Suburban Civic Spaces - EQUELLA
Transcription
Suburban Civic Spaces - EQUELLA
Sub u Civ rban ic Spa ces Suburban Civic Spaces Anthony McInneny Art in Public Space School of Art Simon Whibley Architecture Program, School of Architecture and Design, RMIT University Cumulus 38º South 18–19 November 2009 Suburban Civic Spaces is a spatial investigation through four interrelated processes of design, cultural development and art making: a series of public art projects jointly conceived and produced through an industry partnership between Knox City Council and RMIT Public Art; • a number of teaching studios combining the RMIT School of Art and School of Architecture and Design and the University of Melbourne urban design program; the site for medium density housing within a city centre. 4. Knox Central. Aerial photograph with Knox Central Urban Design Framework boundaries 2005 5. Urban Collage. Antartica and Dianne Peacock. 2008 6. Art Decontransformature, Kevin Man, RMIT University, Master of Art, Art in Public Space, proposal for skatepark in/through shopping centre 2005, and 7. Building toys 2005 8. Transcending the Shopping Spectacle, Daniel Pike, University of Melbourne. School of Architecture, Medium density housing proposal, 2005 • an embryonic research project through RMIT Design Research Institute entitled Art in the Suburbs, and • speculative engagements by individual architectural and artistic practices with Knox Central. • The territory covered by Suburban Civic Spaces spans five years and explores the role of cross-disciplinary practice, public art and the commissioning and procurement of works and ideas. It explores the transforming processes of place making through the engagement of artists, architects and educational institutions with the idea of the suburbs. The aspiration for a city centre for the municipality of Knox is the educational, creative and social context for this body of works and designs. Knox is part of a Melbourne metropolitan area grappling with urban change brought about by the need to create more sustainable and interconnected city centres and municipalities. Knox, under the Victorian State Government’s planning framework Melbourne 2030, was a principal activity centre, a previously unknown urban form, and a city where a shopping centre currently stands at its heart. Under the reviewed Melbourne 2030 called Melbourne@5 million, Knox is located at the apex of a road transport dependent growth corridor heading southeast for 20 kilometres. At the base these works is a question about how the suburban can become civic and what are the spaces and activities required to create a city centre that is a viable public realm. The designs, creations and proposals presented in Suburban Civic Spaces are graphically presented in their geographic location across the area known as Knox Central, the future city centre of Knox. Also presented are works that have developed from this site during the same period and under the same praxis but are located to the northeast and south. 1. Knox City Shopping Centre, Burwood Highway looking east. Knox Central, Wantirna South 2003. Photograph by Geoff Inkster 2. Melbourne @ 5 million, Melbourne 2030: a planning update. Victorian State Government 2009 3. Knox City. Relative distance and location from Melbourne, Eastlink, Dandenong and Ringwood. Antarctica Retarding Basin and Blind Creek Of droughts and flooding plains Dorothea Mackellar The retarding basin is designed to hold a one in one hundred year flood. The Blind Creek has been placed underground and re-surfaces through shear volume during a flood and through vertical drains that bubble and belch storm water in less torrential downfalls. During such floods the retarding basin has been recorded to form a temporal lake whose berm shores are lapped within 30 cm of their lip. This water dissipates after a couple of hours into the extensive river network of Dorothea Mackellar’s wide brown land. This phenomenological feature poses a particular challenge. How might an active central park of a particular type be explored or developed while maintaining its critical function? New Public Spaces Architecture and Public Art Studio RMIT Architecture Program, School of Architecture and Design and RMIT Art in Public Space School of Art, Studio leaders Simon Whibley, Anthony McInneny and Fraser Paxton 2008 A curious element of Knox Central is the mirror and inversion of spaces of consumption and production, leisure and work, inside and out, private and public and car dependency driving under a green canopy. The enclosed shopping centre is an introverted form protected by a moat of car parking space. The adjacent retarding basin is an extroverted, uninhabited, open public space with a perimeter of cycling and jogging leisure. Jillian Allan’s interest in the intimate and tactile quality of printmaking and pattern, formerly experience in daily life through object, costume and domestic interiors is taken into the public realm. Mark Hocking’s project starts from the proposition that Knox Cenrtal