Studio 01

HYBRID | VIGOUR

Alistair Kirkpatrick

Studio Description

Designing with ecological processes in infrastructural landscapes

Landscapes today are shaped by people . We do more than weather and tectonics to mould land. Our structures - buildings, dams, roads, quarries - and the clearings they make exert a major influence on wildlife. They complicate the landscape, bringing resources together.

Tim low, The new nature, Winners and losers in wild Australia (Penguin 2002), p 77

Melbourne is the fastest growing city in Australia and one of the fastest growing cities in the developed world. Like any landscape going through rapid flux huge infrastructural projects are required. Melbourne has lost its claim of being the most liveable city in the world, the pressure, a rapidly increasing population, puts on resources and amenities contributed to the loss of this title. Landscape architects have an unprecedented opportunity to design hybrid landscapes that blend large infrastructure and green space that provides amenity, this requires a highly nuanced understanding of the complexity of hybrid urban ecology.

Hybrid vigour thesis studio invites students to deal with the complexities of establishing vegetation and ecological systems in highly constructed sites. The studio will explore design outcomes for the under-crofts that are being created by the Andrews government level crossing removal scheme. As a participant in this studio you will undertake rigorous plant research to ascertain the best plants for growing in hostile conditions at a range of scales. You will be asked to design micro climates and conditions and to think about your design through iteration and time. Considerations of water velocity/sourcing/purification, soil structures/manipulation/from generation in regards to vegetation establishment will engender the initial creation of form. Investigation and research into the volumes and way that people use the space will further develop form. You will utilise this research to design a new park typology using the under-croft and surrounding streetscape.

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