The Beholder’s Share

This studio will begin by looking back at two of the formative periods of western art and architecture. Students will interrogate the Renaissance and by way of comparison its successor the Baroque – to understand the history, form and scale of a series of canonical

buildings and artworks.  This is not through an act of nostalgia – but through a filter of contemporary thought, with an emphasis on learning how to see and to think architecture.  The main reason to study history is to rescue good, provocative and inspiring ideas that have been lost – in order to utilise them for the dilemmas and problems of our own time.  The studio will begin with a focus on researching and developing a repertoire of techniques through the study of distinct Renaissance and Baroque ideas. These explorations will be a ‘triptych’ of digital craft, history & architectural elements; with the aim of developing students’ computer literacy, presentation skills and their application to investigation and critique. There will be a focus on the resolution of formal compositions and sophisticated urban responses. Compositions should reflect a well-considered critical arrangement to develop a rich architectural expression of relationships between form, program, site and the user’s experience. Students will then go on to develop designs for a ‘student precinct’ at University Square, Carlton.