Architectural Culture: New Perspectives 2018

ARCHITECTURAL

NEW

CULTURE

PERSPECTIVES 2018

Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning

1918

2018

Celebrating 100 years of innovation

Architectural Culture: New Perspectives 2018 © ISBN: 978-0-6484458-0-7 Published for the Sydney School of Architecture Graduate Exhibition 2018.

First published in 2018 by Harvest: Fresh scholarship from the field.

A Freerange Press imprint.

Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney Wilkinson Building 148 City Road University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia Editors Adrian Thai Michael Tawa Designer Adrian Thai Printer Oxford Printing © Architectural Culture: New Perspectives 2018 This book, Architectural Culture: New Perspectives, and all works depicted in it are © editors and contributors, 2018. All rights reserved.

The Graduate Exhibition elective, MARC6204, was coordinated by Michael Tawa with the following students.

Tahnia Allauddin Ryan Cai Portia Hyland Bethany Lee Grace Lee Hong Li Winston Liew Jack Storch Sasha Tatham Sophia Tsang Exhibition logo Philippa Buchmann

Contents

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Editorial

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Master of Architecture

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Bachelor of Design in Architecture

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Bachelor of Architecture and Environments

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Honours

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Essays

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International Studios

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Tin Sheds Gallery

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Student Excellence

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Supporters

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

What might it mean to ‘graduate’, to ‘make the grade’? What does a graduate graduate into; into what ‘degree’? These words and ideas—graduate, grade, degree—form a connected world of meanings. ‘Graduate’ derives from Latin graduari, to take a degree; and gradus – step, grade. In the early 15th century, graduation was an alchemical process of tempering, refining or perfecting substances. It was a matter of adjustment and relative measure, giving each element its due degree within a compound whole.

Editorial

Temperance was important to the Greek philosopher Plato’s idea of philosophy, which should not be undertaken for its own sake, but rather for the sake of mutually adjusting body and soul, bringing all parts of the human being into one harmonious whole so that no one part dominates. This musical analogy was eventually extended into architecture through proportion, which is the tempering of measures to produce concordant spatial arrangements.

Plato also had something to say about education, which for him was a matter of ‘recollection’—the Greek word is anamnesis: a double negative, meaning ‘to-be-withoutforgetfulness’. Humans are beings who remember; and to be educated means to be enabled to remember what one already knows, rather than to have one’s ‘empty vessel’ of a mind filled with new knowledge.

By contrast, our word ‘educate’ derives from Latin educare—literally to ‘lead’ or ‘drawout,’ to ‘conduct’ or ‘indicate’; the one to be educated must be ‘ductile’—that is, elastic, easily-led and made to conform. By contrast, Plato’s anamnesis allows us to think of education (and architecture) as practices enabling the already-there of an individual, subject, client, community, site or building to be recuperated, to come forth and become itself—maybe as such and for the first time.

Grade and degree imply a series, or a larger whole to which they belong: like treads in a staircase, centimetres in a metre or notes in a musical scale. Implied are two critical ideas: multiplicity—there is more than one; and otherness—each one is different.

Communities are such kinds of differentiated multiplicities—wholes that do not cohere into discernable, nameable totalities; wholes constituted by diversified relations rather than sameness; emergent communities of radically uncommon parts (or subjects) that interminably defer one to the other.

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These transactional collectives are barely tolerable to the current geopolitical order.

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And yet, such is the collective we have here in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning; and in the three programs (or degrees) whose graduating work is depicted in these pages: the Bachelor of Design in Architecture, the Bachelor of Architecture and Environments and the Master of Architecture.

This community of difference is likewise and increasingly the professional community that graduates will find themselves dutybound to engage with and enable throughout their professional lives-to-come—in circumstances increasingly multifarious, complex, indeterminate, uncertain, risky, even dangerous; but also full of opportunity and potential for transformation.

Michael Tawa Professor of Architecture

Graduation is a transitional experience and every transition always means two things: we must leave something behind, including a part of ourselves, and we must take up something ahead, something not yet part of us, someone we are yet to become. The exceptional graduate work featured here and in the accompanying exhibition are testimonies to this fact and this ambition.

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MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE

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‘Out of Bounds’ Sarah Yap

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State Archive for Architecture

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‘PAMPA’ Lewis Evans

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Graduation Studio MARC5001 Semester 1 2018 Michael Tawa Tutors Jennifer McMaster Michael Tawa

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In Semester 1, graduating students selected from two studio options: • An individually conceived project, building on students’ own architectural research, interest and ambitions; • A defined project—the State Archive for Architecture—with a predetermined program, site and thematic framework.

The majority selected the State Archive project, intended to house a collection drawing on material from existing libraries, galleries and museums; architectural and urban models; drawings; books and folios.

This would provide researchers, architects, urbanists, artists and the general public with an historical account of the city and a forum in which civic futures can be imagined and debated through annual programs of lectures, symposia, workshops, film screenings, performances and exhibitions.

The project site for the State Archive is located where Flinders Street turns into South Dowling. For a long time vacant, it is severely encumbered by its exposed position and the Eastern Distributor Tunnel passing directly below. Zoned B4 Mixed Use, it has an FSR of 3:1 and an area of 1070m2.

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The thematic scope for both projects is set around related themes of atmosphere, ambiance and mood, together with an implied constellation of related ideas: ambiguity, atunement, anticipation, apprehension, temporality, potentially, immanence...

Students investigate these consilient themes as a way into and through the process of imagining and tectonically resolving their project. For the State Archive, additional themes derive from historical, topographical, urban, microclimatic and other registers— such as the complicity of architecture in the erasure of Country and First Nations culture, territory, language and ecology; the archive as a collection that registers a past, invites recuperation and cultural production. It also furthers emergent themes such as evidence, classification, taxonomy, typology, collation, constellation, recollection, retrieval, memory, remembrance, memorial, forgetfulness, oblivion, assemblage, fragment, trace, narrative, story, store, yarn, yard, fact, fiction, figure, feat, fake, artifice, craft, craftiness....

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MICHAEL TAWA

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(L) Hanna Farrell, ‘Sydney Architecture Forum’. Exploring the idea that architecture is fundamentally a public concern, the brief for a ‘State Archive’ was reimagined with the intention that it become more easily accessible for all, not just those educated in the discourse of architecture. A subterranean archive provides the foundations for the various exhibitions, lectures and seminars that unfold above. The remainder of the programs are housed across two separate buildings – one primarily for the public, and the other, for academics, researchers and students of architecture. The ground plane serves as the facility in which these two user groups interact and debate, allowing the ideas and concerns of architecture to be freed from disciplinary jargon and revealed to a general audience.

(R) Anna Ewald-Rice, ‘Wilurarra Youth Artspace’. Late last year whilst visiting the community of Warburton I was asked to help develop a sketch design for a new youth Artspace. It is a real project, community driven with real outcomes, real clients, meetings and timelines.

Overlaid upon a framework of ‘grad studio requirements’ centered around notions of “atmosphere and ambiance”, my focus has been to develop an Artspace which facilitates creativity, is a place youthful in nature and one which indigenous architect Kevin O’Brien speaks of as enabling ‘the day to day realities of Indigenous communities’ to take place. It is intended as a building which the community can engage with and come to feel to be their own.

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MICHAEL TAWA

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MICHAEL TAWA

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(L) Arash Katrak, ‘Terra Aliquis’. For a large proportion of the Australian public an understanding of indigenous architecture nullius persists to this day from Cook’s initial proclamation 250 years ago. A brief evolves toward a space of preservation & education: a museum of indigenous architecture – past, present and future – where custodianship and knowledge can be passed on. Themes of ambiguity and assemblage become core drivers for addressing and subverting ideas of cultural misrepresentation, whilst constraints of the site inform formal and tectonic responses. Ownership is fundamental; indigenous groups govern and curate their work, to continue song-lines and storytelling through the architecture of terra aliquis, someone’s land. (R) Tye McBride, ‘Barandyi – ‘Yesterday + Tomorrow’’. In the language of the Ngunawal people,

Barandyi means both ‘yesterday + tomorrow’. This project asks us to consider our nation’s past and to consider how we approach tomorrow. Through engagement with indigenous social, physical and metaphysical connections with the land, and an investigation of the political history of Canberra, the ‘feeling’ or ‘sense’ of the site was given provision to emerge. The project site, City Hill, was originally positioned as the symbolic heart of Canberra by Burley Griffin, intended as a place for the people. This project reimagines City Hill as Barandyi ‘yesterday + tomorrow’; a reconstructed groundscape, that returns the landscape to one of the sublime, architecture that embraces natural formations to provide shelter and gathering spaces and through its ingrained interconnectedness explores the concept of being + becoming.

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JENNIFER MCMASTER

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JENNIFER MCMASTER

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(L) Lewis Evans, ‘PAMPA’. The Public Archive of Material Practices in Architecture (PAMPA) hopes to gather and generate stories about architecture, material and place. The Archive has an active hand – research, sharing and engagement inspires discourse between the city and the institution. This role of the building as communicator seeks to be wholistic, therefore, its approach to archival material is broader than plan and section. The Archive does not wish to turn a blind eye – and questions how to reconcile its place within the typology of institution. It seeks to enable its users to understand the role of architecture in the continuing processes of colonisation and hopes to be a resource and facilitator for better practice in architecture.

(R) Bethany Sullivan, ‘Aquatic Reserve Education Precinct’. The Forest High School is relocating to the Aquatic Reserve, allowing a town centre to be built adjacent to the Northern Beaches Hospital.

My project sought to collocate the 2000 students with the existing pool and playing fields, while employing evidence-based strategies to facilitate contemporary education. Curiosity, that intense desire to know, directed my research, and resulted in a proposal for a grid to be overlaid with the site, providing a rhythm for the new interventions to be woven into the old. Three typologies are employed – large shared resources, smaller workshop outposts, and clustered home communities anchoring the students’ days.

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JENNIFER MCMASTER

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The Architecture of Postproduction: Rethinking Sydney’s Car Park Buildings

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‘Machinic Antagonism’ Matthew Bolton

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Graduation Studio MARC5001 Semester 2 2018 Sandra Karina Löschke Tutors Sandra Karina Löschke Duanfang Lu Matthew Mindrup Mano Ponnambalam Michael Tawa In cities world-wide, car parking is increasingly reduced as vehicular access to inner urban areas is restricted and urban policies promote public over personal transport: Oslo transforms car parks into greener and liveable spaces, Zürich turns them into public spaces, London bans new car parking and there are a plethora of ideas for temporary uses.1 This global scenario also applies to Sydney, where planning policy predestines many of the city’s sixty car parking buildings2 to become functionally obsolete in the near future. Occupying prime land, these increasingly obsolete buildings represent a network of emerging “free spaces” that offer unique opportunities to rethink the architectural and programmatic redevelopment of our urban centres.3

Nicolas Bourriaud’s theory of postproduction4 offers a valuable framework for this challenge. Although not frequently cited in architectural contexts, its tenor reverberates in a number of architectural projects that have favoured transformative redesign over demolition and have become milestones of a new pragmatism in architecture: Lacaton & Vassal’s Palais de Tokyo and the Tour Bois le Prêtre in Paris. Promoting mottos such as “working with what is at hand” and “doing as little as possible,”5 Bourriaud’s idea of working with “pre-existing materials” and adapting and combining them to make new things (or in his words “d-jaying”) is translated in architectural approaches that understand all objects, concepts and ideas as material resources than can be recycled and transformed ad infinitum.

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For an overview of various policies, please see, Elizabeth Clements and Rebecca Taylor, “Empty car parks everywhere, but nowhere to park. How cities can do better.” The Conversation (July 20, 2018). See http://theconversation.com/empty-car-parks-everywherebut-nowhere-to-park-how-cities-can-do-better-99031 2 For a list of local car parks, see the City of Sydney’s website: http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/explore/gettingaround/parking/car-parks, accessed 29th June 2018.

3 See for example the various interpretations of “free space” at the German and French pavilions at “Freespace”, La Biennale Architettura 2018 4 Bourriaud, Nicolas. Postproduction. Berlin New York: Sternberg Press, 2002.

5 See the architects’ website: http://www.lacatonvassal. com/?idp=56 2018

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SANDRA LÖSCHKE

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(L) Mochen Jiang, ‘The Decussate’. The design will address the social loneliness encountered by international students in Sydney, a famous metropolis for international students. This proposal, together with Jane Jacob’s theory of how a healthy city works, delves deeper into how to make a small community come alive while putting forward the theory of decussate at the intersection of culture, life and entertainment. The design preserves the core structure of the original building and transforms it by building a new structure to support the once car park. Residences are divided on both sides, with an open functional area forming a vast atrium. The functions are distributed in the form of modules and connected by ramps and stairs.

(R) Sunny Liu, ‘Project Evergreen’. Sydney is experiencing a surge of population growth at an unsustainable rate, testing the resilience of Sydney’s local food system. Competing priorities for Sydney’s land continue to see the repurposing of traditional agricultural land.

Horizontal expansion is no longer a choice, meaning we must invest in technologies which allow us to farm in the sky. This project strives to revolutionise agriculture by bringing it into the new age. Project Evergreen symbolises the urban erection of high-tech agricultural architecture. With over 60 carparks turned into sustainable, zerowaste urban farms just in the CBD alone – the looming food crisis doesn’t seem so scary after all.

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SANDRA LÖSCHKE

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DUANFANG LU

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(L) Natalie Au, ‘Healing Hub: A Healing Journey for Domestic Violence Victims’. The healing process for victims of domestic violence can be considered an endless loop, of being wounded, bleeding, to forming scars. The physical trauma may fade over time, however victims bear unspeakable mental torment through the repetition of these processes. This project proposes a comprehensive and effective post-trauma healing journey through formal and informal treatments: group supporting and sharing; discovering, facing and healing the self; and professional therapy services. These three levels of healing implement the suggested strategies of self healing: connections with others; spirituality and beliefs; and bodywork and other restorative activities, through

architecture. (R) Shu Yan Yew, ‘NoisEscape’. NoisEscape is a carpark structure which post-produces unpleasant external noise into white noise – a calming instrument, in response to Bourriaud’s theory “to create is to insert an object into a new scenario”. The environmental noise that contemporary architecture sadly rejects is celebrated in this project in order to solve the soaring stress levels and sleep issues facing Australians. This project is proposing a contemplative village as a retreat in the city, by diffusing the distinct locomotive and urban noise from the Goulburn Street Carpark with a forest of acoustic stilts. The soothing backdrop accompanies the journey of tranquillity and wandering in the therapeutic village where the user can escape from in the midst of chaos of the city.

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DUANFANG LU

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MATTHEW MINDRUP

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(L) Kehan Shen/Xiaoyin Cai, ‘Archive as a simulacrum of the city’.

The project aims to post-produce the obsolete urban structure, the Domain Car Park, into an architectural archive and museum with a series of mix-used programs including a library, a theatre and gardens. By studying 40 cases of demolished or misused buildings in Sydney's architectural history, 4 concepts for the design are developed, which are Channelling, Reinterpretation, Anti-façade and Prosthetics. The process begins with highly abstracted architectural moments, translating historical mappings into architectural spaces and material pragmatism. By creating the tension between old and the new, and developing the spatial experiences, simulations of Sydney’s architectural history generates as a display of ‘shame’ demonstrating a ‘nostalgic manifesto’ for urban evolvement.

(R) Jaymus Lim, ‘The Middle Landscape’. The Middle Landscape is not a landscape nor a built structure. It is neither mechanic or natural, and is not a historical preservation or projection of science fiction. It is a grey area – an aggregator of contradictions. With the asymmetric cycle of production and consumption fueling Australia’s energy and food waste crisis, the project explores the potentials of the architectural ‘in-between’ as a ‘twin-phenomena’ that serves to counterbalance or even unite the city’s social, environmental and technological production and consumption systems. Through the architectural application of permeation, infiltration and transverse, this project housing an AD plant and an urban farm re-materialises the Domain Car Park as the city’s grey area, consuming while producing, growing while decaying, a third space, for all.

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MATTHEW MINDRUP

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MANO PONNAMBALAM

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(L) Wen Xin Li, ‘The Nostalgic Cross’. The project aims at reviving the loss of cultural diversity in Kings Cross, by creating a nostalgic museum through the adaptive reuse of the existing Kings Cross car park. For many people, “living at the cross” is not only an expression of a geographical location but is also a state of mind, an attitude towards daily life. This is about being who we are and acting upon our will. As an interpretation of the historical street life, the museum incorporates the complexity of the streetscape in a vertical manner, with nostalgic shopfronts revolving around a centralised theatre, illustrating the image of a culturally engaging Kings Cross life. (R) Elise Harrison, ‘Kings Cross: Education Precinct’. With Sydney’s population forecasted to grow by over one million people in the

next ten years, Sydney’s urban inner cities schools currently do not accommodate for the densification of the city. My design strategy adapts the obsolete Kings Cross car park into an inner city vertical school. In contrast to the monolithic car park, this will house the school’s public programs. The vertical school located above the car park utilises a diagrid structure to create an organic form, that contains flexible outdoor learning spaces. By giving new life and ‘DJing’ an obsolete building typology horizontal schools in the obsolete car park, through the framework of postproduction this project aims to explore the potential for the vertical school to be ‘a mini city’ that creatively and constructively engages with the community’s needs.

