Studio 11


Novel Skin

Igor Kebel & Eriko Watanabe

Studio Description

We live in the era where things are transported autonomously, clothes are printed and sprayed on and robots fold facades. The studio will borrow from these industries and apply their know-how to the building envelopes.

Studio Outcomes

The central framework of the studio will be the envelope prototype, which is de-carbonizing and smartening new vertical architecture. We will work at a chosen location in Melbourne with the existing, ready-to-be-refurbished high-rise building and look into the novel approaches for the reprogramming and refurbishment of its skin.

While working on the specific site, studio participants will design and evaluate various material and programmable envelope concepts: mass customized-, big-data-, inhabitable-, and de-carbonized skins.

Intellectual and practical reasons will be investigated collectively at the beginning of the semester. Conceptual, technical, economic, and other ideas will be explored in smaller groups afterward.

Like product designers, the students will individualize the object until it performs as it must according to specific industry standards.

The students are expected to be proficient in parametric modelling and have an aspiration for performative, agent and machine enabled manufacturing design techniques. Support for Grasshopper / Rhinoceros, Maya, and CFD computing will be offered during the entire studio period.

Studio Leaders

Igor Kebel is the director of XO Projects. He has a degree from the University of Ljubljana and the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam. Igor Kebel’s expertise is the mixed-use, design efficiency, and parametric environmentalism.

Eriko Watanabe is the director of urban design. She completed her master’s degree at Tokyo metropolitan university and later at the Berlage institute in Rotterdam. Her focus is on principles of blending the urban and the architectural scale. Eriko watanabe is conducting the research of incentive development models at XO Projects

ST1/11 Mondays 18:15-21:15 in MSD Room 117
ST2/11Thursdays 18:15-21:15 in MSD Room 117

Contact Handbook Key Dates

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Stop 1 provides enrolment and other support to Bachelor of Design, Bachelor of Environments and Melbourne School of Design students.