UTS LArch - The Grounding Studio
The Grounding Studio (Nielsen Park, Sydney harbour) is a subject which teaches students elemental site analysis techniques, including mapping and drawing. The park challenges the notion of ‘national park’; surrounded by a highly urbanised environment, home to heritage architecture, one of the city’s most picturesque beaches and home to both native and ‘novel’ ecosystems. The students were given an open brief and tasked with the challenge of developing a design proposition and developing a concept that assessed site opportunities and constraints. The complexity of the site, its inherit beauty and the future it faces as part of city facing a doubling in population, climate change and limited funding were all issues the students had to consider. The studio operated as a twice weekly creative teaching environment, with students beginning the process of transition by exploring a suite a global parks that were considered to be examples of Urban National Parks.