Studio 06

Speculative Urbanisms - Climate

David Mah | Environmental Futures Focus

This studio is co-taught with ABPL90376 Urban Design Thesis.

Studio Description

The scenarios and projections emerging from the study of climate change provoke challenging consideration of our capacities and responsibilities as designers of the built environment. Even more confronting are the ways in which cities, landscapes and buildings may have to be reconfigured to address these potential looming crises. If we consider this global concern at a tangible and local scale, different models and studies have outlined the likelihood of Melbourne becoming subject to a more volatile climate. Weather and resource emergencies are likely to become the new normal for “the livable city”. More frequent and prolonged droughts, severe storms and bushfires coupled with projections for the consequences of sea level rise and extreme heat events are likely to dramatically transform the environment that we may take for granted. Scenarios of resource shortages including water and food together with models that suggest the flooding of the city’s established neighborhoods are just a couple of the many potential scenarios for Melbourne’s future under climate change. Do the conventions and accepted norms as well as the preoccupations of contemporary architectural and urban design practice still hold water in light of these drastic changes anticipated for our environments? The relative stability which we have enjoyed to date has informed the design preoccupations and practices of the design profession and disciplines. But given the different scenarios that these projections put forth, shouldn’t the design community acclimatize itself to a new set of imaginable contexts, concerns and perhaps opportunities? Can we be “radical enough”?

Studio Outcome

In this thesis studio, you will research and establish scenarios for Melbourne’s possible futures under climate change. These circumstances will be the assumed reality and context for the development of an architectural and urban response that addresses an adaptation to as well as strategies for evading the alarming realities that may come with climate change.

Studio Leader

David Mah is a senior lecturer in architecture and urban design at the University of Melbourne’s School of Design. Before the MSD, David was a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (2010-2017). Previous to Harvard, he also taught design and theory at Cornell University’s department of architecture and in the Landscape Urbanism graduate design program at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London (2004-2007).

Schedule Mondays 12:00-15:00 in MSD Room 118; Thursdays 12:00-15:00 in MSD Room 448

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