is back-to-front. His project extends the tramline into Knox Central, creating a terminus at the current rear of the site, and radically re-works the shopping centre’s rear carpark into a public space of gathering and entertainment. Nick Pratt’s project maintains the status quo, but inserts a new strip of commercial and public function along the edge of the same carpark, extending it over the edge and into the retarding basin. The building is like a spatial spaghetti junction: recreational, public and commercial circulation paths are scooped up, intertwined and reset. Underpass Robert Tickner, Placemakers, Knox City Council In 2005 the Knox City Council adopted the Knox Central Urban Design Framework as the guide for future development of a city centre the size of Melbourne Central Business District (CBD). The key features of the site are the Knox City Shopping Centre and outdoor dining area Ozone, a Civic Cultural Precinct, restoration and resurface of a waterway named Blind Creek in the existing retarding basin which includes recreational facilities, Rembrandt’s triangle, Swinburne tafe and the National Centre for Sustainability, road transport nodes, an industrial precinct and the six lane Burwood highway. Collages “allow ideas to be circulated without over-determining the results”. Interview with Dianne Peacock. Dream It, Build It. The Age, 10–11 April 2009 This artistic engagement introduced the creative potential of association and imagination to placemaking through the use of collage rather than artist impressions or architectural models and plans. A shortcoming of architectural drawings, plans and models, or artist impressions of these representations of space, is that they are both self referential and selffulfilling. They do not communicate a lived experience of space. Through the juxtaposition of complex and disparate forms and ideas, the collage simulates the mental process of spatial recollection and imagination. City, Street, Market, Square and Home Transcending the Shopping Spectacle, Knox Central Urban Design and Public Art studio, University of Melbourne School of Architecture and RMIT School of Art Studio Leader Beatriz Maturana “The eye does not see things but images of things that mean other things…” Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities. Medium density housing is still a controversial issue for suburban centres such as Knox, even in a green field site. The brief for this studio was to develop proposals for medium density housing that were accessible to a broad demographic and with a minimum ecological footprint and in the context of the Knox Central Urban Design Framework. RMIT Public art students engaged in this joint studio and contended with the notion of public space in a place where private space is popularly embraced and public space is a location of solitude. Kevin Man is an artist who works with architectural sculpture, transforming well-known architectural icons into pliable toys. Kevin has bisected the Knox City Shopping Centre and incised a multi-storey skate park through this commercial heart to reconnect natural open space via an artificially simulated one. This work led to the involvement of artists in the design of a new skate park. (See Sk8park). Daniel’s housing design addresses urban concerns and KCUDF objectives at a scale of 1:500 and amenity and living issues related cultural diversity and minimising the impact on the environment at 1:100 by considering the interface between the built and natural environment as 16. Party Pacifica, Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games opening celebrations, Projection of Wally Tew’s portrait by Andrew Chapman onto Commonwealth Community Choir. 17. Party Pacifica, Commonwealth Games Opening Celebrations, Junction of Melbourne Street and Ozone, Knox City Shopping Centre, March 2006. Photograph by Andrew Chapman Burwood Highway Burwood Highway is a six-lane carriageway that bisects the Knox Central site. This permanent and essential piece of infrastructure presents a barrier to traversing the city in anything other than a car. Various horticultural attempts have been made to soften this autoscape but the renaming of Burwood Highway to Bush Boulevard simply amplifies the need for other mobility options to bridge the divide between commerce, education and aged care facilities. A relocated transport hub building on the efficient Smart Bus and an extension to the light rail are anticipated to transform this current obstacle. “…you make a building as a place where something can happen, not as a kind of monument standing on its own, but as a screen’’. Brian Eno, Sunday Arts, 31 May 2009 In 2004, Knox was chosen to participate in the Next Wave Festival because it is located in the physical centre of Metropolitan Melbourne’s urban expanse. Colliding Worlds was about young people and a sense of belonging in the world. New media artist Pip Shea conducted a series of art workshops with young people who produced the images for a light based work. Knox City Shopping Centre supported