COURSES | design studios taught at RMIT
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‘THE ANTI-INSTITUTION V2’
Bachelor of Architecture Studio, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Semester 2 2021
Version 2 of this studio not only looks to challenge and subvert the typology of the institution and its expansive grounds, into a generous public facility for the community. The studio is also concerned with semiotics in architecture, as a tool to analyse the meaning of architecture and as a way to reflect on the meaning of the architecture we design.
Student analysis will focus on the appearance, materiality and function of the architecture - while also understanding the meaning of architecture through immaterial influences such as power structures, politics and building standards.
‘THE ANTI-INSTITUTION’
Bachelor of Architecture Studio, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Semester 2 2021
Institutions; prisons, boarding-schools, asylums. While these buildings were once considered essential facilities for society, they have also left a legacy of segregation and physical division within communities. The architectural typology of institutions is based on control, surveillance and segregation of individuals, which often produced detrimental environments for those housed within. Today, the status of these institutions has changed, however the building and their meanings are still with us.
Based on the grounds of the former Kew Lunatic Asylum, this Bachelor of Architecture studio looks to challenge and subvert the typology of the institution, re-appropriating the old asylum, and its expansive grounds, as a generous public facility for the community. How can you alter the narrative of a typology loaded with negative legacy? How do you transform outdated building fabric whilst retaining heritage value?
‘THE ARCHITECTURE HUB: SPACES WE INHABIT’
Bachelor of Architecture Studio, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Semester 1 2020
Students in this Bachelor of Architecture studio were encouraged to reflect critically on their own architectural education. Through a series of investigations focusing on; their current architecture school (The Design Hub), other architecture schools and ‘schools of thought’ - students formed their own critical position on the ideal environment for studying architecture.
This studio encouraged design through the exploration of the students immediate environment which then acted as a leverage for critical design proposals.
Studio developed and led by: Amy Evans and Eva Florindo
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‘NGV3’
Bachelor of Architecture Studio, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Semester 2 2019
This studio ran for a second time, where students explored the relationship between architecture and contemporary art - looking at their interaction, overlapping influences, and points of difference.
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‘NGV3’
Bachelor of Architecture Studio, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Semester 1 2019
In 2018 the National Gallery of Victoria announced that they would be commissioning a new major gallery adjacent to the NGV International - dedicated entirely to contemporary art. This studio took on that brief, where students developed their own propositions for the NGV Contemporary. Throughout the semester the studio closed examined the relationship between architecture and contemporary art - looking at their interaction, overlapping influences, and points of difference.
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‘ARCHITECTURE & POWER: AN EXTENSION TO PARLIAMENT HOUSE’
Bachelor of Architecture Studio, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Semester 2 2018
Students in this studio interrogated the relationship between architectural language and political power through a series of interventions, additions and reconfigurations within the site of the Victorian Parliament House.
From Ancient Rome to the architectures that accompanied the major political ideologies of the 20th century, and everywhere in between, architectural production has constantly taken place in relation to the dominant political and economic forces of the day. Students examined the recurrence of this theme throughout history, as well as the attributes of the Parliament as an architectural typology, as a way to develop their own positions on the relationship between architecture and power today.
Students’ design proposing were critical in their understanding of architectural representations of power, and the roles that these representations play in the city and society.
