2023

86223_Interior Architecture Major Project

  • In the 1920’s the “Social Condenser” became the most internationally renowned ideological archetype. Developed by the Soviet and French avant-garde, the concept inspired new and progressive forms of societal existence through the dynamic blending of diverse activities, reorienting ideas of public culture through communal housing design, worker’s clubs and palaces of labor and leisure. But today, the social condenser can be translated into what we might understand as a club. Any club–from tennis to techno– are still social factories: incubators of interaction. Zeroing in on a possibly bygone typology, this studio’s focus is on clubs and leisure. Clubs have been spaces that give form to social and sub- cultures both differentiated and commonplace. Hosting heightened forms of hedonism, relaxation, gathering, and friendship, club culture has always begun with society, but its evolution has also heavily shaped it. Clubs are laboratories for future attitudes, experiments, and societies. While they might not immediately reveal their influence on our daily lives, they permeate it, and at some point, club culture has even determined the mainstream. Clubs have always been allegories for the real, and for the imagined. Worlds where we can exist as ourselves and simultaneously as others. In our current global context, we have lost many kinds of clubs that have been integral to the development of cultural histories, of social histories, of urban histories. In the context of Sydney, this loss has been the result of lock out laws, new economic regimes, zoning and legislation changes, a global pandemic and localised lockdowns. But can they, or are they, making a comeback? This studio asks a fundamental question: what is it that emerges from the hidden culture of the club that gives structure to how we interpret our surroundings, acquire knowledge, spend our time, and mediate our cities? This studio serves as a reference point, a starting point from which to expand on the sociocultural possibilities that this question provokes by re-defining and re-presenting clubs and the idea of leisure.

    Image: La Grande Bellezza (2013)

  • In contemporary society, the landscape of democratic discourses has undergone profound transformations, marked by a shift towards a spectacle of misinformation, polarization, and a lack of substantive dialogue. Guy Debord's seminal work

    "The Society of the Spectacle" provides a profound analysis of this spectacle-driven culture, as encapsulated by this line in his essay: “The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images”

    Debord’s comments are prescient. Not only have our individual experiences to date been shaped by visual representations, but human connections have now also evolved to a point where other sensory stimuli have been supplanted by image-based interactions – as evidenced by the prevalence of digital platform and social media use.

    The loss of physical informal interactions outside a visually charged sphere also extends to a loss within the tangible built environment. This decline in the use and design of physical democratic spaces ( town halls, courthouses, community centers, public squares) highlights the impending dearth of meaningful conversations and discourse. This shift of dependence from platforms that once fostered inclusive environments for debate and discourse to ones more fractious and disagreeable signifies an erosion of social capital and a perceived “democracy deficit.” Highlighting the need once more for secure and inclusive social environments that enable peaceful debates and diverse viewpoints.

    This studio therefore seeks to reimagine the role of a central public space today against a digital backdrop of public and often virulent discourse by referencing two ancient architectural typologies - Fora and Agora. These forums were once centralized public-serving spaces for social, political, and commercial activities. Acting as the nexus for communal energy, these forums were “not just an open space…, it was a container of collective consciousness.” and a place to be. The unique Genius loci – the “spirit of place” drew power from the synergy between the city, the architecture, and the community.

    The project will serve as a counterpoint to conventional dogmas, allowing for alternative modes of expression and resistance through architecture and space. The new forum typology aspires to create a more accessible, inclusive, and authentic democratic realm that fosters meaningful civic engagement, a heterotopia where critical discourse can thrive.

    Toeing in the liminal spatial thresholds between formal and informal, classical and contemporary, permanency and temporary, urban and domestic, how do we define, facilitate, and mediate democracy?

  • Evidence of markets can be traced back with archaeological findings to Greece during the 8th Century BC. Fast forward to the modern world, we saw the first department stores popping up in Paris in the 19th century with further evolution showcasing digital stores in the Metaverse in the 21st Century. The retail experience is everchanging.

    Traditionally, these marketplaces served as more than just spaces for the exchange of goods. They were also gathering places where people came together to share ideas and engage in social interactions. This is the reason why through the rise of technology, creating easier avenues for retail, we have an inherent need to connect in spaces which allow that interaction and tactile experience.

    Consumerism, as a concept deeply ingrained in modern societies, has had a profound impact on various aspects of our lives. It has shaped individual behaviours, societal norms, and economic systems. Advertising, social media, and cultural influences all play significant roles in promoting and perpetuating consumerism. it is closely associated with the idea of planned obsolescence, where products are intentionally designed to have a limited useful life, driving frequent replacement and continuous consumption. This, in turn, contributes to increased waste production and environmental degradation through resource extraction, manufacturing processes, and disposal of discarded products.

    Commerce and consumerism have not only shaped individual behaviours but also influenced the development of physical spaces and societal structures. Trading hubs and marketplaces have led to the formation of cities and urban centres, fostering the growth of interconnected communities. These marketplaces have provided platforms for social interactions, cultural exchanges, and economic activities that have contributed to the overall progress of human civilization. A complex and multi-faceted phenomenon influenced by the intersection of technology, changing societal values and shifts in the economic landscape. This studio invites you to take part in this evolution by re-imagining the retail landscape… consider the below.

