Negative / Positive

Negative / Positive
Design Make

Negative / Positive is the first of a series of Design Make projects to be undertaken in collaboration with the creative practice These Are The Projects We Do Together at The Quarry, a post-extractive industry site being rehabilitated on the outskirts of the regional Victorian township of Beech Forest.

The project is comprised of two circular spaces, the negative - an excavation that creates a lens to the living rock of the site, and the 'positive', an amphitheatre - like space for people to gather, to talk, listen, celebrate and ultimately to come together and participate in the repair and regeneration of a deeply damaged landscape.

The project provokes contemplation of architecture's problematic relationship to material extraction and consumption. The project involved reclaiming and using timber from a past NGV summer pavilion, saving this material from likely landfill. In order to not be a wasteful exercise in it's own right, the construction of the 'positive' does not use nails, glue or cement, ensuring all materials can be easily reused at the end of their lifespan. The structure is instead, a carefully arranged dry assembly of material that is simply stacked, strapped, layered and screwed together.