Studio 44 Journal Mitchell Pollard

Reflective Journal

Reflective Journal Mitchell Pollard

Studio 44 'Ultimate Spinach' Semester 02

Cover Contents Introduction Key Texts

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Context

Consumption

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Mid Semester

Final Project

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Conclusion

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Preparation

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Production

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Distribution

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Waste

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Preface Introduction:

Studio 44 Ultimate Spinach is my second studio undertaken at the Melbourne School of Design since moving over from Western Australia in February 2021. I chose this studio because it seemed to be more concerned with the exciting elements of architectural narrative, articulation and representation. I have never cared much for the technical aspects of this career choice (which will be found evident in the work documented in this journal). The side of narrative, storytelling and illustration are the real things I desired to pursue in my studio works and hence I felt immediately excited when receiving my ballot result at the start of semester 02.

This studio (a studio about food) has proven to be much like a fine dining experience. Not from the perspective of sitting relaxed at the table enjoying food and drinks in good company, but rather from the side of the high energy and intensity of the back of house kitchen. Time is short and much is to be produced, and in a small cohort of chefs and Sous-Chiefs we scramble to get the best work we can out there to be dined on by our respected tutors and design critics.

This experience was a perfect combination of extremely stressful and very fun. A stumble through learning technique in design and drawing, workflow and presentation. All with the help of our tutors Danielle Peck and Sam Hunter, and my 9 Peers. All of which were a pleasure to work with and learn from.

This studio experience was conducted during the second heat of the Covid 19 outbreak in Melbourne, and while entirely online, never have I felt more connected and on the same wavelength with my tutors and classmates. We all shared the same passion for Architecture Food and Drawing, like a group of chiefs at a 5 star restaurant, we functioned as a team though a chaotic and beautiful cooking experience.

This journal aims to capture that experience of learning as we prepare our dinner table for the semester.

6 Entrees (Context to Waste assignments), the Hors d’oeuvre (Mid semester) and the Main Course (The Final Assessment). Supposedly now you are dining on the Dessert.

Please join me on this journey as I attempt to document my process of reading, designing and drawing for each dish in this 4 course meal.

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Key Texts Texts I own and referenced this semester

Journal - Mitchell Pollard

Dark Emu - Bruce Pascoe

Pablo Picasso - Traum and Luge Francos

Dali - Robert Descharnes and Giles Neret

Essays on Kitchens - Chmara Rosinke

Chair a Day - Allan Wexler`

Acting and Stage Movement - Marguerite Batty

Australian Journal of Art Vol 14 - Art Association of Australia

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Key Texts Unit reading material and theorists

Meredib Tenhoor

Jose M. Abedo

Dan Barber

C J Lim

Gary Vines and Mathew Churchward

Allan Willingham

Miles Lewis

Fitzroy History Society

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Context

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Context: Design Task: “You are to design a dish that reflects upon you as an individual.”

Our first assignment is purely about drawing, which I found exciting. The Brief entailed a deep dive into our own contextual history to create a dish that best represents us as an individual. This would form the base for our entire body of work, thought the semester.

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Context: Design Task:

“You are to design a dish that reflects upon you as an individual.”

Our president Artist, Salvador Dali, is a

Response: “The idea for this dish

(when prompted to tell a personal story about your context), immediately went to the food my grandparents from Macedonia would always make me as a kid.”

Surrealist much influence for the final drawing was taken from his pencil and ink drawings, and too from that of Picassos rough sketch work. Another very famous abstract surrealist painter.

Muligan of Ox Tail - Salvador Dali

This sparked the realisation that there is a story to tell of the journey of food from one context to another.

I wanted to begin the semester with hand drawing, understanding the value and power of computer drawings is important, however hand sketches I find to be the best way to convey a degree of authenticity in architectural works.

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Context: Stuffed capsicums are a traditional dish in regional Macedonia, and since my grandparents departure form their hometown after world war 2 (in which most of eastern Ukeslavia was occupied by the USSR.) They have continued to make this dish for their children and grandchildren.

Traveling to my context, capsicums have always been a favourite food for me, and during my studies, I have found adding it into a quick pasta to be quite nice.

From stuffed capsicums to capsicum pasta, a story of displacement, immigration and opportunity is woven.

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Response: “The idea for this dish (when prompted to tell a personal story about your context), immediately went to the food my grandparents from Macedonia would always make me as a kid.”

