This week we had a guest lecture from Martyn Hook, an alumni of the RMIT Master of Architecture and an RMIT staff. He began by listing three aspects of space he planned to cover: genius loci, city and legibility.
1. Genius Loci – the sense of place
Martyn discussed the concept of space versus place. He argued that various cues within a space dictate public behaviour – what you can and can’t do. These cues are determined by a number of elements within space, such as dimension, material and intent. These lead to the inhabitation of the space and consequentially the place’s program (or purpose, as I understand it to mean). Essentially, the activation of a space makes a place.
2. City – 1:1000 + 1:1
Martyn suggested we begin to think of the city as an ‘unfinished project’, something which is ongoing and large-scale. Furthermore, he used RMIT as an example of infrastructure built into the city or as part of the city, rather than a closed campus. In this way, streets can be seen as a network rather than simply a place/space. RMIT’s Bowen street is an example of this, as the general public are able to walk through the campus, hence facilitating a link between the university and the city.
3. Legibility – semiotics
Unfortunately Martyn was not able to talk about legibility due to time constraints.
The main thing I took away from this lecture was to view Storey Hall as part of the city rather than just part of RMIT. This will hopefully expand my ideas for creating my final assessment for the studio.
