Studio 02

BABYLON

Rennie Liffen & Oskar Kazmanli

Studio Description

Leaving is hard. I left and they followed, not knowing. Not knowing. Not knowing why the orient must be replaced and me at 12 years displaced on the express to a dream city, glowing in the rain-soaked pavements. a glowing dream city. we would flourish here and become… become ourselves with rights and freedoms respected

but leaving is hard. like so many in the dream city the chasm to home grew and grew….TV, music, food, stories from home weren’t enough and for them the door to dreams was closed displacement was real and irreversible

I was lucky and through the one language, one of three hundred, language hard-fought. I found my dream, my glowing dream in London. the city of glowing dreams. and all I have to give

is guilt for dreaming

This studio is about designing and exploring an architecture that will reside in LONDON - the modern Babylon. Developing the studio 2 rhetoric, ‘BABYLON’ continues to explore an interest in the architectural project as an exploration of empowerment. Empathetic understanding of the social inequalities experienced by migrants will be developed over the course of the semester as we spend time questioning how much we can ask of our built environment, our society, the places in which we live, the places we migrate to, the places that remain forever locked in memory.

Studio Outcome

We will develop intimate and idiosyncratic works of architecture that truly explore and reveal the human dimensions of contemporary life. We will engage with the experiential and phenomenological implications of an architecture of both ‘individual’ and ‘community’ and will take inspiration from the work of selected musicians, artists, writers, and poets. Narratives detailing our imaginary ‘context’ and ‘communities’ will be developed in conjunction with our writer-collaborator where each student will form the functional and emotional brief for the architecture of a small building for a chosen immigrant community within the context of an imagined London.

Students will explore a truly iterative design process in conjunction with studio leaders and studio collaborators, where orthographic drawing, descriptive writing and physical model-making are the central activities. A disciplined and methodical approach which uses drawing, writing and model-making incrementally and values and exhibits every ‘trace’ of the process as the ‘archaeology of the mind’. This will include the rigorous exploration of a single architectural composition including spatial experience, environment, landscape, technology and materiality. Final outcomes will be restricted to specific and consistent communication tools exploring digital techniques of drawing + making with a focus on the representation of ‘atmosphere’ and ‘construction’. Students will be expected to produce significant and sophisticated drawings and models throughout the semester, communicating their intentions with clarity and passion. Students will make self-directed visits to performance and exhibitions in Melbourne.

Studio Leaders

RENNIE LIFFEN is a British Architect from London who has practiced in Europe and Australia. Rennie was involved in design studio teaching for twenty years in the UK and has been living, working and teaching in Melbourne since 2005. This will be his twelfth Masters CDE studio and his first in collaboration with Oskar Kazmanli.

OSKAR KAZMANLI is a graduate of architecture from RMIT University. Originally from London, Oskar has co-led studios across the masters and undergraduate degrees at RMIT. Through teaching and practice his interests lie in architecture with transformative social and experiential consequence.

Readings & References

• JULIEN TEMPLE – Documentary Film
• SHANE MEADOWS – Film
• BEN JUDAH – Writing + Correspondent
• CALEB FEMI – Poetry, Video
• AJ+DENO ft.EO – Music, Video
• LANGLANDS + BELL – Artworks
• GRACE WALES - BONNER - Fashion Design
• M C ESCHER – Artworks
• PETER ZUMTHOR – Architecture and Theory
• JUHANI PALLASMAA – Writing and Theory
• TADAO ANDO – Design Process
• ATELIER BOW-BOW – Architecture + Graphics
• LAB-LAB FOR ARCHITECTURE – Theory + Graphics

Schedule Mondays 15:15-18:15 in Room 240; Thursdays 18:15-21:15 in Room 240

Contact Handbook Key Dates