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Consumption

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Consumption: Design Task: “You are to design an architecture to host an experimental dining experience”

Continuing the narrative of displacement, translated into an Architectural proposition proved to be a difficult task.

A base idea was to carry over symbolic story telling devises from the original drawing, and Allan Wexler ‘Absurd Thinking: Between Art and Design’ was a large influence in this. Particularly his use of furniture.

Warping, upscaling, downscaling and re purposing house hold objects as story telling devices.

Chair a Day - Allan Wexler

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Consumption: Design Task: “You are to design an architecture to host an experimental dining experience” Response: “Continuing the narrative of displacement, translated into an Architectural proposition.”

In second week our precedent art style was that of the Dogma Architect Collage Style Drawings

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Consumption: My original idea was to have an explosion of traditional furniture found in my grandparents house suspended over the audience as they dine on my dish, as a link to the story of being forced out of your home from an explosive and destructive force.

I felt this idea was unsuccessful in its execution, the framing and colour pallet was weak and unlike the dogma style.

Colour pallets would prove to be the most difficult challenge of the semester for me.

Re approaching the furniture idea in a new light, I opted for suitcases as vessels to hold up the restaurant. I believe the imagery of suitcases suspended in the ocean, is revealing of my narrative in a much stronger manner. While also providing an interesting element of sculpture in my Architectural proposition.

At this point in the semester I feel as though I’m opting for very simple proposals that just tell a strong story in their imagery. Another challenge to overcome over the semester.

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Preperation

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Preparation: Design Task: “Design a Community Concept Kitchen that is capable of preparing your dish”

Designing a preparation space, my immediate reaction to the readings was that preparation (in contemporary practice) an unseen, taboo event, The mobile kitchen in ‘Essays on kitchens’ comments on this greatly, and its tubular architecture influenced me heavily. This lead to my first brief look at the precedent building, ‘The Centre Pompidou’ by Ritchard Rodgers and Renzo Piano.

Centre Pompidu Illustration Renzo Piano

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Preparation: Design Task: “Design a Community Concept Kitchen that is capable of preparing your dish” Response: “Proposing a network of apparatus that was utilized to prepare my dish: ‘Capsicum pasta.’.”

The design proposals in ‘essays on kitchens’ took a critical re evaluation of kitchen infrastructure in design. Many of the proposals seemed to focus on revealing the action and excitement of cooking to the audience and glorifying the tools utilized in that process.

Notes from: ‘Labor in the Logistical Drawing’ Challenge the ways our labor is represented or displayed in architecture, perhaps to find new and exciting ways to display the labor process of cooking through a design proposal.

Labor tools, processes and agents shouldn’t be hidden behind a closed door, there is kinetic energy to the process of cooking that should be center stage, to challenge our perception of labor in not only cooking but all industries.

Essays on Kitchens - Chmara Rosinke

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Preparation: I was really interested in the idea of showcasing the network of apparatus that was utilized to prepare my dish: “Capsicum pasta.”

A cascade of networks of pipes, barrels, bins, trays, trolleys and stoves, arranged in a loop to prepare pasta and pasta sauce.

I was excited by the idea of colour coding these instruments, loosely inspired by that of high tech works by the likes if “Renzo Piano.”

Unfortunately my application of this fell quite short, this was my first dip in the river of high tech architecture and infrastructural design, and it missed the mark completely.

What my pretty picture of pipes and drums fails to achieve is the linkage of infrastructural networks to the architecture itself.

The proposal itself is these objects arranged in a concrete room, (Designed in the shape of a capsicum, with the tables themselves arranged like seeds on the inside. Take all of these things away and you have an empty room.

The pipes and shafts have to become the architecture itself in order to truly be challenging and successful. Another learning hurdle to overcome during this semester.

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Production

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Production: Design Task: “On the site: Design a radical new urban infrastructure and architecture that supports the production of a key ingredient in your dish.”

Critical Ingriedents Dan Baber - “Field Notes and the future of food”

Output requirements: -1 x A2 (landscape) perspective plan 1:50 -1 x A2 (landscape) perspective Time frame: -7 days Thematics: Present the drawing in the style of “Dogma Architects.”

Think critically on how the kitchen can enhance the

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Production: Design Task: “On the site: Design a radical new urban infrastructure and architecture that supports the production of a key ingredient in your dish.”

