Thesis Studio/09

Climate: Beyond the ‘Blah Blah Blah’ (open studio)

Chris Barnett

Studio Description

If you are interested in looking beyond our current ‘Blah Blah Blah’* climate change response to the real challenges your generation are facing, come and develop your thesis project with a focus on what the world you will be designing for in 2050 may look like.

The studio will seek to consider the changes that climate change impacts and a carbon constrained economy are going to make to both wider society and your careers, and how your research, thesis and brief should be responding to them.

Bring your area of interest, brief and site to the studio, or get assistance in finding an appropriate site for a building typology you may be interested in exploring - be it from a remote county brief to high-density urban scales and solutions.

This is an open studio and students are expected to submit their 1-2 page project proposals at the time of the ballot. This should cover your concept and focus of your project, and an idea of site and programme. Please email your proposal as a pdf to barnett.c@unimelb.edu.au & rory.hyde@unimelb.edu.au. These proposals will be developed further during the first weeks of semester.

This is a studio for serious thinkers interested in exploring how architecture and design has responded to the challenges of becoming more sustainable to date, and looking into the types of solutions we are going to need by 2050.

*Greta Thunberg’s succinct summary of the outcomes of the COP26 Climate Summit

Studio Outcomes

Studio participants will be encouraged to develop their thesis research and designs with an eye to the future world you will be designing in, and the serious challenges the profession will need to respond to in coming decades.

Your careers will be spanning an age in which we need to transition from our current mindset of ‘offsetting’ building emissions with future emission reduction schemes, to actually designing and building with much lower emission and environmental impacts.

We know these buildings will have to withstand harsher climates and the studio will focus on the science of building and human comfort to understand the performance requirements the building fabrics of 2050 will need to achieve.

For the planet to have any chance, you will have to be building with new materials and are likely to be designing with AI based systems in an advanced manufacturing world. The studio will encourage you to research and develop your thesis with consideration of:

• Our Changing Planet – human impacts on natural systems and our climate
• Social Sustainability –  wealth distribution and resilient communities
• The Future of Work – automation, AI and work/life balance by 2050
• Circular Economics & Materials Cycles - cradle-to-cradle thinking
• Designing with the Environment – system based design and analysis
• Building Science & Human Comfort - the climate just got a whole lot harsher
• Zero Emission Building futures – impacts of a carbon constrained economy
• Materials Revolution - zero emission and sustainable materials
• Modernisation of Building – manufactured and prefabricated systems and futures
• Manufacturing Technology – architects engaging up the supply chain

Studio Leader

Chris Barnett has practiced architecture and delivered design & construction based projects across Australia and New Zealand. His career spans from sustainable timber activism, through practice to specialisation in sustainability and prefabricated construction.

Chris worked with David Oppenheim in establishing the multi-disciplinary practice Sustainable Built Environments, during which time he led an architectural collaboration with Six Degrees Architects in delivering the award winning UTAS School of Architecture building in Launceston.

In 2006 Chris established Third Skin as an innovative sustainable design and consulting firm. Evolving out of R&D projects undertaken by Third Skin, Chris then used his residential and sustainability experience to found Habitech Systems, an innovative Melbourne company that designed and manufactured a panelised construction system. The company delivered over 65 innovative, modular, super strong and insulated houses in Australia and New Zealand over the past 9 years, including some to Passive House standards.

Chris has sat on the Australian Institute of Architects National Sustainability Committee and currently sits on the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council - Sustainable Housing Task Group.

Readings & References

• Architects Declare - resource references (Links to an external site.)
• Australian Institute of Architects - Climate Action Forum_Sept 2021 (Links to an external site.)
• ASBEC-Five Ways to a Net Zero future-COP26advocacy_Oct 2021.pdf
• ASBEC-Decarbonisation-Discussion-Paper_Feb 2022.pdf
• Regulate Embodied Carbon - Architects Climate Action Network (Links to an external site.)
• FARMAX - Excursions on Density - MVRDV - 010 Publishers
• Passive House & Passive Solar relationship & language_2020.pdf
• Should we really aim for sustainable development? - ABC Radio National (Links to an external site.)
• Shifting from Sustainability to Regeneration_Bill Reed_Building Research & Information-1.pdf
• Imagining a better world: the art of degrowth - The Conversation (Links to an external site.)
• Multiplicity themed art, science and technology - Spectavision (Links to an external site.)
• Rutger Bregman – TED Talk - Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash (Links to an external site.)
• Rutger Bregman – Humankind: A Hopeful History (Book Review reference (Links to an external site.))
• Grand Designs New Zealand – Series 2,  Episode 8 - "Earthquake Rebuild"

Schedule
Lecture Thursdays 17:15-18:15 in MSD B121 (Malaysian Theatre) in Weeks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10
Studio Tuesdays 12:00-15:00 in MSD Room 138 and Thursdays 12:00-15:00 in MSD Room 238

Contact Handbook