- Is the founder of Fehlberg Park, a small collaborative studio operating across a number of project and research based practices within the field landscape and architecture.
He is a PhD candidate within the University of Queensland's School of Architecture investigating the production of landscape and environment in the global cities of the Asia Pacific region.edit
Focused on the relationship between architecture and the broader forces that contextualise it, Re¬sidual Operations has introduced students to the idea of context in an etymological sense: that is, the weaving together of different... more
Focused on the relationship between architecture and the broader forces that contextualise it, Re¬sidual Operations has introduced students to the idea of context in an etymological sense: that is, the weaving together of different conditions, fac¬tors or elements that may have social, economic or political influence. If we think of the city as a context, it is the interweaving of these non-phys¬ical factors that shapes the city as a physical condition. In an Albertian sense, if the city can be read as architecture and architecture as the city, then these conditions must also directly influence the building of architecture as a physical form.
Operating on a super system of interlinked network infrastructures, cities are now shaped more by the flow of goods, services, information and resources - together with the containment capital - than by any idealised notion of architec¬tural design. Largely determined by the econo¬mist, logistician, planner and civil engineer, such systems have developed either in separation to, and often in conflict with, the historical forms of the city, or have seen the city’s replacement as a historical form entirely. Either way, the city and its surrounds have become a landscape without bounds or limits: infinitely complex and ever-more sprawling from its centre.
It is within this context that we, as architects, are increasingly faced with only two modes of operation: to simply see architecture as the indif¬ferent byproduct of these influences or instead as a practice that can respond to, critique and subvert the contextual conditions from which the profession stems.
As such, the studio centered on the initial staging of a hypothetical cross-river expansion of the University of Queensland’s St Lucia Campus into neighboring southern suburbs, comprising of a recreational gymnasium, waste water recycling facility and chilled water thermal energy storage plant. The work investigated how such infrastructures could both allow for future densification and also subvert it by preserving existing public space and parkland.
This included:
The Territorial:
Terrain Vague - The design of residual territories operating outside of the productive structures of the network city.
The Formal:
Interstructural Artifact - The transformation of infrastructural systems into autonomous and civic architectural forms.
The Functional:
Programmatic Composition - Conditioning spatial tension via the co-location of distinct and diverse programmatic typologies.
Twenty-six projects have emerged testing how architecture can be used as a formal tool to reestablish a dialogue between infrastructure, program, landscape, and the city and its context. More importantly, the projects also acknowledge the broadened scope that architecture must engage with to ensure its relevance as a critical practice.
Operating on a super system of interlinked network infrastructures, cities are now shaped more by the flow of goods, services, information and resources - together with the containment capital - than by any idealised notion of architec¬tural design. Largely determined by the econo¬mist, logistician, planner and civil engineer, such systems have developed either in separation to, and often in conflict with, the historical forms of the city, or have seen the city’s replacement as a historical form entirely. Either way, the city and its surrounds have become a landscape without bounds or limits: infinitely complex and ever-more sprawling from its centre.
It is within this context that we, as architects, are increasingly faced with only two modes of operation: to simply see architecture as the indif¬ferent byproduct of these influences or instead as a practice that can respond to, critique and subvert the contextual conditions from which the profession stems.
As such, the studio centered on the initial staging of a hypothetical cross-river expansion of the University of Queensland’s St Lucia Campus into neighboring southern suburbs, comprising of a recreational gymnasium, waste water recycling facility and chilled water thermal energy storage plant. The work investigated how such infrastructures could both allow for future densification and also subvert it by preserving existing public space and parkland.
This included:
The Territorial:
Terrain Vague - The design of residual territories operating outside of the productive structures of the network city.
The Formal:
Interstructural Artifact - The transformation of infrastructural systems into autonomous and civic architectural forms.
The Functional:
Programmatic Composition - Conditioning spatial tension via the co-location of distinct and diverse programmatic typologies.
Twenty-six projects have emerged testing how architecture can be used as a formal tool to reestablish a dialogue between infrastructure, program, landscape, and the city and its context. More importantly, the projects also acknowledge the broadened scope that architecture must engage with to ensure its relevance as a critical practice.
Research Interests:
Greenways are as diverse in their contemporary forms as the geographical regions they sample. Within an Australian urban context this paper will outline how greenways have added to their culturally focussed intentions of recreation and... more
Greenways are as diverse in their contemporary forms as the geographical regions they sample. Within an Australian urban context this paper will outline how greenways have added to their culturally focussed intentions of recreation and active transport (Little, 1995; Walmsley, 1995) and could now be described as ‘green infrastructure’. Described by Benedict & McMahon (2006) as essential and life-supporting, Australian green infrastructure follows Europe’s lead (Jongman, Külvik, & Kristiansen, 2004) expanding the greenway remit to include vital hydrological functions (Ahern, 2007), the provision of valuable ecosystem services (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005) and a range of essential ecological benefits for urban regions across multiple scales. This paper begins by reviewing Sydney’s open space and greenway history, policy and planning and culminates with a detailed study of its most recent greenway proposal, the Sydney Green Grid (Schaffer, 2015). As a multi-functional green infrastructure this city-wide framework aims to create a strategic open space network; to reinforce sense of place between citizens and landscape; and to promote multifunctional environmental, health, social and economic benefits. A series of drawings then explored one strand of this network, the Mountains to the Sea greenway where the shift from large (city) to small (neighbourhood) scale was explored in detail, revealing a potential green infrastructure that offered a spectrum of critical ecological, hydrological, cultural and transportation benefits. However, it also revealed the existing complexities in implementing such a scheme in the contemporary city. This paper argues that it is both timely and relevant that greenways be considered and reframed as essential ‘green infrastructure’, however that such networks must also be interrogated through mapping and design methods such as those demonstrated herein in order to facilitate their implementation and adoption.