xxx_park

This studio investigates alternative design models for the antiquated car_park. These are the vast areas of our city given over for the sole purpose of housing private vehicles: multitudes of residential garages & driveways, the sea of asphalt surrounding local hubs, and multi-level parking structures in more intensified centres.

Research suggests that most private vehicles are not in use for more than 90% of our day-to-day lives, which means they idly sit in one place (e.g. home) or another (e.g. work) leaving the respective space vacant. In fact, in higher density areas, up to 40% of private residential car parks are vacant all the time. Conversely, when shops or other facilities are closed, the parking tarmacs and structures that service them become desolate wastelands. Meanwhile, flexi-cars, on-demand travel and delivery services are on the rise, threatening to make car ownership and storage obsolete  altogether.

In the contexts of climate change, urban congestion and urban sprawl, isn’t it time we put mono-functional car parking space to better use?

Through a series of spatial mappings, case studies and speculative designs, students will compare the reality of car-dependency and travel preferences in two Melbourne suburbs–Braybrook (west) and Monash (east). In groups, and operating across the scales of room, building, site and territory, you will examine the spatial, ecological, social and technological imperatives that underpin current and projected demand for personal vehicles. Based on these critical observations, individual students will propose innovative design strategies to transform existing mono-functional car parks into sustainable, time-responsive hybrids of architecture, landscape and infrastructure: a design for the future (sub)urban xxx_park.

This unit draws on research by the Monash Urban Lab. After the conclusion of the course, permission to include your work in subsequent research may be requested by academic staff. Granting permission is at the discretion of individual students and not compulsory.

Kani Ahuonbar, Green Farm

My hybrid design brief looks specifically at manipulating the Monash Children's Hospital multi-deck structure into a pop-up urban farm, which is located within Clayton Oakleigh.

Wai Tsun Ian Lam, Adaptable Car Park Community Market

This is a proposal of an existing car park in between the Sunshine Marketplace and the rail line. This is a market that has a stage in the middle of the car park (originally an empty lawn) where community groups would have performances during market times and storages in the underneath space of it. The market is designed for business to sell almost-expired products in a lower price to the Sunshine community. The profit businesses made in the market would share a portion to the community centres and non-profit organisations in Sunshine (e.g.YouthNow ).

Zhuoyang Yuan (Moliya), Regenerative Montage (Green-town Clayton)

The montage drawing is exploring the idea of regenerating Clayton area as a green space, demonstrating and experimenting various solving functions and probabilities

Bonika Iv, Multilevel Car Park Hybridised With A Public Gardening Space

The studio theme for xxx_park is concerned with why the urban context prioritises vehicle spaces in contrast to pedestrian friendly public realms. This hybrid drawing is inspired by the ‘Spectacle in the City: The Cinema Towers, Cadaiz’ which represents the Cinema of Towers situated in Cadiz. I adopted these hybrid drawing techniques to collage a rooftop garden and surrounding garden space within the structure of the Brimbank Multideck Carpark, thus exploring this integration of pedestrian friendly realms.

Jarryd Wyatt, Inconveniencing Carparks: Hyrbrid Drawing Brief

A large scale architectural and landscape realm that challenges the convenience of car parking spaces in 2020 society, by prioritizing, orienting and promoting sustainable methods of transport along with communal opportunities as an alternative to carpark spaces... now not prioritized but rather disorientated, displaced and lacking in number.

Maryam Ali Khan, Collision of Sunshine Estate

My proposal addresses the need to integrate landscape and history to inform user travel habits. By pinpointing the specific site, Sunshine station car-park I will priorities public transport as a means of changing the status quo of privatized mobility use that draws an emphasis on shared transport which would instigates effective travel patterns in the future. Sunshine station’s train crash (1908) potentially saw a split between the suburbs which is what my proposition provides a solution to, a central attraction center that rehabilitates and brings together the wider community.

Bingjie Zhang, Hybrid Drawing of Proposal Brief

The project is Reset Community, focusing on the reuse and new planning of parking space in residential areas. It aims to initiate a cohesive community system by reusing the residential garages in a block and creating more active streets by reconfiguring driveways and setting new parking zones.