2. OVERVIEW

3. CLIENT VISION

4. DESIGN RESEARCH

5. ISSUES + STRATEGIES

6. TYPOLOGIES

8. FINANCE + TEMPORALS

9. MELVILLE ST. SITE

10. SUSTAINABILITY

11. KEY REGULATIONS

12. FUNCTIONS

13. USERS

14. SCENARIOS

17. ACCOMMODATION

CONTENTS

2

As of the GFC, it has become clear that we cannot depend on the strength of the market and of capitalism to guide and support us. The underlying subject is material wealth, and not social nor economic sustainability. The project therefore proposes a critical reading and vision of our cities and of a grassroots approach to establishing strong and localised economies and ecologies.

POLITICAL BLINDNESS

This project is about architecture and politics, a conversation that remains subdued and dormant. Why is this so? By stating political polemics there is a risk for conflict, as divergent sets of cultural values can compromise support or alienate clients, authorities and the general populace; It poses a risk to professional engagement. Let’s have a little chat.

ENVIRONMENTAL BLINDNESS

We are in a bit of trouble! The environment is in a serious predicament. We are experiencing mass extinctions, daily, as well as unaccountable resource depletion and habitat destruction. The dominant culture, ‘civilisation’ is destroying landbases through industrial process. This is what civilisation does in order to proliferate. (McBay, Keith & Jensen 2011, 11). This project is about opening ourselves to the truths of our environment.

TO CONSIDER: We will be judged not on how we chose to live our lives, but the condition of the landbase that is inherited by future generations (ibid, 12). You know, those basics: access to fresh air for breathing, water for drinking, food for eating. The common good. Fool’s Stop. Architecture has a huge impact on landbase.

ECONOMIC BLINDNESS

Recessions create new modes for progressive architectural thinking, for example, the theoretical and artistic practices in the 70s and 80s; young designers leaving architecture for virtual realms; and paperless architecture with the rise of the digital architecture in the early 00s (Zeiger 2011). The current recession exists in a context of ecological uncertainty, political disenfranchisement and hyper-capitalist civilisations which are forming provisional urban interventions. An architecture that is opportunistic, guerilla, DIY practice and the tactical urbanists is a movement that is proliferating (ibid). An architecture with political strategies.

Recessions are a time for reinvention. The unemployed architects, the emerging, artists and thinkers are working outside normal professional boundaries in order to engaging architecture meaningfully through actions (ibid).

Enter the Australian Greens (AG), advocates for critical environmental conservation, grassroots participatory democracy, social justice, peace and non violence.

This is a conversation about architecture and an evolving modus operandi for the Australian Greens political party. This project will develop new localised political domains through the medium of architecture. The project entails the design and critique of political architectural artefacts through spaces designed from critical readings of Greens policy. Decentralisation, the localising or regionalising of economy, politics and industry are major policy and design drivers. The world’s first Greens party was founded in Tasmania which has lead the project to be set in Hobart. which also has Australia’s largest Green voting base. The geographic isolation of the state gives a greater requirement to develop greater self-sufficiency in material resources, and also allows greater opportunity for developing a more unique project.

The architectural strategy will examine the political re-engagement of the public and will examine key forces that create marginalisation and social injustice with an overriding symbiotic relation with environmental conservation.

The return of the political to architecture does not involve designing a building but designing a process of political engagement (Gámez et al, 23). It is a progressive implementation of strategies by which architectural ideas, strategies, practices and values are developed and disseminated in collaboration and contestation with greater society.

“Discussions concerning the political and issues such as equitable representation in real and imagined spaces are potentially painful and are therefore frequently avoided”. (Gámez & Rogers in Bell & Wakeford 2008, 21)

CLIENT: The AG, The Tasmanian Greens (TG)

Co-operative Memberships

WHERE: Hobart, Tasmania 42.8806° S, 147.3250° E

SITE: Melville St Carpark and beyond.

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) is a perfect argument to discount the current industrial capitalist mode for civilisation. Politics is the ideology, architecture one vessel to carry this ideology forwards.

OVERVIEW

32

CLIENT 1: THE GREENSThe Greens are a participative bottom-up democratic organisation concerned with ensuring politics remain locally grounded and accountable. The Greens structure relies on small networks that form a political ground-swell towards the greater and more globalised issues that we face.

The Australian Greens Party (AG) have reached the point at which it now commands the third largest voter base in Australia. The Greens are no longer a dispersed collegiate of activists but a serious political force. The Greens must find a way to move out of a space of echoes and find a space of collectivity. The Greens require an architecture of change, one that move beyond the design of buildings and into processes of engagement with the political forces and the greater community (Gámez et al, 19).

Over 1.6 million people voted Greens in the Senate, and over 1.45 million in the House of Representatives. The Greens also received the biggest swing of 4% in the 2010 elections (Bennett 2010, 5). The Greens also finished in the top three candidates in 137 out of 150 seats. Denison is the largest Greens voting electorate in Australia at 25-35% support (AEC, 2012).

The Greens being a participatory political party rely on small dispersed (sometimes unpredictable) connections that work synonymously towards Greens common Beliefs; Critical ecological sustainability, grassroots participatory democracy, social justice and Peace and non-violence are political forms. The first two logics are highly localised and are required in order to satisfy the latter logics, which represent a globalised concern.

