Studio 38
Studio Fable
Matt Greenwood & Michael Mack
Studio Description
Once upon a time in the future.
Architectural practice is constantly outpaced by an increasingly tech-savvy and digitally interconnected society. In order for discourse to maintain relevance in this dynamic age of technological development, it must shift from being reactionary to being radical.
Studio Fable aims to investigate and critique how technological development will inevitably disrupt the current perception of the built environment through an analysis of current conditions and projections into the future.
Through the stories we construct, we will tell tales of architectural craftsmen weaving the technological oddities of today to create the design impossibilities of tomorrow.
Studio Outcomes
In phase one, we will investigate, critically analyse, and project ideas on a chosen emerging technology through design research, culminating in a hypothesis for the future.
From this point, projects will form and interrogate design scenarios at two physical scales; the City and its Constituent parts. We will utilize narrative to construct a framework through which proposals can be repeatedly tested against in order to generate informed design speculations. Through feedback between both temporal and spatial scales, and design fictions, we will contrast and compare the validity of the projections.
Design outcomes will be produced with an emphasis on narrative communication through a large-format drawing, as well as a complimentary animation, model or immersive virtual reality scene. At the culmination of the semester, we will be able to locate our speculations within design discourse, while simultaneously challenging the role technology has in drastically altering our current understanding of Architecture.
Studio Leaders
Matt Greenwood is a Senior Tutor in the Bachelor of Design at the University of Melbourne. Matt is also a freelance 3D Artist and Visualiser with work experience in both higher education and the design industry. His skills include Virtual Reality, Real-Time Visualisation in Game Engines and Animation. Matt has a keen design interest in interactions with and simulations of digital environments.
Michael Mack is a Graduate of Architecture from the Melbourne School of Design and Senior Technical Tutor in the Bachelor of Design. He currently works at United Make, a multidisciplinary studio that explores design through the act of making. His work ranges between furniture design and making, immersive installations, and small-scale architectural projects. Michael is also the founder of Tinytecture, a set design and model making company combining a love of architectural design and fabrication.
Reading & Reference
- Continuous Monument - Superstudio - 1969
- New Babylon - Constant Nieuwenhuys - 1959-74
- Simulacra and Simulation - Jean Baudrillard - 1981
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Phillip K. Dick. - 1968
- Wall-E - Disney Pixar - 2008
- Ex Machina - Alex Garland - 2015
- Black Mirror - Charlie Brooker - 2011
- ILMxLAB - Industrial Light and Magic
- No Man’s Sky - Hello Games - 2016
- Soma - Frictional Games - 2015
ST1/38 Mondays 18:15-21:15 in MSD Room 244
ST2/38 Thursdays 18:15-21:15 in MSD Room 244