Thirteen Master of Architecture students from The University of Queensland are about to embark on an incredible journey, delving into the world of Architectural Ethnography – a design practice that investigates the living conditions of people.
The students will travel across the globe to Venice to participate in a workshop in the Japan Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition.
School of Architecture Adjunct Professor Momoyo Kaijima from internationally renowned architecture practice Atelier Bow-Wow, was selected as a curator of the pavilion.
“The exhibition is an extension of a project I have been working on since the late 1990s. I have conducted field work and observations to record people’s lives and the reality of cities, often published in the form of a guidebook compiling resultant architectural drawings”.
The pavilion will showcase a collection of drawings, including forty-two works from all over the world, from the past twenty years.
The works range from design specifications and spatial activity charts to maps of urban hybrids.
School of Architecture Senior Lecturer Andrew Wilson said it would also include large studies of rural farming and fishing villages following natural disasters.
“The students will contribute to the pavilion and produce ‘public drawings’, which in turn will provide them with strong foundations of research methodology, drawing techniques, and conceptual frameworks.”
He said their research focus would be on the Biennale, where they will look into the behaviour of their visitors in the spaces of the Giardini Della Biennale, the actor-network relations that gravitate around the Pavilions, and the use that the Biennale makes of public space in Venice.
Students will spend the next month of weekly classes preparing for their workshops, before their departure in August.
