Peripheral

Ursula Chandler

Studio Description

Perhaps excluded from definitions of the urban, the development of Victorian regional towns is shaped by the same processes as the city. Today, with limited real distinction between the development of either, we will explore the idea of peripheral urbanism through an ‘urban’ renewal project on a disused railway station in Leongatha, a regional town 135km south-east of Melbourne.

Responding to the site’s history of deforestation and timber extraction, proposals will incorporate a timber forestry museum, small library and a specialist higher‑education, industrial school—focused on the timber industry. These will need to be integrated into the existing rail trail and train station precinct and create a civic presence within the existing disjointed town.

Through strong conceptual framing, proposals will promote and educate on sustainable forestry and construction, critic architecture’s intrinsic link to extraction both materially and from a broader landscape position and propose an approach to urbanism in a regional context.

Studio Outcomes

Projects will be explored, experimented with, and resolved through comprehensive and iterative drawing.

This will include, large and small scale mapping, detailed drawing, including experimenting with construction resolution of conceptual ideas into large scale sectional drawings, iterative physical model making and model studies undertaken in part at the Machine Workshop (MSD).

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 a one-day site visit, which will most likely take place on a weekend.

Studio Leaders

Ursula Chandler has worked on projects across Australia, the United Kingdom and Africa. She directs her own practice ursulachandler.com having been employed as a Project Lead at Adjaye Associates and various Melbourne practices. The practice focuses on the specificity of each brief and site and has an interest in reuse, heritage, and regional locations.

Ursula has taught extensively at the MSD 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

Provided in class.

Schedule:
Monday 3pm - 6pm
(30 minute break)
Monday 6.30pm - 9.30pm

Off Campus Activities:
TBC

Contact Handbook