Model ideas for small-scale living

Green magazine and car manufacturer Mini have collaborated on the creation of an exhibition of “thought-provoking ideas” for living in tight urban conditions.

Selected architecture practices from Australia and New Zealand and a group of RMIT Master of Architecture students were challenged to a home for a family of four on a site in Melbourne’s CBD, which measures only six by ten metres.

The architects and students created 1:20 models of their designs, which are exhibited at the subject site inside a “glasshouse” created for the exhibition.

A girl peering into the model by Edition Office.

A girl peering into the model by Edition Office.

Image: Courtesy Mini

The participating architects include Archiblox, Architecture Architecture, Austin Maynard Architects, Ben Callery, David Luck Architecture, David Vernon Architecture, Dreamer, Edition Office, Panovscott, Steffen Welsch Architects, Studio Edwards, Wolveridge Architects and Zen Architects.

Austin Maynard Architects’ design, for instance, proposes a series of prefabricated modules or “incremental building blocks” that could be added or subtracted from the building as the family evolves.

It features series of stepped modules and a slanted module on the ground marked “for grandma” and a crane that winches the car onto the top of the building.

The students’ designs were judged by Vanessa Bird, Victorian chapter president of the Australian Institute of Architects and Garry Ormston, principal architect of the City of Melbourne and RMIT senior lecturer Simon Whibley. Student Samuel Kakkoufas’s design was selected to be exhibited alongside the architects’ designs in the glasshouse.

A concurrent exhibition of the students’ designs is being held at the RMIT Design Hub.

Mini Living – Invert will be on display at the rear of the Greenco carpark at 200 Little Collins Street, Melbourne until 8 October 2017. Entrance is via Russell Place.

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