1010 Drawing History Unit Coordinator: Dr Philip Goldswain Teaching Staff: Dr Philip Goldswain, Samantha Dye & Jess Mountain
ASTRID COLE, HANNAH MILES & AQUINAS CASTILLO This semester students visited a building, designed a landscape or architectural object, and found a precedent project from the recent past. Each of these experiences involved a different way of understanding and thinking about experiential, propositional and mediated space. Common to them was the process of drawing – sketching, constructing orthographic drawings, making projections and diagrams. Through a series of drawings (sketches, hardline drawings and diagrams), textual description and analysis of three projects (WA Museum Boola Bardip, one of their own design projects and a selected contemporary precedent) students explore the following statement: ‘To be truly understood, architecture and landscape must be experienced, it cannot be grasped through any purely intellectual engagement’. This exploration was both in text and drawings, self-reflective of the student’s experience and as well as drawing on secondary academic sources. Students were asked to think about moving through the space, landscape and building, what we might call the ‘narrative space’ of an architectural or landscape project with a beginning, a middle and an end. The Illustrated Essay brought together these drawings to consider how we might understand the built environment through the specific media of the architectural drawing.
Image: Astrid Cole, figure ground diagram.
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Image: (Left) Aquinas Castillo, sectional oblique of design studio project; (Right) Hannah Miles, plan of design studio project. 162
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ARLA1030 Structures and Systems Unit Coordinator: Lara Camilla Pinho Teaching Staff: Lara Camilla Pinho, Marcus Ormandy Brett, Kathy Chapman, Samantha Dye & Dr Tatjana Todorovic ‘Site, Structure and Occupation’
SUSANNA CHE
‘Occupation – Nest We Grow’ For their first assignment students measure and draw an empty plot in central Perth, including surrounding buildings, and produce initial ‘working drawings’ that demonstrate site measurement and basic analysis. For their second assignment students are given a structure to study. Students research and execute drawings of the project’s structure at an appropriate scale. For the final assignment the studied structure must occupy the studied site. This placement should be defined by a careful reading of the site. The structure must adapt to its new context. Using drawings and models students demonstrate the modifications and impact the structure has had on its new surroundings.
Image: Susanna Che, Occupation Plan – Nest We Grow (Kengo Kuma & Associates and College of Environmental Design UC Berkley).
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Image: Susanna Che, Occupation Elevation – Nest We Grow (Kengo Kuma & Associates and College of Environmental Design UC Berkley). 166
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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
Image: UWA School of Design, Design HUB, 2023 Summer Exhibition opening night, 15 November 2023. Photography by Lara Camilla Pinho. 168
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LACH5511 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 2 Supervisor: Dr Simon Kilbane
EMMA MAHER
‘Polarising Places’
The following research project originated from a place of change. It viewed the existing examples of sensory integration within the public realm and looked for ways to further enhance them by exploring design elements that could demonstrate more inclusive interactions. With growing diagnosis rates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the lack of inclusivity within the public realm has become more evident. This project began with a clear overview of the current state of this inclusivity and what elements might be needed to improve it. Spaces essential to early learning development were considered, to build emotional opportunities, foster connections to place and nature, as well as to create genuine interactions with other peers whom children learn from. This dissertation explored a combination of strategies to discover what design elements were positive for children with ASD and what areas of the Perth metropolitan would benefit. It also explored strategies that landscape architects could use to design for an autistic child within the public realm. Sensory Strategies and Universal Design Principles guided Autism Positive Landscape Architecture with a conceptual understanding of this type of design. Finally, a design response was created to illustrate these outcomes, and an overall framework was created to help assist landscape architects in responding to the public realm.
Image: Understanding City of Wanneroo.
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Image: Sensory Strategies / Section: Alternative path taken. 172
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Anemochory
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Soil
Ballistic
Vehicles
Epizoochory
Autoch
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LACH5511 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 2 Supervisor: Dr Simon Kilbane
LISA LIU
‘Nature-Based Solutions for Urban Verges in Mediterranean Cities’ Verges are a specific type of urban green spaces and a part of Green Infrastructure (GI). They are increasingly important in suburban areas of Western Australia (WA), where there is limited distribution of greenspaces due to high housing density and small backyard space. This study aims to address the challenges posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, and the limited accessibility to urban green spaces. The main objective is to analyse existing verges and propose a planting design strategy using Nature-Based Solutions approach. The methodology is based on the gradient analysis of eight locations ranging from the Pacific Ocean to the Perth Hills. The sites’ original (historical) soil and vegetation complexes, as well as the current soil and vegetation conditions, were studied and analysed. Flora and vegetation were studied using ecological methods (fieldwork survey, Shannon index, species richness, seed distribution types, and plant origin). The methodology also included a comprehensive literature review, on-site observation, design process, and the development of a detailed design proposal at a fine scale. To accommodate the unique native character of original locations, four different planting strategies have been proposed. These options take into consideration the original soil and vegetation complexes, government policies regarding verges, public preferences, and the availability of plants in local nurseries. Additionally, these planting strategies consider the morphological characteristics of plant species (plant’ form, type of leaf, flower colours, and plant’ textures). This study proposes a Nature-Based Solution approach which is based on respecting and mimicking natural processes. The recommendations serve as a guideline for stakeholders to create biodiversity-friendly verges, helping to mitigate climate change and preserve biodiversity.
Image: Comic interpretation: “talking” weeds; types of seed distribution across eight surveyed sites.
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OPTION 1 LOW HEIGHT WOODY MEADOW
OPTION 2 SPONTANEOUS MEADOW
Podolepis gracilis
Carpobrotus virescens
Olearia axillaris
Kennedia prostrata
Isolepis cernua
Eremophila glabra
Leucophyta brownii
Senecio condylus
Native plant species
Half lawn + half native plant species + some spontaneous plants
Dichondra repens
Eremophila glabra
Image: Four planting design options for each site location: (Left to Right) Low-height woody meadow; spontaneous meadow; edible garden; and semi-spontan 176
OPTION 3 EDIBLE GARDEN
Edible + non-edible decorative plants (Native plants + species introduced by Europeans)
Carpobrotus virescens
Salvia rosmarinus
Lavandula sp.
OPTION 4 SEMI-SPONTANEOUS LAWN Selected spontaneous plants + lawn grasses
Dichondra repens
Stenotaphrum secundatum
Senecio condylus
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LACH5511 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 2 Supervisor: Dr Simon Kilbane
CHEN DOU
‘A living place for Alzheimer’s patients’ With the population of Australia getting older and the projected increase in the number of people living with Alzheimer’s disease from 269,000 in 2011 to almost one million by 2050 (Access Economics, 2010), it is crucial to start planning now to ensure that our homes and communities are prepared for the future. We need to make sure that these can adapt and accommodate the needs of an ageing population, as well as the needs of a growing proportion of individuals living with Alzheimer’s. Although the design of residential facilities has been influenced by the needs of Alzheimer’s patients and other cognitive impairments, the issue of accessibility to outdoor space for Alzheimer’s patients and their carers or family members has been heavily neglected. Therefore, this project is to design a neighbourhood in Perth to create a supportive and therapeutic environment for residents with Alzheimer’s disease. My dissertation part A argued that landscape design can help people living with Alzheimer’s disease through cognitive rehabilitation and psychological support as well as specific design principles of outdoor environments dedicated toward the care of Alzheimer’s patients. This project applies these design principles and explores the opportunities for their implementation at the neighbourhood, street and park level in a Perth-based case study context. My design project aims to create an Alzheimerfriendly neighbourhood while also identifying the design features that make an outdoor environment helpful and therapeutic for the residents based on understanding the issues facing people living with Alzheimer’s.
Image: Therapeutic garden plan.