Response: “A public pasta factory at the base of Gertrude street.”

Critical Ingriedents Dan Baber - “Field Notes and the future of food”

Notes from: Dan Baber - “Field Notes and the future of food” Atisional cooking directly influencing ingredient choices causes the user to engage with the agricultural origins of hat they are eating There is a disparity between the dish and the processes required for the dish to exist.

The meal and the means (agriculture) The city and the farm The brain and the stomach The Brain and The Belly: On the Destiny of Two Urban Metaphors - Antoine Picon Agricultural centres located in urban CBD’s, especially Fitzroy, could lead to the consumer being forced to engage or understand the processes in which their food is cultivated.

A pasta factory at the base of Gertrude street leads along the tram tracks to proved the entirety of Fitzroy with its fresh pasta, every restaurant In town that serves a pasta dish has its origins at this site, and every consumer of this dish has the ability to pass it by and experience the process in witch their dinner was gathered from the earth.

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Production:

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Distribution

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Distribution: Design Task: “Design a market of your own, that considers the future f food distribution.”

In week 04 we were finally given our site, ‘The Old Tram Engine House’ at the corner of Nicholson and Gertrude street. Context, History and Heritage are henceforth large and important concepts to tackle moving forward. In the whirlwind that are theses weekly assignments I will omit here, that it is not something I believe I considered enough until the mid semester.

Paired now with a test group mate, Yichen Cao, be we looked at a precident study of the Santa Caterina Marketplace in Barcelona. Recreating a floor plan of the project to better understand its program and apply this to our own design.

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Distribution: Design Task: “Design a market of your own, that considers the future f food distribution.”

Response:

Santa Caterina Market

Av. de Francesc Cambó, 16, 08003 Barcelona, Spain

Ultimate Spinach Studio 44 Semester 02 2021

Scale: 1:250 @A2

Architecture firm: Enric Miralles Architects: Benedetta Tagliabue, Enric Miralles

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Mitchell Pollard Yichen Cao

Completed: 2005

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Distribution:

Our proposed market plan is a centre for buying lab grown meat (Moving with Yichen dish for this week) A large factor of the proposal deals with the idea of the tram network as an extension of the market program.

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Distribution:

The trams have been designed with an overhead annex to facilitate and extended market that travels down Gertrude street.

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Waste

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Waste: Design Task: “Design a waste management facility”

Waste is the final stage of the food process journey we have been taking this semester. I wanted to propose an architecture that attempts to tackle this with reflection to the entire life cycle of my ingredient (Kangaroo Grass) Our precedent artist this week further leads into this concept, Steven McCloy’s conceptual drawings are often presented in a story board like style, which we were tasked to follow this week.

This sparked the idea of transforming a waste recycling plant into a new and functional program for the city of Fitzroy, drawing from the contextual history of social housing around the site. It was my proposal to establish a scaffolding architecture, the likes of Renzo that becomes the anchor for an architecture to grow out of recycling straw waste from my Kangaroo Grass into rammed straw rooms to develop a social housing scheme.

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Waste: Our reading for this week “All in Good Taste” By C J Lim, speaks to the idea of alternative farming and viewing animal production, farming and industry in a Different perspective, from hunting to what is now farming.

Tess O'meara gave a really great lecture on drawing this week that was very inspiring for this drawing.

First Rendition of using a colour pallet this semester

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Waste:

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Mid Semester

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Combined dishes We have now arrived at the Mid semester, and it is our task to propose a new Melbourne food institute on our selected site (the corner of Nicolson and Gertrude).

This project spans the rest of the semester and develops in 2 parts, Mid Semester to Final.

I have had the delight to work with my assigned group member Micheal M Sammut. We developed this project together through hundreds of Facebook calls and Zoom meetings. As he resides in Emerald Victoria and I myself have fled to Perth Western Australia to escape the Victorian Lockdown.

During the first 6 weeks of the semester, Michael has followed a narrative that deals with the effects of globalisation on the duck farming industry in Emerald, His proposals have seaked to reframe globalisation in a positive architectural outcome.

My narrative has followed that of my grandparents history and immergration as a source of transposed knowledge, Passed down from my family to me.

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'Public Duck Parkscape' - Michael Summut

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Michael's dish is Duck braised in Red Wine With Blue Cheese and Eggs.

