Studio leader: Yui Uchimura
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 psyche of Melbourne. Yet often, friction exists between creativity and craft; historical contexts and modern processes; 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 explores the spatial qualities and atmospheres conducive for collaborations between craft and creativity. Furthermore, the studio enquires how these discourses are bridged between the workshop and dwelling, stimulated both by serendipitous social collision, and inspiration from nature.
The studio began with investigations into the technical, material, historical, geographical and abstract facets of creation, by focusing on a range of approaches within a particular craft. Students researched historical relationships between craft processes and their ecological environments, considering how crafts could tap into and enhance our understanding of local ecological contexts. These findings informed the individual student briefs for the main project—a community of residences and shared studio facilities—negotiating the dynamics between a sense of community and desire for personal creative space.
Thank you to our technical tutors Adam Markowitz, Dhanika Kumaheri, Anna Hooper and Josie White, and guest critics Hella Wigge, Mitch Eaton, Timothy Rodgers and Kim Jung Yun, for your generous and insightful contributions.