Studio D/09

The Multifamily House

Kate Finning

Image: Jennifer Carey and Simeon Chua, Duplex Dwelling, 2021.
Jennifer Carey and Simeon Chua, Duplex Dwelling, 2022.

Studio Description

Now almost 100 years since the foundation of the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), the tendency persists to favour the new and revolutionary in the discussion of housing. This usually takes the form of a search for new typologies with new names, presented as unprecedented answers to unprecedented problems.What results is a kind of consumerism of ideas where newness is favoured over the familiar, and innovation is valued over things simply being good.

The studio takes the contemporary suburban condition as-found, and seeks to alter the models we already have with a degree of subtlety and ambiguity that seems appropriate for our moment in time.

Studio Outcomes

Students will work in pairs on a project within an existing contemporary suburb. In the first half of the semester we will look at exemplar apartment plans and apply their lessons to the bungalow typology.  This will be an intensively plan-oriented set of studio sessions.

The second half of the semester will shift the focus to the detail and volume. Here the expression of the building will follow the resolution of a construction detail, following a close study of existing cavity wall and lightweight construction. We will consider the elements of the suburban street as figures to be reconfigured anew.

Studio Leader

Kate Finning is an architect practicing in Melbourne.

Readings & References

  • Beigel, Florian and Philip Christou.“Room Non-Room: Peter Märkli Atelierhaus Weissacher.” Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme, no.265 (2013): 36-41.
  • Dovey, Kim. “Model houses and housing ideology in Australia.” Housing Studies 7, No.3 (1992): 177-188.
  • “Five Good Swiss Plans.” An online Swiss-Australian architecture symposium on the domestic floor plan, March 2022. Video, 2:59:43. https://www.youtube.com/live/7Q-KOOfHNAk?feature=share
  • Staines, Allan. Australian House Building Manual. Caloundra, Qld: Pinedale Press, 2020.

Schedule Tuesdays 12:00-15:00 and Fridays 15:15-18:15 in MSD Room 142

Contact Handbook

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