    Only the past can help us understand the future, how are we as designers challenging past and existing boundaries to cultivate a new relationship between the consumer and the market? How do we address current global and contextual issues to form a unique and radical response suited to future us?

  • Care is fundamental to human experience and what it means to live in a diverse society. Like all institutions, the historical context of care spaces has evolved over time - from ancient temple worship and medieval religious hubs or military hospitals; to the secular state care and clinical institutionalization of spaces prolific in the 19th and 20th centuries still existing today. The contemporary context of care reflects the complexity of postmodern society. With functionalism and modular-systematic approaches common for large scale implementation of care spaces. The concept of fragmentation or specialisation is common within healthcare, social care and education systems, and has been reflected in the built environment through current institutional design.

    Care is relevant now more than ever as contemporary society is in flux between two modes: prioritisation of self vs. working for the collective good. As we experienced through the global pandemic and in the awareness of evolving technologies (e.g. automation and AI), the way we design spaces and how the community adapts to these spatial conditions, often at their most vulnerable, is critical discourse for the future of care. The studio fosters an exploration of care that transcends traditional institutional settings and instead focuses on nurturing care spaces within a community framework. This approach entails empathetic investigations into the cultural, social, historical, and political research of the site and the potential users. Fundamental questions to be explored include; what is care, what is the future of care, and how does it evolve? Throughout the studio, students will engage with concepts encompassing, but not restricted to, human-centered design, biophilic design, ergonomic considerations, neurodiverse architecture, sensory-oriented spaces, therapeutic and healing architecture, cultural inclusivity, and sustainability.

  • “The function of the Baths is to create and recycle private and public fantasies, to invent, test, and possibly introduce new forms of behaviour. The building is a social condenser” _ Koolhass, Vriesendorp, Zenghelis, & Zenghelis, “Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture” (1972). P20.

    Bathhouses, pools and saunas are transcultural social infrastructures, that over the course of their long history, have had an intensely fluctuating relationship with the collectivity and exclusivity of bodies in their waters.

    Spaces of ritual, leisure, hedonism, they reveal intimate fantasies and desires and hold capacity to dissolve social hierarchy and cultural barriers. In ancient Roman and Greek cultures, bathhouses were central to social civic life serving as spaces of discussion and political gatherings. In medieval times, Islamic bathhouses (hammams) became the centres of cultural exchange and education; and in Japan, communal bathhouses (sentos) were essentially for community interaction and bonding.

    However, developments in domestic architectures such as the incorporation of the private bathroom and the backyard swimming pool, have transformed the bathhouse from an urban public institution dedicated to providing the commons with meaningful spaces of rejuvenation and connection, into a constellation of private assets. Late capitalism, and today’s crisis of time and space compression, has further fuelled the commodification of the bathhouse, converting its monumental, hedonistic and healing capacities into exclusive heterotopias only accessible for those who can afford it. This process, in turn, has somewhat undermined their unique and powerful capacity to dissolve the presence of social distinctions and arouse a gathering effect in public space.

    Especially now, in the wake of COVID-19, notion of coming together, uniting, rejuvenation and socializing within a public interior seems more and more of a distant memory.

    Through explorations of the bygone cultures and rituals associated with communal bathing, students will reimagine a new identity for the bathhouse in a contemporary context. And ask the fundamental question: What does this look like in an intensely public institution in the bustling city (not suburbia) where the role of the interior embraces a remedial role of hedonism, luxury and desire while also acting as a ‘social condenser’ that informs new and meaningful ways of understanding, gathering and navigating our cities and capitalist lives?

  • Hotels are places of convergence. Strangers from local and distant lands intersect and encounter one another in unplanned and unexpected ways through the inhabitation of the same building. This building typology, the modern hotel, can be traced back to the caravansaries of the silk road, the traveller’s mansions of the Romans, the inn’s of Medieval Europe, and the grand hotels of the 20th century. But in contrast to the social energy of it’s historical precursors, the contemporary hotel has become a space of alienation and loneliness. This is enforced by the spatial organization of the hotel, which for all of it’s typological mutations, has remained unchallenged. A typical room repeated along a corridor forever.

    This typical room also has a price. Under the regime of late-capitalism, spaces for both temporary and permanent dwelling have become commodified. And the array of programs that have now become commonplace in a hotel: the restaurant, the bar, the pool, the spa, the ballroom, and the club, are made exclusive. Moreover, the hotel is a reflection of the class divisions found outside it’s walls. Here, there is an entire system of overworked and underpaid labor actively constructing a decadent escape from normal life for those who can afford it.

    But what if the hotel was accessible to everyone? This studio will confront the social exclusivity, homogeneity, and rigid spatial logic of the hotel to re-imagine it as a place which meaningfully contributes to the social vibrancy of the city. Through experimenting with materiality, spatial complexity, and programmatic variety, we will take advantage of the hotels potential to stage a multitude of inhabitations from theatrical, extravagant events to close, intimate encounters. In the context of an increasingly atomized society, where cultural differences have been dissolved by the standardizing forces of the capitalist machine, can we imagine a place for the exploration of new forms of collective culture?