Wenli Xia

Undoing Domestication:
2050 Melbourne Eco-Recuperation at E-gate, Dockland

In 1892 the Victoria Dock was opened, changing in infrastructure brought opportunities for future increasing skyscrapers and residential populations, but these development proposals have been ecologically ignorant and culturally unsustainable. The lack of structural and strategic plans sharpens the dilemma between economic and ecological value at this unique 20-hectare state-owned land: E-Gate.

This thesis is the story of an unconventional solution, tracing the existing ecological value and recuperating the derelict urban space through time. By adding “new identities” and “values” to E-Gate, this project combats contemporary temptation in terms of a broader audience to form new alliances with stronger groups of agencies. Through drawing connection with Victoria’s geological history, temporal ecological left-over, and future Westgate Tunnel’s 2.5km cycling highway, the fluent spatial experience invites public participation and fosters the cognition for recovered urban sensitive lands.

The design establishes a transition and a formal railway embankment to readdress the edge with North Melbourne Station, Moonee Ponds Creek and CBD fringe. This includes the formation of a significant biological succession zone which conveys the idea of Third Landscape and interventional recuperation measures to accelerate the existing fermented ecosystem’s recovery process. Dynamic Lagoons also explore the ecological contribution and benefits given by anthropogenic design interventions, this consolidates the relationship between E-Gate and its surrounding waterways. These tactics, therefore, add radical and multiple layers of meaning in participative dimensions to E-Gate and its marginal spaces.

Undoing Domestication
booklet
View booklet (on issuu)