MATERIALITY Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Unsettling Queenstown

REDISCOVERING THE GROUND

Jessie Lewis on 15 May 2023

REDISCOVERING THE GROUND

REDISCOVER PHYSICAL COUNTRY TO EMBED FIRST NATIONS STORIES AND MATERIALITY

Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture, NMBW Architecture Studio, Greenaway Architects, Architects EAT, Aspect Studios and Glas Urban

LOCATION
VIC
University of Melbourne Parkville Campus
Woi Wurrung (Wurundjeri) people of the Kulin Nation

Central to the landscape vision of the Student Precinct is the ‘Welcome Terrain’ and the ‘Water Story’ – both concepts ensure a strong physical connection with local Indigenous knowledge.

The primary urban design move of the Student Precinct is removal of an twentieth century elevated concrete plaza covering the central area, reinstated by a new version of ‘solid ground’, both restoring the settings of original heritage buildings and embedding them in a new Indigenous-led conception of place.

Underlying the ‘Welcome Terrain’ is a network of connective gathering spaces paved in a patchwork of Indigenous stones that signify reconnection with the ‘lost’ ground. This includes representation of a ‘Water Story’ narrative from the pre-colonial waterway through the site, encapsulating the importance of eel migration paths that have been buried beneath layers of development.

lyonsarch.com.au/project/new-student-precinct/

CONTRIBUTORS
Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture
NMBW Architecture Studio Greenaway Architects Architects EAT
Aspect Studios
Glas Urban

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Minus

Jessie Lewis on 15 May 2023

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MINUS

THE ARCHITECTURE OF SUBTRACTION

Louise Wright, Urban Lab, Monash Art, Design & Architecture

LOCATION
Birrarung, Bulleen, Naarm
Bolin Bolin, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country

This tactic accounts for the post settlement occupation along the Birrarung, Naarm (Yarra River, Melbourne) by built form such as industrial buildings, carparks, sport fields and so on that disrupt and deny ecosystem functions through vegetation and habitat removal, sealing over of soil and ecosystem modification and fragmentation.

The tactic involves the ‘cutting out’ of built form from an aerial photograph making explicit the occupation and subsequent denial of life through the symbolic white space of the paper.

Widely applicable as a tactic, this example is from the riparian corridor of the Birrarung at the Bolin Bolin Billabong, a gathering site for the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and one of the few billabongs remaining in Melbourne

As a teaching tool the white space is considered: what was there, what could be reparative in the modified ecosystem, how does this white space interrupt systems at a micro and macro scale, what planning tools do we have and do we need to subtract built form rather than add, and can the programs removed exist elsewhere in novel ways that might in their turn regenerate an urban area?

TACTIC CONCEPTUALISATION
Louise Wright, Practice Professor

IMAGE PRODUCTION
Anne Barlow, Architecture Student

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MAKING SOMETHING OF / FROM WHAT REMAINS

Jessie Lewis on 12 May 2023

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MAKING SOMETHING OF / FROM WHAT REMAINS

SUBTRACTING DEFINITIVELY, UPGRADING NECESSARILY. REMEDIATING VISIBLY, ALTERING SLIGHTLY, ADDING PROVISIONALLY, ARTICULATING MATTER-OF-FACTLY.

Gilby + Brewin Architecture

LOCATION
TAS
Freestone Point, Triabunna
Traditional Lands of the paredarerme, trayapana, lutruwita

For millennia, the Spring Bay Mill site has been a significant place of cultural and social gathering for the Palawa / Pakana people. However, in recent decades the site operated as what was once the world’s largest wood- chipping plant where up to 100,000 native trees were reduced to chips each year.

Since the abandonment of the plant in 2010, this extensively damaged site is being repaired and transformed into a culture and environment focussed events venue, reorienting the site back towards the deep past as a place of human gathering.

The project has been undertaken with the tactic of making something of (figuratively) and from (literally) what remains of the former use(s) of the site.