CLIENT AIMS

- To increase voter numbers of the AG in order to increase representation in Parliament.

-1.5 million people are not enrolled, mostly 17-35 year old, how to attract the vote of this demographic?

-To increase formal engagement with politics through architectural interventions in order to encourage an increased voter turnout.

-To increase political party membership and funding through catalytic architectural projects.

- To create and evolve alternative political spaces that use architectural design as a vessel to explore politics in the local and broader sense.

- To increase participation in politics to something beyond a four yearly interaction with a voting booth through ongoing community programs.

- To deliver benefits to the community that are intelligent and through engaging designs that respect the Greens policy and ethics.

CLIENT 2: THE PUBLIC

Political parties require the support of the public, therefore the public are a major client. For the current Greens supporters, this is a place in which to congregate and to explore the scope of their political participation. More importantly the project must accommodate the non-supporters. The electorate is still 70% non-Greens, which means the program needs to be suitably supportive of the public. The site’s existing program of markets and large scale street parties will continue to operate, and the development of program will be supplementary to this. Naturally there will be a gravitation of similar ethos activist groups. One of the challenges for the project is to avoid the “Greenwashing” of place.

CLIENT 3: HOBART CITY COUNCIL (HCC)

HCC has developed an Inner City Development Plan that creates a 2025 vision for Hobart. This plan sows the seed for the development of plans and infrastructure that have been determined with the aim to re-invigorate the public life of Hobart. This plan has been produced in response to the study undertaken by Jan Gehl in Hobart 2010 Public Spaces and Public Life - A city with people in mind. The site is a council owned carpark. A development proposal will need to be generated which will justify the relinquishing of the lands current usage that utilise the directives and beyond of the 2025 vision.

RELEVANT ACTION PLANS PROJECTS

AP06 - Campbell St Educational Precinct

AP13 - Review and Recommend Opportunities to Promote City Living

AP15 - Activating Public Places

“When private spaces replace public gathering space, the opportunities for political conversations are diminished.” (Hou 2010, 6)

CLIENT VISION

There is a voice of change in the field of architecture, a call for architecture to politically engage itself against forces that control the production and access to public space (Gámez et al, 19). Our public spaces are important artefacts. They are measuring sticks that reflect the political, social and environmental conditions of our societies. How can architecture be used to create new artefacts within a design process that proposes new and imagined spaces for political engagement?

The term ‘Public Space’, is an oxymoron, it is more commonly been associated with monofunctional, totalitarian and exclusivity than with true ‘free’ space (Hughes, 2012). Unfortunately, politics is shifting from the public and impersonal into the private and personal (Hou 2010, 6). The consequence of this is a lessening of interest in public matters resulting in a widening of neo-liberalist attitudes. There is a dismantling of democratic structures and the privatisation of public investments. Free market capitalism leads the individual fighting for their own self-interests. The weakening of politics has also weakened the value of public space. “When private spaces replace public gathering space, the opportunities for political conversations are diminished.” (Kohn 2004, 2).

We need a theory that is practicable and ask citizens to participate, architects to reinvent, academics to rethink and politicians to become accountable (Gámez et al, 22)

Architecture must address and propose new political spaces in unified but diverse ways. Multiculturalism and neo-liberalism also generate apolitical public space by striving for cultural integration, which creates adherence to a set of core values that are shared and reject political consciousness. Radical cultural pluralism is discouraged as it encourages a questioning of power and identities which are essential to active political spaces (ibid).

LENS 1: EXPLORING THE POLITICAL ‘FORM’ OF ARCHITECTURE?

Architecture uses form as its currency. What is form? The definition of form linguistically is highly complex; forms impose themselves on society, they can be physical, or it can be a particular way in which something exists. If they are not welcome, they become an imposter. Political parties and architects have a commonality in that they both impose forms onto society. These forms can be seen a types of logic that appear as a ‘disagreement’. To impose is to not agree. Architecture and politics use arguments in order to change systems. How can these arguments be repositioned in order to generate greater public engagement in politics?

LENS 2: DEVELOPING ARCHITECTURAL SPACE + PROGRAM THROUGH ‘OPEN SOURCE’ MICRO-PRACTICE: THE ‘FAB LAB’

Felix Guattari underlined the role of micro-practices in what he called a heterogenesis process: ‘it is essential that micro-political and micro-social practices, new solidarities organise themselves (…) It is not only that these different levels of practicing haven’t been homogenised (…) , but that they operate in a heterogenesis process’ (Guattari 1989, 45-46).

One of the key program drivers for this project will be the housing of ‘open source’ fab lab; small scale micro-programmatic interventions based around the potential capabilities of Additive Manufacturing (AM), and other digital manufacturing processes. What have the Greens and AM got to do with each other ? AM creates objects from the bottom-up adding material cross-sections layer at a time. The Greens are a bottom up organisation!

The Fab lab is the next step that counteracts the internet’s economic impact on local business. The Fab-lab has global connectivity by delivering intellectual property digitally. This information is made into artefacts locally, reducing transportation and reducing the power of mass-produced conglomerates.

