Exposition
Course
- Master of Architecture Semester 2, 2022
Studio leaders
- Matthew Bird Monash Art, Design and Architecture
This studio will examine architecture for diplomatic, missionary and national security with a focus on speculative consulate buildings. New global conditions have emerged as the result of geopolitical tensions, post pandemic recovery and ever increasing cyber benefits (and threats), the need for national representation has shifted from fortress style embassies to welcoming, inspiring civic spaces that positively symbolises the nation’s narrative... but what is this narrative? How can a ‘remote’ building reflect the diversity of a nation and speak for all?
More-than-human theoretical positioning will inform a new type of national consulate building that reimagines who and how it represents.
By repositioning our tendency toward human-centeredness this national architecture will become a host structure to secure, promote and welcome all living creatures. Scenographic and interdisciplinary techniques will be developed to create an architecture that is not just bricks and mortar but one that is an agent - provocative, living, adapting, supportive for all kinds.
This studio is informed by a current Studiobird project for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and will afford a range of invited guests throughout the semester... To commence a series of group workshops will determine site and program options which will lead to individual and ‘open’ student projects. Ie. research and design what interests you within the workshopped framework.
Matthew Bird is an academic, architect, artist and director of Studiobird, a multidisciplinary creative practice based in Melbourne, Australia.
With over fifteen years practice experience Bird embraces an inventive process of reimagining ideas, symbols and materials to create interactive multifaceted worlds that offer meaning and complexity. Traversing visual art, design, architecture and performing arts plateaus, Bird’s immersive creations are the result of a progressive, rigorous and highly experimental interdisciplinary process.