UNDERSTANDING SITE THE

CLOTHESLINE OUT THE BACK...

VERANDAH OUT THE FRONT...

MID-SEMESTER

P.O.W. Proposed Siting

Open up street presence to juxtaposing grids of Traralgon’s CBD and South Traralgon

Promote and engage with South Traralgon through it’s low socio and industrial building stock

Hearth, platform & congregation/emergency assembly

Wings established for emergency housing and courtyard congregation

Accessible connection to the Grand Junction Hotel and Terminal Precinct

Opening up to the adjacent VRI community venue who already assist in upskilling/retraining

Sliding weatherboard shutters and variability of function/housing

Week 4

Ballarat is a rural city famous for history but also presently for its tree-lined avenues, view lines and vistas, wayfinding, undulating topography, and nearby volcanoes. The proposed site is at the epicentre of these systems.

Our chosen site is located on the edge of the Woowookarung Regional Park which divides Ballarat’s urban sprawl from the eastern farmland. The site is a clearing in the park, which overlooks Ballarat, and is subject to potential unprohibited development where roads have already started traversing the park as the city tries to develop around it. As with the City of Ballarat’s intervention in the Ballarat West Development Plan to better manage the sprawling estates, we propose to intervene and prevent further clearing, poor density, development, and self-sufficiency, and for the protection of Woowookarung’s stringybark trees and their koala inhabitants. This development will also promote alternative and more considerate methods for designing the expanding urban environment.

Investigation into the contours revealed interesting detail and a natural system of creek run-off. Instead of disrupting the topography with excavated development, we propose a softer, stilted assemblage where mixed-use buildings are terraced and follow the contours of the site as walkable interconnected corridors. Instead of simply extruding the contours and dividing program, or arraying rectangular blocks, major site shifts were traced and buildings developed from tangrams to allow variation in arrangement and potential interlocking. The tangrams are oriented around the contour planes and form a dense, interlaced community framework.

Major site lines to and from the CBD, creek markers, Mount Buninyong, and Mount Warrenheip bulldoze through the terraces, making a statement for the consideration of place first while also continuing Ballarat’s heritage of tree-lined avenues and site lines to the volcanoes as a method of wayfinding. This also provides green corridors for local flora and fauna to propagate through the development. The proposal presents a medium density, mixed-use arrangement of buildings where no program is clustered and promotes community entanglement and self-sufficiency. Water damming and collection is proposed, where the creeks currently run off into low-density suburban sprawl. Urban farming is also an opportunity to promote self-sufficiency, re-vegetation of the site, conservation of the Regional Park, and a reduction in food travel.

The park had already introduced mountain bike trails and hiking tracks, which has contributed to the increased road access. These features are integrated into the holistic view of the development where a cable car is in place of primary car access.

Week 3

Coles And Myer

We take a site that underutilises its corner prominence and contains the first ever Myer department store, currently falling apart at the seams. The site is central along popular and historical Pall Mall and requires drastic repair and revitilsation. Teaming up with Coles Myer Group, we propose an intervention with a new civic corner that will revitalise the existing Myer store, and introduce a new market style grocer to the CBD. This will better engage with the abandoned connections to Hargreaves Mall, and reinstate Pall Mall as a Parade, Market, and Retail Strip. Awakening the Dragon ceremony used to commonly occur as a celebration of the harvest season. The celebration now pairs with the famous Bendigo Easter Parade showcasing heritage and culture. Sun Loong, once the longest dragon in the world at 100m, chases a spherical ball down

Pall Mall, resembling the Pearl of Wisdom, forever in pursuit. The sinous form disrupts the current urban problems which exist in poor continuity through the context during past expansions. The sectional line does not assume Wall, Floor, or Roof, but all in dividing space and combining program. It will intervene and establish a new plaza corner to taker in the street and open up the side walk. The addition of wrapping verandah-like balconies connects to its context of the Shamrock Hotel, and offers more to the limited viewpoints of Pall Mall, its Civic assemblage, and the Parade. The carpark is made available for peak times of the year, while being able to expand the Ground Floor offerings into a flexible market square. Grandeur of retail is reestablished, with Coles Supermarket and Myer Department Store blending its offerings in a building tied to cultural identity.

