The recent ‘Central Melbourne Design Guide’, put forward by the CoM, seeks to establish a set of minimum acceptable standards ‘to raise the bar on the design quality of development outcomes’. Such rules can provide leverage for good design outcomes when balancing these desires against the realities of buildings. But then, they may also prohibit, or limit, meaningful propositions.

In drawing a line on the bottom, do we conversely limit the top? Is the design guide bound intrinsically to Melbourne or are we collapsing global trends of good design to create a generic ‘every’ city? Do they richly engage with the complexity of the city and its citizens?

de-coding the City calls upon students to understand the city as an autonomous being; a complex entity with its own internal logic, systems and distinctiveness. It has a history, a present and a future. Students will question the logic behind the rules; how can they be challenged and how can a meaningful urban proposition be born out of them.