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MANO PONNAMBALAM

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MICHAEL TAWA

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(L) Matthew Bolton, ‘Machinic Antagonism: An Architectural Proposal for the Production and Agencification of Difference’.

When perceiving the world from a post-structural viewpoint, one might question the validity of a unified city. For how can we be one people if we are all different – the city is never unanimous.

Yes, consensus does exist, but at the expense of smaller, often dangerous ideas. This architectural proposal aims to occupy the vacant public space where difference and confrontation may occur.

A place for large and small ideas alike that truly represent the people and their differences. This is achieved via the coupling of various architectural instruments into an assemblage of machines, namely for Ideas, Refinement and Agency. (R) Kate Waddington, ‘Speaking Sound: Postproduction Architecture at Goulburn St’.

Speaking Sound is a new contemporary multi-arts venue of inspired production and performance which celebrates the unique aural and haptic conditions of the site in a new architecture of experimentation, hypothesis and innovation. The building, separated into three key zones, takes an experiential narrative of metamorphic purification to reinvest the sensory experience that city dwellers currently lack. The design reinvigorates the obsolete car park through cylindrical forms which activate the building, elevating the phenomenological experience of architecture to a new level of resonating aural perceptions. Several incisions function like woodwind instruments in which suspended pipes within the sub-terrain resonate in response to train activity below, creating immersive moments of discovery.

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MICHAEL TAWA

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MICHAEL TAWA

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(L) David Butler, ‘Ancient Future: Architecture of Navigation’. To reimagine a car park as something other is to construct a social and cultural narrative. Sophisticated technology will eventually eradicate the need for most car parks, and that same technology will render most jobs obsolete. What will this world look like? Ancient Future seeks to program architecturally the decline of cars and the decline of work as a subject of navigation. This civic building provides a place where humans can discover their identity, their humanity, outside of their work. The project explores ancient typologies within the structural constraints of a multi-level car park, and celebrates the friction produced by this intersection, to create an architectural narrative to navigate a near future. (R) Sarah Yap, ‘Out of Bounds’.

Out of Bounds is an urban high school that examines the interstice between vertical design and shifting pedagogies in the New South Wales education sector. Over the next four years, six billion dollars will be invested into upgrading and building new public schools across the state, necessitating a serious consideration of how architecture can critically engage students and facilitate a changing pedagogy centred on student driven learning and collaboration.

Organised into smaller micro-schools aligned with specific signature pedagogies, Out of Bounds is a school that celebrates difference in learning and teaching methodologies, a place that encourages metacognition above passive consumption.

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MICHAEL TAWA

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Dare to Pitch

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The gap between finalising an assignment and presenting a project to the real world can be intimidating for students and requires a rethink of academic objectives in light of larger professional and community priorities.

Students in the Master of Architecture program recently had their first exposure to professional practice through the aptly titled program, Dare to Pitch.

Armed with a three-minute ‘pecha kucha’ style presentation, around 200 Masters students swarmed out in small groups to visit the offices of architecture practices across Sydney. Their hosts included architectural practices Crone, COX, fjmt, Jacobs, Architectus, Lacoste + Stevenson, TZG, and others as well as real estate investment group Mirvac. In front of a room of industry professionals, the students presented their projects, explaining their ideas, approaches and innovations and how these could address current problems or open up new opportunities for the built environment.

Dr Rizal Muslimin, Coordinator of the Digital Architecture Research Studio believes that “presenting their work to industry experts off-campus was a good experience for students,” and he got the sense that “the encouraging feedback and the engaging 2018

discussions gave the students more confidence that what they are producing is relevant and of the standard expected by the industry.”

Professor Duanfang Lu highlighted that there are equally benefits for the host practices: “We had two of the senior architects of Jacobs give constructive and well-articulated feedback, commenting that they appreciated the opportunity to see a range of fresh ideas from students.”

This event forms part of what Master of Architecture Program Director Sandra Löschke hopes will become a broader professional engagement initiative. “I hope students will learn how to articulate the central ideas and benefits of their projects and explain how they contribute to the solution of real world problems,” Sandra Löschke explains. “I want them to have the chance to present in non-familiar contexts and to gain confidence in pitching their ideas to large, non-academic audiences.

And, of course, it’s also an opportunity for them to make contact with potential future employers.”

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Master of Architecture

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Semester 1 Michael Tawa

Semester 2 Sandra Lรถschke

Jennifer McMaster Ziqi Chen James Ellis Lewis Evans Yizhou He Samantha Kirby Hiron Li Zhongni Liu Omar Majzoub Tye McBride Matthew Naivasha Steven Perez Emily Qiu Bethany Sullivan Cong Wang

Sandra Lรถschke Kayle Jordan Butterworth Shuyan Chen Sandy Chen Zac Greentree Aurelia Colette Hortle Mochen Jiang Zhichong Liu Kai Qi Lucy Elizabeth Sacco Firas B Sami Chenyi Shan Yilun Shen Jessica Ellen Smith Mitchell James Solomonson Kaitlin Zhangjing Sun Chensitian Wang Bridget Patrica Webb

Michael Tawa Henry Brown Carl Costantine Anna Ewald-Rice Hanna Farrell Yinqi Kang Arash Katrak Fay Ma Bo Mou Adela Ngui Jenna Nitschke Mohammad Omar Darryell Prevendido Pei Shen Jianpeng Sun Cai Zhan

Duanfang Lu Chi Hin Au Wing Shan Au Wai Hang Chan Michael Christopher Diedricks Yue Guan Xiao Han Mochen Jiang Yiming Lu Fengkai Qi Meng Shi Tara Sydney Von Somogy Xiao Tang Yong Wang Shu Yan Yew Huiting Zhang Mano Ponnambalam Elise Rose Harrison Roza Jarrah Ravyna Rohit Jassani Anida Kucevic Wen Xin Li Tianzhou Liang Michel Luiz De Melo Feliccia Mendes Monteiro En Shi Amanda Huangfu Sun Mitchell Tran Xiaohui Wang Zu Wang Sabrina Zambetti

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Matthew Mindrup Xiaoyin Cai Aun Tup Chan Yingjia Chen Mutiara Cininta Lening Feng Sarah Alice Gilkison Jaymus Chih Hsien Lim David Craig Moiler Ophelia Catherine Paroissien Jessica Lauren Pickford Kehan Shen Anna Kathleen Walsh Jason Sean Yenson Qin Zhang Michael Tawa Matthew Geoffrey Bolton Byron John Kenneth Bourke David Mathias Butler Charlotte Susannah Canning Santiago Catanzano Madeleine Simone Dawson Julia Clare Goode Gloria Ngoc Tran Ha Benjamin Jia Jie Li Davin Nurimba Cecile Tran Kate Waddington Yuxiao Wang Damien Daniel Wilmotte Sarah Mae-Siew Yap

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External consultants and guest critics Semester 1

External consultants and guest critics Semester 2

Callantha Brigham, City of Parramatta John Choi, CHROFI Richard Hough, ARUP Eoghan Lewis, Eoghan Lewis Architects Chris Major, Welsh & Major Nic Moore, NSW Government Architect Alberto Quinzon, QUINZON Nicholas Scanlan, ARUP

Ken Baird, City of Sydney Craig Burns, BVN Saul Deane, UNSW Ashley Dunn, Dunn & Hillam Architects Tim Greer, Tonkin Zulaika Greer Architects Amelia Holiday, Aileen Sage Architects Richard Hough, ARUP Allison Huynh, NBRS Architecture Byron Kinnaird, NSW Architects Registration Board Thierry Lacoste, Lacoste + Stevenson Vaughn Lane, JACOBS Tiffany Liew, Carter Williamson Architects Ed Lippmann, Lippmann Partnership Kathlyn Loseby, CRONE John Mai, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies Andy McDonald, MI Architects Jennifer McMaster, TRIAS Studio Nando Nicotra, JACOBS Andrew Nimmo, Lahznimmo Architects Anita Panov, panovscott Ian Perlman, UNSW Alberto Sangiorgio, Grimshaw Andrew Scott, panovscott David Tordoff, Hayball Vesna Trobec, Studio Trobec Troy Uleman, John McAslan + Partners Stephen Varady, Stephen Varady Architecture

Kate Fife, MArch Glen Hill, ADP Matilda Leake, MArch Sandra Lรถschke, ADP Chris Smith, ADP Ana Subotic, MArch Practice hosts Aileen Sage Architects Dunn & Hillam Architects Lahznimmo Architects Tonkin Zulaika Greer Architects TRIAS Studio

Arianna Brambilla, ADP Jason Dibbs, ADP Adam Pierre Hannouch, ADP Maryam Houda, ADP Weijie Hu, ADP Sarah Breen Lovett, ADP Michael Muir, ADP Paolo Stracchi, ADP Simon Weir, ADP Niranjika Wijesooriya, ADP Practice hosts Architectus Sydney BVN Carter Williamson CHROFI Collins and Turner COX Cracknell Lonergan Architects Crone Dickson Rothchild Hayball JACOBS Johnson Pilton Walker Tonkin Zulaika Greer Architects Welsh & Major

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BACHELOR OF DESIGN IN ARCHITECTURE

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‘Heckler’s Theatre’ Chris Koustoubardis

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Domain Threshold

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‘ROWS’ Daniel Jacobs

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Architecture Studio 3B BDES3027 Semester 2 2018 Catherine Lassen Tutors Jason Dibbs Anna Field Ivana Kuzmanovska Eoghan Lewis Tiffany Liew Chris Mullaney Jonathan Newton Lachlan Seegers Thomas Stromberg Michael Tawa Between the dense city grid of Macquarie Street and the politically charged landscape of the Sydney Domain, students proposed a public space for performance, display and discussion. Behind the Mint on Hospital Road, their speculative designs sought to negotiate the historic built setting together with the adjacent relative urban void.

Framed as internally coherent or rule governed, Jørn Utzon’s methodological design process afforded a legible, proto computational, additional disciplinary context from which to imagine new possibilities.

Design thinking evident in his work spans scales ranging from broad organisational decisions to detailed assembly ambitions.

Conceived as parametric, thoughts that inform geometry can be seen as connected to attitudes towards the program and structure, extending to performance requirements such as acoustics.

Attention was paid to techniques of architectural representation to conceptually clarify design direction as well as generate fresh prospects. Through the iterative redrawing and re-making of what one ‘sees’ and ‘reads’ students were asked to isolate architectural components or strategies, leading to a precise yet abstracted, open 2018

ended depiction of a studied architectural work or urban context. Clarification through parametric schemas offered extended tools for establishing an internally coherent new framework; explicit representation helped promote intuitively driven design options toward realised intentions. Architectural agendas were framed in relation to larger urban attitudes. Structural and material thinking was encouraged in alignment with broader design priorities; part and whole were seen as continuously interconnected.

Multiple modes of making helped to manifest intelligible, inventive, doubly digital and material propositions.

Focussed by close readings of projects or buildings via measured drawings in the online Aalborg Utzon Archives, students posed their own designs in critical response and counterpoint to the studied works. Copies were not allowed.

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JASON DIBBS

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(L) Tianyu Zhou, ‘Culture Valley’. A building to lure the public in, this design creates an open space that acts both as a symbol and theatre through transition. A diagonal atrium carves an opening in the Domain. In response to Utzon’s study of relationship between the grid and staircase, the essence of the design is a series of terraced floors that together form a ‘valley’, creating an informal stage at its center – a place to broadcast culture to other parts of the city and separates architectural elements, historical versus modern.

(R) Emma Harrison, ‘Inhabited Plinth’. Responding to Utzon’s humanist approach to architecture, this project explores architecture as a means by which human needs are provided for.

A space has been created which ritualises, frames and creates performance out of the way people carry out menial tasks. The built form is based upon the plinth archetype, made up of a series of landings, stairs, ramps, platforms and seats which suggest human inhabitation but does not prescribe a specific kind, thus facilitating the performance of human interaction, of watching and being watched.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

41

JASON DIBBS

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

ANNA FIELD

42

(L) Olivia Bouchier, ‘out of sight, into mind’. Subverting the occularcentrism of our current culture, ‘out of sight into mind’ developed with an emphasis on the formation of space. Utzon’s Opera House was understood as an orchestration of architectural modes and elements playing out on the body to generate transformation. Here, a unique pallet of bodily imprints, above and below synchronicities and other compressional and undulating nuances were employed to affect a sensual, slow release, felt experience within an overall visually restrained architecture.

Performance engages all our senses, emotions and memories as we witness bodies suspended in space. Why not allow the precursor to the show move us before we have even taken our seats?

(R) Daniel Jacobs, ‘ROWS’. This design looks at the way directional lines and shapes can be used to choreograph a space and influence the way people use it. Examining the way Utzon uses form and structure to guide people through his buildings inspired the development of a series of tiles, each one with its own qualities, relating to the idea of direction, line and shape. A landscape is created, both above and below the ground plane. The system and language of tiles is expressed through the creation of performance spaces, promoting the flow of programmed areas and aiding in circulation. A single tile versus a landscape of tiles emerges, opening the idea of shifting perspectives, the parts of a whole, creating an engaging public landscape for Sydney.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

43

ANNA FIELD

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

44

IVANA KUZMANOVSKA

(L) Tahnia Allauddin, ‘The Field of Dionysos’. The roots of performance manifest democratic ideas. The Theatre of Dionysos in Ancient Greece embodied a ritualistic notion of viewing performances. People from different tribes across Athens would gather in one space where all were able to view the performer, along with one another’s reaction to the performances. They engaged with the performer and amongst themselves, voicing their opinions, agreeing, disagreeing. Exposed to and revealed by the sun, they sat there from dawn to dusk, alternating between plays of the comedy and tragedy narrative types to gain a holistic breadth of knowledge and be exposed to a multitude of ideas. – Richard Sennett, 1998 Raoul Wallenberg Lecture. The

design creates an environment where elements of comedy and tragedy plays can be viewed back to back, exposing viewers to a multitude of ideas. Within its fabric, there are spaces for social

interaction, hidden retreats, and open expanses to allow discussion and debate arising from the viewing of performance. (R) David Ho, ‘Intersectional Space’. This project seeks to erode segregational barriers of spatial experience and undermine our prevailing social segmentation. Interrupting presumptions of spatial continuity and enclosure via volumetric intersection, Intersectional Space manifests as a dual series of interwoven volumes. Both strands of volumes are aligned to unique orientational axes, with each strand hosting a contrasting subject material. Shared performance spaces occupy some intersections between the strands, positioned to facilitate both a spatial and intellectual dialogue. These spaces conform to an intermediary grid belonging to neither space intersected, signifying their importance and neutrality as a point of confluence for both circulation and ideas.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

45

IVANA KUZMANOVSKA

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

EOGHAN LEWIS

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(L) Anastasia Pitt, ‘Chthonic Playhouse’. This project is first and foremost about desire, the innate dichotomy between craving control and passivity simultaneously. The Domain’s Chthonic Playhouse proposes a space for free, interactive theatre and dance and attempts to dissolve the relationship between performer and spectator. Similar to improvisational theatre, this building attempts to engage the body and mind in a dialogic architecture that acts as an unraveling narrative. From the outside, one may steal glimpses of the internal workings of the sculpture garden through deep reveals set into the thick wall bordering the site. They may not enter, however, without first undertaking a ritualistic walk from the park, through subterranean tunnels and deep courtyards open to the sky. This entrance sequence attempts to destabilise pre-existing notions of ‘theatre’ and as one is borne deeper below top soil,

encourages identity disengagement in the face of the unknown.

(R) Chris Koustoubardis, ‘Hecklers Theatre’. This proposal explores the relationship between theatre, architecture and the body through the lens of the threshold. Through an understanding of Utzon’s manipulation of the horizontal and vertical planes in crafting the movement and transition between spaces, the design establishes a sequence of threshold typologies that emphasis the theatrical experience of soapbox oratory. With a focus on the relationship between the audience, the speaker and the heckler, intriguing and dynamic spatial moments are formed that capture the essence of public theatre and free speech. The resulting spaces act as machines which facilitate an interdependent dialogue between architecture and its users, setting in motion a landscape of theatre, performance and discussion.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

47

EOGHAN LEWIS

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

TIFFANY LIEW

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(L) Connor Tan, ‘Oriēns’. In this project, the orientation of both indoor and outdoor theatre spaces generates a geometric dialogue with the Art Gallery of NSW and other cultural nodes within Sydney.

