Chile
2018 Chile Travelling Studio
Studio Leaders: Prof. Ray Green and Antonia Besa Lehmann
Photo by Guy Wenbourne
Subject Outline:
This studio will bring together students of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design from the University of Melbourne to work collaboratively with students from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC), in Santiago, Chile. The aim of the studio is expose students to a complex urban project while at the same time exposing them to unfamiliar cultures, places and people, all aimed at stimulating their ability to think creatively and solve problems from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Santiago is the capital city of Chile and located in a valley surrounded by mountains, with the Andes Mountains to the east and the Coastal Range to the west. Integrated within the urban fabric are 26 “island hills”. Given their size and relationship to other natural elements, these hills offer the possibility of shaping a matrix of open spaces within the city to interconnect recreational and other types of land-uses with natural systems. Many of these hills are in areas of the city that have limited green space and this presents an opportunity to reverse the inequality in the accessibility to green areas within Santiago for people living there. Many of these Island Hills are in areas with lower socio-economic demographics and typically have poor-quality, if any, formal parks and other community facilities. Furthermore, local municipalities responsible for management of these public spaces often lack the financial resources to develop them, hence they are mostly left in an undeveloped state. This presents a unique opportunity for the design of more planned developments, such as areas for passive recreation, urban agriculture and other possible uses.
Students will work with local communities, local governments and NGO’s (e.g. Santiago Cerros Isla Foundation) in exploring the design potential for one or more of these “island hills”. This will initially involve research into the design possibilities presented by these Island Hills in terms of their ecological, social and cultural attributes at multiple scales of the environment. In addition to the intensive work that will be undertaken during the travel component in Chile, students will also participate in a series of design workshops, both before and after the travel component of the studio.
Dates:
Applications close: 03 June 2018
Pre-trip teaching: Starts 2nd September 2018
OH&S information session: TBC
Overseas travel dates: 22nd - 30th October 2018
Subject census date: TBC
Final submission/presentation: 30th October 2018
To Apply:
Applicants will be assessed and selected based on academic merit, portfolio and “expression of interest/personal statement”.
To apply, go to EDSC Travelling Studios page at http://edsc.unimelb.edu.au/graduate/subject-options/travelling-studios and click the ‘Travelling Studio Application Form’. Complete all mandatory fields, as well as attaching your personal statement.
You will be contacted of the application outcome via your University of Melbourne email account.