My dish is Stuffed Capsicum Pasta

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Stuffed Capsicum Duck To begin our research we combine both of our dishes to form the opening statment for our food institute.

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The role of Immigration and Global networks in food culture and animal culture.

Plated on a ceramic dish that tels a tale of people joining together with shared knowledge to create a new future

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Early Drawings

Exhibition Building

Our idea is broken down into 2 main factors, The heritage of the site (Building and Context) and the program of our institute.

We want to have a very direct relationship between these two things. To expand the site though a landscape proposal that connects our building to Carlton Gardens, The Melbourne Exhibition Building, and the IMAX Melbourne Museum.

Weeping Rice Grass An indigenous Grass to produce grain

Victorian Wild Ducks Our key inhabitant of the landscape

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The river that connects

Moving forward we were tasked to design 5 key concept diagrams for this proposal.

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Transposed Knowledge European immigration to Australia as a driver of shared and discovered knowledge.

Leading to Melbourne’s diverse food culture.

The effect of food Globalization on local people and places.

In the context of Duck Farming in Emerald Victoria.

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Network of ideas Utilizing architecture as a network or platform in a public setting in reference to the effect of Globalized networks.

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Connectivity Connecting the architectural elements of distribution to the public.

Looking at the life cycle of Wheat straw waste and utilizing it for and architectural outcome

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Social Heritage Utilizing the social currency of heritage on the site and re purposing it for an expanded architectural outcome.

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Expanded Terrain Elevating and growing natural terrain as a characteristic, element or agent thought the design.

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Drafts Early attempts at architecture: it was really important to us at this stage, to just get in there and design something as time is a constant pressure. We definitely overstepped in this case, however the concepts remain true to utilize the heritage as a key object or asset to the design and introduce ideas of scaffolding to talk to the concepts of connectivity and network.

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Expanded landscape proposal, key building elements joined through an irrigation network.

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Program: Institute Breaking down the brief and drafting a massing for our institutes zones.

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Program: Landscape

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Process: Perspectives

I start by using textures, these all consist of photos from my phone to get something unique. Blended with the colour pallet using gradient map.

Textures are applied to individual elements using material ID and selecting via colour range.

The make 2d is then cleaned up and added into the shot.

And finally the hand drawn entourage arrives.

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Final Drawing - Expanded Terrain in Carlton Gardens.

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Mid Semester The Museum of Food Anthropology Welcome to the our Melbourne food institute, the museum of food Anthropology.

Its research endeavors are to study the role that food plays across different Communities, to study the role that natural landscape plays in food cultivation.

Food anthropology and history.

In our presentation spaces we want to show the transposed knowledge on the sites cultural history. These object come from a divers variation of background but are all unique to this site and have a heritage value with them.

Expanded Site.

We want to connect our ingredients, human and non human agents through an expanded landscape that exists without barriers or borders to their interaction and connection. to connect the site to its surrounding buildings and scatter our heritage, and expanded programs throughout this landscape as a larger scale experience beyond our initial site.

Our site looks at how a mix of heritage and expanded landscape can achieve a set of thresholds for connectivity and learning.

We want to propose this expanded landscape as an extension of our return brief while still maintaining a focus on the institute itself as the epicenter of this experience.

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We want the project to ask 2 key questions.

What role does history play in shaping our food culture?

How does the natural and unnatural landscape shape the way we tell stories?

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Moments

Research Space

Auditorium

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Gallery

Laboratory

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Expanded Terrain

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Feedback A transcription of conversations with Guest Critiques: Ben Waters, Tess Ohmara and Jarrod.

Tutors: Danielle Peck and Sam Hunter.

Tess: From design perspective, what

determines where the heritage facade is removed/ maintained?

Jarrod: What is the move over move?

Accelerated decay…can you frame this in time?

Get control over the ‘decay’? Specific fragments…staging, re-defining. E.g. Do you move brick coursing, just doors, what materials etc…(similar to Tess’s comments on ‘rules). Structure…What is the re-build element? Cedric Price price reads strong, this is good. Different ‘animals’ and

ecology of a project, whole project ‘ecology’ and ‘territory’ approach.

Questions the strength of the grid at this stage? Territory and Architecture. Studio Tom Emerson - great precedent for ‘territory’ drawings.

