Tent Embassies
Course
- Bachelor of Architectural Design Semester 1, 2022
Studio leaders
- Grant Divall
New monuments and counter-monuments
This studio aims to explore new strategies to reimagine, rediscover, recontextualise and reclaim local monuments.
The areas that frame this studio and its design activity are public space, diversity, inclusivity, and Indigenous focuses. How might new monuments be sites for political resistance and social reform across these focus areas?
Research, case studies and design activity will explore two types of so- called ‘counter-monuments’: those that adopt anti-monumental strategies, counter to traditional monument principles, and those that are designed to counter a specific existing monument and the values it represents.[1]
Occupation + participation, not static and didactic
Students will experiment with the possibilities and limitations of temporary ‘occupations’ of public space as part of a strategy for new monuments.
The role of social gatherings in reclaiming the public space of the monument will require creative imagining of a multiplicity of possible future occupations. Design strategies for these ‘civic stages’ will be experimental and speculative.
How can new monuments modify behaviours and address a lack of citizen agency in influencing commemorative public space?
Small scale, temporary, informal and unstructured
This studio encourages resistance to architecture that reduces users to passive spectators. Transformative shaping of dynamic public space will explore the use a toolkit of small- scale, low cost, temporary (rather than permanent), informal, collapsible, participatory, DIY and collaborative strategies.
Physical model making, collage and situated drawing will be explored as design tools. Self-guided and group site visits will be required to Melbourne monuments and cemeteries. Research and design activity will be undertaken in groups, pairs and individually.