Superorganism:

A Telescopic Perspective on Place

Supervisor: Dr Emma Jackson

Semester 2, 2019

 

Kempsey, 'The Worst Town in Australia', is located on the NSW Mid-North Coast, 4-hour drive North of Sydney. Superorganism is the reimagining of Kempsey's culturally important public swimming pool to include a Neutral Buoyancy Training for the Australian Space Agency, in the vision of a future Space City.

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It's a study on the introduction of new industry into an existing (conflict ridden) context as a vehicle for hope, in the pursuit of a new collective identity. Guided by a polemic of awkwardness, the scheme identifies the swimming pool as a pivotal battle ground in desegregation and decolonisation; suggesting that this might be one of the first facilities that our relatively new Space Agency should seek to build.

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In the pursuit of plurality within architecture, I have proposed the 'Star Code' as a new planning code requirement which states that sight lines to key celestial bodies must be preserved, thereby reinforcing and demanding an intrinsic connection to place. Superorganism re-orientates architecture to other points of relevance while intensely focusing on the people who live there. 

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The composition has been drawn in the cannon of Hayne's Repair and Service Manuals, harking back to the car culture of the NSW Mid-North coast, my own experiences while on field work, and ultimately the resourcefulness and resilience of the human spirit.

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