By framing specific unidirectional views which skim above the Domain canopy, Oriēns is an architecture that subtly amplifies an inherently earthly worship of the East. The design is also an expression of a volumetric language of dramatic counterpoint between solid and void, the celebration of interstitial spaces, and a physical articulation of urban axis. (R) Sophie Hutchinson, ‘Ludic Dance’. The domain threshold not only marks a transition between

two areas of divergent orders, but is a place in its own right. The proposal is a celebration of this inbetween realm, for it is here that we cultivate all relationships and understandings of the other. The coherence of this architectural intervention lies in non-hierarchical reciprocal relations, exploring the interplay between the muted performance of architecture and the dynamism of dance. Formal language is sampled from site specific architectural fragments that privilege the interstitial, generating a pastiche where rudimentary forms subordinate embellishment and polyvalent spaces incite ludic choreographic interpretation.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

49

TIFFANY LIEW

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

CHRIS MULLANEY

50

(L) Justin van Ryneveld, ‘Specimen’. Utzon: An Investigative Diary. The specimen is under investigation. The direct approach is rarely determined in the beginning. One discovers the specimen obliquely and is only ever provided a glimpse of a part. The parts are dispersed as a threshold; A pattern exists but can only be inferred.

Current theories present inconsistencies between the specimen parts. Is the geometry spherical? Is it elliptical? Initial tests suggest that the elliptical model is the best fit for now. Everything is connected but the whole is incomprehensible without the parts.

Circulation is the key to connecting the parts. When the pattern is understood then the specimen can be modified and reproduced.

(R) Chloe Henry-Jones, ‘Utzon and Gofers in a Quiet Drama’. Utzon’s Elineberg Housing and Gofers’ Sirius both use a structural schema of blades and subtle level shifts to enhance privacy in a domestic setting. Transferred to the public domain, these core architectural elements have been repurposed to collapse privacy and create a more diverse dialogue between adjacent spaces. The spacing of the blades pays homage to the interior walls of the Mint and Parliament to form new spaces that have a quiet continuity with precinct architecture. In combination with carefully controlled apertures focussed on the ever-visible stage, the unique stepping and ramping between blades aim to create a subtly textured and intuitively legible experience for people traversing the building.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

51

CHRIS MULLANEY

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

JONATHAN NEWTON

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(L) Stephanie Cheng, ‘Undefined’. In a state of constant flux, pulsing between spaces dark and light, solid and void, intimate and open, the design aims to obscure the harshly defined threshold between contrasting elements within Sydney’s Domain. This blurring of boundaries is not only experienced on the ground plane as you traverse through the built and natural site, but also extends vertically. Organised on an oscillating grid, the steel latticed structures diffuse into the ground, guiding the user through a series of transitional spaces, shifting in hierarchy, scale, and spatial quality in order to intensify one’s rich and layered experience circulating through the building. Here, the architectural forms mediate the instances of counterpoint and harmonise this junction through the act of blurring. (R) Cassandra Nicomede, ‘A Musical City’. A

Musical City aims to create a public landscape that forms a hub for performative intervention, and a scene where public life, art and performance merge in a collaborative exchange through a sequence of geometries. The string of spaces that intend not only to cater to one, but to many, are woven into the site, with each volume an iteration of exposed and collective space. Together, these form a secondary landscape of transitional spaces harbouring musical amplifiers where the busker can busk, the dancer can dance, the musician can play and the student can learn. These architectural forms create a conversation, encourage interaction, and pose the potential to peel back the rigidity of the city. This is a city of its own, which is constantly pulsing and flowing with the rhythmic beat of music.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

53

JONATHAN NEWTON

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

LACHLAN SEEGERS

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(L) York Yu, ‘Cloud Layer’. Inspired by studying Utzon’s Bagsværd Kirke, the premise of this design is to define space with changes in lighting, ceiling geometry and atmosphere, as a Cloud Layer would. The building seeks to unite heritage, city and natural domain by drawing in people from each of these sectors with its public performances and its sculptural yet highly functional forms. A sense of duality is achieved through the relationship between the structures – the Cloud above serving as an envelope for the indoor theatre and a canopy for the amphitheatre, whilst the Plinth below encases the programs in a simple and efficient manner, defining each space with its own unique ceiling character.

(R) Josephine Nicholas, ‘Modulate’. The nature of the spectator and spectacle are affected by the interplay of levels and heights.

The authority in this relationship can be reversed, augmented or confused by architecture. The archetypal settings for performance are explored underground as functional program, then paralleled in the undulating ground plane. Subtle imprints and swellings of the ground create impromptu opportunities for performances where control is permitted or seized between observer and the observed, putting forth an interplay of positive and negative space.

An awareness of topography is created as users experience the variations and degrees of the ground moving away or towards them.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

55

LACHLAN SEEGERS

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

THOMAS STROMBERG

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(L) Annabel Melhuish, ‘Rendering Absence’. ‘Rendering Absence’ delves into Derrida’s notion of the trace, which considers the site to be a ’charged space of potentiality...containing traces of both memory and immanence.’ The basin-like topography of the Domain was a fertile spur for protests and occasionally violent riots. This evocative form of democracy is juxtaposed against the institutional and politically-charged spaces of Macquarie Street.

Sculptural interventions positioned at both the Supreme Court and the Speaker’s Corner emphasise this poignant axis, with the amphitheatre mediating between these nodal points. This design uses fragmented and dynamic spaces to shed light on the political potency of the site. (R) Ethnie (Yixin) Xu, ‘Sydney Urban Communal Theatre of Interpenetration’. The project is derived from analysing

the essential quality of a theatre and its effect on the audience.

The traditional greek definition of a theatre is that it consists of an act and results in an emotional atmosphere. Through analysing the existing actions and atmospheres around the site, it is evident that the site is surrounded by a diverse range of functions and will therefore, attract a diverse range of audiences from different backgrounds carrying primarily different expectations of a theatre performance. In order to embrace this diversity while harmoniously merge the audiences into one play, the theatre design is an open outdoor theatre surrounded by community function spaces where different people can be engaged in many different activities while at the same time still have the optional visual engagement to a public theatre.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

57

THOMAS STROMGERG

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

MICHAEL TAWA

58

(L) Max Volfneuk, ‘5010 Hospital Road’. This performing arts precinct straddling the boundary between city and park is conceived as a porous, civic space embedded in its site; a public, trafficable platform supporting a frame within which private programs are suspended. The form of the building responds to horizontal datums drawn from the surrounding streetscape and prominent Morton Bay Figs dotting the Domain. The scheme is organised in two parts: an open platform rises gently above the sloping site forming a landscaped plaza, continuing the language of the park. Acting in counterpoint, a veiled stack of volumes enclosing a galley, theatre, and roof terrace floats atop a forest of columns.

Thickened transitional zones are expressed by a stepped ground

plane and generous, full-height light wells along the building’s perimeter, blurring boundaries between inside and outside. (R) Meen Yee Ooi, ‘Khôra’. Khôra is a community theatre which provides a framework, allowing a variety of performances to take place in lieu of the rich tension and history between the two political forces of the Domain and Macquarie Street. Building upon Plato and Martin Heidegger’s reasonings of “khôra”, the structure aims to be a “receptacle” of ideas, “formless” and “boundless” (El-bizri, 2015), that receives without adopting the character of what it holds. Be it a political speech, a rally, an interactive theatre, a street debate, “khôra” guides, frames, and ultimately, is broken by the fluctuations of theatre and human ideas.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

59

MICHAEL TAWA

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

MICHAEL TAWA

60

(L) Yijie Liu, ‘Apparatus’. Skyscrapers in the Sydney CBD are products of the capitalist economy. This architecture shelter capitalists to obtain huge interest. Consequently, the purpose of capital accumulation constrains skyscrapers to certain limited forms and typologies. This project alludes to skyscrapers by adopting similar height and critiques their typologies, capitalistic urbanism and ultimately capitalism by investigating an alternative design opportunity which has not yet been explored. A vertical theatrical architecture is created as a civil space. Its internal narrative is a journey through the extreme experiences within volumetric forms in order to challenge people's perspective and to make people perceive otherwise. This architecture is a polemical and experiential machine for living in.

(R) Daiming Zhu, ‘Stage; Temporary’. Conceived as an open-air timber scaffold lightly inserted into a materially and temporally heavy site, this temporary public structure facilitates spontaneous spectatorship and ritualises the performances of everyday life.

Platforms at varying heights offer diverse opportunities to perform or to sit and spectate – this fluidity of the ‘stage’ dissolves the formality between spectator and spectacle and, in encouraging the finding of individual vantage points, invites all community members to participate in this impermanent architectural performance.

Additionally, the structure’s dry construction and modularity allow program to be introduced and dismantled throughout the structure’s lifecycle, embodying the ever-changing nature of both theatre and public architecture.

2018

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO 3B

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

61

JASON DIBBS

2018

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

Bachelor of Design in Architecture Catherine Lassen

Anna Field Olivia Deirdre Birch Bouchier Yiyi Fan Jennifer Zhen-Ni Feng Marina Gebraeel Thomas Gordon Gunning Natalia Harasymiuk Katherine Kailing Huang Daniel Jacobs Jeffrey Liu Gaurav Mehra James John Oakley Rupert Robinson Trengove Yi Wan Yaning Wei Ziqi Michelle Yu Karin Wagdy Benyamin Zaki

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Jason Dibbs Xuqian Duan Eden Grill Emma Jennifer Harrison Hao Huang Alexandra Jablonowska Calioppe Demitra Kefalas Hyung Woo Kim Alina Leung Ziying Li Alex James Montgomery Waichung Michael Poon Jack Brodie Storch Patricia Chi-Yan Woo Zhongxiao Wu Tingyu Zhang Wesley Zhang Tianyu Zhou Daiming Zhu Ivana Kuzmanovska Tahnia Zara Allauddin Andrew Carfax-Foster Evonna Dai Candace Dinkha David Sein Yap Ho Helen Lioe Angela Liu Zekun Qin Jacqui Singer Jialin Song Willars Tan Kwan Yew Teoh Emma Warton Jing Weng Zehao Yin Haochen Zhang

Jonathan Newton Sarah Ezziddin Mohammad AbuSardaneh Yu-Shuo Chang Stephanie Cheng Bora Kim Djordje Krajcic Harry Lam Wing Yee Alice Lee Ka Hui Lim Cassandra Nicomede Aashritha Rajendran Aude Sahli Adrian Artha Saputra Tsz Kwong Marco Tong Joanne Tran Sophia Yik Yan Tsang Xiaotang Wang Marcellinus Agie Wiriahadi

Eoghan Lewis Fatema Zohra Adiba Gabriella Lucy Boyd Shijing Chen Yeon Ho Choi Bing Tsun Chung Xin Du Jordan William John Evans Mia Evans-Liauw Chris Koustoubardis Khemika Laksanabencharong Joshua McMartin Anastasia Michaela Pitt Marharyta Plata Yilin Qiu Gracia Arleen Setiono Yuewei Zhang Jiayue Zhang Tiffany Liew Danielle Abigail Ocampo Arana Annalise Kate Blatchford Imogen Catherine Rosa Bowers Catherine Kai-Min Chen Benjamin Chung Jack Niel Dumanat Freeman Fung Sophie Elizabeth Hutchinson Daniel Lam Andrew Sifri Connor Samuel Tan Judy Yitong Yao Christina Zhang Xinny Zhao Chris Mullaney Lauren Nicole Butler-Howell Jessica Ming Yen Chan Nanjiang Chen Elizabeth Matilda Cox Skye Hengpoonthana Chloe Henry-Jones Joyeeta Iqbal Xuan Ji Yige Li Winston Liew Chantelle Noorizadeh Justin Andrew Van Ryneveld Yuchen Wu William Xu

Lachlan Seegers Zeinab Allam Si Lang Ryan Cai Besharat Eshraghiboroujeni William Michael Goodwin Yu Huang Grace Lee Michelle Bao Chau Nguyen Josephine Anne Nicholas Eleanor Mary O'Brien Ulla Maike Purcal Sasha Rose Tatham Cayla Van Wyk Huanzhou Wang Yuqing Wang York Yu Thomas Stromberg Charlotte Olivia Anlezark Irena Danica Astono Nikita Singh Chaudhary Andy Chen Grace Harrison Shiyan Huang Yu Hong Huang Jeewon Koo Leah Kouper Myat Hsu Mon Kyaw Lijun Liu Xingchi Luo Annabel Melhuish Sophie Peterson Milan Vukicevic Yixin Xu Alex Rui Lin Zeng

2018

Michael Tawa Catherine Bauer Sophie Katarina Carlberg Chlaris Chi Lam Chee Millicent Kate Curtis Stefano Di Lorenzo Martin Han Gao Chuyan Guo Siyong Liao Yijie Liu Meen Yee Ooi Anna Rui Chen Shen Tri Utari Tio Maximilian Volfneuk Jessica Wang Lu Wang Lameesa Ajmaeen Yousuf Yumeng Zhang Jiayi Zhu

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

External consultants and guest critics Sean Akahane-Bryen, Sean Akahane-Bryen Architect Justine Anderson, panovscott Matthew Bennett, Bennett and Trimble Paul Berkemeier, Paul Berkemeier Architect Ben Berwick, Prevalent Casey Bryant, TRIAS Studio Andrew Burges, Andrew Burges Architects Harry Catterns, SAHA Peter Chivers, Assemblage Tom Cole, Architect Min Dark, Andrew Burges Architects Samantha Donnelly, UTS Alex Jung, reinhardt jung Laura Harding, Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects Rob Harrison, Harrison Architecture Olivia Hyde, NSW Government Architect Steven Janssen, Lang O’Rourke Mel Koronel, Turner Studio Phil Moore, Melocco and Moore Architects Matthew Pullinger, Matthew Pullinger Architect Bruce Roberton, Great North Design Services Raffaello Rosselli, Raffaello Rosselli Architect Brian Zulaikha, Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects Ross Anderson, ADP Jennifer Ferng, ADP Jasper Ludewig, ADP Mahroo Moosavi, ADP Michael Muir, ADP Kieran Richards, ADP Ana Subotic, MArch David Tapias Monne, ADP

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Guest lecturers Line Norskov Eriksen, Head of Architectural Exhibitions, Utzon Centre, Denmark Mads Bjørn Hansen, Praksis Architects, Denmark Søren Johansen, Johansen Skovested Architects, Denmark Richard Johnson, JPW Johnson Pilton Walker Rizal Muslimin, ADP Raffaello Rosselli, Raffaello Rosselli Architect Sebastian Skovsted, Johansen Skovested Arkitekter, Denmark

2018

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

64

BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE AND ENVIRONMENTS

2018

65

‘On the Road’ Kate Field

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

Capstone Studio

66

‘Thriving Eden’ Kerry He

2018

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

Capstone Project BAEN3002 Semester 2 2018

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Christhina Candido Tutors Diksha Vijapur Micaela Micillo Matheus Tonelli For the 2018 Capstone Studio from the Bachelor of Architecture and Environments, students were presented with the opportunity to reflect on the challenges of designing a sustainable and healthy school campus for high-density living. Through a balanced mix of academic and industry-led content, this studio introduced students to the critical issues arising from the ever increasing school population in Australia now and for the next decade. From the changes in the pedagogical approaches from teachers to student-centered, the rise of flexible learning environments and campuses that are open to the community, this studio provided students with an authentic learning opportunity to reflect and propose design solutions that are relevant to real-world problems.

Exploratory work developed during this semester was aimed at crystalising students’ abilities to identify and solve critical issues arising from the built environment through multidisciplinary lenses. The unit provided 2018

students with the freedom to choose the scale of their design, and proposals targeted issues at urban or building level. The range of work produced by students features proposals primarily framed around the three key streams of design, sustainability or health. A user-centered and integrated approach was also encouraged. Combined, the output from this studio celebrates the Bachelor of Architecture and Environments as a degree that provides students with a strong multidisciplinary understanding of the built environment.

CAPSTONE STUDIO (BUILDING)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

MICAELA MICILLO

68

(L) Churan Li, ‘Bring Green In’. The key objectives of this high school are to achieve the 3W’s. A well-organised, village-feel campus, to encourage connection and interaction between students. A well-developed greening campus, ensuring there are enough open spaces for students and staff. And a well-established wayfinding system, creating a vivid, interesting and enjoyable campus. The main proposed building is the science building, which includes a canteen, classrooms, offices, communal spaces, labs and studios.

Passive design strategies are used in this building to create a sustainable project. The building facades have an open viewing design, encouraging people to enjoy the outdoors, and several open spaces are introduced into the building so that people can

have a strong relationship with nature no matter where they are. (R) Genevieve Welch-Hammial, ‘A Drawable Campus’. The importance of learning and practicing visual art is being increasingly overlooked in Australian secondary and tertiary education. The proposal aims to counter this through the introduction of a school of fine arts situated in Camperdown. The school campus is designed to enable students to use their surrounds as source of inspiration, as something to draw. In particular, this proposal focusses on a central gallery space, a sculpture garden and a neighbouring drawing studio. Natural daylighting is a major driver with a roofing system that caters to the Australian climate whilst reducing lighting and energy costs for both the gallery and the drawing studio.

