SILO

Yvonne Meng

Studio Description

SILO investigates the human experience, place and mobility within a mixed-use multi-residential and commercial project.

Against the backdrop of growth and densification of the inner-west, the studio will extend and adapt the iconic Creamota Mills on Sunshine Road, a relic of Footscray’s industrial heritage. Established in the early 1930’s the mill is the most substantial grain mill in the area, and one of the last surviving in Victoria. Located across from Tottenham Yards railway, the site contains the iconic silos emblazoned with the Uncle Toby’s logo which have become a landmark for West Footscray.

In May 2025, the Victorian Department of Planning and Transport announced that the areas around Middle Footscray, West Footscray and Tottenham stations would be developed as Activity Centres to accommodate much needed housing. However the urban condition along the railway is poor; in addition former industrial land is vacant or underutilised, causing disconnect with the surrounding residential pockets.

Multi-residential housing is often criticised for their perceived lack of liveability and accessibility. In addition to unsuitable dwellings, accessibility of public spaces and building-street interfaces are often challenging for those living with different needs.

Through ethnographic methods and visual research, SILO will explore how defunct buildings can be adapted to respond to the need to densify, as well as accommodate diverse living requirements.

This studio will be supported by the Summer Foundation.

Studio Outcomes

Students will re-imagine the Creamota Mills with a significant architectural intervention which responds to the needs of the current and future residents. The aim is to develop sensitive urban schemes while addressing current tensions around housing availability, accessibility, amenity, and community. The approach in the studio will be one of close critical observation, using design as a tool to interrogate, test, and speculate on the built environment.

We will look both at the larger urban gestures as well as detailed human scale. Students are to demonstrate an understanding of wider social and urban issues as well as an understanding of the implications that design has on users.

We will explore place, the human experience, and incorporate design for equal access within a mixed-use complex. We will explore the public/ private interface, mobility, and the walking experience from the perspective of the user.

We will investigate the broader social and demographic shifts that are happening in West Footscray to inform the programming and spatial organisation. We will also test vignettes on a detailed scale to understand how things work on a human level.

Studio Leader/s

Yvonne Meng is a practicing architect and a co-director of Circle Studio Architects. She has a PhD in Architecture and her thesis investigates the importance of footpaths as a public space in urban areas. Her particular research interests are in social and cultural identity and urban social life through an ethnographic approach. Yvonne has taught extensively across both Bachelors and Masters levels at Monash, MSD and RMIT.

Readings & References

The Summer Foundation

https://www.summerfoundation.org.au

West Footscray Activity Centre

https://engage.vic.gov.au/project/activity-centres-program/page/middle-footscray-tottenham

Brown, Evrick, and Timothy Shortell, eds. Walking in Cities : Quotidian Mobility as Urban Theory, Method, and Practice. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2016

Büscher, Monika. Mobile Methods. Edited by John Urry and Katian Witchger. Hoboken : Taylor & Francis, 2010.

Dovey, Kim, and Stephen Wood. “Public / ​ Private Interfaces.” In Mapping Urbanities: Morphologies, Flows, Possibilities, edited by Kim Dovey, Elek Pafka, and Mirjana Ristic, 143–62. New York: Routledge, 2018.

Holleran, Max. Yes to the City : Millennials and the Fight for Affordable Housing. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022.

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961.

Jensen, Ole B. Mobilities Design : Urban Designs for Mobile Situations. London: Routledge, 2017.

Kirk, Warren. Westography : Images of a Vanishing Suburbia. Richmond, Vic: Victoria Echo Publishing, 2016.

Kusenbach, Margarethe. “Street Phenomenology: The Go-along as Ethnographic Research Tool.” Ethnography 4, no. 3 (2003): 455–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/146613810343007.

Lack, John. A History of Footscray. North Melbourne: Hargreen Publishing in conjunction with the City of Footscray, 1991.

Matos Wunderlich, Filipa. “Walking and Rhythmicity: Sensing Urban Space.” Journal of Urban Design 13, no. 1 (2008): 125–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/13574800701803472.

O’Brien, Sue, and Karyn Howie. How the West Was One: Memoirs of Melbourne’s Western Suburbs. Melbourne: Malarkey Publications, 2017.

Pink, Sarah. Doing Sensory Ethnography. London : SAGE, 2009.

Seamon, David. “Body-Subject, Time-Space Routines, and Place Ballets.” In Phenomenological Perspectives on Place, Lifeworlds, and Lived Emplacement: The Selected Writings of David Seamon, 1st ed., 1:51–65. Routledge, 2023. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003328223-5.

Sigler, Jennifer, and Leah Whitman-Salki., Architectural Ethnography : Atelier Bow-Wow. Cambridge, Mass.: Sternberg Press, 2017.

Schedule:
Monday 6pm-9pm in MSD 142
Thursday 6pm-9pm in MSD 142 

Off-site Activities:

Contact Handbook