Site 8: Team X - THE CONCEPT

“I fall into the ocean..”

There is a lack of connection between the water and the ground plane. The shadows are reaching down to the waters edge and spilling out to the sea.

Hour by hour, we mark the shadow lines along the ground plane positioning the site within its context and laying down roots. Short observational films capturing sensory moments of these interfaces are embedded via QR codes along the lines.

A measure of time is created that also becomes a positioning device, operating as a net and a surface to record the collective voice. Instead of appealing to the question of ‘what do you want?’, we seek to appeal to the question of ‘how do you feel?’.

Get down on their knees in their business suits and write.

“excuse me, where can I get a good coffee around here?”

A chance encounter with a stranger passing though the site within minutes of us first arriving and the question ‘where can I get a good coffee around here’ had us stumped. The humbling search by this man for the warmth and familiarity that only a decent coffee can provide on a wintery Melbourne morning, hooked us to the site in a way that was otherwise missing.

Our intervention sought to break the rigidity of the space and float above the materiality creating a second skin to the site and allowing for the symbolic coffee cup to act as the vessel for a collective mass.

Pinched and folded, the ground elevates and creates a new dynamism and form. The cellular nature of this new topography allows an artful choreography of the cupped surface.

Flexible, raw, sustainable. A sinuous new material is introduced that generates an organic new skin. Warping and twisting off the horizontal plane, in real time on site, contrasting with the rigid and sharp architecture. A bulge in the ground plane was born.

This installation allows us to float above the horizontal plane, opening and revealing a new presence for this space within the imaginations of the people who use it most.

Lapping metres below and stretching beneath the concrete surface of the site, water defines the Docklands. Our installation seeks to bring the water onto the ground plane as opposed to being limited to a visual presence. Soil and water become a sequence of cells across our new skin, and bring a tactility and softness to the site otherwise starved of both.

An undulating skin of human scaled containers suspend the very matter that we felt was the most untouchable within the site. Soil and water. Planter beds and containerised trees float significantly above the pavement in almost every instance. The presence of soil on the site is symbolic of the future potential of the Docklands second generation.

A layer of seedlings is incised into the new skin, and bleeds onto the concrete. A playful transaction between residents and the installation is established by the taking of seedling cups. The domesticity of the herb, in this instance mint and parsley, is made portable, made permanent, and taken home. The object is renowned.