Daylight Delight

In the last decades, there has been a trend about daylight urban waterways that aims to bring the rivers back into their natural state. Building on this, this studio has focused on daylighting Elster Creek through design propositions at the intersection of (un)natural and built environments. Students have explored how to (un)do and (re)do a part of the modification by designing a space and program that brings the rivers, humans, and more-than-humans together instead of suppressing them. Further, the studio interrogated the relationships we can create with these environments, such as physical, visual, material, emotional, and generational, through design propositions.

Over the semester, the students have collectively worked on a masterplan proposal to daylight a section of Elster Creek and ii. individually designed an environmental learning centre that sits within their master plans. Through their design proposals, the students studied different approaches to learning environments, nature-based solutions, and their relationality to water and Country. By doing so, they have investigated the global discussions in planning and design that can be Country-connected through relationality practices. Finally, the students have developed possible futures that provide alternative approaches to repressive, colonial, and engineering-focused urban modifications through relational and contextual design thinking.

Studio Leaders: Dr Ana Lara Heyns and Secil Taskoparan Stassi