Architecture is not just focused on physical design, but on the imagination and invention of new relationships between the built environment, economy and culture. To have any agency in the world as a generator of new realities, architects must learn to navigate the complexities and contradictions that come with the network of desires that stakeholders bring to bear on a project’s outcome.
The Culturepreneur studio began on two distinct research paths: firstly, students sought out ‘latent desires’ by analysing the diverse ways people inhabit the water’s edge in unconventional ways. Using Manly as a fertile ground for experimentation, students learnt to understand these unconventional forms of occupation as a type of urban agency, unpacking the tacit knowledge and latent desires embedded in these acts.
Next, students diagrammatically examined emerging business models, such as social entrepreneurship, creative startups, place-makers and pop-ups, to understand how non-conventional ideas navigate financial, political and market-based constraints to become a living reality.