LENS 3: THE FENCE - INHABITABLE INTERFACE

The urban environment, social spheres, political spheres all have boundaries that can be rigid, fluid or amorphous. The more ‘sophisticated’ the civilisation the more complex, extreme and confusing these boundaries become. How are these spaces delineated? And what occurs at the threshold between these zones. That it, what is the fence between these political, social, cultural zones? Can they be inhabited?

Marcos Cruz and Stephen Gage explore the concept of ‘inhabitable interfaces’, what is hidden behind the contemporary physical surroundings? (Cruz & Gage 2009, 115). Inhabitable Interfaces are a catalyst for both individual activity and social performance (ibid). This notion has been expressed through gestures such as: thickening walls and facades as forms for containment, the obscuring of intimate secrets that are understood through being voyeuristic and accentuating the haptic. It also describes the dressing of media facades and bodily engagement with increasingly privatised and socially / politically controlled space (ibid).

Green Image

Green Image subservient

Green Image dominant

Considered Image

DESIGN RESEARCH 4

5ISSUES + STRATEGIES

APPLYING PRECEDENTS TO DRQ

Experimentation Testing Urban Tactics

Tactical Urbanism

Cultural PluralismTopography

Topography

Bottom-Up Design

boundaries go beyond the

visible

Produce small scale architectural interventions that allow greater freedoms for experimentation and assessment of their success for future up-scaling and unravelling.

Interventions present themselves as ongoing processes of design collaboration with community in order to produce contextually sensitive solutions.

Hobart has a rich history and architectural heritage that can be overlaid with contemporary design in order to celebrate and imbue value of place and new design.

Restore void site into a system of cultural overlaps that affirms the collegiate mentality of Hobart and to celebrate contemporary cultural diversities.

Public space requires collaboration with the community in a bottom up approach that allows for value and commodity to be in user’s hands not authorities.

Engage Not-for-profit community organisations to be involved and to administer future cultural exchanges. Architecture fails when public engagement wains.

Political architecture is about the expression of national, state, city, district identities. How can the architecture celebrate this history and be progressive.

The site slope has programmatic opportunities and constraints as well as the presence of a flattened basin. The architecture must fit and preserve landform.

What programmatic bonus or gift can be generated by leftover spaces that challenge planning / zone codes. How can the design delight and surprise the community.

KEY PROJECT ISSUES + STRATEGIES EMERGING FROM DRQ / PRECEDENTS

Historical Narratives

4

6

DESIGN METHODOLOGY + TYPOLOGYThe project proposes a progressive sequence of scenarios based through staged design. It is a Greens utopian vision of the site through occupation. This is to form a consolidated and consistent set of ideals, goals and principles that can be tested against design issues and begin to create a dialogue of political and social actions (Gámez & Rogers, 24). This is not creating architecture as product, but about architectural design process as an ongoing vehicle for self-criticism and adjustment. The envisioning of a new future and how this can be achieved through design.

This project is about exploring the subtleties and scope of political propaganda in architecture; it is not simply the production of a large indoctrination facility. It is the generation and development of a chain of strategies that begin to trigger and activate micro subjective political spaces within the Hobart community. The Greens, a bottom-up organisation have the opportunity to make use of this misshapen fabric in order to generate a political groundswell that will ameliorate Hobart, as well as develop voter confidence in the Greens. This is about the ability to express political opinion, not mere greenwashing.

There are a myriad of catalytic sites in the greater Hobart area. The Melville Street Carpark site has been chosen because of its strong existing program attributes, visibilities. There have been a number of precedents drawn on in order to speculate and seed the future trajectories for the project, site and to greater boundaries. This project exists at the scale of the billboard and poster, the digital apps and social networking page through to micro-structures and urban interventions. It could lead to larger more formalised political structures. What is important to note is the process in which these tactical birthmarks begin to evolve into larger strategies. The bottom-up nature of the project and client require this staged development.

The Park(ing) project challenges the existing value systems encoded into disused spaces. The project is valuable to the project, as it begins to set up the great potentialities that lie within small-scaled “experimental” pilot projects. Before vast resources are spent on large scale project, it makes sense to set up a small test version that provokes the intent of the project. In the case of Park(ing), it is the use of metered space that is identified as a niche space, that is ripe for the taking. It is about seeking untapped fertile terrains in honour of bettering the social condition of the urban / rural environment (Merker in Hou 2010, 49.)

Urban activism project in Japan exploring returning the lost privates domains of a district of Tokyo back into the consciousness of inhabitants through process of historic narratives, education, exhibition and community workshops (Aiba, S & Nishida, O in Hou 2010, 73). Re-Street

A Small disused alleyway has wooden slats lain. These slates reference the typology of historical alleyways. Children fix white canvas fabric to the walls. Children become familiarised with space, adults are RE-familiarised with the disused space. The element of play with the children gives the ground nostalgic, historical and social value (Aiba et al 2010, 75).

