The Grand Adjustment of Melbourne 20xx

Kushagra Jhurani, Rui Gong, Sohan Mitra, Xinzhuo Tian

All these years in the lockdown, people realized that they need to break through the boundaries for good, this change in thinking is now reflecting in their lifestyle. Now, the city is not known for its grid but for the ever-shifting community spaces, accessible from the balconies itself. People have started to see the city as their home, where they can adjust their surroundings. These surroundings are not permanent and that is what makes it exciting. These temporary structures can be undone, shifted to coexist with nature. All the hidden streams and rivers which were once covered with concrete have now revealed themselves and are allowing diversity to flourish with their porous boundaries.

There was a time when balconies were the only portals for the imagination of the unseen physical world, this made people question about their existing boundaries and structure that they live in.

Boundaries and grids limit their skills, imagination, collaboration, and growth. Why don’t we share knowledge? Why have we become so selfish? These were some of the questions that triggered this change.  Now, people of Melbourne have started to breathe freely, started taking better consideration of themselves and the environment. The urban grasslands are thriving on top of the previous infrastructure, streams have revealed themselves and now nourish these grasslands. Here, people have started cultivating bamboo and have unlocked the potential of bamboo as a resource for multiple uses. There is a new sense of collective responsibility and community, driven by the ephemeral nature of life and the built environment.

It is this quality of non-permanence that is creating a new type of excitement and the city is seen to be twitching like an organism. The city adjusts itself to new volatile terrain with a minimal impact on the ground, it does not leave a mark but sits very lightly. This allows changes: dismantling and reabsorption of the resource within the community. The open-source community is sharing innovative knowledge about bamboo as a material for several purposes. People have started a local economy from 3D prototyping to designing clothes using this information which is increasingly being expanded. The twitching nature of the city along with its many benefits is being realised elsewhere and the immediate surroundings, creating a new normal.

The city need not be a permanent gesture but an exciting temporal cycle of adjustments. What the world could learn from Melbourne is that it is not about a grand vision but about grand adjustments which make us excited, rethink and be more caring about nature, culture and architecture.

MU_4_1 Kushagra Jhurani, Rui Gong, Sohan Mitra, Xinzhuo Tian
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