ARCHITECTURES OF INVISIBLE PRESENCE



SIAL Team:
    Inger Mewburn


Architecture Upper Pool Design Studio
Studio Coordinators: Inger Mewburn + Jerome Frumar




This studio is about the buildings that we don't normally pay that much attention to but are, never the less, instrumental in the way we go about living our everyday lives: the architectures of containment, re-sourcing and supply. Specifically this studio is concerned with changing modes of industrial production and what is will mean for a rethinking of the architecture of the factory.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries living in close proximity to a factory was the lot of the poor. Factories were still located in the city centres, such as SOHO in downtown New York or the tannery on the Southbank of the Yarra (where the casino is today). This was the case until nearly the middle of the 20th century when road transport became significantly cheaper. Currently the most common factory type is the 'big shed' located in green field sites at the urban fringes.

With road transport costs set to increase what will happen to this urban pattern? Will factories have to be located near larger transport hubs and therefore closer to housing and other urban activities? The green field paradigm is also under question with the advent of new manufacturing technologies that have the potential to be more compact and environmentally responsible. Bernard Tschumi’s new watch factory in Geneva is an example of manufacturing being housed with design, administration, marketing and distribution under one roof. Is this building signalling the presence of a new factory typology that is starting to emerge?




Aims and Objectives:
We will investigate the history of the factory and its relation to manufacturing techniques. We will identify and think about the pressures on us to change the existing paradigms and ask ourselves: what is the shape of the factories of the future?

Techniques:
We will delve into a range of design techniques, all of these will have some sort of digital flavour. The digital here is seen as a potential space whose products are inevitably the result of a translation between mediums: the virtual and the material. This sets up the virtual as having shaping potentials, some which are not obvious, that are there to be exploited.

The programs that will be looked at are: Surface Evolver, Rhino, 3ds Max, Maya. The computer will be viewed as a starting point rather than an end point. We will also use a series of material deformation techniques and the 3d hand held scanner. Physical models and standard architectural drawings will be produced in order to test the ideas generated through digital experimentation.

Skill and finesse in digital techniques will not be as highly valued as evidence of material thinking and creative license.

The site:
The site will be the old power station near the corner of Latrobe St and Spencer Street. You must keep the old smoke stack as we will imagine that it will gain a heritage listing. All other buildings and infrastructure on the site not required to underpin the smoke stack are up for grabs.

The key readings:
Sofia, Zoe. Container technologies. Hypatia vol. 15, no. 2 (Spring 2000)
Deleuze, G. Postscript on control societies. L'Autre journal, Number 1, May 1990
Gombrich, EH. ‘Order and purpose in nature’. The Psychology of Style. London: Phaidon, 1974. pg 3 – 15