interdisciplinary

Building Tomorrow – Lessons from the Intersection of Architecture and Technology

/ fionay27 / Leave a comment

Integrative briefing blurs boundaries within and across domains, whether spatial, organisational, or professional. This requires new ways of working, and processes and tools for communication and collaboration toward a common language. Coming from a background of traditional architectural practice and now working in the technology sector, Nick Caravella reflects on what he’s learnt in his quest for interoperability to bridge and improve the process of design and construction.

Image source: Avicado

There’s an inherent charm to the arrival of a New Year—a time for reflection as one year concludes and another unfolds, offering an opportunity to trace one’s path. Four years ago (2020), I found myself contributing to the Practice of Architecture. Freshly pivoted from traditional practice into the technology sector, I was eager to share the insights gained from this shift. Two articles, Why Tech Stole ‘Architect and An Architect’s Guide to Anything but Architecture chronicled my journey from traditional practice to the construction technology sector.

Continue reading →

Redesigning for all of Life

/ fionay27 / Leave a comment

“Bucky” as Buckminster Fuller was known, was a renowned futurist, inventor, architect, systems thinker, and designer. He encouraged radical innovation that supports whole systems design-thinking. In our final guest blog of the year, Climate and Sustainability Leader Barbara Merz puts out a call to action to activate a lineage of interdisciplinary design-thinkers committed to extending Fuller’s lifetime endeavor to make the world work for all of life.

Having led global campaigns to address climate and sustainability around the world, my work has meant that I have witnessed over-and-over the horrors of sudden climate shifts. Compounding disasters reveal chronic deficiencies in disaster preparedness coupled with deficient design for a rapidly evolving planet.

Continue reading →

What’s the problem? Getting to the heart of the issue through strategic design

/ fionay27 / Leave a comment

MADE by the Opera House, also known as the Multidisciplinary Australian Danish Exchange, is an Australian-Danish exchange program that is offered to Australian and Danish students of architecture, engineering and design (in the built environment). Between 2014-2023, each year five students from a NSW university and five students from a Danish tertiary institution participated in the program in Denmark and Australia respectively. This year, for the first time, a student from the field of Strategic Design was part of the program. Isac Lindberg reflects on the MADE experience as a collaboration across disciplines and on the role of strategic thinking to get to the heart of the problem to be solved.

In late August, I found myself presenting in the Utzon Room at the Sydney Opera House. As part of the Sydney Opera House MADE program, I had just completed a six-week interdisciplinary exchange where I collaborated with four other students from different Danish universities who specialised in architecture, engineering, and design. Despite the obstacles of working as a group of initially, complete strangers, this experience highlighted the significance of interdisciplinary collaboration and how our diverse skills and ideas played a vital role in shaping our proposal for the Opera House’s Central Passage.

Continue reading →