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.