gleadell street studio

Project Description

The Gleadell Street Studio will challenge students to develop both their community co-design capacities and spatial design skills through working with local stakeholders in constructing a robust vision for the Gleadell Street site in Richmond (inner-city Melbourne). This work will include engagement with agencies and institutions as well as diverse community members and take a place-based and applied approach to urban planning and co-design processes.

The Gleadell Street area reflects Richmond’s diverse origins and histories, from pre-colonial Wurundjeri histories, to the working class and industrial ‘Struggletown’ period and, now, to its identity as a multicultural, thriving inner-city neighbourhood. Many know this street for its a weekly street market, which dates back to 1873. Residents of Richmond – old-time shoppers and the newcomers alike – continue to “meet at the market” and the immediate area has various other important amenities: two schools (the-new Richmond High School, opened in 2017, and the Lynall Hall Community School), a multicultural daycare centre, a recreation centre, a church and Citizen’s Park. Gleadell Street sits at the heart of the City of Yarra’s Civic Precinct plans and the City of Yarra is in the process of defining immediate (e.g. 2020-2021 budget year) design directions for the precinct.

Learning Methodology

This Studio will work with the Let’s Enhance Gleadell Street (LEGS) Association, Council and other key stakeholders to comprehensively understanding the ways people use the area and their aspirations for the long-term vision for the precinct. This would support and augment Council’s community engagement and design activities in 2020. The key objectives of the Studio are to:
• Create a community vision for the Street that can inform the City of Yarra and the Victorian State Government for community building and capital investments in the area.
• Demonstrate how Gleadell Street can be ‘activated’ socially, using Market and non-Market pop-up events and outlining opportunities for casual lingering, encounter, learning, and celebration for an increasingly dense and diverse population.
• Empower the diverse Richmond community through active, playful and creative participation in place making.

How does this studio match PlaceAgency Objectives?

This studio will be both a capstone MUP studio and a PlaceAgency-funded Sandbox Studio, incorporating teaching/learning around core place-making competencies.