2018

MATHEUS TONELLI

2018

CAPSTONE STUDIO (BUILDING)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

69

CAPSTONE STUDIO (PRECINCT)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

DIKSHA VIJAPUR

70

(L) Portia Hyland, ‘PLAY’. With a focus on health, specifically childhood obesity at a precinct scale for Camperdown, this project intends to maximise the amount of exercise that children participate in, as well as encouraging imaginative forms of learning. The goal is to provide spaces that allow every child to develop and fulfil their potential. A ‘Play’ unit has been proposed on the site as well as in neighbouring parks. This unit seeks to encourage active and safe modes of transport within the community as well as providing children with an imaginative and tactile learning experience to aid in their development. (R) Kate Field, ‘On the Road’. What lies along and beyond Parramatta Road, the arterial route connecting Sydney’s east

to west? Currently, life along the road suffers from the motorway intersecting low-density development in which shopping centres act as the cultural and economic driver for the community. ‘On the Road’ proposes a structure which extends along Parramatta Road and frames light-industrial zones in each suburb to create highdensity urban hearts for the suburban west. This project focusses on the Camperdown site as a model for other nodes along the road.

A mixed-use architecture has been proposed in which a school is integrated with other programs to catalyse exchange of knowledge between the occupants of the city.

2018

MATHEUS TONELLI

2018

CAPSTONE STUDIO (PRECINCT)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

71

CAPSTONE STUDIO (PRECINCT)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

DIKSHA VIJAPUR

72

(L) Bethany Lee, ‘Agora’. The Agora was the centre of every Greek town circa 600 B.C, where philosophers would preach teachings and pose questions to the public. It was used for public gatherings and recreational activities, and they were the central meeting place of every community. The decline of agoras in communities that are conducive to learning and interaction has seldom produced modern day meeting places of thought and inquisition. The project will provide a modernised community meeting place that caters to the unique needs of its local urban fabric. It will maintain a focus on providing outdoor learning environments for local primary or high schools, as well as the local citizens and will be a place where two communities can collide.

(R) Kerry He, ‘Thriving Eden’. This masterplan is centralised on the theme of sustainability with an underlying focus on design plus health, on a precinct level. The vision encapsulates optimal learning facilities that cater to interactive, collaborative, spatial and visual learning methods. This is seen in the main feature of the high school, the circular wells centred in the middle of the oval which can be integrated around Australian schools. Initiatives have been made to widen streets, thus improving connectivity to and from the site. The project incorporates innovative design strategies and amenities that will enrich the students’, teachers’ and community’s experience of the site.

2018

DIKSHA VIJAPUR

2018

CAPSTONE STUDIO (PRECINCT)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

73

CAPSTONE STUDIO (BUILDING)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

CHRISTHINA CANDIDO

74

(L) Timothy Milross, ‘Walls of Ivy’. Walls of Ivy at its core is a self-sustaining secondary school, vertical in stature and passive in strategy. The project aims to push the existing boundaries surrounding the functionality and composition of secondary schools through potent and strategic design. The conceptual driver is an aim to push the premise of sustainability to be taught, refined and excelled not only the curriculum of learning within the proposed school but infused into the design of the spaces in which such learning occurs. Thus, an overarching presence of biophilic, ecological design can create positive intrinsic influences into the mindset of those engaged with the spaces. (R) Giorgi Jardine, ‘Biophillic Euphoria’. Biophillia positively impacts people’s mental

health, helping alleviate stress and generates positive thoughts and emotions. These benefits extend to improving cognitive performance and increasing productivity. The vision of a healthy, sustainable and happy high school campus is addressed in the project with the integration of biophillia and an architecture focussed on the conversation between indoor and outdoor environments, often blurring boundaries between the two. In every interior space of the school there is a visual connection to biophillia, both inside the room and out. The campus layout revolves around a modular system incorporating flexible classrooms to suit a variety of different learning requirements.

2018

CHRISTHINA CANDIDO

2018

CAPSTONE STUDIO (BUILDING)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

75

CAPSTONE STUDIO (PRECINCT)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

CHRISTHINA CANDIDO

76

(L) Oscar James, ‘Inhabit Sense’. Inhabit Sense centres around the notion of evoking senses of individuals in the primary school precinct and community of Camperdown, Sydney. The urban precinct has been designed to integrate with the on-site primary school, as well as providing facilities to the broader neighbourhood and community. At particular pockets of the precinct are moments of interaction where a particular sense of the human body is prompted. As an individual passes through the precinct each human sense is engaged with its surroundings. The precinct is also part of a larger urban fabric of sense orientated ‘nodes’. These nodes are further extensions of the precincts cells, scaled to an urban level. These ‘nodes’ are linked via pedestrian priority lanes

and cycle paths to create a public network of open spaces. (R) Jessica Whitlock, ‘Primitive Education’. The architectural design invents a playful and sustainable vertical primary school, sparking curiosity within the users. The built form creates a tailored learning environment that initiates a pedagogy derived from historical human learning ideologies, through a connection with nature – a primitive education. The landscape and the architecture are explored as a way of facilitating a dialogue for its users. One form of education, as offered within the scope of ‘Primitive Education’ is that of guiding a child, indirectly, to know how to observe their surroundings to the greatest possible degree, and then to wait for the subsequent spontaneous manifestations.

2018

MATHEUS TONELLI

2018

CAPSTONE STUDIO (BUILDING)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

77

CAPSTONE STUDIO (PRECINCT)

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

CHRISTHINA CANDIDO

78

(L) Eloise Bull, ‘Grown in Camperdown’. The Grown In Camperdown project seeks to establish a strong sense of place and character while providing holistic health benefits to the local community.

The new Camperdown Horticultural High School plays a key role in this. Its main feature, a large urban farm is connected to a network of farming interventions throughout the area. Across the project, triangular planter box modules, made from recycled timber, are arranged vertically and horizontally, to adapt to different spaces.

The Grown In Camperdown project is community owned and maintained with the aim of cultivating a deep sense of wellbeing and belonging. (R) Andrea Pletikosa, ‘The Intersect’. ‘The Intersect’ is a secondary school specialising in digital and industry related education and community integration. It is designed as a statement on the current schooling system and aims to redevelop the ideology

behind schooling requirements to match the ever changing societal climate. Drawing upon the foundation blocks of Bauhaus curated by Walter Gropius, the school examines how industry has changed over time and predicts how it may change in the future. It focusses on experiential learning through workshops and sports, understanding social issues, and knowledge of current digital mediums and industries. It partners with institutions to support staff working in the industry with emerging ideologies and technologies while also providing school students a hands on experience and soft skills.

Structured based on wings, each facilitates a new type of learning system with a communal area in the main intersection. All wings have access to the outdoors, stairs for access between all levels and a small span allowing light to penetrate through the building.

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CHRISTHINA CANDIDO

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CAPSTONE STUDIO (BUILDING)

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Bachelor of Architecture and Environments Christhina Candido Tutors Diksha Vijapur Micaela Micillo Matheus Tonelli Jacob Ainsworth Calan Andrews Hugh Beale Philippa Buchmann Eloise Bull Michael Chan James Chen Yanxiao Chen Jacques Chevrant-Breton Thameesha Eliyapura Osman Esmer Kate Field Martina Fu Matt Giles Faith Haeusler Katherine Han Angelica Hatzioannou Kerry He Han-Yu Hsin Shasha Hu Portia Hyland

Oscar James Giorgi Jardine Haydn Johnston Connor Killalea Jason Le Bethany Lee Kah-Lin Lee Charlotte Li Huiying Li Justine Li Shiyao Li Simon Li Edward Liang Cong Liu Suzanna Liu Veronica Lu Tim Milross Caitlin Muller Sharon Ng Namika Parajuli Ana Pastore Garcia

Andrea Pletikosa Richard Reyes Hugh Roberts Emma Rogerson Keona Romero Bella Rust Taito Sasaki Yan Rong Tan Alex Volfman Genevieve Aloka Welch-Hammial Jess Whitlock Zef Wijayanto Isaac Wong Terrence Woodhouse Jing Yan Kate Zambelli Christopher Zeng-Allen Pinzhi Zhang Yu Zou

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External consultants and guest critics Danielle Fogarty, NSW Department of Education Kit Ku, Hayball Vida Lam, NSW Department of Education Chris Locke, Steensen Varming Micaela Micillo, Dukes Workshop Pty Ltd Matthew Todd, HASSELL Matheus Tonelli Santos, fjmt Diksha Vijapur, Steensen Varming Andreina Zerpa, AECOM Tooran Alizadeh, ADP JohnPaul Cenzato, Library/ADP Adrienne Keanne, ADP Sandra Lรถschke, ADP Dagmar Reinhardt, ADP

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HONOURS INDEX

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‘The Mirage of Home’ James Feng

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10AM

1 P1

4 P2

7 P3

10

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2

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12PM

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Kate Waddington ‘Apparition Architecture’ Supervisor: Jennifer Ferng

‘We delight in the mere sight of the delicate glow of fading rays clinging to the surface of a dusky wall, there to live out what little life remains to them. We never tire of the sight, for to us this pale glow and these dim shadows far surpass any ornament.’

Tanizaki, Jun’ichiro (1977) In Praise of Shadows

What is an architectural apparition?

It is a momentary presence of shadow and light within a room, formed at the building apertures. One moment it appears, the next it vanishes. ‘Apparition Architecture’ defines these ephemeral appearances within rooms as direct readings of the buildings physical 2018

form through the intersection of painting and architecture.

The idea of Apparition Architecture emerged through the documentation of shadow and light conditions over time within the Wilkinson Building. The installation involved interior objects and the spaces of the Wilkinson building, with a particular focus on perceptual phenomena as digital simulations of documented shadows were read against the spatial surroundings of the hearth.

Observations in projection shifts challenged visual perceptions of familiar forms and surfaces.

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Johanna Wang ‘Urban Atlas of Edible Landscape Typologies’.

Supervisor: Paolo Stracchi

Agriculture and edible landscapes are fundamental to urban living. From the discovery of the grain, which marked early settlement, to various garden movements that emerged out of nineteenth-century urban ills, the connection between people and their care for land has been historically valued for driving urban development and cultural identity. Yet in our more recent accounts, urban agriculture is largely absent from the planning of cities, as rapid urbanisation take precedence on available land.

Urban agriculture is defined as landscapes that are able to produce for and contribute 2018

to a system of food networks within the city.

Recently, grass-root co-operatives, such as guerrilla farming and neighbourhood plots, have risen to the forefront of bottom-up urban enterprises. These initiatives confront increasing discontent with unsustainable lifestyles, nutritional security and loss of ecosystems. The budding interests in growing one’s own food, reiterates the onus on city designers: how can urban agriculture be formally and coherently designed into urban spaces to continue an enduring connection between urban dwellers and landscape?

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‘Speaking of Design’.

Supervisor: Matthew Mindrup

“One day a professor approached for a midproject desk crit and pointed to the model I had constructed... “Is this you?” he asked. Hoping to build a casual rapport with this rather stern young teacher I responded jokingly, pointing to myself, “No, no this is me,” then to the model, “This is my model”. “No!” he replied firmly, putting his hand on my model, “This is you and this is shit!” a student anecdote from Voices in Architectural Education: Cultural Politics and Pedagogy

Since the start of architectural pedagogy, the disgruntled sentiments of past students have rung throughout the history of design studios.

From the competitive infamy of the Beaux Arts ateliers to the interdisciplinary methods of the Bauhaus, architectural education had maintained a reputation of a difficult and gruelling course. Through historical and ethnographic studies, issues within the education of an architect can be highlighted.

In over 60 interviews with current students in the undergraduate courses of the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney, recurring issues are raised.

To improve the education of architects, ‘architecture’ and ‘design’ must be defined so that the properties surrounding its communication and study can be assessed.

The definition of architecture has been contested throughout different schools and eras of thought.

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However, the following proposed definition is not a qualification of what ‘architecture’ means, but instead what ‘architecture’ is in the context of semiotics and epistemology.

The proposed definition does not attempt to challenge the social or cultural definitions of architecture; they do not seek to place architecture as a meaning to an individual.

Instead it is helpful in recognising where architecture can be placed on a scale of comprehension and communication. Firstly, how continental philosophy would establish architecture as an item of epistemology and secondly, as an instrument in improving discussions about design in architectural education.

Looking at architecture as an epistemological object alongside Karl Popper’s World View and Charles Saunders Peirce’s Theory of Categories, the concerns of both present and past pedagogies can be addressed. It is understood that the subjective element of architecture should be maintained, as students voiced their value of tutors’ preference and experience. But striking a balance with empirical feedback is required to encourage a healthy discourse in which architecture exists neither as a purely subjective opinion, nor an objective function; it is drawn from the qualities of experience as well as the knowledge of reality to be the cultural muse of humanity.

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Lewis Evans ‘In Proportion, Dom Hans van der Laan and the plastic number’.

Supervisor: Ross Anderson

This dissertation explores the architectural theory and practice of Dutch Benedictine monk and architect, Dom Hans van der Laan (1904-1991). As a lens to view the work, the research uses a seven-line poem by DHVDL, to understand, critique and build upon his architectonic principles.

The research is important on a few levels, initially it is positioned as a reaction and reflection on the current status of architectural education. In addition the 2018

dissertation is across multiple mediums: a collection of drawings, models and words is presented in an exhibition to offer a multifaceted understanding of DHVDL’s enigmatic theory. The final offering responds to DHVDL’s last remarks on his work, where he proposed that there was still much development that others had to do. In response to this, the thesis crescendos with explorations in typology, beyond the built oeuvre, of four monasteries and a house.

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James Feng ‘The Mirage of Home: The Estranged Modernity of Science Fiction’.

Supervisor: Ross Anderson

As humanity approaches the second decade of the twenty-first century, the individual is compelled to reevaluate their place in the hyper-fragmented, artificial environment of postmodernity. The science fiction film, with the advent of visual effects, has become a powerful tool to take us from the familiar to the strange and fantastical, to fear and wonder. SF’s hidden agenda however, is a journey to a removed perspective, not of the utopias promised by futurism, nor the dystopia’s envisioned by the postmodern, but the present from the lens of the future, the I from the lens of the Other. This

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thesis is a journey of self-introspection through examining the idea of sentience, consciousness and the home as mirage.

A framework is set to cross-examine and dissect organic phenomena such as nostalgia, the uncanny and mirage, with artificial ones such as the bug, the interrupted pause and the glitch. Specifically focussing on the Blade Runner duology and the TV series Westworld, this cross-disciplinary exploration from film study to social sciences to philosophy induces unsettling insights about the fundamental perception of space, I and home through a Sisyphean cycle of familiarity, the uncanny, and estrangement.

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Liying Tan ‘The Escalator’.

Supervisor: Chris Smith

“[…] the nomads make the desert no less than they are made by it. They are vectors of deterritorialisation.”

A Thousand Plateaus, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, 382

This thesis pursues a new way of thinking about the Central – Mid-levels Escalator and Walkway System in Hong Kong following the notion of ‘Nomadic War Machine’ developed

by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus, and interpreting it with the inspiration from a film, Chungking Express, directed by Hong Kong director, 2018

Wong Kar-wai. Though the escalator has served the high-density city as a mechanised pedestrian transportation system for almost a quarter decade, under there grows ambiguity and multidimensionality. The identity of the escalator is established by its relations to its surroundings and the individuals from all society groups. These individuals are both Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘sedentary people’ travelling in a striated city space and ‘nomads’ configuring smooth space regardless of transcendent laws, which endows the escalator with manifold qualities.

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Li Yang ‘The Need to be Needed, A Design of Social Housing in Guangzhou, China’.

Supervisor: Matthew Mindrup

Migrants in Guangzhou are now suffering from a severe predicament. Their main housing area, the urban village, shortly faces demolition due to the implementation of the ‘urban improvement plan’ by the municipal government. Migrants, who make up 1/3 of Guangzhou’s population and support the fundamental industries of this city, are forced to move out without any compensation.

Other residence options to relocate to are very limited, meaning that they are in fact experiencing a disguised expulsion.

Therefore, a new design of social housing is necessary, and must be accepted by both the migrants and the government to be 2018

feasible. This welfare architecture should also be versatile enough to keep up with the speed of China’s urban transformation.

Under this premise, the design of the social housing is exploring the function of working as a medium to build up the reciprocal relationship between the migrants and Guangzhou city.

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William Tzaikos ‘The Emergence of Liveability in Melbourne’s Planning’.

Supervisor: Cameron Logan, Dallas Rogers

Liveability is a word thrown around in western urban planning, particularly in Melbourne, which is considered to offer a globally significant lifestyle. In planning, the term has been used in strategic language across Victoria, emanating from certain bureaucrats in the Melbourne City Council and state planning department in the early nineties.