This is actioned by:

subtracting definitively,
upgrading necessarily,
remediating visibly,
altering slightly,
adding provisionally,
articulating matter-of-factly,

Aiming to do the least needed to convert the use of the site, while making apparent and available for experience, the contemporary processes, parts and programmes that contribute to the site’s repair and regeneration, as these overlap with the recent industrial history, postcolonial context, and the ancient landscape setting.

gilbybrewin.com.au

OWNERS
Greame Wood & Anna Cerneaz

SITE MASTER PLAN AND ARCHITECTURE
Gilby + Brewin Architecture (Ross Brewin, Anna Gilby, Shing Hei Ho, Nina Tory-Henderson)

LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Verdant Way (Marcus Ragus)

DESIGN COLLABORATORS
Futago (Wayfinding signage), Studio Ferri (Banksia Room interior design), Laura McCusker (Banksia Room furniture design), Michelle Boyde, Chloe Proud, Wellington Steelworks (Tin Shed Courtyard outdoor kitchen), Vanishing Point Design (Preliminary Stage consultant coordination & documentation),

CONSTRUCTION
Dillon Builders (Site services & infrastructure and all buildings),
AJR Construct (Ridge Quarters pre- fabricated units),
Eagle Ridge Consulting (Preliminary Stage site wide project management & construction and Beach Shacks design & construct).

CONSULTANTS
Saltmarsh & Escobar Consulting Engineers (Structural and civil engineering), Andrew Sutherland Consulting Engineers (Services engineering), EHome AV (Audio Visual), Holdfast Building Surveyors (Building surveying), Cultural Heritage Management Australia (Aboriginal cultural heritage assessment), North Barker Ecosystem Services (Sitewide fire hazard management),
COVA and Kojin Engineering (Tin Shed fire engineering),
Wormald (Hydraulic engineering)

PHOTOGRAPHY
Adam Gibson
Richard Jupe
Vica Bayley
Gilby Brewin

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ALUMINIUM EXTRACTION URBANISM

Ben Cottam on 12 May 2023

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ALUMINIUM EXTRACTION URBANISM

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND MAPPING OPPORTUNITIES

Peter Charles, Monash University

LOCATION
VIC
Portland
Gunditjmara Country

The study uses mapping and diagramming tactics to explore resource extraction systems in relation to towns with processing smelters separated from resource extraction sites. These are used to identify sites for stimulators that focus on new carbon economies and environmental tourism.

Tactics include using Food-web and Sankey diagrams to explore aluminium processing systems, and Patrick Geddes Sieve method to explore the intersection of map layers combining concepts from Landscape Urbanism and Industrial Ecology. Environmental maps are created using Arduino microprocessors, environmental sensors, GPS, and GIS.

The tactics were applied to Portland, a pivotal port town 550km west of Melbourne which was the first European settlement in Victoria and holds world heritage Gunditjmara agricultural sites.

Portland has a relatively new aluminium smelter with a subsidised energy contract to 2036 from the Loy Yang Power station, located 500km away in the La Trobe Valley. The Bauxite that is smelted is also mined far away. The potline of the smelter can be used as a battery to stabilise energy flow. The smelter uses 10% of Victorian energy, playing a large role in decisions related to carbon and the economy.

RESEARCH LEADER
Peter Charles

CONTRIBUTORS
Chia Jung Carol Li, Aidan Hoyne,
Anna Chan, James Owens, Jess
Hordern, Marlow Brown, Yueran
Vera Gao, Swasti Jain, Kittaporn
Bamroong, Lingyuan Sydney Zhang,
Spike Thomson, Emily Foenander,
Natsumi Maeda, Aleez Vasaya, Erol
Gok

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COLLABORATION WITH FIRST NATIONS ARTISTS AND ARCHITECTS

Jessie Lewis on 12 May 2023

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COLLABORATION WITH FIRST NATIONS ARTISTS AND ARCHITECTS

ARTWORK

Breathe for Aboriginal Housing Victoria

LOCATION
VIC
Reservoir
Umarkoo Wayi – Gangu Gulin Country

We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, the Traditional Custodians of the land upon which Umarkoo Wayi – Ganbu Guljin stands. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture.

An important but incredibly difficult mandate, to decolonise architecture, Aboriginal Housing Victoria’s Affordable Housing Project in Melbourne goes some way to re-thinking and re-making the canon of colonial housing typologies. Questioning, dismantling and re- positioning notions of identity, this project attempts to reset the dial on culturally sensitive affordable housing through programming, landscape, collaboration and materiality.

We worked with First Nations artist Tahnee Edwards to enliven the common areas with her artwork.

breathe.com.au/project/ahv-reservoir