Pedagogy 2025
Abstract
This paper presents what we call ‘a case study in conversations’ where a visit by an international scholar to the Melbourne School of Design is reframed as a critical spatial practice that reconfigured existing disciplinary relationships through constructing a ‘situation’. To reflect on the visit, this paper draws on Jane Rendell’s theorisation of ‘sites, situations and situatedness’; where to ‘situate’ is to position something in a particular place, a ‘situation’ – which is both spatial and temporal – is the location of something in space and the set of circumstances bounded in time, and situatedness which is being emplaced and engaged with the conditions of the situation. The paper illustrates how the visitor can be situated spatially, temporally and through curricula into the structure of the school without altering or displacing the existing to produce a different set of conversations and connections across programmes and year levels. Key aspects we discuss are the spatiality of the ‘situation’ which included an exhibition in a strategic place that facilitated and anchored conversations; the temporality of the ‘situation’ through its positioning in the teaching semester and temporal markers across the visiting week that tied-in to existing teaching events and schedules; and ‘situatedness’ in curricula across the architecture and landscape architecture programmes and transversally across year levels through engagement with research higher degree, masters and undergraduate students. We argue that the ‘construction of situations’ suggests a model of teaching in large design schools with potential to provoke critical awareness across programmes that are often hermetic and divided.
Dr Kelum Palipane is Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design at the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning, University of Melbourne. She uses ethnographic methods and the inscriptive practices of architecture to document and theorise unprogrammed place-making practices of multicultural communities. Underpinning her research are issues of subjectivity, social and spatial justice for subaltern/marginalised groups. She obtained her PhD by Creative Works from the University of Melbourne and teaches across the undergraduate and graduate programs.
Jane Wolff is Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto. She occupies a unique position as activist/creative research academic receiving recognition through multiple awards including the Margolese Prize (2022). Her ground-breaking work explores relationships between drawing and writing to develop landscape observation methods making them legible for a broad audience. Impactful publications include ‘Bay Lexicon’, a field guide that defines place-based language for the changing edge of San Francisco Bay (2021).
Pip Sparrius is an emerging architectural designer driven by a passion for fostering meaningful connections – between people, communities, and the hybrid landscapes we inhabit. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Design in the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning, University of Melbourne majoring in Architecture with a specialisation in Environmentally Sustainable Design.
Dr Fiona Johnson is a Landscape Architect with a background as a professional researcher, educator and academic. Fiona is Director and Studio Manager at Lucernal, a creative digital studio working across built and imagined environments, including architectural visualisation across multiple sectors, and more recently video game development. She has extensive teaching experience in contemporary theory, digital design, and representation for landscape architecture.
Sarah Kahn is an Architect and has worked at a variety of design-focused practices both in Melbourne and in London. She is currently an Education Fellow at the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning and maintains her own architectural practice in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. Alongside her professional practice, Sarah has taught a range of undergraduate architectural design studios at University of Melbourne.
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Thursday 20th November, 2025