Ayomi Olasoji - MADA NOW 2021 - Art, Design and Architecture

Underlined by a personal passion about social change and community directed initiatives, this degree has uncovered a curiosity for connecting diverse understandings and perceptions of how we engage with our context through the medium of architecture and design. With conceptual considerations around how incidental interactions can generate powerful networks within space forming a part of my design approach, I hope to continue exploring how seemingly peripheral experiences of the built environment can strengthen communities and build connections

Community Powered Communities

In a bid to combat emissions produced by traditional modes of urban lighting while promoting urban safety, this proposal seeks to invoke a sense of community within the site extents of Clayton by harnessing the energy of its growing and diverse population through a network of community-powered community hubs. These hubs act as programmatic extensions of Monash University, housing activities such as study zones, green spaces and performance pits

Networks of 'Urban Peripheries'

Amalgamations of modules are strategically placed across the site in what crowd-sourced data has flagged as unsafe ‘urban peripheries’; ranging from urban typologies such as dimly lit service roads, carparks and bus stops to highly vegetated areas with poor lines of vision, the proposal uses its architecture to activate these spaces both during the day and in the evening. The prefabricated and standardised nature of the modules allow the proposal to extend further across the site well into the future as the community sees fit

Generating Light

The community-powered aspect of the project revolves around promoting sustainable behaviours through the harvesting of kinetic energy from humans upon physical interaction with the architecture. The energy harvested throughout the day is used as a power source for light generation in the evening, weaning reliance off unsustainable methods of night time urban illumination

Community Hub Section and Plan

The end result is a community-centric network of urban landscapes that promotes ownership over ‘urban peripheries’ through participant-driven activation (both kinetically and socially) of the structures