Urbanheart surgery: expanding critical care to city development by linking local government authorities with postgraduate design studios

Very few urban interventions are the sole achievement of any one individual. Rather, they are the culmination of a complex interweave of many shared experiences, ranging from the ambitions and hesitations of different stakeholders and community groups, to the combined expertise of a large range of consultants. The following paper presents an interdisciplinary design studio program at the School of Architecture & Built Environment at Deakin University, referred to as the ‘Urbanheart Surgery’. This is an applied design-based research forum that attempts to facilitate a comprehensive landscape of ideation and decision-making by directly linking Local Governments and their aspirations with the teaching and learning objectives of a postgraduate studio program. The program actively integrates postgraduate students from the disciplines of Architecture, Urban Design, Landscape Architecture and Planning. Students spend the first weeks developing an informed interpretation of their assigned project area. Investigating the urban fabric of the project area, each group attempts to identify aspects of ‘genius loci’ and assess the morphology of the precinct(s) within the greater context of the city and the people who live, work, visit and pass through it. This interpretation or character profile enables them to identify the benefits and drawbacks of the precinct and its hinterland, not only from a physical standpoint, but also from cultural, social, environmental, economic and experiential perspectives. The studio immerses students within a design research culture that allows them to engage in critical discourse by working on strategic design projects in three areas critical to the State of Victoria’s future development: Metropolitan Urbanism, Urbanism on the Periphery and Regional Urbanism.