Yesterday, our Architecture colleagues Silvia and Antony celebrated the international launch of their book House Precinct Territory: Design Strategies for the Productive City published by ORO Editions.
The event, hosted by Urbis, featured presentations by the authors, and a panel discussion on the implementation of manufacturing and agricultural production within cities.
With buildings and cities one of the primary accelerators of climate change, the tightening of urban environments is one of the mechanisms by which architects and urban planners can affect change. To date, models of urban densification and compact cities have been focused on sites of urban consumption – residential, commercial, civic and social spaces. Little thought has been given to the vast productive hinterlands around the world that support cities, through the growing of food, generation of power, production of goods and disposal of waste.
This book event was the culmination of a research project between PRAUD, RMIT University and the UQ. The research has resulted in a series of projects that seek to retro-fit existing urban environments with productive program. The project has been working through three scales of analysis, across three cities in the Asia Pacific Region, and deploying a range of design research techniques ranging from critical observation to speculative scenario modelling.
The purpose of this project is to describe a series of models for the folding of production into our cities, with ambition of developing and consolidating all components of human inhabitation within a smaller overall physical and environmental footprint.
The event was supported by a grant from the Australia Korea Foundation.
Participants
Dr John Doyle is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University. He is a registered practising architect and partner at Common.
Dr. Graham Crist is an Associate Professor in Architecture at RMIT University School of Architecture and Urban Design. He is the founding director of Melbourne-based architectural practice Antarctica Architects.
Dr Silvia Micheli researches and teaches contemporary design and history of architecture at the University of Queensland, where she is Senior Lecturer.
Dr Antony Moulis is Associate Professor and Interim Head, School of Architecture, at the University of Queensland where he teaches and researches across architecture, design and urbanism.
Dongwoo Yim is the co-founder of PRAUD and the assistant professor at Hongik University Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design.
Dr. Rafael Luna is the co-founder of the architecture firm PRAUD and Senior Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney.