Week 2

The original packing facade that was proposed for redevelopment is already divided into two program entries of training and retail. We cut through the middle combining a shared lobby and lounge for both tourists and workforce. The carpark is disconnected from the factory sites with no safe crossings. A valet is provided for the public and worker alike, where upon entrering the administration building, they mutually rise in the building before workers seperate to a safer connected skybridge to the manufacturing plant. This raises and showcases the importance of the labour force and their inherit value to Shepparton.

Week 1

Wonthaggi is a small rural town 2 hours South-East of Melbourne within and servicing the Bass Coast. The town was founded in a response to become independent from the New South Wales coal supplies, beginning as a tent city of the newly founded state coal mine for Victoria. In 1910 the railway from Nyora reached Wonthaggi and the industry was booming. A local brickworks also began in 1910 to supply the building blocks of the town. This was instrumental in solidifying the former tent city into a legitimate worker’s town with the Town Hall and other religious, educational, and social buildings in 1911.

‘Thaggi grew from 5,000 people in 1921 to 12,000 by the end of the 1920’s, becoming the 6th largest town in Victoria by 1937. In the 1950s, several industries were attracted to Wonthaggi by the available labour force. Textiles, clothing, engineering and building industries provided major employment for the town. Unfortunately with advancements in technology and locomotives moving from coal to diesel, demand for coal and work within the coal mine plummeted. The town surrounding this primary industry dwindled as a result. One by one, once prominent buildings and services of the town became historic relics, whose use became defunct and either closed or transformed into museums and walking trails. The town continues to suffer heavy losses with few attractions and current museums operating in limited capacity. The state government has tried to revitalise the town through large investment into schools and renewables creating new jobs and opportunities for Wonthaggi and the surrounding regions it governs through the Wonthaggi Secondary College, Victorian Desalination Plant and Wonthaggi Wind Farm. This has resulted in Wonthaggi having a turning point and population beginning to increase again although very slowly. The current demographic is still primarily Anglo Saxon with an ageing population and high reliance on trade and retail, with supermarkets and chain department stores taking up most of the city centre. A new Bunnings was recently built over the former Miners Complex and Motel.

Our pivotal position for redeveloping the Town Hall is to instill its value that has been lost. The simple and rushed brick building is located at the south end of the CBD fortressed in from any street access by additional council operation buildings. It is by no means magnificent like other township monuments, however it has always served well as a functional building with great light access and backstage provisions. The town hall even hosted ACDCs 1976 Summer Vacation Tour. A fitting location for the release of TNT in the former mining boom town. For us it was important to re-engage the Town Hall into the prominent north south axis of the green spine. This meant taking elements of the integral old and new job industries and ensuring they are demonstrated in the local fabric to become a centre and topping piece to the town’s axial green corridor. The town’s brick and town halls’ brilliant arches are simplified and extended through and into the streetscape interrupting the simple passing by of the historic place. This arch extrusion becomes a trafficable overpass that accesses a new mezzanine in the town hall preserving its use and history as a stage, democratic meeting and event space. The main council operational buildings get relocated into a terraced adult playground with a distorted desalination floor plan creating a public outdoor cloister and lookouts back onto the town and out to the coastline it serves. The trafficable archway is remnant of the defunct rail lines that have since been converted into tourist trails treasured by the locals. The simplified poppet head and pinwheel are standing posts for the old and new industries of the town. The collective serves to provide a reflective and prospective space for growth and entertainment opportunities through flexible space and prominence in the town never before provided and lost in the removal of the defunct miners complex. It aims to provide opportunity and interest to attract tourism and migrants while serving and providing for the local community and Bass Coast. It would become a feature along the coastal travel itinerary to Wilsons Promontory and Phillip Island.