2023 and 2024

Studio Japan will examine the unique island landscape between land and sea to interrogate the role of architecture and landscape in community revitalization, ecological regeneration, and creative place-making. Students will study the Japanese countryside to seek out inspiration and potential while responding to pressing contemporary social and ecological challenges. Japan is one of the first countries to transition into a post-growth society and needs alternative design approaches that acknowledge and work within the limits of growth. We are interested in human-scale design that draws on local and available resources, knowledge, and materials with possible areas for further investigation including adaptive design, reuse and repair, circular ecologies and economies, non-human/multi-species design, indigenous knowledge systems, and other creative, engaged, and critical ways to confront our current ecological and social conditions.

The studio site will be located on several island communities in the Seto Inland Sea. These small islands are facing shrinkage and depopulation where young people have moved to larger cities leaving behind an increasing number of vacant houses, abandoned farmland and empty shops and schools. Students will respond to these pressing challenges and work with the local community to propose opportunities and ideas for a sustainable future. Wider opportunities for revitalisation will be explored including the regenerative potentials of slow ecology, cultural tourism, and possibilities for nature-driven retreat.

The Tonga Traveling Studio is a Placemaking Sandbox that will provide students with intellectual and creative tools to explore multiple place-based issues in an island community setting. It equips students with intercultural competencies to navigate complex cultural settings and apply placemaking strategies rooted in Indigenous knowledges to better adapt to climate change. The studio sandbox helps prepare students to effectively engage residents in constructive input into their place, connect with those who practice it, and advance their learning on how to shape healthier, more inclusive cities and communities in the Asia-Pacific region, with relevance to Australia.

In early 2022, tsunami waves hit the West Pacific islands, including Tonga. As a result, it generated a 7km high Tonga Trench from the bottom of the ocean. This has resulted in large scale devastation affecting several island-countries, including the Ohonua community of the Eua island in Tonga. Students will engage with the Ohonua residents to better understand their ongoing challenges and work with them in building back better in the aftermath of the January 2022 tsunami.

Within the context of Eua, a hilly island in Tonga, with a unique shoreline made up of coral reefs with many small tidal pools called ʻotumatafena’, teams will examine the central question: What innovative nature-based (placemaking or urban design) ideas or solutions, deeply rooted in Indigenous knowledges, can assist climate change adaptation as well as individual and community wellbeing? We will partner with the community to work and collaborate with them to learn from them and to engage in meaningful and intentional conversations to support their re-building.

The subject introduces Placemaking as a global movement that focuses on the process, development and design of places through the active participation of the citizens. In the placemaking sandbox studio, students explore place-based strategies to develop nature-based urban design solutions, rooted in Indigenous knowledges that support climate change adaptation and health and wellbeing of Ohonua residents, increasing place attachment, sense of belonging, sense of place, biophilia, and ecosystem services, which is linked to positive citizenship, health and safety.

This subject examines the placemaking process in relation to the long-term benefits of place by strengthening the relationship outcomes between place, self, community and nature. The subject is based on case-studies. It provides lectures and practical exercises on the critical steps of placemaking. Topics include place governance and community engagement, place evaluation, integrating nature into place and the economics of place. Different models for placemaking will be explored such as tactical urbanism, guerrilla urbanism, creative placemaking and regenerative placemaking. The subject has been written by the Place Agency Consortium, a group of six universities working towards enhancing place co-creation capacity in students and industry.