Studio 27

OUTPOST | AGORA

Ariani Anwar | Cities + Civic Focus

This studio is available to students enrolled in ABPL90142 Studio C, ABPL90143 Studio D, and ABPL90115 Studio E.

Studio Description

Today we find ourselves at a moment of significant change, a time when the demands of the 21st Century are prompting a re-evaluation of the institutional systems across society. This moment represents fertile ground for innovation, invention and creativity, and for us to critically consider the role of architecture in our rapidly evolving social, political and technological context.

Historically, there has been a strong correlation between the construction of key civic buildings and the establishment of fundamental principles for governing society. Institutional buildings, such as law courts, town halls and libraries once shaped the establishment of a new town or city, their architectural language often intending to be expressive of the values that society upheld. The concept of justice and its impact across society is inextricable from its spatial context. In the Republic Plato presents justice within the city as deriving from social harmony and the position of the individual within the polis. As the principle place for the administration of justice, Court buildings are integral to the expression of this system, playing a vital role in the public experience of its delivery.

Outpost - Agora interrogates the role that the Court Building plays as a key civic building in the heart of our contemporary cities and society. The studio will encourage students to think laterally around the way that justice is delivered in the 21st Century and the changing role that the court building has within the identity of our city. Students will be encouraged to critique established conventions of the court typology and introduce new and innovative programs into the building and surrounding urban realm, in order to allow the court to act as a contemporary community gathering place through an architectural proposition set in 2050.

Studio Outcome

Before proposing new models for court buildings, this studio begins by posing new questions. This approach promotes a habit of mind where questioning is celebrated as a central act of the design and research process. The studio's emphasis on sustained questioning will give students the conceptual tools to develop a Return Brief that challenges a received functional one. Students will be encouraged to develop their own individual research position at the start of semester.

The first half of the semester will give students exposure to industry practitioners to build their design and presentation skills in sketching, drawing, model making whilst exploring their research and design proposal.

The second half of the semester will be focused on refining a design proposition. Students will be able to participate in workshops with architects, community representatives and engineers to further develop their design.

Please note: it is assumed that students will have prior software knowledge in 3D digital modelling, drawing and physical model making.

Studio Leaders

As a practice-led studio, ‘Outpost- Agora’ will be guided by John Wardle Architects (JWA) studio leader, Ariani Anwar, and will involve workshops with JWA Principals and staff. The studio will operate across two sites – the Melbourne School of Design, and JWA Collingwood office. The purposeful bridging of academia and practice will promote a fluid exchange between industry expertise, experimentation and discourse.

ARIANI ANWAR is an Associate and a registered Architect at John Wardle Architects. She primarily works on the design and conceptual development of large-scale civic buildings. Key projects that she has recently been involved in include: the Nature and Science Precinct for the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, for the University of Melbourne and the Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens Visitor Centre in Bowral, NSW. Ariani graduated with her Master of Architecture from the Melbourne School of Design and the University of Technology, Delft. She has a long-standing interest in the threshold between research and design and was a founding editor of Inflection, the internationally published, student-run, journal of the MSD.

Readings & References

Additional readings will be provided throughout the semester

• Plato. and Lee, H. (1974). The Republic. Harmondsworth: Penguin
• Lefebvre, H. (1968). Le Droit à la ville [The right to the city] (2nd ed.). Paris, France: Anthropos
• Guy DeBord. 1970. The Society of the Spectacle, Michigan: Black & Red
• Carr, S, Francis, M, Rivlin, L & Stone, A 1992, Public Space. Environment and Behaviour, New York: Cambridge University Press
• Gehl, J 2001, Life between buildings: using public space, Washington: Island Press
• Braithwaite J, 2002, 'Restorative Justice and Therapeutic Jurisprudence', 38 Criminal Law Bulletin 244.
• Tait, D, McKimmie, B, Sarre, R Jones,D, McDonald,L W and Karen Gelb 2017,
• Towards a Distributed Court Room, Sydney: Western Sydney University
• John Wardle Architects, 2016, This Building Likes Me. Melbourne: Thames & Hudson
• Allen, Stan, Practice: Architecture Technique + Representation, II_Notations + Diagrams: Mapping the Intangible
• Lewis, P, Tsurumaki, M and Lewis D, Manual of Section, New York: Princeton Architectural Press

Travel Melbourne Legal Prexinct | Week 2

Schedule Mondays 17:15-20:15  at John Wardle Architects; Thursdays 18:15-21:15 in MSD Room 139

Contact Handbook Key Dates