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Image: Therapeutic garden section. 180
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LACH5511 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 2 Supervisor: Dr Simon Kilbane
MICHAEL ALLEN
‘Nature-based Solutions in Outdoor Community Sports’ If left ignored, the impacts of urbanisation and a changing climate promise to be catastrophic for both wildlife and humanity. Where political will often follows the concerns of voters, community-led action holds significant influence over how our cities respond to these challenges. Immediate localised benefits to biodiversity, climate resilience and human health through the delivery of ecosystem services can be achieved with relatively modest actions within our communities. Leveraging the entrenched social capital of community sports, this project explores the potential application of Nature-based Solutions interventions within our outdoor community sports spaces as to optimise the social and ecological value of these prominent urban green spaces. It is intended that a deeper connection to nature can elicit broader support for environmental action and sustainable practices, encouraging new stewardship of these spaces through community sport’s existing social and cultural institutions. The project proposes the application of a strategic NbS approach to the redevelopment of an urban sports park as a means of addressing a number of social challenges faced by its local community. The site chosen is Robertson Park in the inner city suburb of North Perth, a former wetland site 1 km north of the Perth CBD. The existing parkland includes a tennis centre comprising 38 tennis courts, a number of which have fallen into disrepair, marked for redevelopment into parkland by the City of Vincent. Analysis of the City’s proposed redevelopment plan shows modest improvements to softscape and POS through a reduction in the number of tennis courts. Through an iterative scenario planning process whereby the park’s sports footprint was further incrementally reduced, a series of alternative designs were analysed for their respective impacts on both softscape and functional passive recreation POS, all with an aim to optimising NbS intervention opportunities.
Image: A series of key strategic steps created to assist in the Nature-based Solutions guided redesign of Robertson Park.
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LACH5511 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 2 Supervisor: Dr Simon Kilbane
PATRICK ONG
‘Revisiting the Remnants: Restoration and Celebration of Urban Remnant Bushland Through Community Engagement’ Located throughout Perth reserves of urban remnant bushland exist. Typically protected through policies that limit human interaction with the intention of protecting its fragile ecosystems, this approach may also form indifferent attitudes to their survival due to diminishing experiences of the reserves. ‘Revisiting the Remnants’ seeks to challenge this notion of protection through exclusion, by instead acknowledging cultural appreciation of urban remnant bushland as an important factor of its resilience and regeneration. Research for the proposition is based upon literature that explored the relationship between human and more-than-human life forms revealing increasing evidence for correlations between increased connectedness with nature and pro-environmental behaviour1. Additional research was also conducted to analyse factors for humannature connectedness, noting that emotional attachment and compassion2 are influential in fostering care and appreciation for nature. Guided by research and multiple site analyses, a series of plans and strategies were developed for the chosen site at Wireless Hill. Places to mindfully engage with nature, as well as landscape management plans were integrated into a new masterplan to achieve the dual aims of the proposition: to create engaging spaces that foster attachment to more-than-human life; and, the regeneration of ecological systems of the reserve through community stewardship.
Endnotes 1. Gladys Barragan-Jason, et al., “Psychological and Physical Connections with Nature Improve Both Human Well-Being and Nature Conservation: A Systematic Review of Meta-Analyses.” Biological Conservation 277 (2023): 109842-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109842. 2. Ryan Lumber, Miles Richardson, and David Sheffield. “Beyond Knowing Nature: Contact, Emotion, Compassion, Meaning, and Beauty Are Pathways to Nature Connection.” PloS One 12, no. 5 (2017): e0177186–e0177186. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177186. Image: Pavilions offer a space to engage with nature and respite from urban lifestyles.
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Image: (Left) Detail plan of proposal within the surrounding neighbourhood of Ardross; (Right) Various platforms that highlight the unique qualities of the reserve 186
e are proposed as a means of connecting with nature. 187
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LACH5511 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 2 Supervisor: Dr Simon Kilbane
LIANN SMITHSON
‘Sense of nature’
How do we create the ‘sensation’ of nature in West Australian gardens? Using Piet Oudolf’s approach as a case study. Piet Oudolf is the Dutch garden designer who planted the High Line, the most visited tourist attraction in New York. With great skill his work mixes perennials with exotics, to give the ‘sensation’, or feeling, of nature and his gardens are designed to evoke a feeling that you could be somewhere in nature, in the heart of a city, even if you haven’t seen these plants before. Coupled with a focus on people, his garden design techniques lead to transcendent feelings of oneness with nature, a key focus of this research. However, in the context of Western Australia – a different climate from the Northern Hemisphere and with diverse, dry-adapted flora – how might this approach be adapted? Furthermore, of critical importance is to maintain a ‘sense of place’ whilst protecting the environment. In a world where technology is increasing the speed in which we live our lives, Piet Oudolf’s approach of slow gardens, with a focus on beauty and ephemerality, and ones that connect humans to nature, and draw parallels to your own life, is much needed. Part One laid the groundwork for naturalistic planting with a literature review of garden design techniques, and a focus on emotions in the garden: a key characteristic of Piet Oudolf’s approach. Part Two then translates Piet Oudolf’s approach and design principles into a West Australian context, through their application to a garden design. This relied on a three-fold method. First, typical gardens in Perth were analysed for their planting approach, as a basis for the new approach. Second, a planting palette was developed from plant photos taken at Kings Park Botanic Gardens and places near the chosen site. Finally, Piet Oudolf’s principles were detailed, with West Australian adaptations, the plant palette and principles united in a final design.
Image: A portion of the garden in late spring or kambarang, representing birth.
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LACH5511 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 2 Supervisor: Dr Simon Kilbane
CHUNHUI LIU
‘Urban Wildscape Design: Reimagining Wildness in The Urban Nature’ Wildscapes have attracted people from diverse cultural backgrounds throughout history. Chinese poets sought solace in their natural surroundings, English gardens revelled in the beauty of their own nature and Australia’s Aboriginal cultures found wisdom and sustenance in the vast terrain. As modern cities have grown, urban wildscapes have become a valuable resource. They interrupt the notion that cities are at odds with nature and instead evoke a desire to reconnect with intentionally created natural environments. Therefore, urban wildscapes provide a visionary and creative vision of urban nature. However, intensive urbanisation has brought about adverse consequences such as habitat loss, ecological fragmentation, shrinkage and abandonment. These factors have greatly affected traditional aesthetics. In response to this challenge, the term ‘urban wildscape’ has been used to describe areas where the urban can coexist in harmony with natural beauty. These are spaces that enhance ecological identity, promote social well-being, and enhance aesthetic quality. This paper aims to explore and provide insight into the concept of urban wildscape in the context of urban development and landscape design. It has proposed an integrated framework that applies urban nature theory to analyse the impacts and values associated with urban wildscapes. In addition, the framework highlights the potential of a wilderness gradient approach to classifying this landscape in urban areas.
Image: Wildscape matrix.
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Image: Wildscape matrix workflow and urban wildscape render. 192
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LACH5510 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 1 Supervisor: Dr Simon Kilbane
YIBIN MU
‘Wetlands, habitat and urbanization: safeguarding the future of the Far Eastern Curlew through watersensitive urban design’ World population and urbanization, species extinction As the world’s population grows, urbanization is further accelerated. This is increasingly resulting in serious problems such as climate change, change to hydrological cycles and water pollution, loss of wetlands, increased urban heat island effect, habitat loss and species extinction. As an inevitable consequence of socio-economic development, urbanization has brought about conflicts between human development and animals and the advance of urbanization is particularly impactful upon water bodies and wetlands. Alternative & Development Strategies To adjust the contradiction between urbanization and water, wetlands and ecological environment, scholars worldwide have proposed a diversity of urban development strategies. In the case of SCD and WSUD, for example, their concepts include integrating the protection of natural water bodies while providing additional artificial water bodies and green spaces or “sponges” or LID infrastructures.1 This is manifested in landscape architecture through potholes, rain gardens, urban wetlands, permeable pavements and green roofs. Through soil infiltration, rainwater retention, improved waterways, and groundwater recharge, these facilities can act like sponges to store water and improve the city’s water situation.2 At the same time, these landscapes can improve the city’s vegetation cover and 194
create public green open spaces. More importantly, although more research needs to be done, the facilities like urban wetlands, rain gardens and green roofs can undoubtedly increase or protect animal habitats and improve biodiversity. Sponge City and Wetland The core concept of SCD is to consider the cities spaces to function as a giant sponge composed of several tiny sponges by building low-impact development facilities.3 Some of these sponges are natural, and some are artificial. Each sponge has the ability to regulate rainwater, store water resources, and purify water bodies. However, these sponges are unevenly distributed in cities, and their ability to regulate water varies. These sponges are the same as the landscape in the “landscape security pattern” theory. Their pattern in space is composed of specific key locations and spaces. Their pattern is essential for solving water problems and protecting biodiversity and populations. The diffusion is of great significance. However, with the acceleration of urbanization, natural sponges are destroyed, artificial sponges become sparse, and the essential patterns between sponges are increasingly damaged. The SCD creates a vital system by repairing, adding new sponges, and replanning their layout.4 This system is different from grey infrastructure. It is more resilient and multi-functional and can solve water problems flexibly and continuously. The design and construction of sponges include a variety of measures, such as the construction of rain gardens, wetlands, green roofs, and permeable paving. These sponges can achieve the absorption, storage, infiltration and purification of rainwater, as well as utilising stored water resources when needed.5 As a natural ecosystem, wetlands have good hydrological functions and ecological service capabilities.6 Firstly, wetlands have a good natural purification ability to remove pollutants in rainwater, such as Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Nitrate
Image: Nick Athanas, Far Eastern Curlew and Eurasian Curlew, https://www.flickr.com/photos/antpitta/31102366087.
