Designing the future of an existing neighbourhood involves speculation, compassion, and empathy for the people who will one day call this place home.
By 2025, 15,000 residents and 5,000 workers are expected to live in and commute to Victoria Harbour, the Western part of Melbourne's city centre where Collins and Bourke Street meet near the water. What should this inner-city neighbourhood look and feel like? What should inspire its design?
To address this question, future ensemble studio partnered with property group Lendlease and RMIT University School of Design to run a studio with 18 postgraduate students from the Master of Design Innovation and Technology.
Inspired by Jan Gehl’s award-winning documentary The Human Scale, STUDIOKCA public art project Skyscraper and the Barcelona superblock model, the studio — dubbed Street Level — first explored the cultural dynamics that give an urban district its distinct identity.
Following up on this initial research, the studio then used a speculative design approach to project into the future and look at strategies for temporary or permanent activations of a street section.
The result is a series of interpretations and design concepts that help to illuminate the social, environmental and economic futures of an entire city block and streetscape in Melbourne’s West End.
Speculative design is not interested in creating new products, services or spaces for an uncertain future. Rather, it cultivates new ideas and ways of thinking. Perhaps in this case, it will usher in a more inclusive, sustainable and prosperous urban neighbourhood.
