Title: Flow State
Work: Teaching (Yr 3 Architecture Design Studio)
Location: Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) & MPavilion
Date: Semester 2, 2021
Details:
Flow State turns distribution into a civic process. Each student designed a distribution centre which features some form of public amenity. In doing so, they examined the ways in which architecture can reconfigure global distribution and logistics networks.
Amazon, Bunnings, and Woolworths each have major Victorian distribution centres in the same square kilometre of Dandenong South. This neighbourhood became our context, and by investigating these companies (from the scale of the parcel to the scale of the city), students developed critiques against the social and ecological impacts of prioritising efficiency above all else. To generate their critiques, students were tasked with offering an alternative guiding principle to that of hyperefficiency, with these alternative principles coming to inform the ethical competitors they designed.
The thinking behind these projects is informed by the writings of architects Clare Lyster and Francecso Marullo, among others. The studio also benefited from guest lectures by Francesc Ruiz, Guillermo Fernández-Abascal, and Cream Projects.
Each project is concerned with the distribution of something different, with core themes including waste flows, commodity flows, and labour flows. What unites these projects is an ambition to make distribution public and accessible, and in doing so, to make consumers aware of the impacts of how they consume.
Some of the work was presented as part of MTalks - Flow State: Designing the Logistical City, at MPavilion. More info here.
Work: Teaching (Yr 3 Architecture Design Studio)
Location: Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) & MPavilion
Date: Semester 2, 2021
Details:
Flow State turns distribution into a civic process. Each student designed a distribution centre which features some form of public amenity. In doing so, they examined the ways in which architecture can reconfigure global distribution and logistics networks.
Amazon, Bunnings, and Woolworths each have major Victorian distribution centres in the same square kilometre of Dandenong South. This neighbourhood became our context, and by investigating these companies (from the scale of the parcel to the scale of the city), students developed critiques against the social and ecological impacts of prioritising efficiency above all else. To generate their critiques, students were tasked with offering an alternative guiding principle to that of hyperefficiency, with these alternative principles coming to inform the ethical competitors they designed.
The thinking behind these projects is informed by the writings of architects Clare Lyster and Francecso Marullo, among others. The studio also benefited from guest lectures by Francesc Ruiz, Guillermo Fernández-Abascal, and Cream Projects.
Each project is concerned with the distribution of something different, with core themes including waste flows, commodity flows, and labour flows. What unites these projects is an ambition to make distribution public and accessible, and in doing so, to make consumers aware of the impacts of how they consume.
Some of the work was presented as part of MTalks - Flow State: Designing the Logistical City, at MPavilion. More info here.
Amazon’s presence in Melbourne, by Abisna Kanagasabe, James Owens, and Sofya Savenkova.
Francesc Ruiz, ‘Disturbing Distribution’ Talk
