Before Building: Dialogue in Collective Design Practice

Presented by Danielle Peck (Architecture Associates / Monash School of Art, Design and Architecture) and Ben Waters (Waters Architects / Melbourne School of Design), Before Building presents an audiovisual work examining the role of dialogue in architectural design. The work traces three projects currently underway within the architects’ respective practices.

Filmed in close detail, objects, models, drawings, sketches and notes gathered through community engagement sessions reveal moments of exchange and negotiation that have shaped each project. Overlaid with a narrative script composed from fragments of real dialogue, the work highlights design as a process of conversation.

Across a number of projects, Peck and Waters approach design not as a single act of authorship but as a collective and continually negotiated practice. In this view, meaning emerges through relationships between designers, communities, clients, materials and the everyday routines that sustain them. Form does not precede dialogue; it emerges from it.

The exhibition will be showcased at both University of Melbourne and Monash University for the duration of Melbourne Design Week.

Participants

Danielle Peck is a founding director of Architecture Associates, a practice specialising in cultural, community and education projects. She is an Industry Fellow at Monash School of Art, Design & Architecture and is interested in ideas entangled in the socio-political forces shaping contemporary environments. She pursues projects that consciously participate in and promote social cohesion.

Ben Waters is an architect and founder of Waters Architects, a regional architecture practice working on community, housing and cultural projects. He also leads S-I Projects, a design agency operating at the intersection of technology, ecology and cultural heritage. Waters is a Creative Practitioner Educational Fellow at the Melbourne School of Design.