Studio 28
Hall of Uselessness
Loren Adams & David Fedyk
Studio Description
Hashtags, metatags, and AI pattern-matching algorithms are the new Dewey, but the public library is not dead. Fake news is the new real; Google is neither free nor impartial; the algorithmic is political; and data – no matter how big – is not knowledge. And so, we need our public libraries more than ever. Using drawings and models, you will be asked to design a public library on the site of the Royal Society of Victoria, in the northeast corner of Melbourne’s CBD. We will use architecture to interrogate the way we search, retrieve, classify, consume, and interpret information in a contemporary technocentric society. Using 6-axis robots, 5-digit hands, and a plethora of peripheral machines we will generate and exploit patterns, structures, errors, inconsistencies, and potentials. How might a sequence of strategic marks made by human or machine inform an unexpected, generative architectural language? What happens when we allow a machine to share authorship in our design process? And – importantly – what does this strategic relinquishment of control teach us about the relationship between architecture, knowledge, and humanity?
Studio Outcomes
This studio aims to introduce students to advanced design and fabrication methodologies using multiaxis programmable robots and traditional workshop machinery. Classes have been structured to make use of the equipment and facilities in the MSD Robotics Lab and Machine Workshop, and will include guest lectures from local and international interdisciplinary practitioners.
ST1/28 Mondays 09:00-12:00 in MSD Room 125
ST2/28 Thursdays 09:00-12:00 in MSD Room 236