The Mission

Virginia Mannering

Studio Outline:

This studio will use the embassy, and other related building types, as a leaping off point. Embassies occupy a curious place in our cities; they are characters of contrast. Often clustered together, they exist as welcoming and hospitable hosts but also as mysterious alien outsiders, occupying the territory of others. Internally they function as serious ‘nerve centres’ for diplomatic affairs, but externally speaking, style and aesthetics matter. As a class we will examine the program and future role of diplomatic spaces. We will test configurations for public, private and secure zones and examine your architecture’s contextual interface and its public engagement. Ultimately you will create spaces that allow for socialising, private negotiation, refuge, knowledge-keeeping, promotion, and activism. There will be a focus on materiality, planning, occupation. Your buildings will be situated within the boundaries of the Hoddle Grid (Melbourne CBD). The class will research, analyze and map the city, exploring issues of power and identity, looking through historical and contemporary lenses. These findings will then be used to produce a ‘field’ of individual, site responsive projects on a set of diverse locations. NB: The studio will have guest tutors (MSD technical tutors/architecture/landscape architecture) and you will be asked to attend occasional off-campus (CBD/Inner City) site visits.

Studio Leaders

VIRGINIA MANNERING is a graduate architect working in small practice, a teacher and researcher/writer. She has a long-standing interest in issues of human experience, historical and social issues, which she explores through design and the production of related texts and publications.

Learning Outcomes:

With the aim of creating a truly collaborative studio environment, students will be expected to participate in robust class discussions and ideas generation with some initial whole-of-class group work, however individual projects will be the key outcomes of mid- and end-of-semester reviews. It is imagined the individual projects will be presented as a class 'field' mimicking precinct/collective nature of diplomatic districts. It is hoped that students will have the opportunity to have their work reviewed by the MSD’s technical tutors. Other collaborators will be invited to join the studio at key moments throughout the semester, with the aim of developing specific skills in a workshop environment. Classes will be structured as pin-ups, group discussions or workshops. Deliverables will include drawings, maps, models and a booklet/portfolio.

Reading and Reference:

Jerry Gretzinger’s Map - www.jerrysmap.com
Jane C. Loeffler - The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America's Embassies
Paul Walker - Tents and monuments : Canberra's sites of Australian Identity
Nadia Rook - 'Marginality' in the Hoddle Grid and the Colour of Public Memory
Graeme Davison - The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne
RaumLabor - www.raumlabor.net

ST1/14 Monday 3:15pm - 6:15pm, MSD Room 140
ST2/14 Thursday 3:15pm - 6:15pm, MSD Room 239