Wonderstuff & Turbulence: The RMIT Building 36 Project

WONDERSTUFF & TURBULENCE: The RMIT Building 36 Project was a research-led design studio which ran in the RMIT Master of Architecture program in Semester 1 2014. It was led by Vivian Mitsogianni (RMIT) and Paul Morgan (Paul Morgan Architects) and assisted by Patrick Macasaet (RMIT) and Helen Duong (PMA).

The studio was a partnership between RMIT Property Services and the RMIT School of Architecture and Design. RMIT Property Services commissioned the studio and larger research project. It also involved two user groups for the building (RMIT REW and RMIT Training) and Mr Peter Gunn (representative for Building 36). The design studio was a live project in its early stages to reimage an existing leased building as a new learning environment to suit two academic units. The studio was one part of a wider learning environments project which was a collaboration between the design-practice research project called The Speculative Campus Project, led by Vivian Mitsogianni (which explores generative design processes and university learning environments in which the social spaces are the predominant model) and the research on learning environments produced through a series of built projects by PMA. The project therefore brought together a series of research projects and industry partners to collaborate on a wider research project – focussed on generating speculative propositions for new learning environments, using a specific building as a test case.