Nitrogen (NO-3-N), Ammonium Nitrogen (NH3-N), and Total Nitrogen (TN), and the construction of wetlands in sponge cities can be an excellent way to purify rainwater.7 Secondly, wetlands can increase the utilisation rate of rainwater. Wetlands can store rainwater and utilise it when needed, such as for landscape water bodies and industrial water in the city. Rainwater resources can be effectively collected and utilised by constructing wetlands, reducing dependence on traditional water resources. Finally, wetlands as a natural ecosystem can reduce flood peak pressure, buffer the impact of heavy rainfall on the city, and solve the city’s drainage problems.8 Therefore, wetlands have an essential role in constructing sponge cities, which can reduce waterlogging problems and improve the utilisation efficiency of rainwater resources.9 Water Sensitive Cities and Wetlands Water Sensitive Urban Cities (WSUD) is an integrated approach to urban planning and design that minimizes urban consumption of water resources and pollutants that cities discharge.10 As natural water
treatment systems, wetlands can absorb and filter water, purify water bodies and enhance biodiversity. WSUD can interact with wetlands to achieve sustainable use of water resources and improved water quality.11 For example, WSUD can collect and store rainwater and then direct it to wetlands for treatment and purification.12 Wetlands can improve water quality by removing pollutants and nutrients from water through plants and soil. Nonetheless, wetlands are an essential water treatment facility in water-sensitive urban systems to treat sewage and stormwater discharged by cities. More efficient water management and water quality improvement can be achieved by using wetlands in conjunction with other water-sensitive urban facilities (e.g., permeable paving, bioretention basins, etc.).13 In addition, wetlands can provide landscaping, improve air quality and increase urban green space. In conclusion, although contamination of wetlands may threaten the survival and reproduction of some species, interactions between water-sensitive urban systems and wetlands can lead to sustainable use of 195
urban water resources and improved water quality and urban environments and biodiversity.14 Wetlands and Bird Habitat Migratory birds require different wetlands as habitats in different seasons and locations, so the loss or deterioration of a single habitat can seriously impact a species. McGowan’s study of Calidris canutus supports this idea.15 While this species has a much better breeding habitat in the U.S., because of the quality of other habitats, the population’s breeding rate in Canadian populations has higher breeding rates. Thus, wetland populations are essential to birds.16 However, Davidson’s count of 189 reports on wetland areas led to the conclusion that 87 per cent of the world’s wetlands have disappeared since the 18th century. Not only that, but the rate of wetland disappearance is also accelerating.17 Human activities mainly cause the disappearance of wetland. Facing the rapidly decreasing wetland area, scholars from various countries have proposed replacing wetlands with some human facilities to provide bird habitats. Melville18 pointed out that the main reason for the plummeting number of bird species on the East Asian Australasian Flyway is the disappearance and degradation of wetlands around the Yellow Sea. To address this problem, Chinese scholars have proposed replacing wetlands with aquaculture areas, salt flats, and other areas.19 However, studies have shown that while this can mitigate the rate of species decline, it still does not entirely solve the problem. Therefore, restoring or constructing new wetlands as bird habitats is crucial to the survival and reproduction of migratory birds. Far Eastern Curlew The Far Eastern Curlew (Numenius madagascariensis) also called Eastern Curlew. It is endemic to the East Asian – Australasian Flyway and is the largest migratory shorebird species in the
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world.20 The Far Eastern Curlew is one of 20 birds that the Australian Government with a prioritized resource allocation to support species recovery. The Australian Government plays an important role in building international cooperation to conserve migratory birds and is a member of the East-Asian – Australasian Flyway Partnership. Five projects are helping to restore Far Eastern Curlew habitat through the National Landcare Program. Threats Over the past three decades, the Curlew population has declined by 80% in Australia, with only 20,000 to 50,000 individuals surviving by 2023, according to Australian government statistics.21 The main reason for the population decline is habitat loss caused by development around the Yellow Sea.22 The wetlands and shoals along the Yellow Sea are important food supply points for the Far Eastern Curlew. Without this supply point, it would be difficult for migratory birds to complete their migration. Significance The conservation of Far Eastern Curlew is essential to the ecosystem. First, Far Eastern Curlew are a key food chain link, feeding primarily on crustaceans such as crabs and shrimp. By controlling crustacean populations, Far Eastern Curlew help maintain the balance of these populations. If Far Eastern Curlew decline, crustacean populations may increase, negatively impacting other species. Secondly, Far Eastern Curlew also play an essential ecological role during migration. They face threats from coastal development in their winter habitats in Australia and along their migration routes in Asia.23 Through protecting the habitat of Far Eastern Curlews, actions may also protect the habitat of other migratory birds and maintain the stability of migratory bird populations, the Far Eastern Curlew is
therefore an umbrella genus. In addition, protecting Far Eastern Curlew helps maintain the health of coastal ecosystems. They forage for food in intertidal habitats that are also important habitats for other species. By protecting Far Eastern Curlew’s habitat, we can protect the integrity and stability of the entire coastal ecosystem.24 In summary, protecting Far Eastern Curlew is critical to maintaining the ecosystem’s balance and protecting other species’ habitats.
Endnotes 1. Liu, Lawluvy, Shi, and Yap. “Low Impact Development (LID) Practices: A Review on Recent Developments, Challenges and Prospects.” Water, Air, & Soil Pollution 232 no.9 (2021). https://doi. org/10.1007/s11270-021-05262-5. 2. Everett, Lamond, Morzillo, Chan, and Matsler. “Sustainable drainage systems: helping people live with water.” Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Water Management 169 no.2 (2016): 94-104. https://doi.org/10.1680/wama.14.00076. 3. Wang, Li, Wang, Zhang, Cao, and Xu. “A brief analysis of the key points of sponge city construction.” 建设科技 no.01 (2015): 19-21. 4. Yu, Li, Yuan, Fu, Qiao, and Wang. ““Sponge City” Theory and Practice.” 城市规划 39 no.06 (2015): 26-36. 5. Chou. “The connotation, approaches and prospects of sponge city (LID).” 给水排水 51 (03), 2015: 1-7. 6. Zhang, Deletic, Dotto, Allen, and Bach. “Modelling a ‘business case’ for blue-green infrastructure: lessons from the Water Sensitive Cities Toolkit.” Blue-Green Systems 2 no.1 (2020): 383-403. https://doi. org/10.2166/bgs.2020.018. 7. Zhang. “Modelling a ‘business case’ for blue-green infrastructure: lessons from the Water Sensitive Cities Toolkit.” 8. Xiao, Wu, Guo, M.H. Ou, Pueppke, W.X. Ou, and Tao. “An evaluation framework for designing ecological security patterns and prioritizing ecological corridors: application in Jiangsu Province, China.” Landscape Ecology 35 no.11 (2020): 2517-2534. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01113-6. 9. Meng, Wang, and Ru. “Urban wetland landscape design based on the construction of “sponge city”.” 生态经济 32 no.04 (2016): 224-227. 10. Parastoo, Mohammad, and Alireza. “Investigating the Level of Attention to Water Sensitive Urban Design Approach in Academic Education of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design.” Āb va fāz̤ilāb : majallah-i ʻilmī, pizhūhishī 33, no.1 (2022): 105-118. https:// doi.org/10.22093/wwj.2021.311538.3188. 11. Zhang. “Modelling a ‘business case’ for blue-green infrastructure: lessons from the Water Sensitive Cities Toolkit.”
