Studio leader: Dr Siqing Chen + Zhizhen Wang
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Riding on the tide of our technological advancement have come ecological catastrophes and challenges involving water quality and supply, energy resources, biodiversity loss, food security, public health, urbanisation, and many other issues. People and organisations that focus on short-term benefits often control the forces of technology and growth and bottom-line profits rather than sustainability and stewardship. However, in the process of seeking food, fiber and fuel throughout human history, each of us inherits in the built and natural environment a legacy and responsibility -- we’re charged with managing environmental changes so that ecology, economy and culture are sustained and advanced. The key to this, from a landscape planner’s point of view, is to treat each planning decision as an important part in a cumulative chain of events.
This studio asks a basic question: how to produce robust landscape planning and design outcomes based on credible evidence across a range of spatial scales? Using Melbourne metropolitan region as the case in general and an identified suitable urban growth area in particular, this studio introduces the conceptual framework for regional landscape assessment and planning; and a working knowledge of the tools and techniques employed by professionals as applied to strategic landscape planning and design at different spatial scales.
Students will learn the basics of GIS spatial overlay analysis to inform decision making in landscape planning and design at multiple spatial scales. Rather than focusing on the final design products, students are required to artistically and aesthetically document the design process - documenting changes in direction when you conceptualise your project, what ideas you adopted and how, what ideas you rejected and why, what new data you plug in to support design decision making, how all these lead to the production of your final plans. These details documented along with the design process are deployed as powerful story-telling techniques that can help open the constraints which may otherwise prevent people from understanding the full potential of your designed project.