Koroitch_Living Island

Ben Waters

Download the full studio outline here

Studio Description

Tower Hill, or "Koroitch" in the Dhauwurd Wurrung language, is a site of extraordinary cultural, ecological, and geological significance. Nested within a dormant volcanic crater on Gunditjmara Country, south-west Victoria, this place holds a deep history of cultural and natural abundance, famously captured in Eugene Von Guérard’s 1855 painting of the lush landscape before its exploitation. Through the following settlement years, this landscape was stripped bare for agricultural practices and invasive species were introduced. Yet this is no mere elegy for a ruined past. This semester, we find ourselves at the heart of a powerful story of regeneration, exploring how art and architecture can become catalysts for ecological renewal and the revitalisation of cultural storytelling.

In the mid-1960s, renowned architect and cultural commentator Robin Boyd was engaged to design a visitor centre for Tower Hill. Conceived as a small museum, Boyd’s design sought to balance functional simplicity with an architectural language that complemented the natural landscape and the site’s cultural significance. Using Boyd’s approach as a key departure point and anchored in the cultural knowledge of the Maar nation people, the studio will investigate how design can expand connections between land, culture, and community. Through thoughtful engagement, students will develop interventions that amplify the site’s living stories, extending its significance as a place of healing and restoration.

Studio Outcomes

This semester, the studio will take the form of a speculative cultural event. The event provides a framework for imagining temporary, lightweight, and site-responsive architectural interventions that activate Tower Hill as a platform for art, ceremony, and care.

Design becomes a way of staging and supporting live works, exchange, and storytelling - responding to the land not through monument, but through cycles and rhythm. Students will work between the permanent and transient, proposing architecture as part of an event program.

The studio will engage students in a series of design projects:

Museum for Listening – An immersive installation or keeping-place within the Boyd Visitor Centre, drawing on mapping and digital media to tell stories of land, water, and custodianship.

Event Space – A public, lightweight, temporary intervention designed to host live art, conversations, film screenings, or music.

Event Hub – A reimagining of the existing amenity building as a support hub for the event, providing essential services such as composting toilets, storage, and services.

Life Garden – A communal gathering space centered on community, healing, and regeneration, reflecting the cultural and ecological narratives of the site.

Theory and Precedent

The project will draw theory and reference from Boyd’s architectural philosophy and his connections to Japanese design, inviting students to explore the relationships between art, architecture, and ecology. Through this framework, the studio aims to produce light, sensitive interventions that respect the cultural and natural heritage of Tower Hill while imagining its future as a place of storytelling and regeneration.

Studio Leader/s

Ben Waters is an architect and founder of S-I Projects – a design agency working at the intersection of technology, ecology and cultural heritage. Ben is also principal at Waters Architects, a regional based architecture practice working alongside communities to transform spaces into thriving environments.

Readings & References

Readings

• New Directions in Japanese Architecture - Robin Boyd
• Fieldwork for Future Ecologies - Radical Practice for Art and Art-based Research - Bridget Crone, Sam Nightingale + Polly Stanton
• Robin Boyd and the Japanization of Western Ideas – Philip Goad
• The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention - James Corner
• Robin Boyd: Spatial Continuity - Mauro Baracco + Louise Wright

Media and Software (learning workshops provided in-studio)

• LiDAR Scanning
• Photography
• Photogrammetry
• GIS Mapping
• Rhino + Vray

Schedule:
Thursday 4pm-7pm in MSD 238
Friday 9am-12pm in MSD 238 

Off-site Activities:

Contact Handbook