with the site for the final works and studio space. Projected onto the front of the shopping centre, the developed artworks were viewed by an audience of tens of thousands of motorists on their way home in evening peak hour traffic along Burwood Highway. Part of Sean Loughrey’s work (see Rembrandt’s) occupied the temporal and spatial notion of adverting space in a bus stop on Burwood Highway. Sub u Civ rban ic Spa ces The naming of place traces the history of locale and the appropriation of the name Knox City (kc) by the Knox City Shopping Centre displaces Knox Council (kc) from the centre of the City of Knox metaphorically, spatially and notionally. Knox Central (kc) is an area the size of Melbourne cbd and the public realm at the centre of this idea is an empty flooding space with an island of protected indigenous flora as the site of this temporary installation. Knox Central Urban Design Framework Street and Ozone, Knox City Shopping Centre in the closest simulation of an urban environment in Knox to celebrate the opening of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. These new commissions introduce an aerosol art program within the context of a comprehensive vandalism prevention program. The underpasses lend themselves to legal street art projects that make an audience of walkers, joggers, skaters and cyclists. Local communities can be involved in a process that essentially and simultaneously extends peoples understanding of art and creates something provocative and beautiful from crude infrastructure. The career of street artists is a dynamic one and artists involved in the program over a number of years progress to larger projects and commissions and receive peer recognition in publications both virtual and hardcopy. The DabsMyla murals have the theme of life, death and reincarnation. Inspired by the deaths of some close friends, it could also relate to the life cycle of street art. 9. Lewis Park in flood. Photograph by Anthony McInneny 10. Landscapewallpaper, Jillian Allan RMIT Public Art, Retarding Basin, Collage 2008 11.Park Park, Anthony McInneny. Collage 2008 12. Mark Hocking plan 13. Nick Pratt 14. KCKCKC, Anthony McInneny, Lewis Park Retarding Basin, Re appropriated Officeworks sign, 1.2m x 2.3m x 0.3m. 2009. Photograph by Anthony McInneny 15. Love Me While You Can, DabsMyla, Lewis Road Underpass, Blind Creek Retarding Basin, Knox Central 2009 Photograph by Anthony McInneny Knox City Shopping Centre “Identity and relations lie at the heart of all the spatial arrangements classically studied in anthropology” Marc Auge, Non-places. Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity Global shopping centres have been described by French anthropologist Marc Auge as a non-place, a place without history, relations or identity. The idea of a non-place is contested with the opening up of the big box shopping centre and the interface of this regulated and surveyed space with civic and publicly owned recreational spaces such as a retarding basin. The naming of streets formerly designated that to which it led or after a person or event of collective significance – Station Street, Market street, Victoria Street, Kings Way, Federation Square – but the streets and localities of the shopping centre are named after that which it surrogates – Melbourne Street, Capital City Boulevard and Ozone. Ozone is an outdoor dining area embraced as the place of public gathering in Knox Central. Party Pacifica Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games Opening Knox Shopping Centre/Ozone Creative Producer Caroline Stacey Sporting Heroes photography by Andrew Chapman Knox Commonwealth Choir Director Belinda Gillam Creative Producer Caroline Stacey created and directed three projects – Sporting Heroes, Commonwealth Choir and Party Pacifica - that culminated in an event that would rival the celebrations at the Melbourne Federation Square. Award winning photo journalist Andrew Chapman created 30 community portraits and Belinda Gillam arranged and directed a 200 voice strong community choir. On a Wednesday evening, 6000 people gathered at the junction of the appropriately named Melbourne 18. Find Me, Janelle M Pani projection, Knox City Shopping Centre, Bus Terminal, Burwood Highway, Wantirna South Photograph by Pip Shea, 2004 19. Eight Crosses, Eight Windows (Possible Things Project 3), Sean Loughrey, Burwood Highway, digital print in AdShell, 1.8m x 1.2m 2009. Photograph by Anthony McInneny Rembrandt’s The triangular land that Rembrandt’s sits upon is identified in the Knox Central Urban Design Framework as a key redevelopment site, the location for a ‘feature form’: a building of significance in the creation of a new urban form for Knox Central. The importance attached to this site stems not only form its strategic proximity to the expanding Shopping Centre and the considered civic cultural precinct, but also its physical position as a ‘gateway, to Knox Central and for its historic relevance to the community. Situated at the high point of Knox Central, the architectural