Coordinator: Dr. Amanda Achmadi
Academic Collaborators:
Prof. Alex Felson - Chair of Landscape Architecture Program
Assoc. Prof. Rochus Hinkel – Architecture and Design
Senior Tutors: Joel Benichou and Brendan Josey
_
Tutors: Mark Casey-Losewitz, Kate Corke, Grant Divall, Faith Freeman, Sarah Kahn, Lucas Koleits, Dhanika Kumaheri, Andrew Murray, Anneke Prins, Yui Uchimura
_
Studio Gamma explores the relationship between the dynamics of dwelling and urban landscape, between cohabitation, density, and integration of systems in an urban setting. We explore and speculate on the “missing middle” of Melbourne by proposing strategies of incremental densification and intensification of an urban neighbourhood with a strong heritage characteristic. This was approached by interrogating the existing urban morphology, civic and ecological system and forming landscape and architectural responses to them.
The MacArthur Place precinct in Carlton is the urban site of the studio. Students work on three neighbouring house plots and their associated backyards, laneways access routes, adjacent greenways and other interstitial spaces. The design outcome consists of a schematic spatial and massing configuration of an interconnected multi-unit residences of up to 3 levels and associated landscapes tied to the public realm, and the development of one of these residences into a compact and adaptable multigenerational dwelling. Integration of landscape and architecture are explored at the scale of the urban precinct, neighbourhood, and through inside-outside spaces of the dwelling unit. Ultimately, students are challenged to respond to the following design agenda of Studio Gamma:
“Plan for a future in which people have witnessed the impacts of sea level rise and daily temperature increases, as well as droughts and instances of heavy precipitation. A future in which the COVID-19 pandemic led to global rethinking of how we should live in terms of population density and green space access.”
