Studio leader: Yui Uchimura
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Can architecture create spaces that intimately attune our senses and selves to both creativity and craft?
A culture of design and making is richly ingrained into the still young psyche of Melbourne. Yet often, friction exists between creativity and craft; technical and conceptual; material and abstract; seclusion and interaction; and, the architectural product that is finished and complete, versus a speculative framework which allows for idiosyncratic contributions.
The studio enquires into the spatial qualities and atmospheres conducive for collaborations between craft and creativity. Furthermore, the studio will enquire how these discourses are bridged between the workshop and dwelling, and stimulated by serendipitous social collision.
Architecture’s role as an existential art is investigated, with an inquiry into how embodied memories work with design affordances to create possibilities for action, creation and creativity.
The studio began with investigations into the technical, material and abstract facets of creation, by focusing on a range of approaches within a particular craft—from handcrafted paper, pasta production, glass blowing, guitar making and many more. These findings informed the individual student briefs for the main project, which explored the dichotomies of creativity through a small community of residences and shared studio facilities in an inner urban setting. Students were asked to investigate the financial and social economics of shared resources, negotiating the dynamics between a sense of community and desire for personal creative space, and produce designs and details that were intimately informed by the chosen craft—culminating in highly tactile, sensory architectural spaces that tell a rich story of its inhabitants and community.
In architectural practice, craftspeople often produce bespoke elements that enhance the architectural spaces and narratives. As an homage to this tradition, with the technical input of a lighting designer, each student developed two lighting schemes that showcased their chosen craft—some of which are included in this exhibition.