Call for submissions: OTHER SPACES for Melbourne Design Week 2022

This event is part of Melbourne Design Week 2022, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria.

About the exhibition

The architecture theorist Ignasi de Solà-Morales describes the concept of “terrain vague” as, “external places, strange places left outside the city’s effective circuits and productive structures,” these spaces include, “industrial areas, railway stations, ports, unsafe residential neighborhoods, and contaminated places...where the city is no longer.”

Other Spaces is a virtual exhibition that explores the potential of terrain vague—or urban wastelands—within our cities. This exhibition will gather ideas, proposals, and critiques which look specifically at temporary interventions to activate or make use of urban wastelands. The exhibition intends to question the life cycle and future of our urban environments, prompting further discussion within the discourse.

The exhibition will look to curate a sample of proposals, built and hypothetical, that address this issue on both a local and international scale. This exhibition will give designers, architects, artists, urban planners and thinkers a forum to present ideas and propositions for the future of urban wastelands.

The virtual exhibition will be live for the entire duration of Melbourne Design Week, March 17–27, 2022.

Call out

Other Spaces is calling for contributors to submit material which explores the opportunities of terrain vague as a consequence of our fluctuating urban environments.

Solà-Morales’ term terrain vague can be translated in English as urban wastelands. This is not a new concept, and it is not localised—it is a global phenomenon, which often occurs as a result of the expansion and contraction of our cities. Due to fluctuating political, social, and economic conditions, our cities exist in a constant state of physical transformation. As such, terrain vague is shaped by the structures of our cities, while it also presents us with the residue of a moment in time. This global phenomenon results in a trail of inequalities but also possibilities for recycling, reusing, rewilding and reactivating. Our cities are littered with underutilised spaces which have the potential to become urban platforms for temporary interventions—politically, environmentally, and socially activating our communities, and connecting these spaces back to the city and its people.

Temporary activation of space has the power to build social interaction and connection with place, while experimenting with ideas for the future use of land.

The exhibition looks to raise the following questions, among others;

–How can we enrich our cities through the utilisation of terrain vague as urban platforms for temporary experimentation?

–What does the utilisation of these spaces look like?

–How can we reuse, recycle, and utilise terrain vague spaces, and how do we embed this methodology into the existing structures of our built environment?

–What role can infrastructure and systems play in reconnecting these spaces to their surroundings?

–What is the role of the developer?

–What is the role of the government?

–What is the role of the public?

–What is the role of the individual?

–Can temporary interventions lead to permanent solutions?

Submit your proposals

What could we do with these spaces?

We want you to submit your ideas, propositions and past projects for temporary interventions in urban wastelands, to better connect the social and urban fabrics of our cities under the following categories; architecture, landscape, ecology, and art.

Submissions for this exhibition can take the form of design proposals, critical insights, practical solutions, and speculative provocations for the future and life cycle of urban wastelands. We are looking for a wide range of innovative, imaginative, and inventive ideas.

There are two ways to submit either image based or a short written response, head to otherspacesexhibition.com for more details and to submit your proposal.

This exhibition is curated by Amy Evans.