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I have been following Urban Islands over on BLDGBLOG over the past few weeks. The author of BLDGBLOG, Geoff Manaugh, was a studio leader this year and he has been updating his blog throughout. This year's studio centered around Cockatoo Island in Sydney: In under one week, students had to come up with design ideas that would explore the "spatial possibilities of Cockatoo's abandoned landscapes".
Recently, Geoff has started detailing some of the work that resulted from his studio and I am incredibly impressed with what his students have produced. It has squarely pointed out how desperately unimaginative and uncreative I have been when presenting my own personal projects.
Two projects in particular caught my attention; the first one by Tristan Davison plays on the “missing” buildings of Cockatoo. As Geoff puts: "One of the most conspicuous features of the island is that most of its historic buildings are missing but for a grid of iron nails on the ground framing their interior." During the week long studio Tristan Davison produced an entire board game which had players re-assemble the missing buildings of Cockatoo: "Players progress by strategically accumulating Action Cards and Building Cards, with the game concluding atop the island's central sandstone plateau".
I am really impressed by the ingenuity and talent on show in the production of this game. I have already seen games being created and used during public consultation for example, but none of them come close to the quality of this one.
The second project is one by Mitchell Bonus. As Geoff describes: "Tongue firmly in cheek, Mitchell has called for Sydney's apparently much-needed second airport to be built out on Cockatoo in the form of a solar-powered zeppelin field".
The project was presented by creating a series of laminated trading cards that were inserted into packets of crisps, cigarettes and breakfast cereal: "Viewers of his presentation were handed a bag, some cigarettes, or a cereal box and, as they opened up their personal booty, they found not just an edible lunchtime snack but a well-produced act of architectural speculation".
The idea was that "if you want to see a new building or project take shape, then you have to stop relying on design competitions, architecture blogs, or industry publications to get the word out – that is, you need to find another way to convince the public that your design should exist, making its material realization seem more like an afterthought".
I have been amazed by the delivery of these two projects and coincidentally, after having read BLDGBLOG, I attended a lecture by the industrial designer Anthony Lloyd from Studioplus in Brisbane. The subject of his lecture was branding and one of the key principles he outlined for creating, launching or relaunching a brand was to get people talking about it, to "create conversations". Both these projects would have been excellent examples in how to successfully launch a brand or in this case an architectural project. Hats off.
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