Kuuchi - Empty Spaces around existing buildings

This is a pop-up exhibition that uses scaled photographs of historical fabrics and building facades of architecture built after the 1932 Earthquake. This style was called ‘signboard architecture’. The purpose of this exhibit was to reveal city history, to create discovery. The project taps into deep nostalgia in order to draw attention. Its an event between two buildings. (Aiba et al 2010, 75).

Alley vs. Empty Space

An alley is a public space, once its narrative is re-shaped, its use can be recontextualised in order to reveal itself once more from hiddenness. Empty space on the other hand lies inside private building stock, and requires the private owners to make their buildings public in order to assimilate them back into the neighbourhood. Revitalisation of the urban fabric requires new ways to consider buildings. (Aiba et al 2010, 75).

1. Sharing Information 3. Individual Constructions

2. Sharing Images on the space and cost

4. Evaluation and Feedback of Constructions

$ £ ¥

? ? ?

What is a niche space?social political

spatial experimentation

under used / undervalued space

artistic

nicheTYPOLOGY PARK(ING)

Any street carpark

Rebar Collective,

San Fransisco

2005 - Current

URBAN TACTICS

BOTTOM UP DESIGN

IDENTITY

BONUS

URBAN TACTICS

EXPERIMENT

IDENTITY

PRESERVATION

‘PUBLICNESS’ INTO URBAN BUILDINGSKanda, Tokyo Japan

Shin Aiba + Osamu Nishida

2003-2007

76

The favela project shares many parallels with the project in terms of site issues and program generosity. The prevalence of a void site, lack of urban public space, unproductive land, lack of formal social infrastructure. This project uses the source of the problem, which is the large steep slope as a solution base that pivots the entire project. The slope becomes the water and sewerage management system, which controls thermal comfort in the building, it creates arable land, it becomes a place to create and to spectate social interactions.

Rural studio is a program that connects students back to place, the construction process and the role of the “citizen architect” (Card 2011).

BGC 2 was conceived 5 years after BGC1, in close proximity. BGC1 collapsed because the owner decided to not donate the land to the town, BGC2’s land was owned by the state. BGC2 was more ambitious and addressed and ameliorated an existing basketball court within the town and then implemented an wave-like lamella structure. More importantly the mistakes from BGC 1 were acknowledged and integrated into the process (ibid). The critique applied to both schemes was that there was a short sighting in the architecture not being entrenched enough within the community and the lack of establishment of local groups to help implement social movement (ibid).

road

factory

complexities

modernity

meadows

agrarian past

nature

quietness

PASSAGE OF REFLECTION

filter

A retrofit of a timber meadow barn, which has strong historical and cultural association with Swedish values. The king’s cows grazed in these fields 300 years ago, The Swedes were one of the last European nations to industrialise. The passage allows time to disseminate the place to the visitor. The project is a permanent exhibition that filters out contemporary distractions, and uses the siting and re-use of a small barn to bring people together in order to meditate on what it means to be in the local environment and what it is so be Swedish (White architectus 200).

KUNGSÄNGEN BARNUppsland, Sweden

White Arkitekter

60s q m, 1999

GROTAO COMMUNITY CENTRESao Paulo, Brazil

Think Tank Architects

2009-2012

RURAL STUDIO - BOYS & GIRLS CLUB 1 + 2Akron, Alabama, USA

Rural Studio

2001-2007

EXISTING CONDITION - No Connection between ex. favela buildings, steep slope disconnects.

PROPOSED CONDITION - Slope becomes the connecting device that ameliorates site, social weaknesses.

URBAN FABRICNo Social

Infrastructure

No PublicGathering

Spaces

Program is controlled by the elements, the barn is light and dark according to the conditions, warm and cold - but shelters from the wind.

Interpretation Panels

(White Architects, 2009, 60)

TYPOLOGY

BOTTOM UP DESIGN

CULTURAL PLURALITY

IDENTITY

PRESERVATION

BONUS

IDENTITY

PRESERVATION

TOPOGRAPHY

BONUS

CULTURAL PLURALITY

PRESERVATION

TOPOGRAPHY

BONUS

8

FINANCIAL + TEMPORAL CONTEXT + ISSUES

Eight out of 47 donations above $1500 to the AG came from Tasmanian constituents. A significant issue for this project is the procurement of funds. The AG receive no direct funding after federal elections (Brown 2010). The AG do not have a formalised system of raising funds. The majority of funds raised goes to the state Green parties (ibid). The AG further have a strong ethical code against accepting donations from donors who contradict the Greens charter of conduct.

This sets up a limited initial budget to determine the scope of works. Therefore the project must propose small incremental interventions that create ground swell, and that are able to reap financial returns in order to generate income for further development. Because the project taps into some of the recommendations made by the HCC in response to the Gehl report, it is hoped that financial support can be found through municipal as well as state coffers. This financial limitation also sets up the design process methodology and speculative basis for the project. This project is about developing and procuring catalytic stages and a long term site plan.

The low budget constraint also opens up the opportunity for sustainable solutions by sourcing and finding as much salvage material as possible, recycled material, donated material from affiliate businesses looking to showcase their sustainable products in a public forum.