referencing of Rembrandt’s Entertainment Centre is a pastiche of French architecture and Dutch fine art mixed with a vaudeville tradition. In the absence of a city centre, Rembrandt’s was in many ways the popular cultural venue, place of public ceremony and urban amenity for the eastern suburbs for 30 years. Rembrandt’s: 9 Installation Rembrandt’s Entertainment Centre Burwood Highway, Wantirna South Curated by Anthony McInneny and Simon Whibley November, 2009 “…the curators dispersed the artworks in a manner that encouraged exploration of the whole venue…the hide-and-seek curation and the unnerving inhabited-by-a-ghost museum experience was exploited…” Architecture Australia review, March-April 2009 Artists and architects created nine installations in this disused 1970s reception centre as part of a public farewell to this iconic form. A partnership project with RMIT Design Research Institute (Urban Liveability) Knox City Council and the Department of Planning and Community Development. Antarctica’s project focuses on the back of house, the intriguing behind the scenes spaces that are without decoration, spatially determined by function and fairly ordinary. This work jams the space: making it unworkable, burying its functionality and splitting the space. Golden Memories draws on the palpable sense of cultural preservation that exists within the abandoned shell of this once hotspot of suburban celebration. Untitled activates the anticipatory space of the now inactive site. The dining tables set and prepared for the next event echoes the ethos of Rembrandt’s. A solo waiter unsets the tables, performing the actions in revere. Played in ‘forward’ motion the beginning is the end, a final dissembling of Rembrandt’s. This series of emblematic crosses are seen as heraldic signs. The building is seen as an object in the world, like any other object. Heraldry defines an historical element of suburban life – groups of people under one banner, whether it is family groups at weddings or sports clubs at the match. Rembrandt’s Triangle Antarctica was engaged in an interesting proposition. How, outside statutory authority might Council inform and influence the development of a key site in Knox Central that they do not own? Antarctica developed a land use and preferred design form for the site to assist Council to simply generate discussion around ideas with potential developers of the site. The design was underpinned by research into the economic feasibility of the proposed land use and reinvents the site of the former entertainment centre as a work, residential and recreational hub. 20. Rembrandt’s Burwood Highway sign. Photo: Anthony McInneny 21. Eight Crosses, Eight Windows (Possible Things Project 3), Sean Loughrey, Rembrandts Façade. Photograph by Nobuo Omichi 22. Diamond Drape, Antarctica, represented by Simon Whibley, MDR Board, Tape, paint and steel rod, Kitchen. Photograph by Nobuo Omichi 23. Standing in the Shadow of the Shaman, Sanné Mestrom, Liquor store room, Rembrandt’s. Photograph by Nobuo Omichi 24. Golden Memories, Workshop Architecture, represented by James Straughton, Foam core board, glue, tape and paint, various dimensions. Photograph by Nobuo Omichi 25. Untitled Video, Sally Mannall, video performance screened onto Rembrandt’s Stage. Photograph by Nobuo Omichi 26. Rembrandt’s Triangle. Potential form for discussion with prospective land developer. Antarctica Civic Precinct The existing civic buildings in Knox Central consist of civic offices and meeting spaces and regional library headquarters. Built in the 1970s and burnt to the slab in the 1990s, the ‘new’ civic offices were literally built on the old foundations. The Civic Offices are considered a key part of the Civic and Cultural precinct that is intended to interface with open public space and mixed-use development. 1 10 PumPuP The ubiquitous advertising inflatable of most suburban bulk goods and car sale yard precinct has its origins in the works of the 1960s within the idea of portable/collapsible architecture. The ignoble end to an inspiring idea is the basis of PumPuP. Award winning sculptors Christopher Langston and Sarah Givins were engaged through the Arts Victoria, Artist Development grant, to engage with young artists in the development of a series of inflatable sculptures. This project engaged young people with the idea of scale and impact within a visually congested urban landscape and the subversive nature of instantaneous art. Weapons of Mass Distraction was inspired by the propaganda that justified the second War on Iraq. Young artist involved in PumPuP wanted to use the notions of advertising props and the actual use of inflatable forms in war (inflatable tanks and people as decoy and ploy) to get a message out to decision makers. Clown in a Toaster presents a sinister take on the idea of festival and the interior of Invasion is an immersive environment for the deposit of messages from/to another world. 