Rewilding Castlemaine

Rewilding Castlemaine RMIT R MIT University, University, B Bachelor achelor ooff A Architectural rchitectural D Design esign SStudio tudio SSemester emester 22,, 22020 020 Richard Black R ichard B lack

Writer, Robert Macfarlane tells us that the ‘idea of the Anthropocene repeatedly strikes us dumb. In the complexity of its structures and the range of its scales within time and space – from nanometric to the planetary, from picoseconds to aeons – the Anthropocene confronts us with huge challenges. How to interpret, or even refer to it? Its energies are interactive, its properties emergent and its structures withdrawn. We find speaking of the Anthropocene, even speaking in the Anthropocene, difficult. It is, perhaps best imagined as an epoch of loss – of species, places and people – for which we are seeking a language of grief and, even harder to find, a language of hope.

(Macfarlane, Underland, p364) This studio explores this difficult territory as well as the implications for architecture and its design knowledges. What then might be a language of hope that can yield opportunities to rethink architecture in the age of the Anthropocene? Research continues to focus on the role of nature, of how we/you relate to it; it’s through this lens that the studio is framed. The syllabus will build your awareness of nature and its entanglement with ideologies, culture and humanity - then ultimately to inform ways of conceiving and making architecture.

Image credits Font cover image: Tu Trinh Teresa Bui Rear cover image: Oscar Eltringham-Smith Inside cover image (left):Yasmeen O’Brien & Zephyr Cravino Inside cover image (right): Rhea Suraj & Tu Trinh Teresa Bui

1

REWILDING CASTLEMAINE: design of an urban building for Castlemaine (110kms north west of Melbourne’s CDB) responding to the communities housing crisis. It’s comprised of the following components: Living (Multiple Dwellings/Lofts etc) with an equal part Landscape (or rewilding). Rewilding refers to the gradual transformation of the street, architecture and urban public space – into a new type of condition – a meeting of architecture/nature - a critical reworking of building, garden, ground, weather and landscape – into an urban ecology. A habitat for humans and non-humans. The syllabus has been structured around two parts. Firstly, a suite of esquisses to imagine the site and its relationship to the town, its landscape and territory – situated within the architectural issues framing the studio. Secondly, using this site knowledge to make a design proposal for an urban building in the civic precinct of Castlemaine: of equal parts Living + Landscape. The Hortus Conclusus - or enclosed/walled garden - as a type-form has persisted since the fifteenth century (and even earlier) has been a reference point throughout the second part of the semester – particularly for its architectural, urbanistic and ecological potential with relevance to the studio agenda. A studio in which to imagine the site and its relationship to the town, its landscape and territory - as well as opening this to cultural and architectural references – equally immersed in the real and the imaginary.

Students Harriet Barrile Tu Trinh Teresa Bui Zephyr Lucas Craveno Cheyenne DCosta Oscar Eltringham-Smith Finn Estella Yasmeen O’Brien Anastasia Pehlivanidis Taran Pierce Mandisa Sarker Luke Sevoir Mariella Servedio Rhea Suraj Natalie Van Der Peet Isabella Westwood Thank you Anna Johnson Metamorphosis Students Jono Ware Ying-Lan Dann Teresa Tu Trinh Bui for the design and layout of this document

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Harriet Barrile.

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Oscar Eltringham-Smith.

19

10 METRES

20

WINTER

SUMMER

TEMPLETON STREET ENTRY

CASTLEMAINE CIVIC HEART

21

22

23

24

Tu Trinh Teresa Bui.

25

26

27

28

29

30

Zephyr Cravino.

31

32

133

34

35

36

Taran Pierce.

37

38

39

40

Yasmeen O’Brien.

41

42

Cheyenne Dcosta.

43

44

Mandisa Sarker.

45

46

Finn Estella.

47

Mariella Sarker.

48

Anastasia Pehlivanidis.

49

Luke Servedio.

50