Studio C/01

domicile

Kelum Palipane and Mitch Walker

Studio Description

Recently it was revealed that the Australian government has been running a network of ‘Alternative Places of Detention’ or ‘APODS’ for refugees and asylum seekers hidden in plain sight, often in hotels in major cities. Concerns have been raised on the conditions of these APODS and the treatment of these groups. In this studio we resist the idea of 'detention' and design an ideal – a migrant hostel and supporting amenities – in the Melbourne CBD, as a place of transition towards settlement.  Rather than the city as a setting, we will consider it sentient, a protagonist or character whose relationship with newly arrived migrants will be explored through the concept of domicile, which can be understood as ‘where you live with the intent to stay.’ This has multiple and charged implications in a settler-colonial context where sovereignty has never been ceded by Indigenous Peoples. How might we negotiate these architecturally while interrogating issues of migrant (in)visibility and belonging?

Studio Outcomes

Students will be introduced to creative ethnographic methods through which they will document and critically reflect on the interrelationship between people and place. These include noting the sensory registers of the city, observations across time, and interpretation through drawing and models.

Brief: Migrant hostel and amenities for the reception and temporary accommodation of refugees

Site: In lieu of a single site with defined boundaries, students will consider a constellation of interconnected sites across the Melbourne CBD to explore tactical opportunities the cityscape offers through its infrastructure, crowds, commerce, and hidden histories. We will explore spaces that can nurture but also spaces of friction and antagonism in a way that interrogates the issues identified above.

Studio Leaders

Kelum Palipane is Lecturer in Architectural Design at the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning (ABP), University of Melbourne. Through her research and teaching, she investigates how creative ethnographic methods can inform design in demographically complex urban conditions. Her teaching at the ABP spans across 14 years and she currently coordinates Design Studio Alpha in the Bachelor of Design.

Mitchell Walker is a design lead at John Wardle Architects working in the public, residential, commercial and healthcare sectors. Mitchell has experience working in intense urban environments with varied cultural conditions with projects in Melbourne, China and the United Kingdom. He is keenly interested in the complex, diverse and layered character of our urban environments and the nature of public space within it.

Schedule
Mondays 18:15-21:15 and Thursdays 09:00-12:00 in MSD Room 139

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