29 11 30 2 20 Christopher Langton and Sara Givins, 27. Weapon of Mass Distraction & 28. Invasion, inflatable sculptures, variable dimensions, various Civic locations, 2006. Photographs by Anthony McInneny 12 Sk8park 12 “In spatial-architectural terms, the modernist space of suburbia was appropriated and re-conceived as another kind of space, as a concrete wave; second nature was returned to first nature” Iain Borden. Body Architecture. Skateboarding and the Creation of Superarchitectural Space. Occupying Architecture 1998. 31 3 32 Skate parks are now the common “youth” public space constructed throughout Metropolitan Melbourne generally on the fringes of suburbs. In 2006, Knox City Council developed a commissioning process with RMIT University Master of Art, (MA) Art in Public Space candidates and alumni to develop concepts for a newly to be constructed skate park and treat this as a public artwork in itself. A final work was installed in 2009. Image Vending Machine acknowledges that skate culture pre empted user generated, media based social networking as the basis of his proposal to hand over scientific/military photographic technology to the producer as an augmentation of what they already do. 21 13 33 4 Sk8board is art infrastructure. A season of works changes the skin of this billboard quarterly. Claire McCracken lead the first project for Sk8Board involve over 300 year ten students in a design project about fair wear and sustainability. Karen’s original image for this project is a historic photograph of a young boy, now in his 80’s, standing atop and riding a cow in the exact location of the skatepark. This site of the skate park was formerly a dairy farm. 22 14 34 29. Image Vending Machine Trials, Timothy Ryan, Riverslide Skate Park, Melbourne, 2007. Photograph by Anthony McInneny 30. Image Vending Machine, Timothy Ryan, Research for a responsive environment at a skate park, Knox Central. High speed cameras and digital download 2006-2008 31. Sk8Board public art platform. Concept by Karen Abernethy. Feature, Sneaker by Adam Kollwitz, 7m X 3m. Knox Regional Skate and BMX Park, Knoxfield 2009 32. Ken Gilbert c.1945. Gilbert Park Reserve site. Photographer unknown 23 15 5 35 33. RMIT Upper pool Architecture students. Portable Architecture Studio Lead by Graham Crist. Knox Regional Skate and BMX Park used as one of four sites for the location of proposals 24 Green Circuit Antarctica prepared the design for a new pedestrian link between the Knox City Shopping Centre transport hub and Swinburne University. This project grew through community consultation to eventually combine Swinburne University, Villa Maria Aged Care and Wantirna South Primary in a proposal for a new community hub and gardens, on a new recreational walking/jogging circuit. The project is awaiting Creating Better Places funding confirmation. 6 Swinburne University is home to the National Centre for Sustainability, which opened in 2008 16 34, 35 & 36. Representations of Green Circuit. Planters, entrance to Swinburne Tafe Wantirna Campus and the neighbourhood circuit. Antarctica 25 36 Lux The success of Colliding Worlds prompted an investigation into permanent light works that materialized in a satellite shopping centre in Boronia built in the 1970s and undergoing urban renewal. 7 Lux is a public art platform consisting of 7 designed light boxes and is situated in Cinema Lane Boronia. This platform is urban infrastructure for artists and the community to exchange ideas through visual art about place. Commissioned works involve young people and professional artist with an emphasis on contemporary art practice and lens based works. 17 26 Oscar is a Columbian architect and artist who was invited to investigate the outer suburb of Boronia. Like many people who visit Australia, the dominance of the car is overwhelming. Oscar has photographed damaged and discarded parts of this essential product. The ironic images create a highly sensual and desirable yet ultimately useless product. Stencil was the first project for Lux. An artist in schools project supported by Arts Victoria and lead by artist Pip Shea who worked with 30 students on stencil based works. 37 8 37. Part a Part, Oscar Perilla. Digital Print 2009 Lux series 38. Stencilled, inaugural works for Lux, Lead artist Pip Shea & year 10 students from Boronia Heights Secondary College, 2008 Anthony McInneny. RMIT School of Art Studio Leader and Coordinator. RMIT Public Art [email protected] Anthony is an artist, arts administrator and educator. He has been extensively involved in the development of the studio practice of RMIT Public Art. He has lead numerous projects with interventions in public spaces. He is also the Coordinator of Cultural Development, City of Knox. 38 18 27 9 Simon Whibley. RMIT School of Architecture and Design Lecturer and Practicing Architect, Architecture Program [email protected] Simon Whibley has been a lecturer in the RMIT Architecture Program since 2004 and is a practicing architect. He has worked in architectural practice since 1997 before forming Antarctica, a multidisciplinary architecture and design practice in 2005. 19 28