Australia-China joint studio exhibition
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Consonance in urban architecture: An exhibition of cross-cultural student projects.
This exhibition, by the School of Design, Creative Industries at Queensland University of Technology, shares the outcomes of the Australia–China joint design studio as an exemplar of an Asia–Pacific collaboration.
The challenge for contemporary architecture in both China and Australia is how to manage the rapid expansion of the urban centres while observing cultural and heritage issues of existing urban environments. Therefore, the design of new buildings requires a sophisticated approach to the analysis of the city, including the project site and its surrounding. In this regard, traditional approaches to urban morphology research can provide the methods for such analysis.
To test this predicament, a cross-institutional international design project was conducted in 2015 and 2017, engaging students of architecture from Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, and Shandong Jianzhu University and Chongqing University in China. The ambition for the project was for students to develop an urban design strategy for the site that considers the urban form of the precinct in relation to its specific context guided by an understanding and interpretation of urban morphology. Students from China visited and designed an urban renewal project in a historic area in Brisbane; and Australian students did the converse in Jinan, Shandong Province.
The exhibition will present the background to the sensitive historic precincts in both Jinan and Brisbane, and review the student design projects through analysis of how an urban morphological understanding contributed to the appropriateness of the architectural responses in relation to each contrasting, yet specific context.