This honours thesis begins by mapping out the city’s political landscape during the eighties – formative years of Melbourne’s planning when significant policies for an improved city emerged. Quality of life surveys that ranked cities against each other arrived in the early nineties and became a marketing factor in an economic strategy for 2018

attracting mobile professionals to Melbourne.

Concurrently, the Kennett government liberalised the planning system to allow more intense development in established communities, driving residents to establish guidelines for conserving their suburbs and defining liveability in a statutory sense.

Building a clarity around these histories can inform the disagreement over rights and responsibilities of developing in Melbourne today.

Top left: Cover graphic from the Crow Collections’ community health papers, (1983).

Bottom left: Cover graphic from the Institute of Public Affairs’ Project Victoria, (1991).

Right: A Manhattan-style tower proposed that exceeded two height limits, (1997).

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Cecile Tran ‘Pulau Bidong Camp: Contestations for Power and Place’.

Supervisor: Jennifer Ferng

With more than 1.6 million refugees departing from land and sea following the end of the Vietnam War (1955-1975), refugee camps emerged as part of the Southeast Asian landscape for more than a decade. Focussed on the protection, survival and containment of refugees, architects imposed a formal production of space, exerting the interests of those politically and economically powerful, reducing these camps to biopolitical spaces.

For my honours report, I challenge this notion and reveal how the active involvement of place-shaping by the Vietnamese camp residents became a key empowerment mechanism and strong assertion of right of place. I examined an often neglected aspect of the Indochinese exodus, Malaysia’s role, and focussed on the camp at Pulau Bidong (1978-1991). Along these lines, the report investigated the Vietnamese perspective on 2018

Malaysian policies and the self-organised spaces that were made in reaction to them.

Many books and articles on the exodus make only passing references to Malaysia or Pulau Bidong and how it featured during this time.

Since the connection between Vietnam and Malaysia merits more attention, this paper explored the spatial discourse and pursuit for power between the Malaysian Government and the Vietnamese refugees at Pulau Bidong.

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ESSAYS

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Phronesis: An Introduction

Phronesis means, broadly, ‘wisdom’ or ‘knowledge.’ It is one of the four cardinal virtues in classical philosophy, alongside courage (andreia), justice (dikaiosune) and temperance or moderation (sophrosyne).

Its Latin translation, prudentia, adds the dimension of prudence, sagacity or care: whether with an eye to safeguarding oneself, or safeguarding that which is being cared for or solicited. But phronesis more accurately refers to knowledge directed to practical ends. In that sense, it is associated with techne—hence with technology, defined as the ‘know-how’ necessary to the realisation of a work: whether that be a concept, a society or a work of architecture.

Aristotle refers to phronesis as having both moral and tactical value. It is practical knowledge, characterised in its application by virtuousness and virtuosity. Phronesis, while distinct from poiesis (production) and techne, and producing nothing external to itself, is nevertheless ‘prudent knowledge directed to action’: to making, producing, doing. It is “the art of deliberating well concerning the means to an end.” Plato gives it more the sense of discrimination, judgement; as well as the intelligence necessary for this. Another derivation might be from phro-, fore and noesis, thought (Greek noos, nous)—that is, forethought; which then allies phronesis with Latin providentia, to see-ahead—evidently a necessary skill in every kind of designing and making.

Michael Tawa

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While phronesis derives from the Greek phroneo, to think, to have the capacity for reflection, the sense is something more like a ‘force of the mind,’ or, more accurately, ‘spirit,’ ‘breath of the soul,’ even ‘wit’—since phreno means ‘diaphragm’ and phrenes ‘the lungs.’ The reference here is to mindfulness, to having thoughts-for, to being minded in one way or another, to hold a countenance and attentiveness-towards. Foundational to the idea of phronesis, then, is this ethical register of care and solicitude that must be read as concernful looking-after and soliciting. The German term for care, Sorge, implies this sense of surgence or emergence to which every creative practice is directed.

Phronesis is, in summary, ‘the disposition of concernful [or mindful] praxis.’ In that sense, it represents a sustained ideal for the kinds of research and pedagogy that have characterised the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at The University of Sydney since its establishment one hundred years ago, and that continues to drive and inspire the work of generations of its academics, students and graduates. This collection of short essays from my academic colleagues is a modest contribution to that trajectory; and I thank them for their generosity and insights.

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How do we become more mindful of our physical actions and the impact of these actions on others and the world around us? Is it our role as designers to foresee the effect of all actions before they have taken place?

How can we teach future architects to absorb more from the world, to positively influence the design of our built environments?

Ecology of Awareness

If we are gifted with desirable faculties, then perhaps an acute awareness of all that surrounds us is possible, perhaps an understanding of our actions before they take place can be envisioned. If we can quiet our minds to calmly see a situation with foresight, empathy and reason then perhaps we can go beyond the immediate concerns of the everyday to a broad overview of all that needs to be considered before action takes place.

Sometimes this does cannot happen, sometimes we may feel confusion, or the weight of expectation, a constricted body and worried mind through not knowing which way to act or turn. A fear of overlooking, forgetting, or worse still ignoring some parts of the whole that should have been considered. This can lead to inaction, a frozen impotence that cannot be freed, the design does not come to fruition, or worse is born “unresolved!”

As architects are we supposed be the masters? The alchemists that turn the “anarchy” of nature and human occupation into a harnessed form, and a bridled spirit?

As designers that form the world around us, is it not our role to immerse ourselves in the primordial essence of all? Is it our role to observe and absorb all that is necessary to interpret the world in a way that can be reconfigured and presented as a rational well considered solution that has the best outcome? If we observe the most significant information, and carry out the correct actions then we will design buildings which are at least sustainable and well considered upright members of our society that contribute to its form and function.

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But what if we move beyond this notion of separateness, where we are not the omnipotent controller? What if we can learn and teach that we are just one part of a complex network of relations? What if our actions in design are not deemed to be right or wrong, rather, they just are? What if our contributions to the built environment are viewed as natural as a bee to the hive, or a bird to a nest? What if there was no hierarchy that suggests due to the complexity of our buildings, their institutional frameworks and the ways we conceptualise them that we separate to more “natural” systems?

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This view it is not to collapse the institution, avoid education, shirk responsibility or ignore the impact of our actions on the built environment. On the contrary, it is to encourage and acknowledge that all actions are valuable, because they are part of an intricate multivalent system that we are embedded within. If we are able to learn and teach this, then perhaps our ethical and environmental considerations of the built environment would come about not from a sense of duty from our separateness, and ability to control, but rather from being attuned to being a small part of a greater network, and an increased sensitivity that comes from this.1

Sarah Breen-Lovett

Perhaps then, phronesis is something that is not learned through actions of separateness or mastery, but rather surrendering to be part of a deep ecology that could eventuate into a greater understanding of what needs to be done.

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1

During the 1920s-1930s artists and architects such as, László Moholy-Nagy, Frederick Kiesler and Siegfried Ebeling, examined relationships between the self and the surrounding environment in novel, high-tech and pseudo-scientific ways to expand upon the modernist ways of designing and experiencing architecture. This has been specifically articulated in Ebeling’s “Space as Membrane” 1926, MoholyNagy’s “New Vision from Material to Architecture” 1928 and Kiesler’s “On Co-realism and Biotechnique” 1939. While there is an abundance of contemporary interpretations of these works by Walter Scheiffele, Spyros Papapetros, Olivar Botar and Detlef Mertins, there is an unexplored significance in foregrounding built environment as part of a broader ecology.

Sigfried Ebeling’s lesser known (and recently released in English) “Space as Membrane”, can be seen as a conceptual lynchpin for re-framing these ideas in the more well-known works of Moholy-Nagy’s “New Vision from Material to Architecture” and Kiesler’s “On Co-realism and Biotechnique”. While, there are many similarities amongst these three practitioners, it is Ebeling’s articulation, of Nietzsche’s statement that “Our lust for knowledge of nature is a means through which the body desires to perfect itself”, which articulates the primacy and urgency of this awareness of an intricate interconnection between self, natural and built environments.

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Aristotle once mentioned that in order to engage with phronesis, an individual had to possess political and thinking abilities to gauge how to act in a given situation.

Phronesis as a quality of character was necessary for the attributes of practical virtue or even better, practical wisdom – an individual’s decision to act in a virtuous manner resulted from a combination of human values and knowledge. A good individual was one who was reasoned and capable of action. Today, architects rarely deal with the question of virtue or even practical virtue – most architects accept that they will employ good decisions when erecting new buildings or dismantling old ones. But practical ethics enter into the architect’s repertoire as a toolkit of conscience. Practical virtue is, in fact, an art of judgment – architects must clarify their values, interests, and the power relations embedded in their practices.1 Doing good and to some degree, making ethical decisions is now written into the professional code of conduct for architects. To be licensed as a practitioner, an architect agrees to make honorable decisions on behalf of himself/ herself, his/her clients, and the communities he/she serves.

Practical Ethics: Virtuous Architects and Good Causes

When applied to the context of refugees and architecture, the mindful praxis of design is naturally focussed on assisting vulnerable communities. Ethical architecture, in all of its incarnations, calls for positive virtue and conscious designs that eliminate inhumane conditions found in immigration detention centres, juvenile prisons, or refugee camps.

Architects though must ask for whom is it best to create new spaces, how will those spaces be maintained, and who will continue to fund them. The shiny branding of ethical architecture has permeated areas like disaster planning, urban resilience and reconstruction efforts, community relief, and slum upgrading. But what does ethical architecture actually look like and what does an ethical approach to architecture constitute? It is not sufficient for architects to reinforce how the qualities of natural light, access to green spaces, and ample corridors constitute good design when it might be more appropriate to begin with the people who are involved – possibly like an anthropologist, psychologist, or sociologist would get to know with whom they are working. There are limits for virtuous architects who wish to build portable shelters for resettled refugees in order to claim their ethical aura, and even Shigeru Ban has rejected any label as a “green architect” because he simply hates wasting things.2 Wealthy patrons have also gotten onto the humanitarian bandwagon to champion

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causes by donating large amounts of money.

Good people have begun to believe that spending funds might be good enough to convince themselves of doing something ethical. Non-profit organisations devoted to the “architecture of humanity” attract even greater audiences with their dedication to do-good projects that require corporate sponsors like Amazon and Nike (and some even facing charges of misuing private donations).3

Jennifer Ferng

But for all of the hype, ethical architecture has receded into a form of quieter goodwill.

Academics often proclaim how they are embracing good design and yet, how many will take it upon themselves to step down from the lectern and listen to the vulnerable subjects who must live in these places without proper shelter or access to services?

Community groups across Australia and for better, in other parts of the world, are cash strapped and lack the human assets to make viable changes to their programs. Regarding transient migrants who enter a new country and lack resources to settle into an Australian city, state governments should call upon virtuous architects to take up the challenge of providing more affordable housing since more than 25.4 million refugees now live in places other than from where they originated.

Affordable housing for refugees and asylum seekers is more pressing than ever, with rising real estate prices and the cost of living in metropolitan cities growing higher. Bottomup design consultations with refugees and local citizens encourage participation from users who know these neighborhoods best.

It is time for architects to leave their studios and to get out into the streets – to donate their time and expertise. Virtuous architects are made every day through mundane decisions, not through grand causes, to enliven and improve the conditions of those less fortunate.

1

Carol Taylor, “Student engagement, practice architectures and phronesis, and phronesis in the student transitions and experiences,” Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education 4.2 (2012), 109-125.

2 See https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culturalcomment/the-limits-of-virtuous-architecture 3 Refer to https://www.dezeen.com/2016/07/13/ architecture-for-humanity-founders-board-members-sued3-million-dollars/. Now known as the Open Architecture Collaborative.

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There’s something so human about taking something great and ruining it a little so you can have more of it.

Phro-Yo

Michael in The Good Place

Michael is an architect, tasked with conceiving and realising a special kind of hell—not hell exactly, or not in so many words, but certainly not any kind of reward for a life well lived. His project is to torture a handful of recent entrants to the afterlife by making them think they have (undeservedly, by and large) reached “the good place,” while at the same time persecuting them with just enough of a sense of the situation’s imperfections and self-doubt that their experience becomes a trial. Early in the first season, frozen yogurt serves as a symbol of this experience: something that is just okay, but for its nod to a righteousness to which neither ice-cream nor gelato can make any kind of claim (and why should they?) it can be consumed in abundance.

Director Michael Schur (the show’s real architect) has been widely praised for the complexity of the ideas in play in The Good Place—a sustained discourse on the ethics of goodness, and a penetrating reflection on the way that philosophy offers both clarity and obstacles for how one could and why one should be good. Goodness figures in these episodes as something towards which one ought to strive—not with the rewards in mind, but as a reflex available to a mere few, even when equipped (intellectually) with the wisdom of the world’s thinkers. Of course, the post-mortem experience is shaped by the accounting division (because everything can be quantified) and guided (when necessary) by a judicial arm (which one only needs when the accounting is off, which it never is).

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The effort that underpins the conscious pursuit of goodness is somehow off-putting, incorrect, and too easily corruptible. It sits in distinction to “the medium place,” awash with beige, and established as a faux compromise between the good place (which isn’t) and the bad place (in which the torture simply is what it is—red hot pokers, full of spiders, and relatives with whom you have nothing in common, as you would expect).

The good place, however, does not exactly exist (while I’m up to date at the moment of writing, this may yet change), or rather exists in the realm of Plato’s cave.

In following a course of professional study, two preoccupations can shape the educational experience if not kept in check: being good enough (passing, degree!), and being conspicuously good (excellence, 2018

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awards!). Is it just a coincidence that there are no architects in The Good Place beyond those in the employ of the dark lord? No, probably not. Where the question of good (enough) architecture was once something to be spoken of in public, the real measures, which eclipse matters of ethics, quality, longevity, or profundity, pertain to a lowest common denominator. What is the least amount of good we can let someone get away with?

Andrew Leach

This isn’t the “Cs get degrees” problem, but rather a recollection that playing the numbers game is hardly going to shape a vocation that is meaningful to the architect (that fine, legislatively protected title, available subject to assessible experience) and her publics.

Nor is it the “awards are usually meaningless” problem, that translate markers of significance and merit into a kind of abundant (exclusively) professional currency.

Architecture can be invoked in any given situation: award-winning or heritage listed buildings by architects that can be found in professional magazines and books of varied density; as normal buildings, suburban sprawl, utilitarian buildings—the kinds of structures that only sometimes reach an architects desk, but which require no effort on our part to claim discursively; and as analogy, which is to say as things that (we can) make sense (of) as architecture even when architecture has nothing to do with the situation as such (information architecture, governance, resources, finance, power, knowledge, environment, and so on). But the further one moves from the act of instructing others how to make the buildings we have in mind, the less relevant any of the testing we have endured is to our enterprise.

Phronesis as mindful practice: but mindful of what? The moments of profundity that architecture gives up over time are rare, and important for being so. And in those moments, when we find them, we can find a kind of goodness that is not about being en point on matters of concern and expression.

It is hard to plan for those moments, but they tend to make me speechless—at least for a spell. I’ll take the “huh? wow!” over the “wow! huh?” any day, even if I enjoy those actions that foster chaos and foment rebellion. Those works never come, though, from ticking the boxes, nor from aiming at profundity itself.

The clarity they demand overcomes layer upon layer of second-guessing and insecurity about the very questions that seem to be driving things forward.

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High Five

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From applications of precision, control and task repetition for automation, industrial robots have been repurposed in recent years for use in design, fabrication, manufacturing and construction industries. The versatility and adaptability of articulated robotic arms provide a potential to reveal a radically new way of thinking about and materialising architecture.1 In a context of design innovation for architecture, robots can be used to refine processes that investigate complex criteria, wicked problems or sets of problems, and inform design innovation like enclosure, modelling, material and scale (problems that are internally driven by the design process itself, and informed by development of technology and methods), and brief, structure, fabrication, assembly and design research (problems that are externally driven by an increasingly interdisciplinary conversation and shifting boundaries).2 To this extent, industrial robotic arms have been globally implemented into design research focussed on expanding architectural discourse and design practice, or as specialised, multidisciplinary postgraduate curricula geared towards construction industries.3 Robots can thus facilitate an architectural discourse that broadens the singular (one design) towards the iterative (multiple variants, material, process, adaptations, outcomes).

I will discuss here five intersections between robotics and architecture that trace robots as catalyst technology that not merely emulates previous manual processes in fabrication and construction, but which will have a significant impact on creative and social processes in the future.

1 Innovating: Data and Workflow Nothing short of a revolution, robot applications fundamentally reorient designto-production protocols and human-machine interactions. Digital tools have become seamlessly integrated with all stages of the architectural design workflow, and furthermore, industrial robot arms can be employed for direct transfers from digital data developed in 3D modelling and scripting environments to a physical machine workflow.4 Robotic six-axis multi-tooling provides an unprecedented amount of fabrication freedom that largely exceeds now standard numerical fabrication tools such as CNC routers, laser cutters and 3D printers.