12. Kentula, Gwin, and Pierson. “Tracking Changes In Wetlands With Urbanization: Sixteen Years Of Experience In Portland, Oregon, Usa.” Wetlands (Wilmington, N.C.) 24, no. 4 (2004): 734–43. https://doi.org/10.1672/0277-5212(2004)024[0734:TCIWWU]2.0 .CO;2. 13. Sochacka, Bos, and Dobbie. “Contextualising Landscape Perceptions: The Role of Urban Landscape, Ecosystem and Water System in Formation of Mental Models of a Stormwater Wetland in Brisbane.” Landscape Ecology 36, no. 9 (2021): 2599–2617. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-021-01250-6. 14. Ghofrani, Sposito, and Faggian. “A Comprehensive Review of BlueGreen Infrastructure Concepts.” International Journal of Environment and Sustainability 6, no. 1 (2017). https://doi.org/10.24102/ijes. v6i1.728. 15. MacKinnon, Verkuil, Murray. “IUCN situation analysis on East and Southeast Asian intertidal habitats, with particular reference to the Yellow Sea (including the Bohai Sea).” Occasional paper of the IUCN Species Survival Commission 47, 2012. 16. Schuh, and Guadagnin. “Habitat and landscape factors associated with the nestedness of waterbird assemblages and wetland habitats in South Brazil.” Austral ecology 43, no.8 (2018): 989-999. https:// doi.org/10.1111/aec.12648. 17. Davidson, “How Much Wetland Has the World Lost? Long-Term and Recent Trends in Global Wetland Area.” Marine and Freshwater Research 65, no. 10 (2014): 934–41. https://doi.org/10.1071/ MF14173. 18. Melville, Chen, and Ma. “Shorebirds along the Yellow Sea Coast of China Face an Uncertain Future – a Review of Threats.” Emu 116, no. 2 (2016): 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1071/MU15045. 19. Yanjie Xu, Si, Yin, Zhang, Grishchenko, Prins, P. Gong, and W.F. de Boer. “Species-Dependent Effects of Habitat Degradation in Relation to Seasonal Distribution of Migratory Waterfowl in the East Asian– Australasian Flyway.” Landscape Ecology 34, no. 2 (2019): 243–57. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-018-00767-7. 20. Finn, and Catterall. “Towards an efficient indicator of habitat quality for Eastern Curlews on their intertidal feeding areas.” Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 30 no.1 (2022): 26-47. https://doi.org/10.1080/14486563.2022.2084166. 21. Finn. “Towards an efficient indicator of habitat quality for Eastern Curlews on their intertidal feeding areas.” 22. Li, J. Zhang, Liu, Lloyd, Pagani-Núñez, and Z.W. Zhang. “Differences in Dietary Specialization, Habitat Use and Susceptibility to Human Disturbance Influence Feeding Rates and Resource Partitioning between Two Migratory Numenius Curlew Species.” Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 245 (2020): 106990-. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2020.106990. 23. Murray, Clemens, Phinn, Possingham, and Fuller. “Tracking the Rapid Loss of Tidal Wetlands in the Yellow Sea.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12, no. 5 (2014): 267–72. https://doi. org/10.1890/130260. 24. Finn. “Towards an efficient indicator of habitat quality for Eastern Curlews on their intertidal feeding areas.” 197
LACH5510 Independent Dissertation by Design Part 1 Supervisor: Dr Simon Kilbane
KATRINE XU
‘The future of Chelodina: Increasing wetland landscape connectivity to safeguard its habitat and migratory stability, Perth’ Introduction: Wetlands are unique ecosystems in which the soil is saturated or covered by water for extended periods of time, an environment that can be either naturally occurring or human-created, and are found throughout the world from the tropics to the boreal zone. Wetland soils are often hypoxic or anaerobic as a result of prolonged waterlogging and are often rich in organic matter, making them a habitat for many species.1 According to the Ramsar Convention, wetlands cover a total area of over 12.1 million square kilometres globally, with 54% being characterized by permanent inundation and the remaining 46% experiencing seasonal submergence.2 There has been a consistent decline in global natural wetland extent over time and both inland and marine/coastal wetlands have experienced a significant reduction of approximately 35% between 1970 and 2015. This is three times higher than the rate at the forests are lost. In contrast, artificial or constructed wetlands consisting mainly of rice fields and reservoirs have almost doubled during this period and now account for about 12% of the total area occupied by wetlands. However, the expansion of these man-made wetlands fails to sufficiently compensate for the losses suffered by natural wetland ecosystems.3 In wetland ecosystems, the number of animals
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that survive based on wetlands is rapidly declining. According to the Global Wetlands Overview, a quarter of all wetland species are endangered. Since 1970, 81% of inland wetland species and 36% of coastal species have experienced dramatic population declines and the majority of animal species inhabiting inland and coastal wetlands are listed as highly endangered, with more than 10% considered globally endangered. Much of the literature suggests that freshwater turtles are one of the world’s most endangered fauna.4 Freshwater turtles are experiencing massive population declines, with more than half of the species threatened with extinction or already extinct.5 Urbanisation has led to the loss of natural habitats for many species that depend on these ecosystems6 and freshwater turtles are an oftenneglected species in urban environments. Dependent on wetland connectivity due to their highly migratory habits,7 the fragmentation and disappearance of wetlands presents a key challenge to finding suitable habitats for relocation during migration. Existing literature consistently highlights the fragmentation, degradation, and disappearance of wetlands, with human activities being the primary causes.8 In this context, the aim of this paper is to explore ways to enhance landscape connectivity of wetlands also considering responses in the face of other environmental pressures, in order to ensure the sustainability and stability of Chelodina oblonga habitats and migratory pathways in Perth. This paper is divided into two parts. In Part One, the ecological functions of wetlands as an ecosystem on earth and the threats they face are introduced. Then, the problem of this study and the research methodology adopted are clearly defined. This is followed by a detailed description of the study area and the specific study species. In the literature review section, the content is divided
Image: Ideal Chelodina oblonga‘s habitat
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into three thematic strata. First, an exploration of ecological landscapes design, defining what a landscape is, and the relationship between landscape connectivity and animal migration, as well as what landscape architects can do to increase landscape connectivity. Second, an introduction to Chelodina spp., including its population dynamics and nesting sites in urban areas, and migratory trends. Finally, an overview of wetland landscape connectivity, exploring the relationship between Chelodina spp. and wetland landscape connectivity is outlined. Furthermore, several case studies examine current ecological corridors for animal migration and the management plans for wetlands. Threatened species Chelodina oblonga: Chelodina oblonga, is often referred to as the Oblong Turtle, South-western Long-necked Turtle or Snake-necked Turtle. Broadly speaking, the Chelodina oblonga population is found in the Southwest of Western Australia, across the whole of Northern Australia to Cape York and southern New Guinea.9 Chelodina oblonga has a more elongated head and neck compared to its carapace; the back of its neck is decorated with multiple bluntly conical, warty structures; ventrally, the plastron is broad and covers the front of the carapace completely, or almost completely, as viewed from the abdomen; and the front of the plastron occupies only about half of its total area.10 Chelodina oblonga is significant to the Noongar people who named them Yaakan and Booyi.11 Chelodina oblonga is a turtle that appears extensively in Australian Aboriginal rock paintings, some of which date back at least 8,000 years, and the remains of which can be found in a number of archaeological sites.12 Despite the presence of some cultural value in Noongar culture, the state of the Chelodina oblonga is not encouraging. The Chelodina oblonga was one of the Aboriginal
