Studio 09

CLASHEcologies

Ammon Beyerle

This studio is available to students enrolled in ABPL90169 Design Thesis.

Studio Description

This is a studio with an open brief. It is a space where students can pursue their own research ideas and be supported by a cohort of peers who are each on their own design journey.

The semester will be structured around the stages of creative works research and design development: exploring and reflecting, proposing and iterating, developing and delivering.

‘CLASH ecologies’ is a mash of ideas including agonistic pluralism, the three ecologies, and a nod to life today. The semester will start with a framework to explore concepts of self (ecosophy + agency), the social (public), and material/natural (affordances), overlapping with urban design.

Students will introduce their own themes in to the studio. Some familiar ones include: urban activation, adaptive reuse, place, participation, difference, interfaces, everyday life and friction. Guests will be actively involved too.

All projects are welcome.

Studio Outcomes

Students will be expected to bring their own design questions to explore – this could be in response to a pressing issue, an unrealised idea, or a new way of building and thinking. The studio will guide you through the process of refining your brief, selecting a site, defining a programme, and articulating a concept.

Each week we will examine a different aspect of the process together – aspects which are common across all projects – such as site analysis, conceptual framing, programme mapping, structure, environmental design, economy, human occupation, presentation and communication.

Students will be encouraged to freely test and experiment in a reflective process as a way to develop a final design at multiple scales. There are no wrong ideas! If you can draw it, we can discuss it.

Deliverables will be a fully-realised design project and design thesis of a quality and resolution as expected for a final semester studio.

Studio Leaders

Dr Ammon Beyerle is a registered architect and director of Here Studio, an architectural practice of sustainability activists in central Victoria. Here Studio is focused on “participatory design” community projects, and “affordable everyday architecture” residential projects, and has a suite of methods to unlock change in challenging public projects. Ammon completed a PhD by Creative Works titled “Architecture and Participation: agonism in practice” supervised by Karen Burns and Kim Dovey, and studied architecture and German at the University of Melbourne, (and Paris-Val-De-Seine, and T-U Berlin). Ammon has taught architecture, landscape architecture, construction technology and urban design since 2005.

Readings & References

Readings will be set along the way in response to students’ research interests and from the studio leaders research. Some key ones include texts about different design processes, empowerment, public space and second-wave feminist practices.

Schedule Tuesdays 09:00-12:00 and Thursdays 18:15-21:15

Contact Handbook