Studio C/04

Immersion

Ursula Chandler

Studio Description

This studio will use the hypothetical proposal by a small country in the Pacific, Tuvalu, to become the first digitised nation in the metaverse. The country an archipelago of nine islands faces inundation and exodus of its population as it becomes increasingly threatened by climate change and associated sea level rise.

In instability of the site over time, will provide the opportunity to explore architecture which is dynamic, impermanent and responsive to uncertainty, whilst being attuned to a specific society, history and place.

Projects will interpret this brief as they see fit with a response ‘in-place’ which reacts to the varied predictions of inundation landmass movement, lack of resources and a future volatile population.

Studio Outcomes

The studio will critique the idea of permanence and longevity in architecture in light of a rapidly changing environment and world. Similarly, how architecture responds to place, identity and culture in an uncertain and dynamic landscape.

Informed by comprehensive research, a nuance approach to site- both physical and metaphysical, and the idea of experimentation, projects will be innovative and underpinned by a clear theoretical position.

We will use large and small scale mapping, detailed drawing- including exploring the construction resolution of conceptual ideas in large scale sectional drawings, and iterative physical model making and material studies as a methodology to investigate, understand and critique existing and unforeseen conditions and notions of architecture.

Studio Leader/s

Ursula has worked on projects across Australia, the United Kingdom and Africa. She currently runs her own practice [ursulachandler.com] having been employed as a Project Lead at Adjaye Associates (London) and at Robert Simeoni Architects and Bates Smart in Melbourne. The practice works on a range of projects types and scales and in 2019 was short-listed for the annual NGV Architecture Commission Competition. Ursula has previously taught design studios from first year through to Design Thesis, architectural history and construction technology and is an examiner for the ARBV registration exam. She graduated from the University of Melbourne and received the RAIA Bates Smart Graduate Prize, Robert Barber Award in Landscape Architecture and a Dean’s Honours Award.

Schedule Monday 6:15 - 9:15, MSD Room 239 and Thursday 6:15 - 9:15, MSD Room 240

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