Making Emptiness

Casting the Void Visible

A process where space is excavated from solids rather than a continuum made tectonically by addition and jointing is considered by Gottfied Semper to be ‘Stereotomy’. This notion offers an opening into the practice of casting and its inherent potentials to generate and materialise architectural concepts, developments, and outcomes, key areas of investigation in this studio.

Casting oscillates between the reversibility of solid and void, presence and absence, occupation and excavation, while challenging the boundaries of the monolith and preconceptions of minimalism.

Locating one or several disused spaces in the Melbourne CBD, students will design and resolve a medium scale gallery with simple programs: main gallery, projection room, lecture theatre, storage, bookstore, cafe, and toilets. Adaptive reuse of existing sites will encourage students to conduct self directed research into site archaeology, analyse documentation, and devise a resolved architectural response that engages with contextual conditions.

This studio will explore the process of design by erasure in the works of Aires Mateus, Peter Zumthor, Rachel Whiteread, Eduardo Chillida and James Turrell, whilere nement and construction will be achieved by detailed drawing and crafted prototyping as demonstrated in the works of Carlo Scarpa and Tom Kundig.

Excursions include: NGV, Melbourne Museum, and ACCA.