PaperSpace 2021
After a virtual exhibition in 2020, we reopened our doors for an in-person exhibition at the A+B Gallery at Geelong Waterfront Campus in 2021. This year's exhibition included an in-person event as well as a virtual experience. The exhibition showcased 55 pieces of work from our talented undergraduate and postgraduate students
Akari Nakai Kidd, acting Head of Discipline in Architecture praised the student’s talent and adaptability which allowed them to deliver such high-quality work at this year’s exhibition.
Akari said, 'These student projects respond to current community and society needs, and while the questions posed are wide and various, what is apparent is the sense of responsibility that the students carry as future architects in this moving, dynamic world'.
Explore the virtual exhibition
Paper(less)Space 2020
Presenting work from 69 students and driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s exhibition could be found in an online environment. The online exhibition featured student work on a series of ‘distanced’ cubes set within a triangulated landscape, referencing its recent history and connection with Federation Square.
Student work was largely organised into four key architectural themes including: addressing social, political and economic change, response to environmental and social sustainability, leverage the past to project in the face of an uncertain future, and architecture that responds to localised site characteristics and embracing values or place.
Keynote speakers James Loder (of internationally renowned John Wardle Architects), John Rollo (Deakin University Senior Lecturer) and Saifuddin Bin Ahmad (Deakin University’s 2020 Alumnus of the Year) introduced this year’s exhibition and student work. Following formalities, attendees had the opportunity to explore the virtual environment at their leisure.
‘Everybody’s had to make sacrifices this year and we just look at this as an opportunity to create something really unique and special I guess, to commemorate our last year,’ Amy Smith said, one of the students who presented their work in 2020.
PaperSpace 2019
The fragmented positioning of students displays of drawings, models and folios was an intentional component of the 2019 PaperSpace exhibition. The different directions and non-liner path through the exhibition was redolent of the contrasting directions being pursued by the students. These are not submissions, rather productions of work. Work with direction from the school, and each other, moving in fragmented directions toward innovative architecture.
More than 250 students, families, industry peers and the general public visited the PaperSpace 2019 exhibition that started in Melbourne’s Federation Square before moving to Geelong’s Deakin Waterfront campus. PaperSpace has again been hailed a great success.
An ambitious plan for the future of Geelong Railway Station by Masters Student Jarrod Argent was highlighted by local media along with a redesigned Cunningham Pier, Fyansford Paper Mill, Barwon River site and Phoenix Wool Scouring Works.
More than 100 guests attended the opening launch held on the 6 November at Federation Square and a never ending trail of visitors enjoyed the exhibition throughout its duration in both Melbourne and Geelong. This year’s exhibition curated more than 60 exceptional pieces of students work and showcased projects featuring local and international locations.
These works concretise a concern for understanding and character. They are presented as places and spaces of comprehensive engagement with social, political and environmental responsibility. There is a leadership quality to this – these works are propositions and invite engagement.
Professor Des Smith
Previous exhibitions
PaperSpace 2018
This year’s exhibition curated more than 60 exceptional pieces of work from undergraduate and postgraduate students and included drawings, models and folios. Works reflected innovative architecture to remedy loneliness, promote tourism and blend in with changing landscapes.
Master of Architecture student Melisa Santos explored how architecture can help combat loneliness in her project The Five Faces of Loneliness.
'Using an existing aged care facility in Melbourne’s northeast, this project aims to incorporate inter-generational programs for children and older adults to promote social interaction between the most lonely. This co-housing village would provide short-term care for children in out-of-home care and a permanent home for new retirees,' Melisa said.
Fellow student Charith Siriwardana submitted a redevelopment of Lake Colac in Victoria’s west, which includes a pool within the lake, a cable wakeboarding park and a redesign of the yacht club.
'It’s a really beautiful natural landscape, but there’s not a lot of architecture or design around the lake to help connect it with locals and visitors. I wanted to explore how architecture could reactivate a regional community, because there is a huge opportunity since thousands of people pass Colac on the way to the Great Ocean Road,' Charith said.
PaperSpace 2017
PaperSpace 2017 saw the grand designs of students on display at Federation Square during Melbourne Cup week before moving to the gallery at Deakin's Geelong Waterfront Campus from 14 to 24 November.
Deakin's Chair in Architecture Professor Des Smith explained the exhibition entitled 'PaperSpace takes the Stand', curated the work of 50 undergraduate and masters students, including drawings, models and folios.
'The students work examines how architecture might act politically and socially, how it might respond to its site and context, and how the putting together of building elements might enhance our experience of the world,' Professor Smith said.
The works ranged from designs for a disused Berlin factory converted into temporary refugee housing, to plans for a museum for shearing and wool in Western Victoria.
'We are bringing architecture back to the public, while celebrating the hard-work of our most talented students,' Professor Smith said.
PaperSpace 2016
PaperSpace2016 was on display at The Atrium, Federation Square from 31 October to 4 November 2016, followed by a Geelong exhibition from 8 to 18 November in the A+B Gallery.
Architect Michael Markham, who opened the exhibition, suggested that the work and intentions of the A+B students was becoming quite distinctive in an architectural world, where insulated self-identity is the norm. He suggested the work at PaperSpace 2016 be described as 'sober', meaning the works and authors were 'not drunk on their own ideas'.
PaperSpace 2015
Held in the atrium of Federation Square, the exhibition was formally opened by Sean Godsell, one of Australia's most internationally renowned architects. Using a football, talent and teamwork analogy, he discussed the students and their work in the context of architecture's cultural civic role.
