Studio C/04
A Single Tree
Ursula Chandler
Studio Description
The studio will consider architecture as the assemblage of materials, critiquing its intrinsic link to extraction.
Reflecting on a single tree, we will study and explore timber as a resource, researching its source, biology and taxonomy, materiality and make-up, possibilities for fabrication and construction, and how this might be fundamental to our concerns as designers.
We will locate ourselves in the dairy farms and coastal communities of South Gippsland, once a vast forest home to the Bunurong and Gunaikurnai people. We will investigate ‘the bush’, its history and management from pre-settlement, through to colonial bioprospecting and logging, bushfire, deforestation to present day management and timber plantations. We will explore these themes at a local level and reflect on them more broadly nationally and internationally.
Using this research, each student will develop a specific site and programmatic response of their choice, within that region and relating to a cultural, industrial or residential use.
Studio Outcomes
Exploring construction as the DNA of architecture, projects will be explored, experimented with, and resolved through detailed drawing. This will include; large and small scale mapping, detailed drawing- including exploring the construction resolution of conceptual ideas in large scale sectional drawings, and iterative physical model making and material studies as a methodology to investigate, understand and critique existing and unforeseen conditions and notions of architecture.
Informed by comprehensive research, a nuanced approach to site- both physical and metaphysical, and the idea of innovation and transformation, all projects will be underpinned by a clear theoretical position.
Students will be required to participate in an overnight site visit where we will stay at artist Bridget Nicholson’s property (https://bridgetnicholson.com.au). The stay will involve a number of site visits and seminars.
Studio Leader/s
Ursula Chandler has worked on projects across Australia, the United Kingdom and Africa. She currently runs her own practice [ursulachandler.com] having been employed as a Project Lead at Adjaye Associates and various Melbourne architects. The practice focuses on the specificity of each brief and site and the practice has an interest in reuse and heritage, and regional locations.
Ursula has previously taught design studios from first year through to Design Thesis, architectural history and construction technology and is an examiner for the ARBV registration exam. She graduated from the University of Melbourne in Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and received the RAIA Bates Smart Graduate Prize and Robert Barber Award in Landscape Architecture.
Readings & References
To be provided in week 1
Schedule:
Mondays 3:15-9:15pm in MSD 139
ABPL90437 Design Studio C is an early-start subject. The ballot is held online at the beginning of O-week, opening on Monday 19 February and closing the morning of Tuesday 20 February. There is some preparatory online work to be completed during the week. Teaching begins with an all day, in person, compulsory Symposium on Friday 23 February.
Off-site Activities:
Melbourne Museum
&
South Gippsland
Associated costs: $50-$100