POLITICAL EMANCIPATION / INDOCTRINATION

Historically architecture has had a tendency to operate from a top-down approach which opposes democratic thinking. The Greens, operate through a bottom up approach. The following represent the scope for various modes of engaging with political architecture:

1. MODES OF EXPRESSION

How can architecture operate politically outside of its function and aesthetics. To what extent is this propaganda, can it lead, politically?

2. MODES OF OPINION

How can people engage with architecture so that it opens the possibility to create political opinion?

3. MODES OF CONSTRUCTION

By engaging with architecture politically and through the process of sharing something of themselves, what are the resultant artefacts?

4. MODES OF ENGAGEMENT

In participating with the architecture in other parts of the urban environment, how does this generate, and affects other parts.

5. MODES OF CONNECTION

Are the parts connected, Is there synchronicity? How can architecture and its elements can be specifically political, without layering with a big billboard, or having its function be “Green”.

6. THE CONCLUSION

The Big Bang at the end. When activation happens. Suddenly! a mind, ideology changing set of spaces materialises set within a matrix. It is part of a process which happen in a subtle way. Once they strike up, the ground swell happens. It is the Greens political space.

Greens’ Economic Principle 11. “Social, political and economic institutions must allow individuals and communities to determine their own priorities.” (Greens

Policy 2010)

Greens’ Economic Principle 14. “National governments must not allow the pressures from the globalisation of trade to override the democratic preferences of their citizens.” (Greens Policy 2010)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

FINANCE + TEMPORALITIES

Living Rooms at the Border and Senior Gardens are incremental design solution that stimulate the urban fabric. The project proposes a negotiation of density by creating ‘bonuses’. Three units of housing become 12 alongside an adaptive re-use of an existing 1927 church as a community centre, a community garden that ‘serves as social armature to support this community’s non-conforming micro-economies and improvisational public events.’ (California Architects.com 2012)

(AHOZ)

Affordable Housing Overlay ZoneTijuana, Mexico

Teddy Cruz Arquitectos

Ongoing

URBAN TACTICS

BOTTOM-UP DESIGN

IDENTITY

PRESERVATION

BONUS

9

The site is a 4500m2 void carpark space that is well located and well serviced on the edge of the Hobart CBD. “Claiming Residual Spaces in the heterogenous city” states that void spaces are intrinsically related to their surroundings and their large scale hold the most opportunities. These opportunities can be implemented incrementally. Many void carpark projects involved turning the carpark into usable commerce space in the form of small vehicular kiosks. These spaces create a commercial edge along the void’s edges (ibid, 93).

The purpose of claiming void space is to engage the intimate scale of human existence, focusing on the ordinary in our environment. Residual spaces create a venue that can test innovative, unconventional urban sites through rethinking their potential for sustainable programs and increased site productivity. Often these interventions come at minimum capital investment.

MELVILLE ST. SITE

3 Edges - 4 zones

Connect - City and Mt. Welling.

SITE SECTION - ACCESSIBILITYYouth

Senior

A Gap In the Elizabeth Street edge presents an opportunity to develop the Elizabeth St. spine to the CBD and North Hobart - A heavy pedestrian route. The small scale and rhythm of the facades is a key feature to acknowledge.

Site sits within dense network of heritage fabric. Residential is low proportion. There are also many Not-for-Profit organisations such as Red Cross, Church groups, CWA. This rich neighbourhood allows many opportunities to work and develop the site alongside diverse user groups.

Connect - UTAS Education Pct.

Carparking + Void Space Opportunity

Elizabeth St. Spine Connection

“...Space cannot be meaningfully considered independently of the means by which it is accessed...”

STEEPNESS

SHALLOW

NESS

ResidentialPolitcal Heritage

Heritage fabric creates unique identity

Coach Centre could be developed as travel hub

Implement more trees: establishes street edge

Views down into site excellent. Like being a spectator

Building of residential apartments will add to the public life

Southern end of site, very flat.

Northern edge of site rises 8m over the length of the site.

Beautiful sandstone and rubble retaining walls add character and value

109

STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABILITY

The project will use a number of the strategies outlined in the precedent studies. Mainly the generation of tactical urbanist strategies that begin to disseminate the void nature of site into low-cost, high yielding program. The low capital investment required for these types of projects is realistic to current economic strangleholds and requires the active participation of the community and further afield for it to develop and succeed. The project has a number of key program initiatives that work in a collaborative manner, but are also designed to operate with certain levels of independence, if once side of the program was to fail, it ensures the whole project does not collapse. It allows for adjustment and analysis.

COOPERATIVES + SOCIAL ECOLOGIES?

Successful ecologies exist because they maintain a complex of cooperative relationships. In Northern Europe, cooperatives exist in many forms, and there is a renaissance of the cooperative typology occurring in response to the global financial crisis. Cooperates reduce the extent of our boundaries of influence by relying upon the use of local products, labour and the local growing of produce. Although the Greens do not mention cooperative living arrangements in their policy documents, much of their ideas has stemmed from 1970s socialist attitude

ADAPTIVE RE-USE

There is a large heritage listed industrial shed on the eastern boundary of the site. Which is approximately 12m high, and is currently a private carpark. The internal volume is completely empty. It is the most significant building on site. The building has frontage to Melville St, and western facade facing into the site. There is potential for an adaptive re-use program to be inserted into this building that can begin to generate programmatic possibilities on site. The building creates the most onsite shadow.

