VENTUROUS DISCOURSE 01: Ideas in Practice

RMIT Professor Peter Corrigan described the Edmond and Corrigan designed RMIT Building 8 as “an attempt to think with architecture and to write those thoughts in architecture”.  Architectural design as a specific activity involves the development of design techniques and processes. Delivering a built project requires engagement with clients, stakeholders, briefs, budgets, while coordinating multiple consultants and responding to codes, regulations, site constraints, and countless other considerations. Projects must continue to develop despite incomplete information and constantly changing parameters. This is architectural design and it is neither a clear nor linear process.

The dynamic complexity of architectural design can create enduring tension within academic contexts where academic research values clarity, accuracy and well-defined questions. Architectural design often generates insight through ambiguity and iteration, with knowledge emerging through the act of designing itself, even when intentions, methods or rationales are still evolving. Architectural projects can also hold multiple propositions simultaneously.

While these distinctions may seem inconsequential to professional practice, they have significant implications for university research. They influence how architectural knowledge is defined, what forms of inquiry are recognised and valued, who educates future architects, and ultimately what is considered important for the discipline to develop.

The session will draw on the VENTUROUS exhibits and RMIT design practice research PhD dissertations of Carey Lyon (Design by Discourse), Michael Lavery (Engaging Objects), Michael Banney (Anecdotal Evidence), Mark Jacques (Interloping and its Consequences), and Leanne Zilka (Floppy Logic).

This VENTUROUS Discourse is proudly supported by our Major Sponsor The Naarm Architecture Foundation.

Director, Lyons architects, Melbourne & Professor of Architecture, School of Architecture & Urban Design, RMIT University, Melbourne

Director, Zilka Studio & Associate Dean, Research & Innovation, School of Architecture & Urban Design, RMIT University, Melbourne

Director, openwork, Melbourne & Professor of Architecture - Urbanism, School of Architecture & Urban Design, RMIT University, Melbourne

Director, m3 architecture, Brisbane

Director, m3 architecture, Brisbane

Convenor: Prof Roland Snooks
Thursday 10 September

Friday 18 September
All events are FREE and all are welcome!