Studio E/11

Studio WFH

Stacie Ng and Jina He

Studio Description

This studio has a focus on placemaking and circular behaviours in a mixed-use programme within the context of inner city Victoria. The themes we will explore are anchored in Right to The City, interrogating synergies between agency, capital, and land use. What are some new ways to view the relationship between property boundaries and public spaces - to not view this tension as binaries instead could symbiotic relationships be explored, or would that be courting the devil? Students will be proposing a medium scaled mixed use building project within an inner-city site. The mix will include a live (e.g. service hotel, artist residency, student accommodation, townhouses) and a work (e.g. co-work offices, maker spaces, retail, council offices) element. Students will challenge current and imagine new philosophies between built form, public realm and placemaking strategies. Projects will explicitly address how buildings are an intrinsic part of our modern ways of consumption, this includes proposed flows of materials and behaviours within the projects.

Studio Outcomes

Conceptualise social & built infrastructure.

• To leverage social programs on top of a building brief to create synergies and conceptualise the built infrastructure to enable social encounters and community building.

Site as asset.

• To identify sites as assets and assets at site such as looking for existing materials, communities, or industries.
• Adopt new lenses of looking at a context as part of site analysis and to be able to uncover instead of imposing ideas upon a site.

Develop creative philosophies around building boundaries and public realms. 

• Students will interrogate and develop ground plane design outcomes that are porous, layered with uses (anchored through vignettes) and integrated with landscape.
• To innovate on other ways to create synergies between private land ownership and public access and use.
• To creatively refine and resolve the design of a medium scale building to a high level of detail. To represent material research and detail building interfaces as part of the final design proposal.

Learning through making.

• Students are to test concepts and iterate through making.
• To make explicit the ties between the act of procuring a building project and the act of consumption. Students will be asked to look for found objects/ materials or opportunities for new industries and technology that can form part of the project brief.

Studio Leaders

Stacie is motivated by placemaking as an act of imagination and reinvention by many if not all. She is a design strategist and architect at Relative Projects and is involved in thinking through precinct developments at the human scale. She is involved in researching interfaces between private and public realms, underpinned by site activation opportunities, programming, and public art.
Stacie is a registered architect with the ARBV and tutors at the MSD for Architecture and Urban Design subjects. She is curious as to how development finance and placemaking are not binary but when considered and continually reimagined, are a city’s greatest asset

Jina is an architect and creative designer who is passionate about making impactful spaces and redefining urban edges. With a blend of creativity and technical expertise, she has successfully contributed to a diverse range of projects, including residential complexes, commercial developments, and urban revitalization initiatives. By employing artistic and design expressions, fostering social engagements, and curating impactful public programs, she thrives to create transformative experiences that enhance civic connections and enrich public spaces for the betterment of the social realm.

Readings & References

• David Harvey - Right to the City
• William H Whyte - Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
• Project for Public Spaces - Placemaking, What If We Built Our Cities Around Places?
• Race to Net Zero Carbon : A Climate Emergency Guide for New and Existing Buildings in Australia

Schedule Mondays 12:00-15:00 and Thursdays 18:15-21:15 in MSD Room 238

Contact Handbook