Open Studio: Future Civic

Emilio Fuscaldo

Studio Description

Future Civic provides students with an opportunity to explore innovative civic architecture and urban design projects. This open studio allows students to choose their own sites and programmes anywhere in the world, fostering creativity and independence, while maintaining a focus on public and civic buildings, amenities, landscapes and public spaces. Students interested in housing projects are encouraged to participate in other studios.

The studio examines how large, consolidated community centres such as those delivered in places like Dandenong and Sunshine are not always the most responsive or equitable form of civic investment. Instead, Future Civic encourages students to propose public and civic projects that are more agile, focused and flexible, and to translate this critical stance into their own chosen contexts, whether in Melbourne, elsewhere in Australia or internationally.

The complexity and scale of student projects will depend on the programmes and contexts chosen. A single set of public toilets, for instance, would be too small, while a major sports stadium would be too complex. Students will receive guidance in determining an appropriate scope and level of ambition for their specific site and brief.

Students may begin by looking at familiar civic examples such as libraries, community hubs, sports pavilions, public transport infrastructure, pools and recreation areas; however, the studio explicitly asks students to go beyond simply reworking these precedents. By integrating concepts of social justice, gender equality and the climate crisis, students are expected either to:

• transform and expand conventional civic programmes in unexpected ways (for example, hybridising care, protest, refuge, repair or mutual aid with familiar types), or
• invent entirely new civic programmes and typologies that respond to emerging and future societal needs.

One possible route to inventing new civic programmes is to consider non-human entities as stakeholders or “clients” alongside human publics. For students interested in ecological questions, this might involve asking how plants, animals or environmental systems could shape the brief and spatial logic of a civic project, for example through pollinator corridors with public stewardship points or flood-buffer landscapes that double as gathering spaces. This approach is offered as one of several ways to generate innovative programmes; students are free to pursue different thematic lenses as long as they construct a clear and critically argued civic role for their project.

Another way to extend existing civic programmes is to reconceive familiar institutions as hubs for civic learning and democratic culture. For instance, a student might transform a municipal library into a more focused “civics centre” that augments collections and quiet study with spaces for deliberative forums, critical media literacy, conflict mediation and community workshops about social cohesion in an era of polarised ideologies.

Similarly, a project might rework the programme of a public pool, park or community centre into a neighbourhood climate resilience hub. Such a proposal could offer refuge and respite from extreme heat or cold, provide access to cooling, water and power during climate emergencies, and host spaces for collective planning, education and mutual aid around climate adaptation.

In every case, students must critically define who the “public” of their project is within their chosen context (including, if relevant, non-human publics), and what forms of inclusion, exclusion and agency their proposal produces.

Students will design both an architectural project and the public realm in which it is situated, ensuring that each proposal operates simultaneously as an architectural and urban design provocation.

At the beginning of the semester, students will undertake theoretical research on urban design topics such as spatial justice, privatisation, gender, text and place, or the citizen’s right to the city. This research will form the basis of their thesis proposition by framing a clear research question that is then tested against their chosen site and community.

Using creative mapping techniques, students will identify and evaluate potential project locations based on socio-political and environmental factors such as wealth, equality, liveability, heat and water. They will also consider sites of contested ideas and identities, including places associated with protest or gender-based violence, tailoring this work to the specific city, region or landscape they select.

In the second half of the semester, attention will shift to translating research into design strategies. Through precedent studies, 2D and 3D parti diagrams and first-person vignettes, students will refine their research questions and develop architectural and urban proposals.

Throughout the studio, students will be encouraged to investigate their chosen city or context and uncover elements that are not immediately visible. This research will inform proposals that seek to fill gaps or heal scars in the social and civic infrastructure of the place they select.

Studio Outcomes

This studio invites students to develop innovative civic and social infrastructure projects, with sites and programmes chosen anywhere in the world. Materials and activities are designed to push students beyond their own experiences: through written and drawn exercises, they will explore connections between architecture and film, art, literature, landscape and urban design, and are expected to take agency in their learning rather than simply follow instructions. Guest speakers will share insights into their practice and related themes.

The semester begins with a theoretical, social and cultural study of social and civic infrastructure in Australia and worldwide, drawing on debates around social justice, gender, spatial justice and the climate crisis to expand what social services and public space might be. Students take leadership in defining their briefs and selecting project sites, ensuring projects are culturally and contextually grounded. Early, hands-on exercises test and define four core aspects of each project—programme, site, concept and users/publics—which then guide the development of a thesis question and design work.

Final projects will propose new forms of social and civic infrastructure whose primary function is to foster, contest and maintain communities and publics. Students are expected to move beyond simply reproducing familiar building types (such as libraries or community hubs) by critically reworking or hybridising them, or by inventing entirely new civic programmes that respond to emerging social, environmental and political conditions, including, where relevant, more-than-human stakeholders. Each project will operate at both an urban design scale and an architectural resolution. The studio promotes a hands-on, research-driven approach, encouraging engagement with streets and public spaces where possible, alongside robust methods for investigating distant or global contexts. Primary research—through observation, mapping, interviews or other techniques—will be central to the process, within a supportive environment that values critical thinking and student-led inquiry.

Studio Leader/s

Emilio Fuscaldo founded Nest Architects in 2006 and has extensive experience leading projects across residential, hospitality, retail and education sectors. Under his direction, Nest has received numerous awards and become an established part of Melbourne’s architectural landscape.

Alongside practice, Emilio has taught design studios in Architecture and Interior Design at RMIT and the University of Melbourne, and since 2022 has led Design Thesis studios at the University of Melbourne. He is known for fostering a friendly, supportive studio culture in which students produce ambitious and thoughtful work.

Before completing his architecture degree in 2002, Emilio graduated with an Arts degree with Honours in Philosophy, focusing on environmental ethics. This background underpins his strong commitment to collaboration, environmental sustainability and inclusive design. For Emilio, being an architect is fundamentally about contributing to the improvement of our shared communities.

Readings & References

To be advised in class

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Schedule:
Tuesday 12pm-2pm
Friday 10am-2pm

Contact Handbook