LivingLab 01 : Vertigo content
LIVINGLAB 01 : VERTIGO
SIAL + Industrial Design + Architecture + Landscape Architecture
SIAL Team:
Jane Burry
Lawrence Harvey
Upper Pool Design Studio | Studio Coordinators:
Jane Burry, Malte Wagenfeld
Link to VERTIGO WIKI page
Links: Course Details | Schedule | Process
vertigo is a collaborative studio between SIAL and industrial design, architecture, and landscape architecture giving equal emphasis to all disciplines. There will also be a partnership with structural and environmental (civil) engineering.
  
The studio is structure in three consecutive phases. In the first phase the students will be working individually, in the second phase they will be formed into teams to work on joint proposals in the third phase the students will once more be in teams and work on a joint project culminating in physical construction of large prototype models.
Lectures and studio sessions will take place every week in Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL) Sound Studio located on level 2 in Building 9; on Wednesdays between 6:00 pm and 10:00 pm. Participants will have access to work in the SIAL student laboratory in Building 8, level 8 room 44 and can book time in the SIAL modelling workshop in building 9. We may also have access to the building 91 project space for modelling activities.
The course is open to upper pool architecture, industrial design and landscape architecture students.
Introduction
This studio will bring together students from several design disciplines to explore the imaginative use of ‘vertical’ space. There will be an emphasis on design development, construction and tectonics, using digital and physical modelling as the media for developing design intentions. We will operate within a broader interdisciplinary community, with this group working with counterparts in structural and environmental engineering and with input from spatial sound. Students will investigate the dual concepts of ‘verticality’ and ‘sustainability’. They will then work to create sustainable spaces for learning, researching and/or demonstrating/exhibiting in the social, sensory and environmental context of a large central city university.
The first project will require students to engage with the temporal dimension of design, looking for long term visions for the RMIT city campus in 2032 and the changes to arrive at that point. The scope of this will be informed by researching the 25 years of campus change and development to date.
The main project will call for a proposal for a contribution to a living laboratory: an iconic and environmentally transformative intervention in the heart of RMIT’s city campus as a part or phase of the larger vision for the future campus.
Aims
The aims will be to:
- Explore the opportunities for enriching the social and sensory experience of collective spaces through emphasis on the vertical and use of roof- and air- space.
- Make a positive and measurable impact on the environmental footprint,
- Provide a dynamic opportunities for experiential learning,
- Enrich the space for inter-community engagement within the institution
- Provide opportunities to demonstrate and exhibit research and learning outcomes in the area of ‘sustainable design’ to a wider community.
Design Issues
It will also address the issues of:
- Sensitive intervention in existing built fabric.
- Challenging structure and detailing for construction
- Novel and relevant ways to achieve positive environmental impact
- Ways of communicating visually/aurally in a large institution
- Designing for evolving use and development
Site
The principle site will be the east west transsection through the heart of RMIT’s city campus. The potential sites of engagement will be drawn from this sectional analysis extending from the vacant Oxford street site on the west side of Swanston Street to Russell Street on the East. The roofs, the blank east facing sheer walls of building 10 and 12 of the city campus and associated airspace over Bowen Street will provide a focus. Depending on the detailed design proposals, this may be extended to include further intervention in the building interiors.
Program and scale
Students will research and develop their own program or detailed brief. It is anticipated that the scale and content of the proposals will vary. For instance the proposal might be a single room, a material intervention in the existing walls, an addition such as a bridge or platform or a more major intervention into the planning of existing buildings.
Hanging gardens
Exhibition space/installation
Social space
Permeability
Use of light, sound, enhancing natural ventilation
This project also offers a powerful opportunity for landscape architecture, industrial design and Architecture students to interchange ideas and learn from each other as well as work with other disciplinary points of departure through contact with the engineering school. Although Landscape, Industrial design and architecture often share a similar design language and may at times also work within one another's disciplines, the disciplines often engage in a different design methodology. This methodology relates to differences in scale, production quantities and processes, engagement and uptake of new technology, project timescales, end-users, etc. This project proposes to exchange and interchange these methodologies at various stages as a design methodology in-itself.
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