Ben: Really important to pin down the intention of the garden Ambition to turn this from colonial pleasure garden into a

working garden (very strong idea) Distribution good, but make sure its not just objects in the landscape (ie. it should be the antithesis of the picturesque) The objects need to be active; they need to work!

Architecture as an instrument and tool!

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Danielle:

What can we

learn from the fragment?

Can a language be created? What are you trying to tell us? Not sure the grid being used as a formal driver for your project is consistent with your idea of ‘de-colonising’. Grid could be more like ‘nodes’ or reference points, rather than a formal generator of structures.

Where does the ‘formal’ about the pre-colonial? How do you

combine the old and new?

Architecture of fragmentation, what does this mean? Can we re-frame to something more positive?

Gradient of heritage dispersed across the site Interesting, works well with the ambition with the dish, but needs rules. Could strengthen by critical axis, describes where you fragment things? Pre-colonial landscape, is this a return?

Sam: Worms eye view, water network the best drawings in your presentation. Anthropology, digging in the dirt,

the river that runs upside down why it is the colour that it is…etc. Everything could start to be seen in this upside down way...Heritage/ architecture/ style/ culture.

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Reflection It is clear upon reflection that we need to get a defined grasp on our approach to the heritage, the concept at this stage is really interesting for us, but requires a more decisive framework that will clue us into how to approach the architecture.

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What does the Heritage do?

Does it have a function?

Can this become an Architecture that works?

A tool to tend the landscape.

Final..

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Final Project

(Melbourne Institute of Food Anthropology)

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Research Heritage Taking a step back: What It Will Be A site which still exists as an element of the past. a site which exists as a displacement of Melbourne’s temporal form redefining the culture itself. A journey to add to the contemporary culture through this site and food.

How It Came To Be There A journey of immigration and globalization where tehnique’s and influences where adapted and unchanged in a new context Alexander Davidson Jacobean

Learnt at Edinburgh before he came to wee Australia

The taking of classical elements and redefining them with new technologies of the context

Hoddle grid?

Take Hoddle grid as a formal layout system and re-contextualise it.

No longer for protection

What is fitzroys classical culture

Foyle Flour Mill- Fitzroys first flour mill built in 1856

Bought from foyles by local bakers

Became union flour mills

Shipped flour to Queensland Fiji and England

180 tonnes a week of flour

228 factories in fitzroy by 1930

Our site had a baker and a cart and wheel builder on the corner The Architect

Embraced Technology

The flour mill?

What if we have wind turbines?

style

A study of France as Scotland of the time was board of italian

Through the Scottish Jacobean

Strong French Baroque/Fremch Romanesque Elements

Inspired by

Viollet Le Duc 1863

Clocher

Pillasters with banded strapwork

An early form follows function?

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Fenetre

Description

A window is made to give light and air inside a room, narrow to break wind. Placement of windows was made for a Roman society where you did not need to see into the building but instead give the employees the freedom to glimpse what is just outside.

Adaption

A window which shows through it glimpses of freedom, what if such a window was a filter? What if when you looked through the narrow arch frame you see the filtered seeds of what Melbourne will utilize and grow to be.

Clocher

Description

Once existing as a bell tower the clocher which spread its rings throughout the lands became the strength as the tall structures were utilized defensively in raids.

Adaption The Clocher as a Symbol of community becomes for us a point where the water runs to and all the seeds of our extended terrain gather. From the Clocher you look out onto the terrain and through the fenetre.

Oeil-de-boeufs

Description

A small circular French Baroque window which initially had the sole purpose of allowing light, now these serve as decorative elements Adaption

Utilised by Davidson as a part of the Clocher the Oeil-De-Bueufs serve for us as a perforation, once upon a time as a means of allowing light but we look at how our can see Melbourne through such a window.

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Frise

Description

An element existing as a part of the entablature of ancient orders was continually used in mediavel architecture as a decorative element and by Davidson as an essential symbol of the tram network system.

Adaption

Whilst initially decorative Davidson uses the frieze as a means of reference to technology and a global network. We take this element and put it to use in one of the least decorative ways possible, as an element of the machine, it grinds away at the grain making our flour.

Brick columns

Description

One of the most iconic elements of the roman era, the column, the post of the greeks post and lintel system, a structure to support great weight and significance. Davidson uses these immense structures to support the weight of his symbolic frise, the strong pillars made of bricks much like the industrial town of fitzroys factories support the new technologies.

