Civility

In Australia and Internationally, we are experiencing a period that is particularly politically charged. Some examples of recent news headlines include investigations into the 6 January 2021 riots on Capitol Hill

in the USA, sensitivities and trade tensions between countries including China and Australia, the rise of right wing governments in Europe, and  the escalation of conflict in Ukraine. Our news reports involve regular references to words such as fascism, democracy, communism, consumerism and capitalism. At the same time, in recent years there has been a growing visual fascination and consumption

of imagery of architecture that is dubbed with these similar words,  such as socialist, brutalist, fascist or communist. This architecture is often from the modernist period or  the immediately following decades, involving bold forms and materials, heroic spaces, vistas and axis. Looking beyond visual appeal, this design studio seeks to understand and draw out the civic substance of this architecture, with a view to the creation of new civic architecture suitable for our times and based in a thorough understanding of a specific place, its context, culture, politics and history.

The studio will be conducted entirely online and participation is welcomed from all locations: local in Melbourne, and also from regional areas, interstate and international locations. Studios will be held on Wednesdays and Fridays from 3pm to 6pm Melbourne time. All submissions and presentations for the studio will be digital.

The basic brief for the project will  be a swimming pool, but the exact accommodation, functions and
spaces are open to each student’s interpretation. The Harold Holt swimming pool in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Iris will be presented  as a key precedent example for both a swimming pool functional and architectural brief, including the manner that the project engages with the local community and also its broader political and cultural implications as a work of brutalist architecture.

Within this intellectual realm each student will choose their own site for their project which can be anywhere in the world, but should be local to the student’s present location during the semester, or otherwise a place they are very familiar with.

Each student will conduct their own investigation into a precedent civic place, architectural work or event, relevant to their proposed site. The city of Sabaudia in Italy will be presented as an example of a case study with complex relationships between history, cultural and political background, as well as spatial, typological and contextual considerations. As a guide to understanding the contemporary condition, this research draws upon theories relevant to the works of the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico.

How each student’s project engages with these themes will be dependant on the location and context they have chosen and the aims that they set for themselves in how their architecture will respond to that context. The final outcome for the semester will result in each student producing a specific, highly resolved, conceptual work of architecture, presented with an awareness of the realities and practicalities of materiality, structure and construction.