Mnemonic Memory in Architecture

Mnemonic Memory in Architecture will ask students to consider their position on Country, and to examine the relationships they have with place, people, material and landscape. The destruction and displacement through colonisation is a constant threat to Indigenous knowledge and practices. These are forms of erasure that affect both memory and nature.

Students will be given a series of group and individual tasks to develop skill sets in site analysis, diagramming, spatial mapping, and understanding material culture. These skill sets will be used in complement with recording the existing conditions of Glen Waverley Library - a building that is set to be demolished and replaced with a new community hub and library. Students will be asked to explore alternative initiatives that re-use materials of the existing building, of creating new materials from the site exploration. To compliment the building programme, and to better understand inherent bias - students will be tasked with better understanding their relationships to their community/s. The major project will be a new Community Hub in Glen Waverley that takes into consideration the needs and wants of multiple stakeholders - human and non-human. Students will be expected to test/ craft new materials or forms that benefit both human and non-human as part of the design and research process.

Studio Leader: Brad Kerr