Beyond exploring new forms, architects explore formal tendencies, with coordination of a considerable number of elements, 2018

serialisation and differentiation at the level of component and organisational pattern.

This transformation of design tools within computational design and towards advanced manufacturing allows architects to account for and expand previous limitations, such as the limits of precision and optimisation, dimensional tolerance and material resistance.

2 Investigating: Work Process and Material Applications Manufacturing paradigms to date were confined to available fabrication axes, with specific approaches utilising sophisticated tailorable materials. In contrast, a robot’s dexterity can be freely designed, programmed and customised to suit a particular constructive intention, both at conceptual and material levels. The customisation of standard tools as robotic end-effector allows for multiple production methods to be sequenced and consecutively undertaken by a robot.5 Singular processes of additive, subtractive or formative robotic fabrication (for example combining routing, milling, drilling, welding, gripping) can be controlled with precision, establishing a relationship model of ‘tool-process-outcome’ that is affordable, accessible, and reliable.

This promises feasibility for customisation of existing building and construction methods and already enables architects to find new solutions for a standard material palette of timber, concrete, steel and brick. But it also opens entirely new and radical approaches for physical relationships in time, such as discrete element assembly, incremental and force-based forming of sheet material, or plasticity-based deposition of fluid material bodies. Material sophistication can be achieved through the ability to control physical properties, in conjunction with sensor-based data feedback on material behaviour and robotic tooling process.

3 Incorporating: Multi-Disciplinary Collaborations A current evolution in architecture robotic shifts prescriptive programming for manufacturing and construction tasks (such as from scripting environments/GH towards industrial robot language/ KUKA|prc, Hal, Robots) towards different forms of programming that include if-then scenarios and criteria based robotic protocols.

Architects are now moving forward from design variation, simulation and evaluation of increased complexity and multiple-

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

Dagmar Reinhardt

criteria assessment of fitness protocols for construction. Recent research works expand fundamental robotic research (often conducted in the form of pavilions) towards large-scale, applied and industry-funded building constructions that are the result of intensive, multi-disciplinary collaborations whereby highly specialised expertise is brought into the project formulation and delivery. The combination of designers, architects, mechanical engineers, structural engineers, material scientist, kinematic motion experts represents here only an exert of team constellations that will increase in the future.

4 Integrating: Human-Robot Constructions Negroponte noted a ‘learning’ of architecture as a man-machine partnership that is dialectical, reciprocal, and which establishes an evolutionary system.6 Moving forward and reinterpreting industrial robots as creative factories, a recent focus has been on developing appropriate methods for more open-ended forms of spatial, material and temporal control. The current investigations into human-robot interactions seek open fabrication protocols that enable a twoway conversation between designer and prototype, as a forward-mapping of design intent. Moreover, relationships between robot and human are reversible, as Flusser argues, in the sense that a ‘robot is a function of the human and vice versa’.7 When physical knowledge of motion and force is incorporated into a robotic process, it also becomes available to human workers for retraining or upskilling. Future interfaces between machine agents and human actants will exploit the synchronous physical presence of prototype and designer.

1

Fabio Gramazio and Mathias Kohler, Made by Robots: Challenging Architecture at a Larger Scale (John Wiley and Sons, AD Wiley Academy, London: 2014), pp14-16.

2 process of design innovation that enclosure, modelling, material and scale (problems that are internally driven by the design process itself, and informed by development of technology and methods), and brief, structure, fabrication, assembly and design research (problems that are externally driven by an increasingly interdisciplinary conversation and shifting boundaries). Alan Dempsey and Yusuke Obuchi (eds), Nine problems in the form of a pavilion (London: Architectural Association, 2010).

3 Harvard GSD, IAAC Barcelona, Bartlett London, MIT Michigan, ICD Stuttgart, University of Sydney).

4 Mahesh Daas, Robotic Futures in Architecture, published July 24, 2018, accessed September 20, 2018, link: https:// www.di.net/articles/robotic-futures-architecture/ 5 Joseph Sarafian, “Robots in Architecture”, published June 24, 2017, accessed September 30, 2018, link: https://www.

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5 Individualising: Archite ctural Practice, Entrepreneurship and the Future of Work Whereas computer science and architecture robotics community focus on radical transformations of interdisciplinary practices, sensor-feedback and onsite construction implementation,8 arts and social sciences communities query the value and longterm impact of robotics on human living conditions, and the future of work.9 When robots are taking over work from us, is that in support of unwanted or heavy labour, or is our work – in the sense of action, creativity, engagement, collaboration – taken away from us? And beyond the fact that in the future any work and process that can be automated will be automated, how can the enhancing capabilities of robots expand the horizon of our possibilities? Significantly, industrial robotics and specifically the sharing of robotic applications and manufacturing technologies in workshops and open platforms will allow us to evolve from initial experiments to industrial processes gradually.

By democratising a practical understanding of how designs, toolpaths, material formations, robotic protocols are constructed, the robotics community is demonstrating strong support for the establishment of startups, and entrepreneurship.

A high five for architecture: robots represent an opportunity to advance an emerging and collective ecology of knowledge for new industry possibilities. This indicates excellent potential for reconsidering the professional roles of future architects who will combine methods of design with means of production.

formfounddesign.com/single-post/2017/06/23/Robots-inArchitecture 6 Nicholas Negroponte, “Toward a Theory of Architecture Machines.” Journal of Architectural Education (1947-1974) Vol. 23, No. 2 (Mar., 1969) (1969), p9.

7 Vilem Flusser, “The Factory”, in: The Shape of Things (London: Reaktion Books, 1999).

8 See recent conferences including RobArch18 (http:// www.robarch2018.org/), ACADIA18 (http://2018.acadia. org/), CAADRIA18 (http://www.caadria2018.org/), SmartGeometry2018 (https://www.smartgeometry.org/ sg2018-toronto/).

9 Current exhibitions exploring this include “Hello, Robot” (Vitra 2018), “Creative Robotics” (Ars Electronica, 2017), and the “Homo Digitalis” (BR series, 2018).

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In Michael Ayrton’s fictional account, the mythical architect Daedalus would arrive at many of his greatest designs whilst playing on a beach with his nephew Talos, only few years his junior.1 In a day of bathing on a shore east of Athens the two came to design tongs with a toothed grip following an encounter with a crab’s claw, a pair of compasses from twirling sticks in the sand, and a serrated saw inspired by the spine of a fish. These items, now in common use, were invented on a beach by Daedalus and Talos. But the two were not concerned with the making of anything in particular that day.

They were concerned only for play and each other: ‘Each understood the other’s mind as we understood each other’s bodies and loved each other’.2

Unconcerned for Phronesis

There are moments in the design process where phronesis ‘the disposition of concernful [or mindful] praxis’ is the point.

But I like to think the richer, perhaps more inspired, moments are those of unconcern.

These are moments when our rational selves are swept away in play and the process itself or, even better, when we are swept away in play and someone else. In the sweep of a wrist and the drawing of a line or the spidery prodding of fingers in the modelling of a volume we sometimes lose ourselves in the process. In the courting reflection of a lover’s eye we sometimes glimpse a surface that might just be architectural. We forget briefs, sites, budgets and users, and the raft of logistics which we are usually concerned for at these moments, and find ourselves lost in the flow of aesthetic expression and affection. It is these moments where praxis is unconcerned. Where praxis is eros.

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There is a history of the art of unconcern.

In Maurice Blanchot’s 1955, ‘The Gaze of Orpheus’ the author would write of the ‘inspired and unconcerned’ manner of Orpheus’ approach to his music, what he refers to as his ‘gaze’. Blanchot suggests that ‘that gaze is the impulse of desire which shatters the song’s destiny and concern, and in that inspired and unconcerned decision reaches the origin, consecrates the song’.3 His point is that only when the harper Orpheus turned his attention away from the music and toward his bride, Eurydice, did his art—his song—finally become wondrous.

The philosopher, Roland Barthes repeats the refrain in his last published work Camera Lucida (1980). Barthes would refer to a form of unconcern when he wrote of the ‘second sight’ of a photographer.4 He would suggest good photographers invoke a ‘gaze’ rather than a focus. This way of looking is a seeing that is practiced without habitual intent; or

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UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

Chris Smith

indeed a seeing through organs other than eyes. For Barthes, the best of photography involves a type of serendipity that relates to an unconcern for the subject at stake.

For Barthes, “[t]he Photographer’s ‘second sight’ does not consist in ‘seeing’ but in being there. And above all, imitating Orpheus, he must not turn back to look at what he is leading”.5 Barthes suggests that a good photographer forgets their art and no longer views their subject as a fixed point of focus, but rather runs alongside or leads them somewhere else.

Architecture too might be most pleasurably practiced tangentially. In play on a beach, in the claws of a crab, in sticks in sand, in bones of a fish, and in the bodies of lovers we find architecture. We find it fresh and rich and novel in those very moments when we are unconcerned for it. Ayrton’s work on Daedalus, his books The Testament of Daedalus (1962) and the more extensive The Maze Maker (1967), advance a logic of praxis as eros. And Ayrton knew what he was talking about. He was not only an author but also a painter, illustrator, printmaker, sculptor and designer. He would experiment in the processes of casting bronze invented by

Daedalus and retrace many of the architect’s works. This year in the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning the third-year architecture students engaged in a similar process. They were involved in a retracing of the work of the Danish architect Jörn Utzon. It must be noted that Ayrton did not retrace the work of Daedalus and the students did not retrace Utzon in order to reproduce. Reproduction was not the outcome, production was, praxis was.

Students find in Utzon geometric precision, volumetric clarity, material sensibilities, and attention to the atmospheric. And they also find joyous distraction. They are distracted from their own design work. At such moments we are melded by the flows of affection, rather than fixated on the task at hand.

Ironically this distraction from, or unconcern for, our own work allows it to thrive, and our best work is done when our minds are turned from it. The lesson here, is the same as the lesson of Ayrton’s Daedalus: the value of unconcern and the praxis of eros. And for the mythical architect even life itself was a matter of unconcern, he notes, ‘My journey ended when and where it ended not by any doing of mine.’6

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1

Michael Ayrton, The Maze Maker, (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), 35-36.

2 Ayrton, The Maze Maker, 37.

3 Maurice Blanchot, ‘The Gaze of Orpheus’ in The Station Hill Blanchot Reader: Fiction and Literary Essays, (New York: Station Hill Press, 1999): 442. Translation of ‘Le Regard d’Orphée’ in L’Espace littéraire, (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1955), by Lydia Davis, Paul Auster and Robert Lamberton.

4 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, (London: Vintage Books, 2000), 47. Translation of La Chambre Claire, (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1980), by Richard Howard.

5 Barthes, Camera Lucida, 47.

6 Ayrton, The Maze Maker, 145.

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UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

Fourty years ago, in mid-1978, a bulldozer rolled on to that part of the University of Sydney campus now known as Cadigal Green. Its driver had been tasked with demolishing an unsightly, roughhewn shack, better known as the Autonomous House.

The house was the outcome of an attempt by some architecture students to create a building constructed primarily from recycled materials and that operated independently of all services infrastructure. Beginning in 1974, the initial idea grew into a four-year participatory experiment. After a year or so, a house was cobbled together from salvaged materials, featuring a beer bottle Trombe-Michel wall, DIY solar hot water heater, wind power generator, water tank and grey-water recycling. Three years into the experiment, a visit to the house on one of its open days (which drew thousands of people over its lifetime) could involve listening the longest-standing resident, Dan McNamara, playing a Beethoven sonata on a reclaimed piano, or eating a snack made from the crop of tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, potatoes and assorted herbs flourishing in the adjacent, well-composted permaculture garden. Visiting one of the annual alternative technology fairs that the house hosted might incorporate a workshop on solar energy developments, earth building, geometry, architecture or breadmaking. weekly guided tours. The house even grew a little bit famous – hosting weekly school-student tours, as well as appearing in international architecture journals, newspapers, an ABC television documentary and even an episode of 1970s’ soap opera Number 96.

Wise, But Not Smart (or, How Not to Build a Methane Digester).

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However, the 1978 demolition was hardly lamented by the dozen or more students who’d occupied the house over its lifetime.

Rather, they were often bemused by the attention given to what they saw as, in many ways, a failure. They’d tried to be smart – enthusiastically researching various technical systems to apply in the house, gathering materials, trying to assemble a self-sufficient, energy efficient dwelling as a vehicle for integrating their interests in self-reliance and non-consumerist modes of living. They didn’t feel smart, though. Sydney’s humid subtropical climate meant that the TrombMichel wall system tended to overheat the living area and the dark glass bottle wall made it gloomy. The performance of the Quirks wind power generator and lead acid storage batteries was patchy; the batteries had to be regularly re-charged in nearby university buildings. The plan to construct a methane digester from re-purposed 44-gallon drums, and produce fertiliser and methane gas from human and organic garden waste,

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UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

Lee Stickells

stalled. Instead, they had to use a portable chemical toilet, emptied into the Wentworth Building toilets each morning. And, the students who began the project almost failed their course, having to produce a last-minute set of conventional architectural drawings in order to pass.

What did anyone get from a building that was crudely built, didn’t really work, and was largely held to be an eyesore; a design studio project that barely passed and certainly won no student any prizes? At least some value to the autonomous house idea lay in its capacity as a vehicle for acting with purpose.

Most students involved were concerned about their future social impact as expert professionals, keen to introduce a renewed environmental, social and moral conscience to the practice of architecture, and viewed the relevance of their education in terms quite distinct from most of their teachers. For some, the house was simply an exercise in developing practical design and construction skills; for others, especially those who went on to live in it, the house was a means to collaboratively explore more ecologically attuned design and dwelling, outside the conventional boundaries of the design studio. The project enabled a testing of the students’ aspirations for an architectural response to everyday environmental and political concerns, while also giving

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license to desires for reshaping their own professional and personal trajectories. It was not directed toward perfecting a set of technical skills for application in an office, but enabled probing of a set of questions about what architecture could, more broadly, mean. So, another way of understanding the students’ faltering, sometimes naïve, attempts to build a functioning autonomous house, is as a sustained, material engagement with an assortment of issues, from environmental pollution and resource depletion to consumerism and centralised industrialisation. The students’ grappling with those issues, through the public assembly of the house, brought together materials, technologies, actors, sites, and concepts in emergent propositions for more sustainable, ethical modes of living. Rather than a purely expert and technological problem that could eventually be solved through the design of more efficient devices and architecture, the material life of the house disclosed that sustainability (as we might now frame it) needed to be understood as a cultural and political problem. The house was a space in which the students got wise to the world they were entering.

Below: Filled beer bottles for the Trombe-Michel wall being laid by Fraser Clark (a visiting student from New Zealand) and Linda Haefeli. Courtesy of Tone Wheeler.

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INTENSIVE STUDIOS

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‘Yanaka Ginza Sketch’ Rachel Liang

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

ArtRoom

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Students visiting Buhrich House II

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UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

Intensive Studio BDES1028 Honours July 2018 Catherine Lassen Visiting Professors Richard Johnson, Architect Richard Leplastrier, Architect Glenn Murcutt, Architect Tutors Ross Anderson Ivana Kuzmanovska Catherine Lassen Thomas Stromberg

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This one-week intensive project for first year students called for the design of a small space located in relationship to one of four late-modern houses in Sydney: • Hugh Buhrich’s own house, Castlecrag (c 1972).

• Richard Leplastrier’s house for Tom Uren, Balmain (1988-92).

• Richard Leplastrier’s own house, Lovett Bay (1994).

• Glenn Murcutt & Wendy Lewin’s own house, Mosman (2000-2003).

Imagined as a space for locating an artwork such as a painting, the scale of the project was as if a building fragment, to be no larger than 4 metres long x 4 metres wide x 4 metres high.

Students visited and studied the houses guided by a suite of lectures. Through their dwellings, Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin together with Richard Leplastrier and his partner Karen Lambert, introduced their architectural priorities and associated modes of living. Catherine Lassen discussed Hugh Buhrich’s spatial, structural and material inventions. Richard Johnson lectured on relationships between architecture and art, 2018

offering design considerations for spaces dedicated to the appreciation of artworks.

Exploring interconnections between part and whole, students were invited to consider, in the buildings together with their proposed interventions, the design of details. Ross Anderson spoke of seeing architecture through the lens of a key detail such as an entry door handle. Murcutt, Lewin and Leplastrier guided observations of key built moments within their houses.

Conceptual underpinnings of the ArtRoom – dedicated to one work – might explore the content of the art, examine the nature of a particular medium or, say, investigate one material. Students were required to develop an imaginative alliance between the studied house, their projected space and the art it hosted, deciding the focus, character and location of the work and room. Proposals were conceived in ‘conversation’ with the considered art and architectural contexts.

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Honours Toyko Studio

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‘Tokyo Proposal’ Angus Gregg

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Honours Intensive Studio 2 BDES2028 Honours Winter 2018 Simon Weir In their first two years, Bachelor of Design in Architecture (Honours)/Master of Architecture students take design intensives in the winter breaks. Dr Simon Weir’s 2018 Honours Intensive Studio 2 ran in Japan, hosted by Professor Tom Heneghan and Kei Machida at Geidai, the transliteration of Tokyo University of the Arts.