Adaption

The brick columns of so much significance now support our building, our structure sits on and around the columns as they now support urban space of our form above.

Iron pillars

Write a description here

When refering to the dictionary of Viollet Le Dec how can Davidson not use iron, the rational system of a modern age. However davidson only uses it internally with his Scottish Jacobean facade externally cladding his form, we however can see it differently today for it is very different from above.

Adaption

Now supporting our expansive form

Viewing platform Write a description here Write our adaption

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Machines: Workers of the field

Frise

Orniment to Harvester

Iron pillars Structure to Grinder

Brick columns Walls to Bakery Kiln

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Clocher

Dome to Water Pump

Fenetre

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The Farmhouse Our new approach to the architecture is quite out of left field but is reinforced by our approach to heritage.

We are proposing an array of industrial machines constructed from our heritage elements that work and tend the field, harvesting weeping rice grass and producing bread.

Our proposal for a new way of farming.

Updated massing model

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A map of all production spaces in Fitzroy

The first Factory in Fitzroy

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Modeling Thought the weeks Michael and I did a lot of heavy lifting in Rhino 7 to flesh out the details of our architectural language and design.

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Review

Our first Review proved quite fruitful, at this point we feel as tho we have our key players in place (The architecture and the machines that inhabit it.)

We were encouraged to push further into this idea of the farmhouse for the people. Proposing an open plan farmhouse structure that is closely orientated to the perspective of the workers of the field, while bringing these concepts of Cultural Heritage and Transposed Ideas to the forefront of the public eye.

Our expanded landscape in rhino arctic view

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Drawing At this point in the project our design is heading in a good direction and we have been assigned the format in which to present it. A 2250mm by 1500mm composite drawing poster. We have been given a template as to roughly follow and help organise our drawings and ideas.

The key drawings to tackle are: Plan + Section, Axonometric Perspectives (6), Diagrams (10) and Details.

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Precedent artist: Kilian Eng Michael and I have been really interested in the artwork of Kilian Eng, who’s beautiful flat line drawings and colour pallets convey multiple meanings and moods all in one perspective. This approach to line and colour is similar to that of artist Moebius, and became the main influence for our drawing style, along with that of Dough John Miller.

Moebius

Kilian Eng

Kilian Eng

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Drawing: Style and Pallet The colour palette for our drawing refers to landscape and heritage in greens and oranges, while our new architecture is presented in a rustic red.

Foliage as a key character in our drawing is also extremely important to us

Landscape proposal

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Native grasses (Kangaroo Grass) Dry Season

Native Grasses (Weeping Rice Grass) Harvest

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Review Our drafts for the composite image have been built up week after week, once all the drawings are complete their placement its very important, a large criticism it that we are relying too hard on constructing a seamless scene, rather that letting our architecture help in framing the images.

Make the drawings bigger.

Occupy the space meaningfully.

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Water Pump

Heritage Irrigation Rover

Landscape

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Process

Through what we have learned: Building up the Plan and Section

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Plan

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Section

1:75 @ A1

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Detail Section Process of making the Watch Tower Constructing these drawings from start to finish is an incredibly time consuming task, Much detail and consideration has gone into each and every single one.

Here is an overview of the entire process looking specifically at the detail section.

The observatory is the most important space in the entire project, The pump that filters the seeds from the water run off and redistributes them thorough the site, allowing the entire ecosystem to function.

Crockery

An entire complex interior is modeled, no detail is left unattended

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Furniture Mitchell D Pollard 97

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Model is finished and Make 2D is overladed in Rhino layouts

Colour, materiality and texture are painted in Photoshop

Line work is exported, and preset in Rhino

Shadows are exported with custom shadow settings

Material ID is exported

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Linework and shadows are overlayed and many hours are spent filling in the gaps with colour variations, highlits and material indications

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The Watch Tower The engine of the landscape

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Another round of comp review

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It is creeping into the final weeks, our designs are as finalised as we can comprehend at this point, and all that matters is the composition and drawing, this level of tunnel vision is extremely dangerous and there is a lot of room for critical reflection on our architectural proposal, however time has become to heavy of a factor.

It is at this stage that we finally feel that the composition has reached a final resolution, and it is now our task to finish the drawings.

The composition itself situates the farmhouse in the center of the image, framing it is our expanded site proposal, a lush array of foliage and field. The Network of irrigation pipes ribbons the frame, guiding the viewer through the array of perspective and axonometric drawings of key moments in our design.