SUSTAINABILITY

WATER CONSERVATION

Water is considered to be a major site issue. The program requires a large area to be irrigated for agriculture and farming. There is a need for a water reservoir and system for the distribution of water across the site . The site has a steep northern topography, which drains into a large flat basin . There is potential for flash flooding onsite, and damage of infrastructure.

SOLAR ACCESS

1. + 2. Summer + Equinox - Excellent Solar Access. Design opportunities lie in shading and reducing exposure to the elements. Western solar exposure needs to be considered.

Winter - Despite general early and late day shading, good solar access exists at S-SW corners. Edges that face NE-NW should be considered for any winter agriculture.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Above Image shows, bustling Elizabeth, with site picture on left hand side. HCC encourage the Elizabeth st. spine to be restored back to a continuous commercial strip.

PROJECT BOUNDARIES

There are three distinct platforms for social interaction, these are also notions of boundary. These diagrams will play into further investigations into ‘cooperatives’, in which resources and space is shared in a highly democratic way.

STATEElectricity

Legislation

Economic

COUNTRYLegislation

Bass straight

GLOBE

Emissions

Particulates

Effluent

Pollutionsite

BLOCK

Safety

Access

Proximity

Cross-links

Vegetation

Street edges

Urban farming

Amenity

Market

DISTRICT

Patterns

Precinct identity

Walk links

Cycle links

Cross connections

Mixed zoning

Water reservoirs

Waste issues

Economic

CITY

Livability

Cultural identity

Public transport

Water supply

Emissions

REGION

Agriculture

Resources

Forestry

“We can only see as far as the horizon, but we now know that the boundary expands beyond, and it is a deeper consideration of this zone, where a greater connectivity to the greater system develops.”

Summer Equinox Winter

11

6A CENTRAL BUSINESS ZONEElizabeth Street Edge

CENTRALCENTRAL SERVICE

RESIDENTIAL

RESIDENTIAL

CENTRALCOMMERCIAL + ADMINISTRATIVE

Maintain and strengthen the primary shopping retailers and support them with appropriate amenities, all with convenient and safe access to public transport.

Ensure conflict between adjoining commercial and residential activities is avoided.

Encourage upper level usage of buildings for residential and tourist accommodation.

Ensure development design is sympathetic to setting and compatible with local character in terms of building scale, height and density.

Provide safe, comfortable and enjoyable environments for workers, residents and visitors through provision of high quality spaces and urban design.

Ensure the proportions, materials, openings and decoration of building facades contribute with the streetscape.

Encourage intense activity at pedestrian level with engaging shop windows and activity.

To ensure vehicular access and parking is designed so that the environmental quality of the local area is protected and enhanced.

Encourage network of malls, arcades and through-site links with interesting shop windows, displays and activities.

Encourage network of malls, arcades and through-site links with interesting shop windows, displays and activities.

8A LOCAL BUSINESSMelville + Brisbane St Edge

Both zones have a 12m height restriction. Sloping site and large internal areas - potential discretionary height permits to be acquired for density. HCC strongly encouraging residential repopulating of CBD.

AUSTRALIA GREENS POLICYGreen’s policies Issued March 2010

HOBART 2012 PUBLIC SPACE PUBLIC LIFEJan Gehl’s key recommendations

CITY OF HOBART PLANNING SCHEME 2009Although in draft stage, the 1982 scheme is outdated

ICAP - INNER CITY ACTION PLANDocument issued by HCC in response to Gehl’s report

BCA + ASHCC require all new buildings to comply with: The Building Code of Australia: 2010, and compliance with relevant Australian Standards and Building Standards. The proposal is of several building classes including: 1b, 5, 6, 8, 9b & 10a

Zone for: retail, offices, entertainment and community services in concentrated forms.

To provide for retailing, offices, and community services serving the local area.

KEY REGULATIONS

8m

12m - max height

6A CENTRAL BUSINESS ZONE

8A LOCALBUSINESS ZONE

1211

Mitchell (in Bell & Wakefore, 2008) says: “What makes a space public...is not its preordained “publicness.” Rather, it is when, to fulfil a pressing need, some group or another takes space and through its actions makes it public “.

The functional is about challenging the preconceived agenda of politicised public spaces as being mono-functional, totalitarian and exclusive. The Greens unlike other political factions wholly encourage the contribution of diverse groups in the political process. The project is challenging and proposing an open political agenda to public space.

This project is speculative, and in a real-life scenario the project would require significant and ongoing community participation and forum, which is not practical in the context of a three month professional project. This project is about establishing design process frameworks that generate functional requirements through a process of “scenario” testing.

The project draws strategies through the study of precedents. The key project strategy is the continual testing laboratory for programs at the Melville Street site. The Tactical Urbanists have 5 underlying characteristics:

- A deliberate, phased approach to instigating change

- The offering of local solutions for local planning

- Short-term commitment and realistic expectations

- Low risks with high reward

- Development of social capital and developing organisational potential between citizens. (Lydon, Bartman, Woudstra, Khawarzad, 2011, 1)

SCENARIO 2012: SECURING THE SITE

The Melville Street carpark is currently common council property that accommodates a moderately utilised car park, a Sunday farmer’s market, and an occasional street festival for MONA FOMA.

