Minimal Intervention

Minimal Intervention wine making aims to capture the terroir of place, reflecting climate, geography, topography, soils and tradition in the wine’s flavour. This studio challenges students to engage critically with the meaning of ‘terroir’ in the context of Colonial Australia.

The notion of minimal intervention is explored through three lenses for the design of a vineyard and winery on an existing farm in the Victorian Alpine Region. A contested site as a result of pioneering agriculture and gold mining.

The lenses:

1. Minimal Intervention wine making
2. Minimalism & Land Art
3. A minimal approach to architectural interventions

Students are encouraged to challenge Western and Colonial assumptions about site, architecture and its relationships to landscape and ecology. The interrogation of materials, form, structure, and program have been utilised to disassemble and reconfigure colonial structures including the iconic colonial shed.

The studio adopts a diverse range of tools to form a complex and multi-dimensional reading of site. Mapping, walking and model making are utilised to find new forms and opportunities. Through studying ecology, geology and landscape processes, students have explored the role of their built propositions within broader agricultural systems.

Projects manifest as interventions into an existing set of atmospheric, geological and topographic conditions, and ecological and viticultural systems. The materialisation of each proposition grapples with the cultural challenges and wine making opportunities of various materials. Drawing from it, students seek to rearrange site materials – timber, clay, stone and soil –  exploring the dialogue between building and wine making materials.