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Machines of the Melbourne Institute of Food Anthropology

The kiln is constructed of reused bricks from the facade, where the bread is baked.

Irrigation rovers sit thought the night in the farmhouse, the viewer can enter atop and join in the dining experience, as the rover traverses out of the farmhouse and across the landscape during the dry season, giving the audience a tour of the site.

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The lab space is where collected seeds are assessed and reengineered for better harvesting, the complex and diverse nature of the site is worked on in this space and seasonality of the native grasses is assessed.

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The wind-frames filter seeds from water run off to be collected and traversed through the irrigation pipe network to arrive at the main pump.

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An interior of the presentation space: viewer is engulfed in an expanded landscape that is as much and element of the architecture as the scaffolding of the roof, or the concrete of the framed windows, outside the window, a view of the exhibition building is seen clearly. Aspects of heritage and context framed within the building.

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Research Thesis (Speech)

Welcome to the Melbourne Institute of Food Anthropology.

Functionally this institution is an urban farm situated on an Expanded Landscape in the perimeter of Fitzroy and Carlton gardens. This institution aims to raise the question of Fitzroy's identity to the public. Our project does not claim to be the epitome of Fitzroy's identity, but rather encourages questioning of what Fitzroy’s identity is beyond aesthetic reasoning.

We have 3 Architectural areas of research that have driven us to pursue the Identity of this project and the suburb of Fitzroy. The Transposed Infrastructure of the site, which concerns our given building Old Tram Engine House, Scottish Jacobean Architecture Immigrated to Fitzroy.

Australian Contextual Infrastructure that concerns the Farmhouse as a typology, and the History of Fitzroy as an Industrial Town. Agricultural Identity that concerns Native Grasses and Wild Landscapes driven by water. These are things often hidden from view that we are now transposing to the city. It is our aim not to educate through the heritage, redefining it and giving it a purpose throughout an expanded landscape.

This understanding began with our 2 key dishes in which we explored our own identities. I have been concerned with immigrated cultural context, My grandparents, influencing the way I live my life now, Through the muse of a Stuffed Capsicum. And I have been interested in the effects of Globalization on my community in Emerald Victoria through the muse of the Native Duck.

Which has been culminated in our dish Stuffed Duck Capsicum. Where we explore how these different approaches to identity can come together. How Heritage, the Capsicum can become a housing for Infrastructure, the Duck. Who am I and how I came to be. We seek to question Fitzroy’s Heritage in the same way though this design.

This drawing begins with the plan and section and is read in the round following our pipes, we will then speak to the largest drawings on the left and right and conclude on the entire drawing as a whole. We will now zoom to the heart of our drawing, the plan and section. These drawings best describe our layout and Function. The farm itself works by managing and irrigating an expanded landscape ecosystem, where native grasses and wild ducks flourish, these are tended to by our entourage of machinery, which water the landscape in the Hot season and harvest the grains in the Cold season. The red spaces define our laboratories, the seed lab and the bakery, adjacent to which are our board rooms and presentation spaces, in the middle of these is our central auditorium, and below all this sits the barn house where our machinery that tends to the landscape is housed. The program is expanded through irrigation rovers in the barn that serve as rolling presentation / dining spaces that take the user on an extended tour of the site. The layout works firstly as based on the existing entryways into the heritage site, The public entrance from Gertrude Street to a central auditorium. Our machinery leaves and enters the barn to the western door. And trucks for distribution of our produce arrive in the north eastern alleyway.

The interior field of the Barnhouse is sheltered from people crossing by industrial boardwalks which support the weight of the machinery.

We will now travel outside the building to the bottom right of the panel to the entrance of the auditorium. Our auditorium serves as the major entrance to our site where we focus on public engagement, the expanded landscape serves as raised seating for the audience. Below is our first diagram where we have analyzed the elements of the Jacobean Heritage to form the main building blocks for our machinery and architecture. The Fenestrate which is the Windows, The Clocher which was The bell tower, The Frize which was the Decorative ornamentation and the Brick columns which support. The brick columns and the facade are now being transposed throughout the site by our Harvesting Rover. In the same way that tram’s would have spread the influence of technology from the engine house. The Windows, once used to filter light now filter seed runoff in our landscape. The Clocher, which was the axial point of the tram cable network,

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Now serves as the point of contact between heritage and the functional irrigation system for our landscape. This is the epicenter for our above ground water network. The Watchtower of the Site.