SCENARIO 2015: COOPERATIVES + DEVELOPING SITE INFRASTRUCTURE

Current site is split into three geographic zones, and lies within two HCC council zones.

Development and testing of typologies that generate income and increase site density:

- Negotiate municipal / state involvement in generating onsite co-operative housing densities at or about 2.0 in order to maximise left over ‘public’ space for project development.

- Cooperative Housing + Garden, these create territories that can manage or create onsite presence and to enhance security. What is the fence that contains this:

- Approach Three: Fences, Designing the edge. The Fence becomes the shed

- Extending the existing Sunday market to become a more regular weekday market. Condensing of onsite utilities to operate and improve upon existing site conditions.

ONGOING: INFORMAL POLITICAL SPACES + SMALL SCALE INTERVENTIONS

- Cooperatives begin to generate income that supports the development of political statements

- State and municipal funding to aid in the amelioration of public space within Melville Street and beyond.

SCENARIO 2020: FORMALISED POLITICAL SPACE

Once the above developments have been manifested the possibility to generate more permanent official political spaces can occur.

FUNCTIONS DEVELOPMENT MATRIX

now 1-2 yrs 5 yrs 10yrs 20yrs

Existing Program, MONA FOMA opening street party and the Sunday Farmer’s Gate Market. These programs are the germinating programs for the project and remain a strong priority for programmatic development.

13SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY

USER GROUPS

user group 1

user group 2

learn / teach paradigm

social integration

proximity / famliarity seperation

user group 1

user group 2

Political members

Needs: Public assembly, information, transparency, dialogue

Mentality: Pro-active, vocal, communal.

Single Parent

Needs: Support, inclusion, forum, assistance

Mentality: Resilient, hardworking, tired. Generous and selfless.

Tourist / Visitor

Needs: information, genuine experience, inclusion, safety.

Mentality: Relaxed, observant, expectant.

Minorities

Needs: Inclusion, acceptance, right to express culture, safety.

Mentality: Overwhelmed, intimidated, openness to absorb new environments.

City Workers

Needs: Breakout space, access to market, accomm.

Mentality: Discerning, habitual.

Unemployed Worker

Needs: employment, skills development, to demonstrate

Mentality: vulnerable, disenfranchised, energetic.

Tertiary Students

Needs: Break out spaces, information resource, networking, low-cost / high value space

Mentality: Opinionated, pro-active, political sensitivity, unheard voices.

Youth

Needs: Dynamic rich environment, niches and alcoves, variable visibilities.

Mentality: Fragile, ego-testing, blurred, challenging.

Senior

Needs: Accessibility, visibility, equality, cognitive motivators, express wisdom.

Mentality: Stubborn, authoritarian, side-lined.

Religious Groups

Needs: Freedom to practice, gathering spaces, fund raising

Mentality: Traditional, resilient, conservative, collegiate

There are three distinct platforms for social interaction, these are also notions of boundary. These diagrams will play into further investigations into ‘cooperatives’, in which resources and space is shared in a highly democratic way.

Concept model of social platforms

1413

SCENARIOThe primary concern is developing the site in its current state as a market, community gardens and large public place of assembly. Basic structures from recycled materials and temporary structures for market stalls. Small level investment.

MASTER PLANNINGPeripheral configuration of massing, allows for greatest connected public space. Permanent structures are placed on edges in order to develop street character whilst allowing internal flexibility and allow serviceability.The formal spaces are for market stalls and commercial tenancies. These require good street frontages and large window openings in order to procure good window displays which is a council recommendation. Service points at each corner, including toilets and potable water.

DETAILRecycled bitumen and aggregate and concrete is made into gabion walls that can be used for garden bed walls.

SECTIONStructure is essentially a large roof for sheltering from the elements. Roof face leans towards northern aspect to allow for solar collection. Street edge has larger double story whilst the interior spaces have a less imposing volume. Roof acts to shelter interior spaces from prevailing winds.

DETAIL SECTIONStructural steel recycled from decommissioned power line towers from the now decommissioned hydro stations (speculative). Upper level ventilation louvres for heat purging. Small lifts in the roof allow upper level light to penetrate into the deeper spaces. Seating and edges are incorporated into the columns.

SCENARIO: 2012

15SCENARIO: 2015

SCENARIOThis is for the near future with the production of cooperative living arrangements, community gardens and public space. This is to generate rental incomes for further development as well as maximising community garden space for generating food for self sufficiency. Construction of housing generated by subsidy and local investment. Political space for the greens is housed in the heritage shed on Melville St.

MASTER PLANNINGLineal plan and peripheral configuration of massing, Corners contain vertical circulation and common spaces such as large living rooms or cooperative cooking spaces. The location of large space at the end of circulation spine creates a release in the narrower spines. All massing is focused on southern edges to allow maximum space to be allotted to community gardens.

PLANNINGThe planning is concerned with a corner junction between to sections of cooperative housing. It enables 2 circulation paths to meet and form an exchange. Service areas are deep within the plan, and living spaces are the edge to take advantage of north orientation.

