Symposium vacancy and preservation: Architecture of the post-industrial community

On 22 September 2017, the day-long symposium Vacancy and Preservation: Architecture of the post-industrial community was held at the National Wool Museum in Geelong, Australia. Supported by funding from Creative Victoria and City of Greater Geelong (CoGG), it consolidated the third phase of the #VacantGeelong research project led by a cross-faculty academic team from Deakin University: Dr. Mirjana Lozanovska, Dr. David Beyon, and Dr. Diego Fullaondo of the School of Architecture and Built Environment; and Dr. Cameron Bishop and Dr. Anne Scott Wilson of the School of Communication and Creative Arts. As described in the symposium publication: “The #VacantGeelong project is a creative exploration of Geelong’s industrial identity with a focus on the industrial landscape of vacated and vacant sites and facilities”.1 The symposium’s location — the National Wool Museum, itself a repurposed and renovated nineteenth-century bluestone wool store — was a particularly appropriate venue, given the focus on the vacancy and preservation of the host city’s industrial built forms following the recent closure of Ford manufacturing in Geelong (October 2016). The symposium consisted of two panel discussions and panellist position statements that prompted subsequent debates about the key issues underpinning industrial landscapes in Geelong, and regional areas more broadly.