Studio E/06

Outpost: Gather

Michelle Gan, Ariani Anwar, and Rob Snelling

Studio Description

OUTPOST is a series of teaching studios run by studio leaders from Wardle. Established in 2019 the core intention of the studio is to bridge academia and practice by creating a microcosm of practice set within the research framework of the university. This purposeful bridging of academia and practice is intended to promote a fluid exchange between industry expertise, experimentation and discourse.

The architectural brief for Outpost 08 will be for students to re-imagine Melbourne’s Immigration Museum.

In a context of diverse and complex historical narratives, the studio will critically interrogate museums as a typology for representing and shaping heritage – both tangible and intangible, past and emerging.

Reflecting on the Museum's historical immigration context, students will explore the idea of a living museum and the interrelations between heritage, museology, materiality and environmental circularity. Propositions on heritage and materiality will inform a material and formal strategy to reuse, repurpose and reconstitute the existing Customs House buildings and materials.

The studio will also focus on developing detailed architectural elements, investigating their material flows, the cultural practice of craft, and their contribution to a living museum.

Studio Outcomes

The studio’s emphasis on sustained questioning will be enacted through a series of focused design tasks, site visits, readings, and group discussions that will provide the conceptual tools to develop a robust and considered architectural design proposition. Design iteration, collaboration and experimentation will be encouraged. Technical expertise workshops on environmental strategies and detailing will inform architectural outcomes that integrate formal and experiential qualities with socio-environmental considerations.

This studio begins by interrogating heritage representation and the interrelation between preservation methods and power: who decides which stories are told, their intended interpretations, as well as their formal and material manifestations. Students will then develop a proposition on how heritage – tangible and intangible – should be represented in the museum typology.

These conceptual understandings of heritage representation will be translated into an overarching environmental strategy. Using existing site materials, fragments and buildings, students will explore processes of adaptive reuse and found material reconstitution from the existing Customs House.

As part of developing a living museum, students will develop museum spaces informed by these heritage propositions. Experiential qualities will be translated into required functional and environmental conditions. Students will also develop detailed building elements and investigate the relations between material, heritage, craft and environmental lifecycles.

Studio Leaders

Ariani Anwar is a registered Architect and an Associate at Wardle. She has over 10 years of industry experience, with a focus on the design and delivery of cultural and community buildings. Ariani has a strong interest in the interface between research and design practice and is passionate about creating meaningful spaces that have a profound impact on the people that use them. She graduated with her Master of Architecture from the Melbourne School of Design and the University of Technology, Delft. She is a gallery enthusiast with a Bachelor of Arts specializing in Art History and was a founding editor of Inflection journal.

Michelle Gan is a passionate and driven designer at Wardle. As a key player in the design team, Michelle’s design philosophy is deeply rooted in storytelling and ideas that push the envelope of critical thinking. She places emphasis on small scale detailed interventions grounded in narrative, to create connections between person and architecture. She has served as a critic for design studios at RMIT and a studio leader at The University of Melbourne. Her professional involvement spans various typologies including civic/cultural, education, residential and commercial. In her personal design endeavors, she has had multiple shortlists, nominations, and awards at RMIT. She graduated with her Bachelor and Master of Architecture at RMIT.

Rob Snelling works across the fields of architecture, sustainability, and strategic design. As part of the design and sustainability teams at Wardle, Rob has a keen focus on designing buildings and places that enrich the public realm while championing sustainable and resilient outcomes. His industry experience spans both architecture and sustainability engineering. He has worked across a range of typologies including museums, life sciences, healthcare, social housing and education. Rob is also engaged with the MSD’s Strategic Design Lab, focusing on regional museum strategy development. He graduated with a Master of Architectural Engineering from The University of Melbourne.

Readings & References

Culture and Identity

• Architecture of Happiness Alain De Botton
• The Eiffel Tower - Semiology and Urbanism - Roland Barthes
• Aujourd’hui, L’architecture Hubert Damisch
• Elements of Architecture - OMA Rem Koolhaas
• Australian Ugliness Robin Boyd & After the Australian ugliness Naomi Stead and Tom Lee with Ewan McEoin and Megan Patty
• Rowan Moore, 2018. The Future Starts Here Review – An Engaging Vision in The Guardian,
• London, UK: https://bit.ly/2EJqd1q
• Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, 2016. Are We Human? Lars Muller Publishers
• Guy DeBord. 1970. The Society of the Spectacle, Michigan: Black & Red

Exhibition Design

• Hal Foster, 2011. The Art-Architecture Complex. London: Verso
• Hal Foster, 2015. ‘After the White Cube’, London Review of Books. 19th March
• Rosalind Krauss, 1990. The Cultural Logic of the Late Capitalist Museum, The MIT Press
• Julian Schubert, 2015. ‘Designing Exhibitions- Something Fantastic’ in Displayed Spaces: New Means of Architecture Presentation through Exhibitions, Spector Books, Leipzig.
• Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julia Peyton-Jones, 2014. Serpentine Galleries Extinction Marathon.

Reuse, Climate Change and Sustainability

• Gadamer’s Floor, Herzog & de Meuron
• Heritage at sea, Thijs Weststeijn
• Circular Buildings Toolkit, Arup
• Building Better - Less - Different: Circular Construction and Circular Economy, Felix Heisel and Dirk E. Hebel
• Manual of Recycling, Annette Hillebrandt, Petra Riegler-Floors, Anja Rosen and Johanna-Katharina Seggewies

Precedents:

• Ningbo Museum - Wang Shu – Representation of demolished rural towns to pave way for rapid gentrification. Richness in material grain, constructed with town debris by local town folk.
• All of This Belongs to You - Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England - breaking Museum Boundaries of public space

Schedule Mondays and Thursdays 17:00-20:00 at the Wardle Studio

Contact Handbook