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In, On, Around, and Beyond:
Expeditions in the Contemporary City
by Jeanne Gang

Tuesday 7 October @ 7pm, Carrillo Gantner Theatre,
Sidney Myer Asia Centre, University of Melbourne

In the third and final ABP Dean's Lecture of 2014, Jeanne Gang will explore how today’s cities must cope with vast industrial-era spaces after those uses have lapsed. Through the lens of some of her firm’s most recent and noteworthy projects, she will propose how architectural practice might be refocused to help reimagine these territories and initiate transformation. Jeanne will also speak to her longstanding interest in the new ways that cultural and science-based aspects of natural systems can aid in defining the city.

MacArthur Fellow, Jeanne Gang, FAIA, LEED AP is the founding principal of Studio Gang Architects, a Chicago-based collective of architects, designers, and thinkers, practicing internationally. Jeanne uses architecture as a medium of active response to contemporary issues and their impact on human experience.

This lecture is sponsored by Dulux.

Further information

Image: Sally Ryan Photography

Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects

Wunderlich@757, Wednesday 1 - Friday 10 October
Open Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm

To coincide with Jeanne Gang’s lecture on 7 October, the exhibition, Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects, will be showcased in the Wunderlich@757.

Originally presented at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012–13, the exhibition features eight projects by Studio Gang, selected specifically for the Melbourne audience. These projects demonstrate a range of project types and represent a mix of built, unbuilt, and theoretical work.

Featured projects include; Northerly Island, WMS Boathouse at Clark Park, Writers Theatre, Aqua Tower, Solar Carve Tower, Hyderabad 02, and Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.

Further information

Image: Studio Gang Architects

The newest edition of Atrium focuses on Asia and how we, as a Faculty and design community, engage with our regional neighbours. The issue leads with an article by Donald Bates on Australia's relationship with China, profiling several recent architectural collaborations. The magazine also profiles Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, landscape architect Damian Tang and features articles about the urban character of Bali and a new partnership between Nanjing and Melbourne Universities. Check out Atrium #26 online.

The next edition of Atrium will be published in December and will celebrate the opening of the spectacular new Melbourne School of Design.

MSD Alumnus Tobias Horrocks has been awarded a Veski Victoria Fellowship, which aims to enable researchers in the early stages of their careers to undertake international study missions.

We have profiled Tobias' innovative recyclable furniture in ABP e-news before and the future of cardboard is looking increasingly bright. It all started with the Freefold Popup Box, a cardboard storage and display system with a unique geometry, which Tobias designed for his own use.

After 14 years of professional architecture experience and on-going experimentation with cardboard, Tobias launched Fold Theory, an architecture and cardboard design practice based in Melbourne.

The Veski Victoria Fellowship will see Tobias travel to Italy, Spain, Poland, the USA and the UK to investigate cardboard design practices and advanced computer modelling techniques that enable sustainable design.

Read more

Image: Ellen Dewar

The challenges and potentials of architecture in the gallery.

11 September @ 7pm, Harold White Theatre, 757 Swanston St.

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Professor Barry Bergdoll, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Architectural History at Columbia University, will present this public lecture, At home in the museum? The Challenges and potentials of architecture in the gallery.

Professor Bergdoll will outline how the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has attempted to address the traversing of an unexpected set of economic, social and environmental challenges in which the centrality of design professions has become manifestly clear, even as larger forces act to marginalize the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, design and the arts.

Further Information

Image: Professor Barry Bergdoll, MoMA

fragrance permeates the garments:
books, constructions & drawings
by Alex Selenitsch

Open in the Wunderlich@757 until Friday 19 September

Inspired by photographs of Chinese garden screens taken by Melbourne artist Craig Easton, and a poem by Kosen Shoten (Gaoquin Xingdun, 1633-95), these works, with the exception of the books, were made of materials from waste bins in the Faculty’s Construction Workshops and the FabLab, and then used as found.

The works explore ways in which layers can be composed so that each material can be appreciated for itself, while focusing attention on something beyond the layers.

Dr. Alex Selenitsch is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning.

Scott Woods, Melbourne School of Design Studio Leader

My first conversation with anyone in Melbourne (the woman I stopped for directions doesn’t count) was MSD Director Alan Pert. I remember it well. After 21 hours behind the wheel and a superman change from ‘driving suit’ to something semi-respectable on Grattan Street, I stood beer in hand at the first gathering of the Masters Design Studio teaching cohort. “Nowhere else in the world would think of building these buildings, Melbourne is unique – a still evolving Post-Modern landscape.” Alan’s words resonated with me, no doubt due to our shared import status.

This ‘Post-Modern Condition’ would appear to have something to do with the legacy of the great American architect, Louis Kahn, as it passed down the line from master to apprentice; via his one-time pupil, local architect Peter Corrigan (Edmond and Corrigan); stepping sideways from Kahn to his Architecture Post Modernist pupil Robert Venturi and onward to Corbett Lyon (Lyons), another local.

So, three cheers for the “Post-Modern Landscape” of Melbourne. And buildings…. you know who you are.