Island Futures

Island Futures explores potential speculative future architectural proposals from Bellarmarin / Woone / Jouap / French Island which can address the social, political and ecological conditions of the island.

Located on Boon Wurrung country, and only 61km south of Melbourne, the island is an unincorporated territory, a space without a municipal council, where instead public programs are managed directly by the community. It is also an important site of ecological preservation, with around two thirds of the island being designated a national park.

Examining both historical and current contexts of French Island, students responded to a specific condition through mapping and the production of a speculative architectural proposal. Through visiting the island, and drawing from first hand encounters, students then developed their architectural proposals on a specific site, creating projects which could facilitate collective functions of the island and suggest possible new social, ecological and material futures.

By doing so, these projects begin to question, how can we understand islands, not as separate and insular spaces, but as always connected to wider networks and places? And, how can understanding the spatial configuration of the island lead to new developments of cultures and alternative systems of land, care and social organisation?