DETAIL PLANRear of the corner cooperative room where an exterior alleyway meets a kitchen service area, allows for informal exchanges and to allow food to be discharged from the area into more private areas. Roof design points diagonally upwards with a 5º roof pitch towards the garden areas to create visual connection to the permaculture spaces. Circulation alleyway creates a separation between the noise common areas and a residence.

1615 SCENARIO 2020

SCENARIOThe primary concern is mixed use program, micro-industrial, cooperative residential and community garden spaces. The spaces have become more formalised through long term investment. Central spaces allocated for congregations.

MASTER PLANNINGLineal plan and peripheral configuration of massing. Formalised planning at edges allows the interior spaces to have more temporary and flexible urban space usage, such as large rallies, goods markets. Micro-industrial spaces are at south to avoid acoustic disturbance. Market and commercial tenancies are on Elizabeth st edge and allow edge porosity.

SECTIONSection shows low level temporary market stall at street edge with a small set back and more formalised structure which encourages through-fare into the public space beyond.

DETAIL SECTIONLVL portal from construction with timber truss roof. The Elizabeth st strip sits within a heritage precinct, the proportions and design reflect a modern interpretation of a dual story Victorian design aesthetic. There is a deep edge to allow for passage and for western sun shading. The parapet picks up the language of the neighbouring buildings.

17

The functional requirements can be divided into 4 distinct programmatic typologies. The Market, The Co-operative, The Micro-Industrial, The Political. Total Site Area = 4500m2

Program staging is designed to develop within a matrix to be able to evolve at a modest pace that is in line with economic, political and social development, as per Tactical Urbanism precedent.

The program has priority in generating self-sufficiency, this means:

- Localising industry through additive manufacturing by moving away from fossil-fuelled economy

- Developing Perennial Polycultures for sustainable agriculture within urban environments to reduce the need to transport food.

- Water Cultivation - Harvesting stormwater for irrigation

- Proposing more cooperative means of living and sharing space

- Closed loop product and waste systems.

- Changing material conditions not material considerations

- A public space should support and inform us of new ways of living sustainably

- A Staged and sustainable strategy to develop the project at a scale that is socially, environmentally and economically viable.

THE FOLLOWING IS AN ACCOMMODATION MATRIX - The site and project does not have a linear mode of development. It exists within a matrix that allow for growth and contraction This means that a functional diagram can only be generated through generating speculations that exist within defined parameters.

THE MARKET 1510M2

Ex Sunday Market 800m2 1 800m2 Increase frequency from Sundays. Shelter from wind / sun

Amenities Block

Toilet 60m2 1 60m2 Toilet blocks for public use Privacy + Proximity to program

Water Storage 25m2 2 50m2 Water supply for market vendors Collection as close to utilisation as possible

Performance Stage 30m2 1 30m2 Public performances / Rally Protection from glare and sun, Sound system

Informal Sports Activity 80m2 3 240m2 Paint sports courts onto surfaces Safety in the context of outside dangers

Indoor Winter Market 300m2 1 300m2 Sheltered market space To be housed in Heritage Shed on Melville Street

THE CO-OPERATIVE 2532M2

Cooperative Housing 32-64m2 10 ~640m2 Bed, Bath and living Good Northerly aspect, proximity to Gardens

Cooperative Kitchen 20m2 3 60m2 Kitchen links to housing Universal accessibility + sanitation issues

Toolshed 50m2 1 32m2 Public Tool library Staff required to manage

Workshop 100m2 1 100m2 Space for learning construction Acoustic separation + safety concerns, Southern light

Cooperative Garden 750m2 2 1500m2 Garden for personal / Market use Good northern aspect, shelter from wind and frost.

Pop-up services 20m2 5 100m2 Temporary pilot projects

Library 100m2 1 100m2 Digital and Forbidden Books Tempered env. + Southerly aspect. Staff to manage.

MICRO-INDUSTRIAL 750M2

Fab Lab 200m2 1 200m2 Localise manufacturing Transparency of operation, acoustic separation

Micro-Industrial Tenancies 50m2 5 250m2 Industries resultant from Fab Lab Connection with fab lab + Public space

Whisky Distillery 250m2 1 250m2 Major industry to create spectacle Southern light, tempered stable thermal requirements

Cafe 50m2 1 50m2 Everyone loves coffee North facing, access to street edges

THE POLITICAL (825M2)

Political Offices 200m2 1 200m2 National / State / Independent South-facing, access to street + public space

Exhibition 100m2 2 200m2 Public / Political / Interpretation Accessible of public space

Oratorial Spaces 50m2 1 50m2 Political Rally / Freedom of Speech Acoustic recording space, public location

Public Space Overlapping zones of conversation and activity

Underground Chamber 50m2 1 50m2 Emergency political Assembly An underground bunker in case things get serious

Media Lab 250m2 1 250m2 Radio/Film/Web/Print Press

Public Meeting Rooms 25m2 3 75m2 Open meeting spaces for debate Rooms directly available off public space for use.

TOTAL 5617M2

ACCOMMODATION SCHEDULE

18REFERENCES

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