Studio 11

Architecture as Identity: The New Fishermans Bend Campus

Hans van Rijnberk

Studio Description

In the 21st century we are facing critical issues which affect our continuing coexistence on this planet. An increasing pressure to mesh the colliding cultures of the global city created by air travel and modern communications, to reconcile rising economic growth with the need to repair and sustain our already damaged natural environment, and to provide refuge from the stresses and uproar of the marketplace, the media and our increasingly urban lives.

Universities have always been places of critique and independent thought, forever preparing the next generation to do better than the previous one. These places of learning have a responsibility to provide environments that address the issues we are dealing with in our daily life. A campus as an ever-changing vessel of ideas, needs and desires, that are expressed, formed and reformed. The buildings, spaces and objects that compose these places are the elements that we use to create awareness and more importantly an identity.

Studio Outcome

The design task is focused on researching about, and then designing a Campus Hub Building in a New Campus setting around contemporary Architectural Representation of Identity.

Through extensive architectural, social and cultural research, the students are expected to take a theoretical position on architecture as a system of codes, symbols and signs. Based on this position students are asked to design a building that is able to represent the Identity of this new campus, all in response to:

• The University of Melbourne as a brand;
• The positioning of a new campus in a competitive global environment;
• Local geographic challenges and bigger issues of climate change and sustainability;
• The significance of the site, both pre- and post-colonial;
• The changing demographic of the student body.

Studio Leader

HANS VAN RIJNBERK is a Dutch architect with experience in architecture and urban design in Europe and Australia. He studied architecture at the Technical University of Eindhoven and tutored at Utrecht University College. He is currently based in Melbourne and working as an urban designer. He has been a studio leader at the University of Melbourne for over five years.

Readings & References

• Intensions in architecture, Christian Norberg-Schulz, 1963
• Learning from Las Vegas, Robert Venturi & Denise Scott Brown, 1968
• Form, Space and Order, K.D Ching, 1971
• Signs, Symbols, and Architecture, [edited by] Geoffrey Broadbent, Richard Bunt, Charles Jencks, 1980

Specifically:

• The deep structures of architecture - Geoffrey Broadbent
• The architectural sign - Charles Jencks
• Architecture and Identity - responses to cultural and technological changes, Chris Abel, 1997
• Spaces of Culture - Architecture Urbanism Identity, Anthony D.King, 2004
• Mass, Identity, Architecture: Architectural writings of Jean Baudrillard, (edited by) Francesco Proto, 2006
• Architecture and Identity, Peter Herrie, Erik Wegerhoff, 2008 page 11-22
• Elements, Rem Koolhaas / O.M.A, 2018

Schedule 15:15-18:15 Mondays, 09:00-12:00 Thursdays

Contact Handbook Key Dates