Even though Tokyo’s subway system is clockwork accurate – the rumour is true, they actually do apologise if your train is a minute late – it is better for students of architecture to walk. So we stayed in walking distance from the university, at a hotel on Ueno Park beside Shinobazu Pond, eleven hectares of blooming lotuses. Heading to the University each morning, we walked past the Buddhist temple, Kiyomizu Kannon-do, then as two paths lead up to Geidai, either past the vermillion gates of Hanazonoinari shrine and Tokyo Zoo, or past the Tokyo Royal Museum holding an M.C. Escher exhibition, and then up to Union train station and a pair of concrete brutalist buildings facing each other across a plaza: Kunio Maekawa’s Tokyo Concert Hall and Le Corbusier’s Museum of Western Art. A group of Japanese architects including Maekawa and Kenzo Tange were Le Corbusier’s students in Paris, and side by side in Ueno, it is debated here whether the student exceeded the teacher, and all this is just the first half of the walk to Geidai.

On the first day, we met beside Le Corbusier and Maekawa’s concrete and travelled to the Mori Art Museum to see the “Japan in Architecture: Genealogies of Its Transformation” exhibition. This phenomenal exhibit, seen by over half a million people, presented masterly visualisations of over 100 Japanese architecture projects. Too many large models to count, but most memorably a full-scale replica of Sen-no-Rikyu’s Tai-an Tea House, and a one-third scale model of Kenzo Tange’s house. Returning to Ueno,

we crossed Ueno Park and beyond is Yoshio Taniguchi’s Horyuji Treasures Museum, and on the side street Tadao Ando’s International Library of Children’s Literature. On the left is Geidai.

Entering Geidai is, as you would hope for an elite city University, a dense, well designed cluster of buildings and tiny parks. Geidai teaches the fine art of architecture alongside sculpture and design. Painting and music are across the street. On our arrival Professor Heneghan walked us the long way round to the architecture studios. From the stone gateway, a narrow path snakes through a dense tall garden, ending at a tall blind wall – the outside of a lecture theatre – fronted with more dense tall greenery. Then beyond the cafeteria a small field strewn with abandoned sculptures separated by tall grass or trampled pathway, each beautifully carved from stone blocks over a meter tall but bearing some kind of fatal error. Amongst the academic exercises: dazzling decorative motifs misaligned, lifeless portrait busts in the uncanny valley, and crouched muscular nudes with a stretched shin or strange knee, sits a carved pile of excited rabbits. It is a strange kind of honour to be exhibited here, the pieces are simultaneously brilliant and flawed. This small field marks the end of a rather narrow alley way, on each side students each in large separate enclosures with welders, sanders, and chisels, all focussing, intent that their sculpture’s new home be a beautiful house, foyer or museum, not the small field down the end of the alley.

That afternoon we visited the project site, the nearby shopping street Yanaka Ginza, with the aim of designing a small piece of public architecture for the simple universal necessities not well accommodated in urban life: a place of beauty, peace and respite for the personal and universal rituals of reflection, courtship and convalescence.

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At first glance, Yanaka Ginza gives the impression of being a traditional Japanese street: narrow, two-storey timber terraces, shops below and living space above, yet traditional in appearance, they are nonetheless relatively new. Their traditional appearance produced not from a regressive, nostalgic or touristic impulse, but because such buildings are comfortable, inexpensive and relatively safe during Tokyo’s earthquakes. Located beside Yanaka Cemetery, Yanaka Ginza offers a more intimate and comforting experience than multi-storey department stores and shopping malls elsewhere in Tokyo, though on the very hottest days, the air conditioned comfort of Taniguchi’s Ginza 6, reveals its appeal.

The students engaged in one of two independent yet overlapping briefs: to propose a small scale public architecture intervention that could realistically be added to Yanaka Ginza today, or propose a more transformative public architecture aimed at implementation a century from now. This second project aligned with the design competition “Anti-Realism,” part of the Cathedral Thinking Symposium.

Students produced proposals such as conceptual challenges, intimate singleperson spaces for mourning and reflection, immense infrastructure projects spanning the city, and projects that grow slowly while the city changes rapidly. The secondary theme of the brief was the psychological and architectural constructs of boundaries and experiential permeability, enfolding the diversity of perceptions and adaptions into their conception of the public in public architecture, leading to deep, diverse programmatic thresholds and the experimental, experiential layering of affective spaces.

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Making Shelters Home

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OccupyFAVARA event

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Outbound International Travelling Studio 2 115

ARCH9039 Winter 2018 Sandra Karina Löschke This international workshop developed a deeper understanding of architecture by linking social agendas with design competencies through an investigation of temporary shelters made from waste materials such as recycled cardboard. By endeavouring to “make shelters home”, students considered the liveability of shelters beyond their use as emergency accommodation, and how their design can support mental well-being and public health in scenarios such as the current European migration crisis. Students worked with local experts and children to turn unadorned shelters into a “home” for one day, providing guidance as well as learning from their intuitive appropriations of the cardboard constructions.

The workshop was a collaboration with staff and students from Politecnico di Milano and was organised by the Farm Cultural Park in Favara/Italy. Beyond the workshop itself, the host town of Favara offered a challenging setting as a rural town that was shrinking and largely derelict. During their stay, students 2018

learned to appreciate the complexity and diversity of the architect’s role, and through their collaboration with others, experienced a range of cultural, technical and ethical approaches to the production of architecture that prepared them for global architectural practice.

I am grateful to Dr Arianna Brambilla for her introduction to staff at Politecnico di Milano and her help with the organisation.

This studio was supported by the Hezlet Bequest Travelling Scholarship. The scholarship recipients were: Callum Flitcroft Nishanth Saha Katie Hubbard Benjamin Li Andrew Perich Sandy Chen Jennifer Su Karin Ke Ravyna Jassani

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE

Making Shelter Home: Emergency Architecture in the Age of Neoliberalism

Human beings are grounded in intimacy, privacy, and rootedness, yet when this rootedness is disturbed we are unsettled.

Able to make ourselves at home in different conditions we rely on architectures to reground us in post-disaster and refugeseeking environments. The architectural significance of shelter in these contexts is dynamic. Reflected in the inhospitality of post-disaster environments contemporary architecture has come to serve as an instrument of control and compliance. With neoliberalism’s free-market theory assumed as the moral veneer on the accumulation of great wealth along side extreme poverty, this “ideology of no ideology” relishes in these disaster climates.

This paper will discuss the mobilising position of architectures that provide shelter for forcibly displaced persons, from causes of migration, refuge, or disaster occurrences, within the context of the contemporary neoliberal societies in which we operate.

It will consider architecture’s relation to enclosure, stability, place-making, identity, and agency through the critical analysis of two contrasting architectural shelter interventions: the UNHCR pre-fabricated metal shelter located at the Azraq refuge camp in northern Jordan; and, the Atelier OPA (Objects, People and Architecture) cardboard shelters erected for post-earthquake privacy refuges and educational workshops.

Questions of affection, material transaction, technological transformations, and economic processes will be addressed to reform our response to making shelter home in a crisis.

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The Architecture of Migration

Katie Hubbard

When we think about shelter we foremost think about the physical elements: a roof and walls – a structure that provides cover; it is fundamental to human existence.

Home is arguably more difficult to define.

Primarily, home provides a semi-permanent or permanent living space with facilities to sleep, prepare food, eat, and tend to general hygiene. These living spaces are commonly used by an individual or group of members, family or otherwise. In addition to these facilities, the principle difference between a shelter and a home is the right to privacy. In many countries this right is constitutional law, enshrined in Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,1 this declaration of home is the inviolability of an individual’s place of shelter and refuge.

However, this law of no interference with an individual’s privacy and home is exactly that. One whom does not have a ‘semipermanent’ or ‘permanent’ domicile is not

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entitled to this protection. We can see this in many historical and contemporary events with millions of people having been displaced escaping natural and human disasters, conflict, repression, development, or other situations that endanger their lives, freedom or livelihood.2 And, with a growing universal population, climate change, war, political conflict, and economic uncertainty prevalent in our neoliberal society, solutions for making shelter home for displaced persons are vital.

Fundamentally, to make a home is to belong to it. Belonging is contemporaneously transformed at different scales and in different contexts. However, belonging, as architecture, is a concern with physical and social spaces.3 Questions of affection, material transaction, technological transformations, and economic processes are addressed here. It poses questions of architecture’s relation to enclosure, stability, place-making, and identity. Architecture in this context is mobilising and with it our ideas of shelter are constantly being reconfigured.

Shelter must be thought about more broadly than its initial illustrative descriptions. There is a vernacular that is often associated with shelter, specifically emergency shelter, that contrives human nature’s necessity of place and agency. We can look at forms of shelters and settlements built for individuals and communities in transience as a way of affecting the regulation of the spaces of residence, giving agency in the form of placemaking.

A Floor, Walls, and Roof A typical design of an emergency (transitional) shelter in an outdoor context, as per a 1997-2018 informal research project of the aforementioned conducted

by Shelterproject, revolves around two main considerations: cost and ease of assembly.4 Commonly they are representative of a typical tent: extruded triangular form; openings at one or both ends; small windows on one or both sides; ground sheet; guy ropes; and valances buried into ground trenches (Fig.4.1). Regularly made from canvas (an organic material that can rot), they have a high rate of deterioration, they are heavy masses, and costly to transport. Wearand-tear from use of these shelters on the weakened material significantly shortens the useful lifespan of the shelter.5 This typical relief shelter (a noun that asks a lot of its architecture in the context of a disaster) has been propositioned for redevelopment countless times.6 From the basic tent, to the semi-permanent shells, and the ‘permanent’ five to ten year life spanned shelter-as-

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Fig.4.1 Exterior sketch of typical transitional shelter. Sketch by author, original content from Shelterproject.

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Fig.4.2 Exterior view of UNHCR pre-fabricated metal shelter. Sketch by author.

Fig.4.3 Azraq camp, northern Jordan, Syria, 2016.

Photograph by Aljazeera.

Fig.4.4 Unfolding a Global Village Shelter. Sketch by author, original content from Ferrara Design Inc.

Fig.4.5 A family and their Global Village Shelter, Caribbean, 1995. Photograph by Ferrara Design Inc.

Fig.4.6 Exterior rendered view of Maidan Tent, 2017.

Render by B. Visconti di Modrone and L. Benni Oberkalmsteiner.

Fig.4.7 Exterior view of UNHCR Winterised Shelter, erected in Afghanistan, 2009. Sketch by author.

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Fig.4.8 Unfolded components of Atelier OPA Cardboard Shelter1, with designers Atelier OPA. Sketch by author.

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Fig.4.9 Exterior view of children playing with and decorating Atelier OPA Cardboard Shelter, Favara, 2018. Photograph by author.

residence. We can especially see this in the past half-century, with local and international competitions calling on architects, designers, or whomever can afford the competition entry fee, to propose the next best emergency shelter. Through competition avenues or not the designs are varied and countless, for example: the UNHCR pre-fabricated metal homes at the Azraq camp for Syrian refugees in northern Jordan (Fig.4.2 and Fig.4.3), 2014-2018; the $400USD unfolding laminated corrugated cardboard shelter by Ferrara Design Inc, the Global Village Shelter first deployed in the Caribbean in 1995 (Fig.4.4 and Fig.4.5); the Maidan Tent, a conceptual fabric tent by Bonaventura Visconti di Modrone and Leo Bettini Oberkalmsteiner for Ritsona refugee camp in Greece, proposed in 2016 (Fig.4.6); the three-day construction time of the canvas and bamboo portal frames of the Afghani Winterised Shelter of 2009 (Fig.4.7); and, the $50USD ten-minute assembly of the temporary Cardboard Shelter1, Cardboard Shelter2, and Cardboard Shelter3 (Fig.4.8) by Tokyo based design practice Atelier OPA (Objects, People and Architecture) – as constructed most recently, for academic purposes, in the 2018 OccupyFAVARA7 workshop program in Favara, Italy (Fig.4.9). This list is merely a handful of the hundreds of designs proposed and/ or implemented each year, worldwide. Whilst this collection of designs and proposals have been specifically selected to present the varied functions shelters can and must serve in post-disaster and emergency environments, there are similarities to these structures that we can observe and critique.

What is constant in many of these, and other, designs is that they reflect a vernacular of an archetypal western home: the twodimensional outline of a square mass with a triangulated pitched roof extruded into three-dimensional rectangular proportions.

Whether aesthetically deliberate or not, this is a highly referential form. When we consider emergency shelters, from transitional to permanent, this reference to our western ideas of home and architecture-of-home can contribute to the social aesthetic of the built-form and its context. Particularly, when considered in an environment of postdisaster and present-distress, the importance of not only the function but the form of the structure is significant. We can develop this line of thought to include the relationship of these forms within their context of one another. Understanding that this architecture does not exist in isolation as refuge for a sole person or group defined by family ties, but it exists within a body of architectures.

The architectures host collectives with

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shared experiences and aspirations, where transactions, connections, and solidarities occur.8 When we look at this small typological selection of shelters we see a diversity of aid. The Winterised Shelter is the immediacy of a means to an end; the Global Village Shelter is inventive, yet it does not reach anywhere near the cost efficiency for the shipping of tents – its competitor in the emergency shelter market; and, the Maindan Tent, whilst architecturally interesting, is (as many proposals often are) an idealistic and opportunistic render of dust-free divination.

However, it is the architectural forms and sites of the Azraq camp and Atelier OPA’s cardboard shelters as “privacy refuge”9 that present the most challenging and contrasting environments for the ideas of shelter becoming home. These post-disaster architectures en mass redefine the spaces of residence. Whether exposed to the elements in a more permanent context or encased temporarily within, e.g. a gymnasium, architecture here takes different forms beyond the structure. The reconfiguring and diversifying of these forms, the arrangement of objects and their logistics, and territorial implications of these spaces are all effected.10 The spatial, aesthetic, technical, and sociopolitical redefinition of these implications are also affected here. To intervene in this transformation of residence is to simultaneously understand this affect both within the immediate context of the emergency environment and within the greater context of the contemporary neoliberal societies in which we operate.

Unsheltered Politics “The market is not just what opens up after the disaster, the disaster is the market itself…the disaster is the final frontier of neoliberalism.”11 Contemporary processes of neoliberal practice use architecture as a tool.12 It begins with the planning of society by individuals an untenable proposition.

It legitimises the economic management of individuals, “that the economic market is better able to calculate, process and spontaneously order society than the state is able to”.13 Taken as a ‘policy of society’ and management, rather than a purely economic model, neoliberalism propagates the ideology of the free-market. However, it is this free-market theory that acts as a moral veneer on the accumulation of great wealth along side extreme poverty. This “ideology of no ideology”14 is no more effective than in a state of emergency. Coined by author Naomi Klein, “disaster capitalism”15 is the

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pluralism of the neoliberal free-market in a post-disaster climate. For example, in 2004 much of the southern coastal regions of Asia were struck by a tsunami, produced by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean. This tsunami was devastating, resulting in over 280,000 fatalities with over 1.5 million people displaced. This state of emergency required significant disaster aid, however, as Klein observed, in the days following the disaster, lenders were applying direct conditions to their Tsunami Aid. Inclusive of the Word Bank and the Asian Development Bank, these lenders dictated that the conditions of rebuilding their countries would abide by their economic interests.16 That the previously fine-grain density of much of these coastal landscapes, e.g. small scale accommodation and residences, would be transformed into profit based capital, e.g. hotel development, meant the residental popluation had to move in land. Klein makes particular reference to Sri Lankan National Parliament’s push for a Water and Electricity Privatisation Bill only four days after the tsunami struck17 – Sri Lanka was one of the most significantly effected countries.

With a labour market flexibility bill to follow, this systemised approach to post-disaster climates perfectly encapsulates the meaning of disaster capitalism.

As industry continues to adapt to disaster climates we see effectual changes in disaster aid. We are yet to see a significant moment in the privatisation of various core emergency response units, however, that is rapidly changing. When we consider the precarious structural conditions of contemporary neoliberal regimes, we must also examine how particular objects, spaces, and territories are effected, managed, and designed.18 We are witnessing the acceleration of these neoliberal tactics being imposed in the aftermath of a crisis and this is disabling. If we subscribe to these regimes we believe that the economic market is better able to calculate, process, and spontaneously order society (the individual, the individual in a crisis) than the state is able to; the free-market rules and we remove agency from ourselves. As stated by Foucault, neoliberalism is “a form of government with its own particular apparatuses and techniques, its own means of taking care of the self, though not for the self, but in order to render it entrepreneurial.”19 Emergency shelters are not entrepreneurial endeavours.

