Studio 04

Local &/or General: Fitzroy

Michael Macleod, Victoria Reeves, Marnie Morieson, Dominic Wells, and Elizabeth Campbell | Civic Focus

Studio Description

Fitzroy has undergone a significant transformation in the past decades. Issues of affordability, sustainability, housing quality, Reconciliation, adaptive reuse, ageing and dependence, speculation, live music, gentrification, diversity and cultural heritage are requiring new responses to urban spaces, civic institutions and collective living.

Development Victoria is about to commence the redevelopment of the long dormant Fitzroy Gasworks, new mixed use & public buildings are proposed on this scraped earth ‘tabula rasa’, including new homes, shops, offices, community facilities, a vertical school, sports facility and public open space.

This raises some questions: How can &/or should Fitzroy expand into this space? Whose needs are to be accommodated in the design? What can &/or should this new development take from Fitzroy?

How do you move beyond the generic and the cliché to create a specific & crafted response to site & community in an Australian city?

Studio Outcome

The studio will take the format of a semester-long immersive field trip.

Studio sessions will typically take place in our Fitzroy Studio. The brief will include:

• Research & exploration (including history, civic institutions, housing typologies, public spaces & demographics)
• Review & response to the proposed masterplan for the Fitzroy Gasworks site
• Designing a new home for a Fitzroy institution (including some associated housing) on part of the Gasworks site.

Studio Leaders

Michael Macleod is a Director at Kennedy Nolan where he has worked for over ten years. He is currently leading the Kennedy Nolan Nightingale Housing project. Michael has studied and worked in a range of countries and has an ongoing interest in our social responsibilities as architects and the potential contributions we can make to our society, a belief put into practice in volunteer work with organisations including Architects for Aid, Architecture for Humanity, IFRC and Fitzroy Learning Network.

Readings & References

To be further developed but is expected to include texts on or by: Pier Vittorio Aurelio, Ash Sakula, Reyner Banham, Peter Barber, Tony Birch, Paul Couch, Suzanne Dance, Kenneth Frampton, Kennedy Nolan, Miles Lewis, NMBW, O'Donell + Tuomey, Alison and Peter Smithson, Jack Self, Kerstin Thompson & the Adjuntament de Barcelona.

Travel Fitzroy | Dates during July and August

Schedule Tuesdays 10:00-13:00 and Thursdays 16:00-19:00 at Kennedy Nolan, Fitzroy

Contact Handbook Key Dates