2010
Genoa, Monterray and Woomera
Genoa, Italy
Retracing Indian Ocean Journeys
Studio Leader: Professor Haig Beck
Genoa, the birthplace of Christopher Colombus, is a port city on the northern coast of Italy. It is one of Europe's most ancient cities: probably Etruscan in origin; settled by the Greeks in the 6th century BC; and then allied to Rome in the 2nd Punic War.
It was destroyed and rebuilt several times. By the 1100 AD, Genoa had become one of the Maritime Republics a centre of shipbuilding and banking with a merchant fleet that dominated the Mediterranean. Genoa was an important crossroads for princes and kings, diplomats and ecclesiastical authority. The citys fortunes peaked in the 16th century under the leadership of Prince (and Admiral) Andrea Doria and with the establishment of the rolli. Still preserved in Genoa, the Rolli (rolls of palaces) classified buildings according to their prestige dividing them into three categories according to size, beauty and importance and were used according to these criteria to accommodate visitors to the city: cardinals, princes and viceroys, feudal lords, ambassadors and governors. Many of these palaces are now on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Monterray, Mexico
Studio Leader: Dr Peter Raisbeck
The Monterrey travelling studio will address two key areas of concern to the world today – the need for new housing and the need to dispose of the waste generated within cities.
The studio will thus respond to the call for new affordable housing across the globe and the waste and low-value products generated by today’s consumer culture. It will be an interdisciplinary studio suitable for students of architecture, landscape architecture, construction, engineering and planning.
Working in tandem with academic staff and students from ITESM Monterrey, students will be required to design urban systems, housing and shelters and building elements from refuse. ITESM already has a well developed programme which involves architecture students designing low cost dwellings outside of Monterrey. This subject will allow ABP students to imagine and investigate how waste materials can be used for low cost housing in the developing world.
Woomera, Australia
The Painted Desert
Studio Leader: Dr Andrew Saniga
The aim is to explore the cultural context of a small pocket of South Australian desert approximately 500km northwest of Adelaide through a range of creative activities. The nexus between painting and landscape will be the broad field of concern and this will involve associations between art and design. This studio explores the relationships between design disciplines in a practical sense and the theoretical links between art, design, landscape and history. Fields of art practice relevant to this studio are very broad, but one body of work we wish to explore in detail will be the earthworks art of the 1960s (Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, James Turrell) because it presents a body of work that intersects with design, architecture and landscape architecture. Other artists of relevance include Gordon Matta-Clark and Survival Research Laboratory. The focus of exploration will be three outback settlements including Woomera, Andamooka and Roxby Downs (WAR), and will include a visit to the geographic region of the 'The Painted Desert'. The studio will culminate in an exhibition and corresponding catalogue including essays and creative works.