We will now walk the field to the left of our drawing to view the building from the outside. We look here to our Axonometric where we explore the relation of barn form and heritage best. In addition we build up the canopy form in order to create a year round experience. The site map below shows the extent of our landscape that seeks to connect the site to its key surroundings, The exhibition building and the Melbourne Museum. These lands are shown in this diagram where we have created a utility driven bio wetlands for a large amount of the offset water from Melbourne And to the left of this a detailed section of our irrigation rover that takes the user on a journey throughout this site. We will now follow up the pipe to explore further how our landscape works Our site is located close to the: yarra river, the city of Melbourne and Melbourne's green belt, these green belt parkland’s are proposed to spread through the use of duck digestion and migration. Ducks consume grains in one area and then execute them in another causing new growth to appear. These seeds germinate in the spring, are irrigated in the summer, cultivated in Autumn and are assessed for planning in the Winter.

Our machinery serves as tools of function for the mass landscape with 3 key functions irrigation, harvest and filtering of runoff. The function and traversal of these machines relates to the context of our landscape. In closer detail we can see the farmers table where our infrastructure feeds the people of the institution and creates a sense of community between all who work on all levels of the project, everyone needs to eat. We will now rotate the drawing to talk about the lab spaces at the end of the cycle, the Bakery and Engine House.

We see here, the other side of our concept where the harvest is baked in the heritage through the utility of a Kiln, then distributed, spreading the site's culture on a global scale. The grains harvested are all australian but are primarily Weeping Rice Grass due to its high yield along with Wallaby Grass and Kangaroo Grass. Our engine house research space provides an environment for researchers to interact closest with the seeds, the water and the ducks. We will now journey into the Board Room Here we see an interior shot of a key point of circulation in our building. In this space the Contextual history of the site is highlighted with a distinct view of the exhibition building to the North West. Embedded within this is the Australian contextual infrastructure is our barn roof typology. This exists on another perspective as it shows the interface between our interior field and the A frame barns. Tying this all together our agricultural identity weaves between the two types, through its wild landscape, forming a canopy overhead. We will now zoom out again and enter into the Watch Tower.

Our detail section is the best example of how our heritage becomes a functional vessel, the engine house of our site. Where water irrigation is managed and seed run off is collected. It is a primary retreat for the workers of the site, who know of its existence. Traversable through a rung ladder on the central pipe, there are a series of engine rooms where the water tanks are managed and worked on. Above there is a break room where the workers can relax and enjoy a lovely view from the corner of Nicholson and Gertrude. At the top is the observatory, A quiet space with a grand lookout of the site, where the worker can enjoy a private dining experience as they watch over the field. This drawing summarises our take on how the Scottish Jacobean Heritage can be utilised in the context of The industrial suburb of fitzroy. Beyond aesthetic reasoning. We will now zoom out to the entire drawing to conclude our project.

We have hoped through this drawing, that you as the audience have come to learn about Fitzroy in the same way we have over this semester. And have pushed you to question Fitzroy’s Heritage and raise your curiosity about its cultural history. We found ourselves questioning our own cultural identity and have tried to express this in all aspects of our project. This method has formed the stylistic and programmatic choices within the institute and has led to what Fitzroy has become. The institute of food anthropology, the expression of Fitzry’s identity. An interactive urban farm that forms the connection between our historical research and our understanding of what of a future Fitzroy could be.

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Conclusion (Thank you for reading)

This semester has been a whirlwind, I can honestly say despite the factor of Online learning I have never felt more in place with a studio as much as Studio 44 'Ultimate Spinach' Our panel is far from complete, much struggle was had getting it done on time and the aspects that seem rushed are very apparent.

However it is the hopes of Michael and I that we will make our best effort to talk to our architecture about our research that has greatly interested us over the past 2 months.

The Institute of Food Anthropology, a where global industry and cultural heritage collide to support a wild and diverse new ecosystem.

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Kind regards - Mitchell Pollard Mitchell D Pollard 113

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All Works Completed Between July - October 2021, in Victoria and Weastern Australia.

Thanks to Michael M Sammut, Danielle Peck and Samuel Hunter for your support.

www.mitchellpollard.com

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