“The introduction of time as the fourth dimension into architecture has been obvious since anyone had a brick wall fall down…” Cedric Price

Cities are in a constant state of flux. These anomalous characteristics and behaviours are a product of its interaction with a matrix of legal and spatial codes and relationships, market forces, as well as fluctuations on the global dais. These uncertainties make any attempt to intervene within their complex organisation, rather precarious. Unsuccessful or flailing modernist enterprise, the rise of nation states and unbound exuberance of the free market economy, has coincided with the retreat of creative disciplines from the civic realm and public imagination.

The increasing decentralised forces – from transformation of workforces, ecological and environmental change to migration, compel a new manner of engagement. However, cities continue to operate within disputed forms of urban renewal and antiquated models of real estate speculation. Collectively, the models and tools of engagement with the city have arguably have not adapted to the plurality of the urban environment, its variables, and utter hybridity. Urban planning too, seems hopelessly retrospective in its inability to meet current demands and expectations. Meanwhile, the peer-to-peer economy can be seen to promote the occupation of our cities according to transient, temporary and dynamic demands - a disruptive technology operating as a non-physical infrastructure that results in its nimbleness, manoeuvrability and has an extended a temporal dimension in its influence on the city and its change over time.

Projects utilise static and real-time data, techniques of data scrapping, hybridising urban datasets, to generate real and counterfactual propositions and scenarios for the city. Focusing on Melbourne’s CBD, the work will offer a critical insight into the behaviours of cities and networks, all captured through decentralised systems. Through gamification and designing the protocols and relationships projects will record and reveal patterns and offer new ways of engaging with the city and its architecture.

How can we move beyond a conceptual framework of spatial programming and outlines, binaries and modernist scripts to embrace and engage our formal habits with the virtual and behavioral logics of the post-urban, post-rational megacity?

In 2020, the studio and projects were part of the City X / Supercity design studios running at leading design schools internationally. The work from this studio was be exhibited and presented at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Studio Leaders - Ian Nazareth & David Schwarzman

Semester 1 2022

Work by - Daniel Limas, Randy Aditya Mucti, Miles Pisani, Weiwei Tong, Xuanru Liu, Yu Li Sim, Yushan Wang, Zejia Huang, Zhuohua Tan, Ziyan Li,

Guests - Ann Lau (Hayball, Melbourne) Johan Hermijanto (Bates Smart, Melbourne) Daniel Davis (Hassell, New York), Joshua Lye (RMIT, Melbourne), Sebastian Teo (Deloitte, Melbourne) Rebecca Dinapoli (Cera Stribley, Melbourne), Connor Hanna (NH Architecture, Melbourne)

Semester 2 2021

Work by - Austin Zhao, Devika Panicker, Duy Hai Do, Jinal Gandhi, Katherine Ure, Kevin Gao, Marcus Hall, Max Lewoshko-Fagan, William Hartawan, William Ly, Xinyun Zhang, Yiyi Ma, Yue Wu

Guests - Ann Lau (Hayball, Melbourne) Marianthi Tatari (UNStudio, Amsterdam) Johan Hermijanto (Bates Smart, Melbourne) Gerhana Waty (Hansen Partnership, Melbourne) Rebecca Dinapoli (Buchan Group, Melbourne)

Semester 1 2021

Work by - Anthony Mollica, Calvin Fernando, Dyuman Pandya, Jason Ho, Kathryn Larkin, Nikita Dave, Nikita Akruwala, On Yu Cheng, Songyi Yan, Zeynep Birincioglu

Guests - Caroline Bos (UNStudio, Amsterdam) Ann Lau (Hayball, Melbourne) Tom Morgan (Monash University, Melbourne) Cagdas Delen (UNStudio, Amsterdam), Joshua Lye (RMIT University) and Ben Strong (NH Architecture)

Semester 2 2020

Work by - Anastasia Horomidis, Anne Ebery, Darren Shi Yang Soh, Hao Wu, Jasper Fisher, Jing Wu, Rebecca Dinapoli, Tianyu Feng, Weiteng Zhuang, Xu Tang, Yiying Wang

Guests - Matias del Campo (SPAN, U.Mich), Tom Kovac (RMIT), Ann Lau (Hayball), Sandra Manninger (SPAN, U.Mich), Tom Morgan (Monash), David Schwarzman (UN Studio)