RMIT's School of Architecture and Urban Design delivers innovative, creative and applied scholarship in architecture and design-related areas.
RMIT's School of Architecture and Urban Design delivers innovative, creative and applied scholarship in architecture and design-related areas.
Higher Degrees by Research in the School of Architecture and Urban Design are delivered through a research culture underpinned by an iterative process of twice yearly Practice Research Symposia. The PRS lies at the heart of a longstanding research program that examines what designers actually do when they design, and seeks to develop new and innovative approaches to creative practice.
Our virtual student exhibitions are still live! View work from architecture, interior design and landscape architecture students from first year through to master's level.
RMIT students studying the Master of Interior Design have collaborated with global design practice, GHDWoodhead in a studio to gain invaluable, practical experience and to explore the theme, Future of Learning.
RMIT students studying the Master of Interior Design have collaborated with global design practice, GHDWoodhead in a studio to gain invaluable, practical experience and to explore the theme, Future of Learning.
So the partnered studio is a really integral part of how we teach in the Master of Interior Design. We partnered with GHDWoodhead, they're a large global design practice, and their kind of specialist area is educational learning environments. So that allowed us to expose the students to a really extraordinary set of experts.
My role in the studio experience was to facilitate GHDWoodhead expertise in education and to bring our multidisciplinary specialist to share their experience and stimulate the students with opportunity to embed in their future of hybrid learning.
One of the critical things that they gained from GHDWoodhead being involved in the studio was exposure to a case study project, which was the Wurun campus in Fitzroy, and in that particular instance they were really exposed in detail to a very complex contemporary design of a campus, thinking about the campus as an urban condition, multi-story, which is unusual for high schools, but also a campus that's interconnected with its communities.
We were asked to generate quite a lot of prototypes of learning environments, learning situation, and then you're kind of making an assemblage of them and then really experiment with how things come together and what's the relationship that it produced.
I think the future of learning, it's not just provide students a comfortable learning environment, but also create social relations between student and space, student and teachers, students among themselves, while creating a dynamic learning environment.
It was really terrific just to get that expertise from a practitioner who's on the ground running, doing a live project, and use that as a basis to do their work and to ask questions about how they go about their processes in design. That was very helpful to have GHDWoodhead on board.
We have the opportunity to engage and learn about their design process, the value and strategy Tactics in actualising an educational campus. But I guess what really struck me out of this is the active engagement. Like I really felt that we are sharing a strong enthusiasm towards design and really towards the future of learning environments.
Hopefully for the students it was a really rich experience and one that they found both challenging, because of that kind of group work, but also one that allowed their work to progress much further than it would, than it would working alone.
I think the sort of the two way flow, you know there's no sort of barriers between designers and in our business we try to make everyone the designer, whether they be an architect, an engineer, an interior designer or landscape architect.
Everybody has a contribution to make to design and nobody's got a monopoly on good ideas, or the right idea, because that's something you workshop and you figure out in the process of design, and so we love that sort of interaction
with the students here and we just take those ideas and hopefully share a few ideas to get on that continual cycle of learning and improvement.
It's been a great opportunity for the students to witness the collaboration that works within private practice, not only within their own studio, but to external consultants as well. Also, the amount of research that goes into responding to a brief, they were able to tap into that knowledge and the expertise that GHDWoodhead had to offer.
Students took part in a competition to design artwork for the State Library of Victoria hoarding.
Students took part in a competition to design artwork for the State Library of Victoria hoarding.
A group of RMIT students from Communication, Design, Architecture, and Fashion were invited to take part in a competition to design artwork for the hoarding which will go across the front of the Swanston Street building as we undertake our transformation.
So every day, this building is filled with students, and this project was so special because we were inviting students to come in and interpret the collection.
This partnership is an amazing opportunity for the State Library and RMIT, two of the main institutions in the northern end of the CBD, to show how they engage with the city.
This particular learning environment exposes the students to what it's like to work with an actual client in an actual real-world situation.
One of the great opportunities about this project is the students got access to the collections and also to the librarians.
The students scoured the collections for things that interested them, using their interests to cut a cross-section through what exists in the State Library's collection.
Some of the 22 projects explicitly use things that students have found in the collections.
We received 22 entries and they were remarkable. The top three artworks really beautifully reflected the transformation that's happening here at the State Library, but also drew on the riches of the collection, which of course, is at the heart of everything we do at the State Library Victoria.
One of the really beautiful moments was when the winners were announced and the realisation that what they're working on is out there in the world as a creative work is a really rewarding experience for the students.
My inspiration came from thinking about the vast history of Victoria's landscape and its traditional owners. The fact that the Library is encouraging me in my design and supporting my ideas means a lot.
The Library is a special place for me, because it's a significant landmark in Victoria that I also go to time and time again. I used hand gestures evoking the notion of gathering, protest, and harmony.
It retains the importance of the forecourt being a place that belongs to the public. We were encouraged to take inspiration from the State Library collection itself. For my project, I was really taken by old images of flora and fauna.
So I'm super excited to have my work in front of the State Library. It's the biggest piece I've ever made. The Library is such an inspiring place, and we hope the artwork will remind people who are walking by, just how much value there is in this beautiful collection and this beautiful building. We hope it inspires all Victorians and all visitors.
Floe is a large-scale 3D-printed sculpture completely immersing visitors, transporting them visually and aurally to Antarctica, on display during Triennial EXTRA at National Gallery of Victoria.
Floe is a large-scale 3D-printed sculpture completely immersing visitors, transporting them visually and aurally to Antarctica, on display during Triennial EXTRA at National Gallery of Victoria.
Dr. Roland Snooks:
Flow is an architectural and sound installation that draws on the effects and atmospheres of the Antarctic. The work is made from a 3D printing process that's printing layer by layer plastic. And this plastic has a, I think, quite a beautiful refraction and reflection of light. And this almost has an Isolate quality. Each of the panels for this project take between four and five hours to print. And there sort of person height, they're roughly 1.8 meters. Phillip's got an amazing collection of sound recordings from the Antarctic. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to make a space that captures some of that spirit. It's the sort of sound that we felt needed to be incredibly immersive. So there's a series of different ways you can have the installation. So there are seats within it. There's spaces you can walk through. There's more of contemplative spaces.
Take a look at the RMIT workshops serving the School of Architecture & Urban Design and the School of Design.
Take a look at the RMIT workshops serving the School of Architecture & Urban Design and the School of Design.
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Acknowledgement of Country
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.