Venice Biennale: +41-41
Progress: Completed 2010
Project Team: Fiona Dunin, Alex Peck, Andrew Simpson
Design is an act of wilful optimism – a speculation on future possibilities. The difficulty for those operating in the realm of architecture and urban design is the extended span of time between vision and realisation. Our proposal begins with the question: can we look 41 years past to see 41 years into the future? 1968 was described by Time Magazine as, “the year that split the past from the future”: a fulcrum in our history marked by the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy; the turning of opinion against the Vietnam War; the Apollo program to land a man on the moon; and the student riots of Europe and North America. The late sixties also began to see community reflection upon urban renewal policies – also acts of wilful optimism – that had led to much of our large scale road infrastructure and the destruction of some of the historic fabric of our Australian cities.
Today we are witnesses to the continued reverberations of September 11 and the War on Terror, the Global Financial Crisis, mass immigration and the onset of climate change. Our cities face a range of challenges: from water shortage, urban sprawl and lack of affordable housing, to bushfires. By 2050 we may well reflect on the current times as a pivotal historical period that paralleled the late 60’s.
Our proposal seeks to trace a trajectory from 1968 to 2009 and project beyond to 2050. We are interested in: how ideas recycle and morph over time; the processes of addition and subtraction to the landscape of our Australian cities; the evolving symbiosis between contemporary culture, politics, design and architecture; and the oscillating network of disciplines and concepts that drive change to our built environment.​
The “design” is a synthesis of analysis, speculation and cautionary argument that echoes the complexities and contradictions of the city fabric of Melbourne. Spanning a century in time, this animated three-dimensional lattice conveys Melbourne’s shifting urban patterns of use, subdivision, densification, and in some instances contraction. The fractal geometry demonstrates the spatial and temporal interconnection of our city’s morphology.
Inscribed into this geometry are a set of key themes. These are perversely titled:
Arkley’s Backyard – the extent of open space in suburban allotments
Pasteurised Culture – the effects of mass communication and globalising technologies
Overweight Sport – the counterpoint between sport as mass entertainment and lifestyle choice
A to B – modes of transport
Dig Lazurus Dig – the tension between resource consumption and environmental degradation
Sanitary Politics – the effect of risk aversion within our political
landscape
One for the Country – population growth
CO2 – climate change
These themes shift in proportion across time, relative to their projected influence. Rather than proposing a definite design solution, the animation is intended to reflect these themes as a provocative visual question: one that expands and evolves over time. We are intrigued by the idea that widespread change that is sometimes perceived as visionary, can emerge incrementally at a discrete and localised urban scale. It is this latent potential of even these most diminutive of ideas that is the greatest cause for optimism.