Masses of people in crisis requiring emergency health care, sanitary facilities, shelter, and access to safe infrastructure are not entrepreneurial opportunities. Agency in this context must be retained to the state, to

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the individual; neoliberalism is non-authentic agency.

The Hostile Home Émile Benveniste is a linguist. Born in Aleppo, the martyr city in Syria from which many refugees have fled over the past six years, he understands the environments which create forced displaced persons.

Benveniste is notable as his linguistic studies have paid close attention to the architectures of inhospitality. Philologists tell us that hospitality and hostility have the same Latin root: hostis. So, Benveniste found the etymology of hostis initially meant “the stranger with whom relations of equality an reciprocity were established.”20 Over time, as the sentiment developed, the distinction between citizen and stranger hardened and the term took on a negative connotation. The stranger became the enemy. This is important because the international laws of hospitality inscribed in the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees guaranteeing protection to those whom face serious threats to their life or freedom in their home country21 have turned into policies and practices of hostility.

Architecture of inhospitably reflect this ambivalence, with this hesitancy common to landscapes of formal and informal refugee and migrant camps across the globe. They are made up of tents, pre-fabricated shacks, dwellings constructed of locally available material, warehouses, military blockhouses, and latrines. These architectural landscapes are built on wastelands and dumping sites, they’re often geologically unsafe, surrounded by fencing and barbed wire. Their urban context is off-grid. After Belonging, a publication from the After Belonging: A Triennale In Residence that took place in Norway in 2016, refers to the commonality of these sites.

In fact, these architectures can fit any environment where the indignity of the condition of the migrant or refugee can be recalled, exhibited, and experienced. Insecurity must also be permanent, fear must be present, a sense of humiliation and hopelessness must be felt.

Only under these conditions can the true goal of politics of inhospitably be attained: deterrence.22

This is an environment of deterrence, inside or outside of the barbed wire fence, where refugees and migrants can reside an average of seventeen-years.23 Residing in deterrence, how does one make a home here? When we refer back to the pictures of the Azraq refugee camp in northern Jordan and the post-earthquake cardboard shelters in Japan, we are of course able to recognise

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Fig.4.10 Exterior view of Cardboard Shelter3, with Toshihiko Suzuki, Yuki Sugihara and Munetaka Ishikawa of Atelier OPA speaking to press, Kumamoto prefecture, 2016. Photograph by Atelier OPA.

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stark comparisons between them. Foremost, the temporary nature of Atelier OPA’s Cardboard Shelter1, Cardboard Shelter2, and Cardboard Shelter3 (Fig.4.10) typology is not just reflected in the architecture, but also in the comparative time spent and engagement had by inhabitants in these new spaces. As observed by Toshihiko Suzuki of Atelier OPA, after Cardboard Shelter1 was designed, manufactured, and transported to Kesennuma in the Sendai prefecture in response to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, children immediately began to adapt the erected shelters.24 Through drawing and playful rearrangements the children engaged with the shelters as their own; even with the most minor of interventions the shelters became more homely. This action Suzuki refers to can be observed in the recent appropriation of the cardboard shelters seen in OccupyTRIENNALE, OccupyPOLIMI, OccupyBIENNALE, and OccupyFAVARA25 – a series of workshops organised by Politecnico di Milano. The proposed intent behind these workshops is to generate a dialogue amongst individuals of all ages on the relational and social aesthetic importance of shelter, belonging, and migration. However, in reality they rarely achieve anything beyond the promotion of the institutions and design practitioners involved. The output is sorely wanting.

Nonetheless, when these cardboard interventions are implemented within their design-intended post-disaster environment

Fig.4.11 A family within the Interior of a UNHCR prefabricated metal structure, Azraq camp, northern Jordan, Syria, 2016. Photograph by Aljazeera.

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they construct physical divisions that are able to cultivate social agency through privacy. As previously discussed, privacy is a principle component of homeliness. Human beings are grounded in intimacy, privacy, and rootedness.26 When this rootedness is disturbed we are unsettled. Able to make ourselves at home in different conditions, we rely on architectures to reground us in post-disaster environments. However, camps like Azraq face significantly more enduring conditions. Azraq is a desert refugee settlement of scalding temperatures, lacking sufficient electricity, and inequitable access to food and other resources. Described as a “shelter in vital emergency”,27 Azraq was preplanned to tackle some of the shortcoming’s of Jordon’s Zaatari camp.

With metal housing instead of tents, many residents of the largely empty camp say they would prefer to be in Zaatari, or back in Syria.28 The sense of residence in this place is almost non-existent. Designed to house up to 130,000 refugees, it is currently nearly empty, with a population of 18,500.

Considering this environment, the cheery drawings carried out by children on the Kesennuma cardboard shelter display appear rudimentary. Whilst they can be observed as an interestingly primitive act of ownership, its aesthetic contribution to the social architectures of these emergency contexts is critically elementary. When asked about the quality of life inside the Azraq camp, Ahmad, a refugee who fled Homs with his wife and nine children when their home was shelled

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in 2013, said, “Look around you, does it look okay?”29 (Fig.4.11) This inhospitality reaches beyond the architectural realm. These are barren conditions of human existence; belonging is non-existent. When we talk about architecture’s concern with physical and social spaces, our questions of affection, material transaction, technological transformations, and economic processes must be addressed here, foremost, in these exacerbated environments. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that 68.5 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2017, inclusive of 25.4 million refugees.30 There is a staggering crisis, a perpetual present.

Place-making and the construction of a sense of identity constitute only the most typical among possible agendas for which architecture could be mobilised in these contexts.31 We can also consider these residences – temporary, semi-permanent, permanent – as places of shared realities, commonalties, aggregates of objects, bodies, spaces, institutions, and imaginations.

Neoliberalism – disaster capitalism – consumes spatial liberties; liberty submits to the imperative of human capital appreciation; equality dissolves into market competition.32 Contemporary architecture has come to serve as an instrument of control and compliance in post-disaster climates; home is not yet made here. However, whilst social architecture must remain an agent of placemaking, it can also evolve to engage with the mental modes of its users to become interactively reinforcing. It is with this that we can begin to implement new spaces of assembly that belong to a new democratic ideal in the making, a new world.

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1

United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-humanrights/., accessed 15/07/18 2 International Organisation for Migration, Who Is A Migrant?. http://www.iom.int/who-is-a-migrant., accessed 15/07/18 3 Llís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco, Ignacio G. Galán, Carlos Mínguex Carrasco, Alejandra Navarrete Llopis, and Marina Otero Verzier, eds., After Belonging: The Objects, Spaces, and Territories of the Ways We Stay in Transit. Lars Müller Publishers, 2016. 13 4 For more information on the informal research project based at Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies at the University of Cambridge – Global Shelter Cluster, and Shelterprojects. Shelter Projects 2015-2016: A Case Study of Humanitarian Shelter and Settlement Response., International Organisation for Migration (IOM), 2017. ix 5 Global Shelter Cluster, and Shelterprojects. ix 6 Shelterprojects, Shelter Designs. http://shelterprojects.org/ files/tshelter-8designs/details.html., accessed 16/07/18 7 For more information on Atelier OPA and Premio Compasso Volante organisation of Politecnico di Milano workshop activities that took place in Favara, Italy, OccupyFAVARA, in 2018 – Facebook, OccupyFAVARA! Compass Volante. https:// www.facebook.com/compassovolante/posts/occupyfavara!-compasso-volante-xx/1843834849012500/., accessed 08/07/18 8 B. Llís Alexandre Casanovas, I. Galán, C. Mínguex Carrasco, A. Navarrete Llopis, and M. Otero Verzier, eds. 163 9 Atelier OPA, Cardboard Shelter for Kumamoto. http://www. atelier-opa.com/cardboard-shelter/forkumamoto.html., accessed 08/07/18 10 B. Llís Alexandre Casanovas, I. Galán, C. Mínguex Carrasco, A. Navarrete Llopis, and M. Otero Verzier, eds. 18 11 Naomi Klein. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism., MDV Entertainment Group, 2009. 01:21:15 12 Douglas Spencer. The Architecture of Neoliberalism: How Contemporary Architecture Became an Instrument of Control and Compliance., London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2016.

2 13 D. Spencer. 2 14 Philip Mirowski. Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown., Verso Books, 2013. 28 15 K. Naomi. 00:12:42 16 K. Naomi. 01:02:23 17 K. Naomi. 01:01:42 18 B. Llís Alexandre Casanovas, I. Galán, C. Mínguex Carrasco, A. Navarrete Llopis, and M. Otero Verzier, eds. 14 19 D. Spencer. 5 20 B. Llís Alexandre Casanovas, I. Galán, C. Mínguex Carrasco, A. Navarrete Llopis, and M. Otero Verzier, eds. 164 21 UNHCR, 1951 Refugee Convention. http://www.unhcr.org/ en-au/1951-refugee-convention.html., accessed 16/07/18 22 B. Llís Alexandre Casanovas, I. Galán, C. Mínguex Carrasco, A. Navarrete Llopis, and M. Otero Verzier, eds. 165 23 UNHCR, Figures at a Glance. http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/ figures-at-a-glance.html., accessed 21/07/18 24 Atelier OPA., accessed 08/07/18 25 Atelier OPA, Cardboard Shelter – Drawing on Shelters. http://www.atelier-opa.com/cardboard-shelter/drawing_ on_shelters.html., accessed 08/07/18 26 B. Llís Alexandre Casanovas, I. Galán, C. Mínguex Carrasco, A. Navarrete Llopis, and M. Otero Verzier, eds. 15 27 UNHCR, Refugee Facts – Camps. https://www.unrefugees. org/refugee-facts/camps/., accessed 21/07/18 28 Aljazeera, Jordan Azraq Syrian Refugee Camp Stands Largely Empty. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ inpictures/2015/05/jordan-azraq-syrian-refugee-campstands-largely-empty-150526084850543.html., accessed 21/07/18 29 Aljazeera., accessed 21/07/18 30 UNHCR, Global Trends 2017., http://www.unhcr.org/ globaltrends2017/., accessed 16/07/18 31 B. Llís Alexandre Casanovas, I. Galán, C. Mínguex Carrasco, A. Navarrete Llopis, and M. Otero Verzier, eds. 15 32 Wendy Brown. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution., MIT Press: Zone Books, 2015. 154

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TIN SHEDS GALLERY

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The Centenary Exhibition

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Ohlen Freswind: Patterns for a Community School 8 March - 20 April 2018 Curated by Ben Dixon, Doug Hammersley, Katie Hubbard, Adam Madigan, Janelle Woo, Daisy Zhang

This exhibition is the result of a collaboration between students from the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning and the Freswind community of Ohlen, Vanuatu to design and build a new school in Port Vila. The area was badly affected by the severe tropical cyclone Pam in 2015, in what was regarded as one of the worst natural disasters in Vanuatu’s history.

In July 2017 a group of architecture students and tutors travelled to Ohlen to consult with the community and develop a set of patterns, parameters and principles to guide their involvement in the Freswind School Project. The work produced is a collation of 2018

the observations and lessons taken from the community of Ohlen and will guide the design of the school and other future projects to be built. The guiding principle for the student’s involvement in the project is very simple: Every child has the right to a fulfilling education.

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Finding Country: Radical Practice 3 May - 14 June 2018 Curated by Dr Alexandra Brown

Looking beyond the colonial grid of the Australian city, Finding Country is an ongoing architectural experiment in re-engaging an Aboriginal conceptualisation of Country.

Over the last thirteen years, Brisbane-based architect and Professor of Creative Practice at the University of Sydney, Kevin O’Brien has explored a wide range of architectural processes that consider the emptying of the city in order to reveal Country.

Through the Finding Country project in its many forms, O’Brien and his collaborators seek out opportunities to represent the urban environment in pluralistic terms.

This exhibition brings together material 2018

from a number of variations of the Finding Country project, viewed collectively as a form of radical practice that exposes and interrogates moments of tension within the current structure of the city. Works developed in association with Finding Country are often highly ephemeral, appearing or coming together and overlapping for a short time before disappearing or shifting form.

Incorporating burning events, site-specific installations and projected assemblage drawings, the exhibition examines the diverse emptying processes of Finding Country and the opportunities they present to reveal more about the city in this very moment.

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The Centenary Exhibition: A Retrospective 20 September - 16 November Curated by Chris Fox and Iakovos Amperidis

Celebrating the first one hundred years of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney, this exhibition highlights the innovative, radical, creative, and pioneering spirit of the school; spanning multiple disciplines, mediums and time periods. The exhibition takes the form of a site-specific installation assembled throughout the gallery. Inspiration for its design was drawn from the activities of the Architectural Science discipline throughout the 1960-70s, where large experimental constructs were built to test a variety of materials and forms. Composed solely of aluminium and scaffold, the installation takes 2018

form as an abstract topography of time; where flux, rupture, and continuity reveal layers of the school’s history. Wide ranging contributions and activities by both students and staff will be on display including; examples of work from the founder of the School, Professor Leslie Wilkinson; public works of Ellice Maud Nosworthy – one of the first of nine to graduate at the school in 1922; the student built ‘Autonomous House’ of 1974-78; the activist architecture of Col James; and work by former student Robert Woodward, designer of the iconic ‘El Alamein Memorial Fountain’ of Kings Cross.

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STUDENT EXCELLENCE

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OASIS at Vivid 2018 Photo credit: William Wei

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Awards, Prizes and Scholarships University Prizes and Scholarships Henry J Cowan Prize in Architectural Science (Undergraduate Architecture) Luke Hannaford Connor Tan Henry J Cowan Prize in Architectural Science (Graduate Architecture) Sarah Mae-Siew Yap Anthony Zonaga Leslie Wilkinson Prize in Architectural History and Theory Katrina Texilake

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Elizabeth Munro Prize in Architecture Emily Flanagan Noel Chettle Memorial Prize 2D Processes - Ryan Cai, Emily Clare Malek, Opheria Paroissen 3D Processes - William Stephenson, Huyen Shayla Nguyen, Shiqi Han Arthur Baldwinson Memorial Prize in Architectural History and Theory Luke Hannaford John Stephen Mansfield Prize in Urban Design and Planning Annika Jacobsen Lyon Burnham Prize in Urban Planning and Architecture Negar Dehghan Cox Architecture Scholarship Rachel Liang Diana Inglis Carment Scholarship Li Yang J.W. and B.K. Elkins Architectural Scholarship Xuhui Lin

NSW Student Architecture Awards Conrad Gargett Ancher Mortlock Woolley Prize George Stavropoulos Centenary Scholarship: Col James Award for Social Justice in Architecture Timothy Bauer

NSW Undergraduate Medal Between Anchors Connie He NSW Undergraduate Medal – Commendation Bodies/Ground Miriam Osburn NSW Undergraduate Medal – Commendation Jazz Garden Brennan Clody

James Hartley Bibby Memorial Scholarship in Architectural Design Luke Hannaford

NSW Architectural Communication Award Jazz Garden Brennan Clody

Ruskin Rowe Prize for Architecture Anthony Zonaga

Graduate of the Year (Master’s program) Kingsley May

Sir John Sulman Prize in Architectural Design Dong Ho Lee

Graduate of the Year (Bachelor’s program) Luke Hannaford

Bluescope Lysaght Prize in Architectural Design Andrew Hogan

History & Theory Prize Ben Charlton

C H L Turner Memorial Prize in Architectural Design Ho Hei Yick George McRae Prize in Architectural Construction Menglong Chen Ethel M Chettle Prize in Architecture Kingsley May Gemma Sedgwick Ben Charlton Matthew Haddrick Ross Langdon Design for Sustainability Scholarship Anna Ewald Rice Sunlord Perpetual Prize in Architectural Design Lewis Evans

Bates Smart Prize for Architectural Design Lewis Evans

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Construction & Practice Prize Emily Flanagan

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Photo credit: James Feng

OASIS Vivid 2018 James Feng, Minh Au and Gunjit Kaur

In collaboration with Taylor Chadwick, Ajaykumar Daya, William Wei, Karen Lin for Vivid Sydney 2018 As if in an ethereal dream, Oasis is an installation born from its site: a pair of tucked-away ponds traversed by an old timber bridge in the heart of Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens – in an area dedicated to the memory of “forgotten Australians” who grew up in institutional care, “never [knowing] the joy of a loving family”.

Inhabiting an area of 500 square meters, 600 individually programmed lights rise out of water and haze, synchronising with 2018

one another to form a colourful ecosystem responsive to musicality. These ever-shifting light fragments, supported by slim stalks, bob and sway to the winds. Veils of immersive natural soundscapes; old-time radio narration snippets; haunting lyrical melodies; poignant percussion and deep, atmospheric basslines reverberate throughout to drive the experience of the installation. Oasis brings the ponds alive to sing a modern fairytale of childhood fragility, but also playfulness, aspiration and empowerment. From afar, the lights beckon to all who pass by – up close the lights lead to a place of deep reflection.

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Supporters

The Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning would like to thank the following supporters for their generosity in making the 2018 Architecture Graduate Exhibition and publication possible.

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