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people’s favourite foods prior to European settlement of the Swan Coastal Plain. Indeed, the annual hunt for this turtle is one of the oldest continuous hunts for a reptile in the world.13 After European settlement of the Swan Coastal Plain, due to the urbanisation led to the fragmentation, degradation and loss of Perth’s wetlands, much turtle habitat was lost. Santoro points out that the main current threat to Chelodina oblonga is the drying up of wetlands caused by climate change. As highly migratory turtles, they move frequently to find suitable habitat for breeding and feeding, which makes them vulnerable to being hit by vehicles during migration. In addition, predators such as red foxes and crows destroy their nests and devour their eggs and hatchlings, leading to a decline in the number of young turtles.14 Chelodina oblonga was assessed as ‘Near Threatened’ by the IUCN in 2012.15
Endnotes 1. Paul A. Keddy, Wetland ecology: principles and conservation, Cambridge studies in ecology., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 2. Royal C Gardner and Max Finlayson, “Global Wetland Outlook” (Gland, Switzerland: Martha Rojas Urrego, 2018). Nick C. Davidson, “How much wetland has the world lost? Longterm and recent trends in global wetland area,” Marine and Freshwater Research 65, no. 10 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1071/ MF14173. 3. Royal C Gardner and Max Finlayson, “Global Wetland Outlook” (Gland, Switzerland: Martha Rojas Urrego, 2018). Nick C. Davidson, “How much wetland has the world lost? Longterm and recent trends in global wetland area,” Marine and Freshwater Research 65, no. 10 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1071/ MF14173. 4. Shelley Burgin and Michelle Ryan, “Comparison of sympatric freshwater turtle populations from an urbanized Sydney catchment,” Aquatic Conservation 18, no. 7 (2008), https:// doi.org/10.1002/aqc.945. Anthony Santoro et al., “Land use surrounding wetlands influences urban populations of a freshwater turtle,” Aquatic Conservation 30, no. 5 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.3324. John H. Roe and Arthur Georges, “Terrestrial activity, movements and spatial ecology of an Australian freshwater turtle, Chelodina longicollis, in a temporally dynamic wetland system,” Austral Ecology 33, no.
8 (2008), https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-9993.2008.01877.x. Bruno O. Ferronato, John H. Roe, and Arthur Georges, “Responses of an Australian freshwater turtle to drought-flood cycles along a natural to urban gradient,” Austral Ecology 42, no. 4 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1111/aec.12462. 5. J. F. Ocock et al., “Identifying Critical Habitat for Australian Freshwater Turtles in a Large Regulated Floodplain: Implications for Environmental Water Management,” Environmental Management (New York) 61, no. 3 (2018), https://doi. org/10.1007/s00267-017-0837-0. Santoro et al., “Land use surrounding wetlands influences urban populations of a freshwater turtle.” 6. John H. Roe, Alicia C. Brinton, and Arthur Georges, “Temporal and Spatial Variation in Landscape Connectivity for a Freshwater Turtle in a Temporally Dynamic Wetland System,” Ecological Applications 19, no. 5 (2009), https://doi.org/10.1890/080101.1. John H. Roe and Arthur Georges, “Heterogeneous wetland complexes, buffer zones, and travel corridors: Landscape management for freshwater reptiles,” Biological Conservation 135, no. 1 (2007), https://doi.org/10.1016/j. biocon.2006.09.019. 7. Jason J. Kolbe and Fredric J. Janzen, “Impact of Nest-Site Selection on Nest Success and Nest Temperature in Natural and Disturbed Habitats,” Ecology (Durham) 83, no. 1 (2002), https://doi.org/10.1890/0012-9658(2002)083[0269:IONSSO ]2.0.CO;2. Roe, Brinton, and Georges, “Temporal and Spatial Variation in Landscape Connectivity for a Freshwater Turtle in a Temporally Dynamic Wetland System”. Santoro et al., “Land use surrounding wetlands influences urban populations of a freshwater turtle.” 8. Bradley J. Cosentino and Robert L. Schooley, “Dispersal and Wetland Fragmentation,” in The Wetland Book: I: Structure and Function, Management and Methods, ed. C. Max Finlayson et al. (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2016). Shengjie Hu et al., “Global wetlands: Potential distribution, wetland loss, and status,” The Science of the Total Environment 586 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.02.001. 9. G. Shea, S. Thomson, and A. Georges, “The identity of Chelodina oblonga Gray 1841 (Testudines: Chelidae) reassessed,” Zootaxa 4779, no. 3 (May 20 2020), https://doi. org/10.11646/zootaxa.4779.3.9, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/33055783. 10. Shea, Thomson, and Georges, “The identity of Chelodina oblonga Gray 1841 (Testudines: Chelidae) reassessed.” 11. “Southwestern Snake-Necked Turtles,” City of Joondalup , accessed October 18, 2023, https://www.joondalup.wa.gov.au/ tag/turtle. 12. Kennett et al., “Chelodina oblonga Gray 1841 – Northern SnakeNecked Turtle.” 13. Kennett et al., “Chelodina oblonga Gray 1841 – Northern SnakeNecked Turtle.”
14. Santoro Anthony, “The implications of climate change and urbanisation throughout the lifecycle of a freshwater turtle,” (2022). Santoro et al., “Land use surrounding wetlands influences urban populations of a freshwater turtle.”; Anthony Santoro et al., “Optimizing road underpass design to maximize use by a freshwater turtle (Chelodina oblonga),” Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems (2023), https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.3982. 15. Peter Paul van Dijk et al., “Turtles of the World, 2012 Update: Annotated Checklist of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status,” in Conservation Biology of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises (2012).
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LACH5422 Landscape Design Studio - Making Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Simon Kilbane ‘Rockingham Regional Memorial Park’
YUTING LIU
‘Please, remember me – Explore memorials in cemeteries with memories as carriers.’ The envisaged eco-friendly memorial park is a thoughtfully designed space aimed at commemorating departed loved ones and fostering a nuanced understanding of death. It incorporates distinct sections tailored for various styles of green burials, each carefully aligned with the unique characteristics of its surroundings. At the heart of the park lies a meticulously planned core area, housing a bespoke depository of memory. Here, memory is segmented into individual, and group displays, elegantly displayed through purposeful structures as memory pillars and memory cabinets. This design approach not only pays homage to individual lives but also accentuates the importance of collective community memories. The design’s spatial exploration transcends the physical, incorporating a strategic interplay of light and shadow to evoke emotions associated with memory. This intentional orchestration creates an immersive, contemplative experience for visitors, contributing to the dynamic ambiance of the park. Furthermore, natural elements such as thoughtfully arranged planting, consideration of steep terrain, and the incorporation of tall trees seamlessly integrate into the site. This deliberate fusion unlocks the park’s full potential, transforming it into a serene sanctuary conducive to contemplation and solace. In summary, the memorial park seamlessly merges spatial exploration, the interplay of light and shadow, and eco-friendly funeral practices. It not only honours the departed but also provides a professional, serene environment for reflection, establishing a profound connection between life, death, and the enduring beauty of nature.
Image: Central design intertwines individual and community memories for a profound tribute.
