ReUse

​​The expansion of Melbourne’s urban form as well as the resources required to build new buildings continues despite the identification of thousands of vacant buildings in only 7 Local Government Areas mapped to date over the last 2 years (2023-2025). This design studio focused on urban and environmental regeneration through adaptive reuse of existing vacant buildings as an alternative to continued growth. Mixed programs including residential were tested in buildings located in northern metropolitan Melbourne.

Alternative strategies of construction, enclosure, thermal control and mixed modes of inside and outside were explored by students through an 'economy of means', prioritising reused materials, prefabricated frames, lightweight enclosure, sunshading skins, thermally controlled secondary enclosures, open ground, vegetated microclimates, de-paving and related landscape interventions among others.

Students were required to back up their design proposals through mapping and documentation of the sourcing and design implementation of all various constructive and building components. In embracing the fact that growth and climate protection are incompatible, this studio addressed urban sustainability by minimising depletion of natural resources, envisaging contemporary forms of mixed-use programs, and undertaking alternative approaches to occupation and care of undeveloped land and sensitive ecological systems.

Priority afforded to the care of the existing also reflects contemporary commentators according to which “… the repair … and preservation of the world imposed on us is no less dignified than the creative acts of the human spirit” in a time where “the binary capitalist model between production and leisure is dead”, opening to an idea that the “future of labor lies in maintenance”.

Studio Lead: Mauro Baracco