LOCATION Centenary Road, Newcastle, Australia
CATEGORY IS adaptive reuse, artist studios
TIMEFRAME 8 months
USERS 40 creatives (approx)
BUILDING SIZE 3,100m2
The thesis begins by attempting to understand the concept of creativity, especially the mental process behind creative thinking, and what role the built environment can play in that. However as I started to synthesis my research within the greater context of Newcastle, I found a much more pressing and relevant issue, namely the recent decline of the Renew Newcastle urban renewal program, and its displaced local creative community.
These people who are responsible for so much of the revitalization of our CBD over the last ten years, are now the potential victims of their own success. The program guaranteed them cheap short term leases, which set the stage for a creative explosion with Newcastle, and without it this could arguable lead to a lot less vitality within our city.
So my project pivoted towards taking the Renew Newcastle community as my target audience, and discovering their problems, solutions, successes of the program, and translating that into an architectural form.