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LACH5422 Landscape Design Studio - Making Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Simon Kilbane ‘Rockingham Regional Memorial Park’
TIANCHEN ZHANG
‘Finding Order within Chaos’
Margaret Atwood once suggested that ‘Life isn’t a track, it’s a wilderness to be explored to your heart’s content’, while the famous Chinese writer Tiesheng said ‘If you predict the future of everything, you will say that there are countless possibilities, but if you look back at its past, you will know that there is only one destined path’. Similarly, this design aims to help people feel life and to find the meaning of life. The carriageway (main road) from entrance to exit metaphorically passes through childhood, adulthood, and old age: an experience of feeling the cycle of life. People are start the same when they are born – this is the order of life – but with time people’s growth paths branch into countless possibilities: this is the disorder of life… all people will die and all rivers run into the sea, hence, a return to the order. However perhaps death is not the end, but rather, the starting point of a new life. As such in this design a return path leads straight back to the starting point, realizing the cycle of life. Through the design, the order is represented by the use of a degrees of formal symmetrical balance and imbalance. In addition, the design is expressed through material selection to enhance the narrative of the site and the connectivity between visitors and site, and above all, the emotional resonance between the visitors and the dead, establishing the connection between the world of life and the world of death and helping to convey feelings through the site’s circulation and facilities.
Image: Masterplan.
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Image: Initial site concepts developed through collage. 206
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LACH5422 Landscape Design Studio - Making Unit and Studio Coordinator: Dr Simon Kilbane ‘Rockingham Regional Memorial Park’
YIBIN MU
‘Multi Link Cemetery’ Cemetery is never just a place for people who have passed away. What kind of cemetery can be called an excellent one? While cemeteries serve the purpose of burying bodies or ashes, they also mean a great deal to those who remain. A “good” cemetery should not only provide space for family and friends to remember the deceased but should also guide them through their grief. Cemeteries are also important public green spaces in cities, acting as parks and green corridors. Therefore, the cemetery should be a place that serves what is alive. For the humanity, Rockingham, as an inclusive, open and diverse area, the cemetery should consider different cultures and different religions to help people find peace and return to life after remembering the deceased. For the nature’s other creations, it should be a suitable habitat and paradise. To meet the needs of the site, the path is the most important landscape element in the site. Firstly, path creates privacy for remember. Secondly, as a connecting element, path can lead people to the public green open space and at the same time led to find peace. Thirdly, the complexity of the site in the face of different people can also be solved according to the connectivity of the path. Fourthly, designing paths for animals can be a good solution to the problem of destroying existing animal habitats. Finally, the concept of path as a connection is very suitable for the design of cemeteries. This is what Multi Link means.
Image: In the Egyptian city of the dead, the living and the dead lived together. This inspired me to think about who the cemetery was built for.
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Image: (Left) Representative area of the site. It is divided into terraced cemetery, edge forest and public open space; (Right) Physical model. 210
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LACH4421 Australian Landscapes Unit Coordinator: Rosie Halsmith Teaching Staff: Rosie Halsmith & Loren Holmes
and Memmot4 describe this as “The New Australian Design”, whereby design of our objects, interiors and places are informed by Indigenous knowledges acquired from thousands of years.
PRISCILLA HUBBARD
UWA current state (summary) UWA’s Strategy5 summarises the strategic direction and priorities of the university up to 2030. The document’s “defining characteristics” and “strategic themes” support broadscale indigenisation of curricula across the university course offerings and culturally competent graduates. Reconciliation Action Plans (RAP) assist “businesses to embed the principles and purpose of reconciliation”6. Neither the university nor the School of Design had a RAP at the time of compiling the unabridged report. UWA’s Indigenous participation rate is 1.3%7, signifying that Indigenous students are still underrepresented in higher education given 3.8% of Australians identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.8 UWA has identified strategies for improving participation rates as part of the Indigenous Student Success Program.9 Enrolment by discipline type and domestic vs international was evaluated. Analysing enrolment metrics can help inform the design of the revised curriculum (e.g. undergraduate programs have higher numbers of domestic students and generally have more free curriculum capacity for indigenous content). An analysis of four Australian design schools found Architecture typically has less focus on Indigenous knowledges compared to other built environment disciplines, while Landscape Architecture students start with a higher knowledge baseline10. A cursory review of UWA’s current Landscape Architecture indigenisation experience was completed and key observations were collated into a SWOT analysis (also see unabridged report).
‘Indigenising UWA’s School of Design curriculum’ The content of this report was prepared for the purposes of an assignment and does not necessarily represent the views of the University of Western Australia. Report purpose Indigenisation refers to the “incorporation of Indigenous knowledges, cultures and experiences”.1 This abridged report presents proposed principles, recommendations and a diagrammatic process to indigenise the University of Western Australia (UWA) School of Design curriculum. The original unabridged report, prepared for “LACH4421 Australian Landscapes”, is available here. Justification for indigenisation of curriculum Indigenisation programs support Indigenous equity, empowerment, self-determination and success as education can be a powerful decolonisation tool.2 Indigenising curriculum is a core component of University Australia’s “Indigenous Strategy 2022-25”.3 Furthermore, indigenising the School of Design’s curricula is an expectation of the peak bodies responsible for accreditation of UWA’s design courses (i.e. AIA, AILA, PIA). Indigenisation is particularly relevant in design given Indigenous Australians were our first designers. As contemporary designers, graduates who have learnt traditional engagement / practices can support the healing of Country through authentic, respectful engagement and purposeful work. Page 212
Image: Figure 1 - Proposed simplified “Co-Creation Process” for indigenising the School of Design curricula.
Case studies (summary) Two key case studies informed the proposed principles and process presented within this report. Case study 1 is the UWA Juris Doctor program, which is hosted by the Law school1. This case study is specific to the Country UWA’s Crawley and Nedland’s campuses are situated upon (i.e. Wadjuk Noongar Boodjar). In addition, both the Law and Design schools work under the same university governance and strategy. This case study could be considered a pilot program for the broader university
with many elements such as existing relationships and some of the “Principles of Indigenisation” being potentially transferable. Leveraging of this program may also minimise stakeholder fatigue. Case study 2 comprises “Indigenous inclusion and Indigenising the University” at the University of Auckland.11 This case study was selected because it presents a logical eight-point difference between inclusion and indigenisation, which supports transformation from one to both models.
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Image: Figure 2 - Proposed simplified “Implementation Process” for revising the School of Design curricula.
Preliminary principles and recommendations A review of relevant indigenisation of curriculum literature has also informed the preliminary principles and recommendations presented here.1,3,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 Recommended process A recommended process is proposed in below. The co-creation phases of the indigenisation process are expected to be fluid / iterative (Figure 1), while pre-work / implementation / monitoring / continuous improvement phases resemble a more conventional
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project management approach (Figure 2). A full explanation of these processes are provided in the unabridged report. Implementation Schedule Given the iterative nature of co-creating principles and redesigning curricula a detailed schedule is not provided. To do so would be pre-emptive and apply a linear western approach to what should be an Indigenous-led journey (a “wavy line”). That said, the indigenisation of UWA’s Juris Doctor program is a
five-year project. Re-accreditation by AIA, AILA and PIA is due in 2027, which could be a tentative target date for launching. Conclusion This report provides preliminary principles and recommendations, as well as a proposed process based on analysis of research and case studies. Indigenisation of curriculum should not be a “cookie cutter” of these programs. The School of Design’s program should be situated for the Country that learning and designing is on / about and must be developed respectfully and collaboratively. Students should graduate understanding their role in “giving back” by sensitively applying their Indigenous learning in important reconciliatory and purposeful work.
Reference 1. Kwaymullina, A. 2019. “Teaching for the 21st Century: Indigenising the Law Curriculum at UWA.” Legal Education Review. Vol. 29, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.53300/001c.12080. 2. Pidgeon, M. 2016. “More than a Checklist: Meaningful Indigenous Inclusion in Higher Education,” Social Inclusion. Vol. 4(1), 77-91. 3. Universities Australia. 2022. Indigenous Strategy 2022-2025. Indigenous Strategy 2022-25 (universitiesaustralia.edu.au). 4. Page, A. and Memmot, P. 2021. “Design – Building on Country” 1st. ed. Port Melbourne: Thames & Hudson. 5. 5University of Western Australia, The. n.d.-a. “UWA 2030”. UWA-2030-Full-Report.pdf. 6. Reconciliation Australia. n.d.-a. “Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) Framework”. Reconciliation Australia. Accessed August, 10, and September 28 2023. https://www.reconciliation.org.au/wpcontent/uploads/2021/09/RAP-Levels-and-Framework.pdf. 7. University of Western Australia, The. 2023. “Annual Report 22” https://www.annualreport.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/ pdf_file/0005/3690608/180071-UWA-Annual-Report_FINAL_ WEB_single-pages.pdf. 8. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2023. “Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians” ABS. https://www.abs. gov.au/statistics/people/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islanderpeoples/estimates-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islanderaustralians/30-june-2021.
