Studio 07

E.R.

Gumji Kang | CIVIC + TECH

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

Studio Description

"What does it mean to provide care for the community in times of emergency and provide adaptable space of refuge for these carers and the community? "

This Integrated Design Studio will explore the future possibilities of Ambulance Station design in regional settings of Victoria. Students will have opportunities to interact with Ambulance Victoria as clients, industry consultant partners and work in collaboration with Faculty of Engineering to elevate their construction and building performance knowledge.

Studio Outcome

Building for the Future will deliver design options for ‘net positive carbon’ ambulance stations within a constrained budget that can be modulated to a variety of land settings using a ‘kit of parts’ approach to achieve high function operationally together with comfort for its staff. Utilising pre-fabrication technologies can move the building towards zero onsite waste and benchmark environmentally sustainable design priorities.

Conceptually, ‘net positive’ ambulance branch designs will provide for the full energy needs of the building occupants and for the rapid charging of a predictable ratio of electric vehicles from renewable energy sources.

A challenge will be for the energy to be secure and reliable so that operations are never interrupted. Ideally, these would be adapted to function within a distributed energy resource network which is resilient and operates positively within the social fabric of its remote or regional community context. With this positive energy resilience in mind, it may also operate as a community hub or asset in times of need.

Further functional details will be clarified within discussion. A measure of the building’s thermal performance will be required in gigajoules of energy and CO2e- per m2 floor space, differentiated for the garage and the branch.

Design for such an ambulance branch will be welcomed in the first instance, by Ambulance Victoria as it replaces its current building portfolio of some of its approximately 250 ambulance stations across Victoria, and beyond the confines of Ambulance Victoria. AV is a member of the Council of Ambulances Australia, a national peak body that is also keen for leadership in sustainability – via both social and environmental responsibility and environmentally sustainable design. If successful, the ideas developed in this design challenge have the potential to penetrate quickly into the building fabric across Australia’s emergency ambulance services.

Studio Leader

Gumji Kang is a practising architect and has taught a number of architectural design studios at the University of Melbourne. Her interest lies in the architectural design strategies and interventions on the public space, and public architecture with a strong focus on research-driven practice.

Schedule 15:15-18:15 Mondays and Thursdays

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