public domain-engaging with people

In Search of a Suburban Domain designed by RMIT student Nicholas Stathopoulos is a hypothesis on an evolving social crisis in Melbourne’s middle and outer suburbs.

densification-housing and railing infrastructure

Melbourne’s suburbs continue to be labelled as a place of ‘soulless beings’, a product of spatial polarization that is recasting the landscape of our city. This major project aims at removing this label by bringing the event to the suburbs and providing families and individuals with an architecture that is symbolic, active and representational of a new beginning.

cross section of the public domain

In order to successfully form public domain, the proposal begins with a critique of the key source of the issue, the urban growth boundary, and repositions it to restrict development to a 30km radius of the city. In doing so we are forced to rethink unconventional sites for living in order to absorb the forecasted population and increase density to support and seed public activity.

cross programming-science museum look

The proposed architecture is intended to act as a catalyst that injects itself into an existing town centre and amplifies public activity through large scale entertainment and sports, as a way to intensify, bring together and restart the suburbs.

the street view 

This proposed architecture takes form of a stadium that amplifies and celebrates an existing sporting culture, and becomes fractured, inverted and manipulated to establish new relationships with its context. Within the stadium, additional programs are held to condense social activity.  A science museum (science being the core ingredient in developing the future society), a nightclub and bar, (the retreat from our machine like lifestyle), transportation hub (a tactic to engage with people through their mode of travel) and additional recreational, lifestyle and indeterminate spaces are included to expose individuals to familiar and unfamiliar behaviour.

the stage set-sporting and culture 

The intent of this major project is to remind us of the importance of the public sphere as it plays a crucial role in the formation of our future society. It reminds us that we are part of a collective whole. A place where our differences meet and our lifestyle choices, opinions and beliefs are questioned. A place where we are challenged to strengthen our personalities and identity. Without public domain we are reduced to a society of individuals. The public sphere is crucial to a healthy functioning democracy. A condition which is disappearing in a suburban context.

foreign object in the landscape

amplifying the presence of existing sport

the architecture forces an engagement

College Alinearcity

college-early section study

college -early vision of the scheme

early sketch study in plan

early sketch study in section

ending spawl-allowing the suburbia

All Images courtesy of Nicholas Stathopoulos

Project Facts

Student:Nicholas Stathopoulos

Project Title:‘In Search of a Suburban Domain’ RMIT University Major Project Design Thesis (Graduating Project)

Location:Melbourne, Australia

Award:Leon Van Schaik Medal (Peer selected) Best Major Project Design Thesis

Completion:June, 2014