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University of Western Australia, The. 2022. “Student Access and Participation Framework 2022–2025.” https://www.governance. uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/3682543/StudentAccess-and-Participation-Framework-2022-2025-web.pdf. 10. Tucker, R., Loy Chow, D., Heyes, D., Revell, G. and Jones, D. 2018. “Recasting Terra Nullius Blindness: Empowering Indigenous Protocols and Knowledge in Australian University Built Environment Education.” International Journal Technological Design Education, Vol. 28: 303-322. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10798-016-9389-5. 11. Hoskins, T.K. and Jones, A. 2022. “Indigenous Inclusion and Indigenising the University” New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies Vol. 57:305–320. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40841-02200264-1. 12. Acton, R., Salter, P., Lenoy, M. and Stevenson, R. 2017. “Conversations on cultural sustainability: stimuli for embedding Indigenous knowledges and ways of being into curriculum”, Higher Education Research & Development, 36:7, 1311-1325, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1325852. 13. Leonard, B.R. and Ocean R.M. 2016. “Indigenous Struggles Within The Colonial Project: Reclaiming Indigenous Knowledges in the Western Academy.” Knowledge Cultures 4 (3): 99-116. 14. Kennedy, J. Thomas, L., Percy, A., Dean, B., Delahunty, J., Harden-Thew, K. and e Laat, M. 2019. “An Aboriginal way towards curriculum reconciliation”, International Journal for Academic Development, 24:2, 148-162, https://doi.org/10.1080 /1360144X.2019.1593172. 15. Rigney, L.I. 2011. “Review of Indigenous Higher Education Consultancy: Professor Lester-Irabinna Rigney”, Australian Government, Department of Education. https://www.education. gov.au/access-and-participation/resources/Indigenous-highereducation-reform-and-Indigenous-knowledges. 16. Demssie, Y.N., Biemans, H.J.A, Wesselink, R. and Mulder, M. 2020. “Combining Indigenous Knowledge and Modern Education to Foster Sustainability Competencies: Towards a Set of Learning Design Principles”, Sustainability Vol.12, no. 17: 6823. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12176823.
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LACH3001 / LACH1000 Landscape Groundings and Resolution Studios Unit Coordinator: Daniel Jan Martin Teaching Staff: Daniel Jan Martin, Caine Holdsworth & Liam Mouritz ‘Regeneration Instruments / Regeneration Infrastructures’ On the banks of North Fremantle sits APACE WA. A revegetation provider, nursery, community garden, seed bank and education hub. An engine-room for biodiversity in the south west ecoregion on the mouth of the Bilya. We have imagined instruments and infrastructures for the APACE and Bilya landscape, epicentres for regeneration in the context of climate change, biodiversity loss and sea level rise now and in the decades to come. LACH3001 students undertook landscape strategy formation incorporating the APACE nursery, recreation areas, parklands and foreshore into a time-based masterplan looking into the future in the context of change on the site. These strategies have guided the development of detailed systems, structures or elements which support APACE and regeneration in the landscape. LACH1000 students undertook detailed site tracings and site operations to define paths along the Bilya foreshore site. This journey is furnished with regeneration instruments imagined and drawn at key sites along this path. These are points of intervention to pause and wonder, gather and see, and stimulate action and regeneration in the landscape.
Image: First and third-year Landscape Architecture students with Whadjuk Elder Sandra Harben on one of their visits to the Bilya and APACE WA in August 2023.
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Image: LACH3001student’s projects (Left to Right): Joyce Van Leeuwen, Jesse Liebregts, Kane Morriss, Tamara Kennedy, Sally Foss and Asha Combes. 218
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Image: LACH1000 student’s instruments (Top Left to Bottom Right): Marcus Lammerts van Bueren, Michael McKenna, Avril Stewart, Xiuming Qi, Tom Broderic 220
ck, Asher Sinclair, Mark Tay, Angela Pangilinan, Mel Watkins, Kenjie Ben, Katherine Osborne and Rocy Ma. 221
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LACH2001 Landscape Dynamic Studio Unit and Studio Coordinator: Rosie Halsmith ‘Plants in Place: Narrative Strategies for Shenton Bushland’
SHYAN LEE
‘Supernatural’
Green infrastructure has been shown to have many benefits, ranging from management of stormwater, reduction of pollutants to creating healthy microbiomes within people. As we move towards a future of higher temperatures, more intense weather, water scarcity and many unknown global climate changes, we must address the role our cities play. There are a large number of natural habitats distributed across Perth, however, due to separation, relatively small sizes and harsh urban environments, they are experiencing difficulties in remaining viable. We can alleviate this by connecting them to each other through green corridors and merging them into a singular, aggregate, urban super-landscape that will have the critical mass to self-sustain and at the same time create valuable habitat. Beginning with corridors at Shenton Bushland, this landscape plan aims to create the foundation of this vast network of interconnected green spaces throughout the city. This will emanate from the heart of the bushland where its potential is elevated and maximised through holistic ecological management practices to create a vibrant and healthy biodiversity hotspot.
Image: Supernature corridor, plan.
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LACH2001 Landscape Dynamic Studio Unit and Studio Coordinator: Rosie Halsmith ‘Plants in Place: Narrative Strategies for Shenton Bushland’
LEWIS CRUMP
‘Shenton Park Bushland senses immersive nature walk’ Allocasuarina fraseriana commonly known as the Western Sheoak is an endemic tree from the south-west of Western Australia from the Casuarinaceae family. An evergreen with distinct weeping morphology with needle-like foliage. A key part of the ecosystem in the Shenton bushland provides shelter for native species as well as being culturally significant for the Whadjuk noongar people of the area. The Sheoak is all aspects differs from the species it surrounds from its distinct foliage to its iconic sound engages all human senses. Which is the focal point of the narrative for my design implementations into Shenton bushland. My design implementations revolve around the immersion and activation of all senses that the Sheoak has to offer and amplify the effect on visitors. In addition to the importance of education of the Whadjuk noongar people and the importance the Sheoak has in culture and the environment. The distinct nature of the Sheoak and its distinguishing foliage is a centre point of the design process of the two interventions on site. Taking influence from the fine and delicate foliage the raised journey walk took major inspiration from the form of the Sheoak. The network of relationships the Sheoak has with its surrounding ecosystem is something used immensely in the design for the gathering space. Specifically, how the Sheoak foliage when it’s drops the floor in dense numbers inhibits new growth of other plants to grow, creating a natural clearing surrounding the Sheoak. From this analysis and identifying the issues of the site and the aspects to intervene. Which involves firstly the lack of access to the majority of the Sheoak population on site as well as the difficult nature to be able to be properly immersed in the experience the Sheoak creates. As a result, I propose the addition of a network of paths which include two new interventions for the site. A raised nature walk that takes the visitor on a Journey of cultural education as well as an immersive experience walking alongside the canopies of the Sheoak. In addition to a gathering and education space on site a space where the unique experience to the senses the Sheoak provides can be truly experienced.
Image: Gathering Space, plan.
