Remniscent

REMNISCENT will explore the complex junctions in Melbourne’s urban fabric through the research and mapping of site specific phenomena at a sample location in Williamstown. The character and idiosyncracy of this phenomena will be used to drive the creation and selection of generative, digital and non-digital processes and tools that can be used to speculate on architectural form and material. Processes and tools will be tested on two fronts: firstly, iteratively against themselves so as to form an understanding of their architectural potential, and secondly against the realities of site, including program and the practicalities of planning.

The position of this studio is that these complex, highly contested junctions have become so overwhelmingly saturated with competing constraints and opportunities that conventional urban design methodologies are inefficient in addressing them. New, emergent and generative methodologies are required, and in these methodologies is the potential for environment and context to be more innately inscribed into landscape and architecture.

The outcome of the studio is two fold: (1) an overall reconfiguration of the site (in the form of a masterplan or urban strategy) and (2) one part of this reconfiguration explored in detail and taking the form of a mid-scale public building suitable to the area (examples include a surf life saving club, a sports pavilion, a theatre or a car park). How can the complex inputs of the site be negotiated through the use of generative tools? How can complex mappings of space be synthesised into urban and architectural design? How can competing environmental phenomena be better brought to bear in the formal and material articulation of the city?