Studio 22
Idea Factories
Nicole Allen
Studio Description
The University is changing. Its architecture must adapt and evolve. Australian universities are growing, fast. Like the population they serve, these universities are also becoming more urban, more inclusive, denser and more diverse than ever before. Along with this unprecedented growth, there are massive incentives to broaden and enrich the culture and quality of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education within the university. This push is an existential issue for Australia as competitor in the global market of ideas and innovation.
Studio Outcomes
IDEA FACTORIES will challenge students to invent new environments, places and buildings for science, technology and design education. We will analyse how these subjects are taught, who is learning, who is teaching and the spaces they need. In collaboration with the University of Melbourne and leaders from the STEM departments we will study existing buildings on campus, global education precedents and alternate industry precedents (tech-campuses, incubators, etc). These studies will form the context for a series of design proposals from the scale of the individual classroom to the scale of the campus. The design explorations will seek to answer three critical questions about the role of architecture in shaping education:
- If the traditional lecture is dying, what are the new spaces of learning?
- How does interdisciplinary interaction create academic vitality?
- How do we foster interaction, without drowning in distraction?
Studio Leader
Nicole Allen is an American architect, designer and educator currently based in Melbourne. Nicole recently joined Grimshaw’s Australian practice as a Senior Designer. Previously, she was an associate at New York City-based SHoP Architects where she specialised in the interface between high-density mega-projects and urban centres. In addition to practising, Nicole is a masters studio leader at the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne School of Design (MSD). For the past two semesters her studio, Recombinant City, has engaged students to use architecture, adaptive reuse and unorthodox urban design to study the creation of diversity, vitality and equitable housing in Melbourne. Nicole holds a Master’s degree in architecture from Columbia University in the City of New York (GSAPP) and a Bachelor of Science in architecture from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her primary interest is advancing the practice of architecture as a tool for creating social justice and human flourishing in cities.
Reading & Reference
The Idea Factory; Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, Jon Gertner Deep Work, Cal Newport
ST1/22 Monday 6:15-9:15PM, MSD Room 215
ST2/22 Thursday 6:15-9:15PM, MSD Room 139