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Image: (Left) Impression; (Right) Journey Walk, plan. 226
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LACH2001 Landscape Dynamic Studio Unit and Studio Coordinator: Rosie Halsmith ‘Plants in Place: Stories from Shenton Bushland’
RYAN MUNYARD
‘All the Small Things’
Daviesia nudiflora is one of 19000 different species in the Fabaceae family, and one of over 5,700 species endemic to WA’s South West biodiversity hotspot, so while it has been recorded and described, there is not a great deal of information about it as an individual beyond its botanical description. It is overshadowed by larger and arguably more unique species. The same might be said for Shenton bushland which sits between the internationally famous Kings Park, and Bold Park. This intervention seeks to draw attention to Shenton bushland, by turning it into a prime place for botanic field research and discovery for all ages, whilst also enhancing the facilities for current and future users. The circular shape that informs this design is representative of the nitrogen cycle to which D. nudiflora is an instrumental contributor. Throughout the bushland D. nudiflora will be planted to assist in the nitrogenation of the landscape. As the participant walks through the landscape, they are taken from a limestone path at grade to an elevated segment of pathway with glass panels that allow the participant to view the ecosystem from directly above. The ground falls away and the top-down view provides the opportunity to observe the ecosystem in new ways. As the ground rises, the pathway transitions the participant from a top-down view of the ecosystem to an eye-level view by gradually cutting into the hill. Tunnels are provided at the base of the cut to be used as transit and/or escape for small mammals. At this scale, the participant can observe the minutiae of the plants and creatures at ground level without the need for bending, squatting, or kneeling. Cut stone benches provide space for deeper observation, and for presentations to groups.
Image: Intervention plan: a circular path hints at the nitrogen cycle facilitated by D. nudiflora.
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Image: (Left) Detailed plan; (Right) Detailed section. 230
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LACH2050 Plants and Landscape Systems Unit Coordinator: Christina Nicholson ‘Plants for the Swan Coastal Plain’
JEMMY MALIHAN & DIYANA MOHD SHAFARIN This project encourages students to look closely and investigate the structure of plants through drawing and morphological descriptions, as well as recording other useful information for planting design. This helps them to identify plants suitable for the Swan Coastal Plain as well as understand their uniqueness and diversity for the purpose of Landscape Architectural designs.
Image: LACH2050 combined students’ plant diagrams.
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Image: Plant diagrams by Diyana Mohd Shafarin 234
Image: Plant diagrams by Jemmy Malihan. 235
URBAN DESIGN
Image: UWA School of Design, Design HUB, 2023 Summer Exhibition opening night, 15 November 2023. Photography by Samantha Dye. 236
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URBD5802 Urban Design Studio 2 Unit Coordinator: Dr Rob Cameron ‘Aerotropolis’
JD OTTO
‘Wycombe Central’ Chapter 1: A Moving Biking Adventure Waking up in Wycombe Central, I knew today would be different from my days in Perth. I hopped on my bike and headed towards Kalamunda on one of the dedicated cycling highways. Sharing the road with other cyclists and small automated vehicles makes the ride a breeze, especially without big, petrol-guzzling, noisy and polluting deathtraps pushing me off the road. The town is all about being active and automated, and my ride to Kalamunda Hills and back was an enjoyable cakewalk. Chapter 2: Nature’s Embrace As I pedaled through the cool, canopied cycling lanes, I couldn’t help but notice the wide range of plant and animal life around me. The town has a central conservation corridor where animals roam free, and black cockatoos nest in the trees. I looked at one of the buildings and saw people having a garden party underneath the shade of the building’s solar panels on the roof. Chapter 3: Exploring Town Amenities After my ride, I went to Wycombe Central’s town centre. All the restaurants were buzzing due to the easy access via trains, buses, and the airport. I also popped by the local coffee roastery. The owners, Andrew and Molly, live above their roastery in one of the old industrial-only areas. The front of the coffee shop faces one of the green corridors, while the back has access to deliveries for their export business. Who says industrial companies combined with homes can’t be functional works of art, eh? Chapter 4: A Visual Design Delight The day kept getting better. I continued biking through all the different artworks displayed throughout the green corridors. None of the buildings felt imposing, and all the lower-floor shops had an extraordinarily open and welcoming feel. After the day I went home. I managed to have an active and healthy day without even realising it. I am honestly super thankful to live in a place that looks after my mental and physical well-being. Thank you, Wycombe Central.
Image: 1:2000 model.
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Image: Wycombe Central perspective. 240
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URBD5802 Urban Design Studio 2 Unit Coordinator: Dr Rob Cameron ‘Aerotropolis’
SHANE BRADDOCK
‘A More ‘Natural’ Anthropocene’ Australia is the world’s most suburbanised society. However, Perth’s current housing production is well below what is required to reduce the inflationary occupancy rate. Predictable solutions to this housing challenge will only expand the conflict between remnant bushland and residential areas, exacerbating the separation between us and the ‘natural’ as we bulldoze more acres of ‘wilderness’ each year. The proposed High Wycombe Transport Orientated Development (TOD) suffers a similar dislocation from its environment, caused by the physical barriers of the railway marshalling yards, the light industrial area and Roe Highway and the social impacts of the disappearing native environment and semi-rural communities. Yet, residential developments and native vegetation may not need to be an ‘either or’ decision. New York’s High Line is an oft-used example of landscape design simulating a ‘green’ bridge to encourage users to reconnect both physically and emotively. But it has been relegated to a backdrop for tourist selfies, detached from a legitimate ‘use’. Can this be rectified? Influenced by OMA’s Bigness approach as used at Euralille, that recognises the benefits of a vertical arrangement of differing functions, a High-Line-esque green roof could become a refuge for reestablishing the wilderness that the new High Wycombe residential and commercial development below displaces – a grand eco-bridge. Barcelona’s Eixample precinct provides a comfortable scale for the denser living spaces below. The central courtyards within the precinct’s blocks of apartments allow pedestrians to permeate across the suburb, to not always be in direct contact with traffic. This denser residential occupancy leaves room to reintroduce a commercial scale vineyard (or orchards and gardens if more viable) as the spine of the new development, blurring the distinction between productive and recreational outdoor spaces. By 2040, the western grey kangaroo may be sharing the same vertical space as the new residents of High Wycombe. Image: View across ‘Wild’ rooftops.
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Image: Site plan. 244
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URBD5802 Urban Design Studio 2 Unit Coordinator: Dr Rob Cameron ‘AerotroPolis’
ELIZABETH GRATESSOLLE
‘A precious chance in extreme times’
This scheme proposes a variety of services that adapt to the needs of High Wycombe in a scenario of extreme weather conditions in 2050. The proposal contains a variety of built forms and enclosures. The built form contains a R250 density for residential blocks. It includes a typology of one to three bedroom apartments with permeable blocks reinforcing walkability and mobility through the scheme. The natural environment is a priority in this scheme to provide shade and protection for a much hotter urban experience in Perth in 2050. The masterplan presents a promenade as the primary access point from High Wycombe train station. This provides an inviting experience, marking a two-pathway journey. In one direction, it draws attention to the adjacent landscape (Nature Park and Skate Park) and the Poison Gully Creek. On the other, it directs views towards a landmark public square. This area is the main point of interest; including a Water Park and the Aquatic Centre to create an enticing and liveable experience to visitors and inhabitants. It is located at the end of the promenade and is surrounded by a plaza and mixed-use residential buildings. In terms of mobility, this scheme supports different several means of transport for inhabitants within High Wycombe and the broader City of Kalamunda: A trackless tram network complementing the train station and circulating at the fringe of the scheme with a maximum distance of 400 meters between stops; A cyclist network that has access all streets and the centre of the Promenade; A pedestrian network with access to all streets of the scheme; limited car access to the carpark and cyclist parking building on the perimeter of the scheme. Additionally, there is also street parking on the fringe of the scheme and access to all streets for Emergency, SES services, security and cleaning purposes and those living with disability.
Image: Water park at the end of the promenade
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Image: (Top Left) High Wycombe masterplan; (Bottom Right) Intersection of promenade and water park. 248
Image: (Top) Exit from train/trackless station; (Bottom) Section and landscape perspective towards train station. 249
Image: UWA School of Design, ARCT3040 Advanced Design Thinking bread-making live performance, 2023 Summer Exhibition opening night, 15 Nove 250
ember 2023. Photography by Samantha Dye. 251
The University of Western Australia, School of Design M433, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley WA 6009 T +61 8 6488 2582 F +61 8 6488 1082 https://www.uwa.edu.au/schools/Design CRICOS Provider Code: 00126G