Diversity through Disruption

We are addressing Diversity, in response to the trigger ‘Ruined by Design.’

Our project reimagines the city and the way we live, by exploring the notion of community to enhance urban resilience. Instead of reinforcing barriers, we want to set up opportunities for interaction among  young students, families with children, and elderly people, which can be enriching. The invisible ‘disruptor’, COVID-19, reveals how it has also reduced the resilience of key systems to triggers, and allowed failures to cascade from one system to others. The ability of office workers to work remotely amidst the pandemic undermines the contemporary organisation of the city. Its function was to centralise business and offices for labour efficiency, which attracted diverse groups of people to reside there, resulting in an individualist lifestyle.

The rapid urbanisation of cities has gradually diminished our understanding of a community where city dwellers reside in their own individual chambers. In a world ruined by design, social distancing exacerbates the already frayed network of human relationships. Locked in, the fed up tower residents collude to appropriate the voidspace between their towers. Like silkworms and spiders, a rich tapestry of spatial formsare woven by the residents. Weaving this net structure encourages the diversity of interactions and promotes a diversity of function. Rather than form following function, these found forms open up new opportunities.

The net structure is never complete and always adaptable, with its ability to accommodate for different forms of leisure, circulation, entertainment, and infrastructure. The layered networks introduces redundancy by allowing for a diversity of work, life and leisure to overlap, This generates dependencies in the social tapestry, ultimately enhancing the collective resilience. As more life is woven into the fabric, barriers to individual struggles become a collective experience.

While physical, social and mental boundaries dissolve, the diversity of experiences reshape the social value system. The contamination of these dependent relationships shapes a more empathetic collective. One that places value on the mental, emotional and social wellbeing of its inhabitants. Our proposal serves as a disruptor to break free from the individualistic lifestyle popularly presented as a solution, but is evident to be the nexus of the pandemic. Buildings will no longer be static objects, but dynamic mediums that build communities in non-fictional Melbourne.