Cockatoo Island is a smallish Island in the middle of Sydney Harbour. Having previously had various uses through the ages, both industrial and military it has fallen in parts into disrepair, and been reclaimed in others for, amongst other things, a cafe and some gallery space.

Students taking part are split into three studios, each run by an internationally renowned architect. This year the studios will be run by Geoff Manaugh (USA); Mette Ramsgard Thomsen (Denmark / UK), and Mark Smout (UK). Over the two weeks the studios will be formulating strategies and suggestions with the aim of "re-programming the site of Cockatoo Island into a vibrant cultural precinct"

There are various external events as well, for those not involved directly in the masterclasses. Tonight there is a Symposium as an introduction/start to the event, and tomorrow (14th July) and Next Tuesday (21st July) there are talks from the featured architects (find out more here).

The two week reach a climax on Saturday the 25th of July when the finished proposals and ideas are shown to the public on Cockatoo Island itself. More about the Review Day.

Design+Build is going to be covering the goings on that make up Urban Islands, so stay tuned for more as the week goes on.

The say that in comparison to Melbourne's great emphasis on entertainment (arts/culture and fine dining) there is very little in the way of quality retail. They propose four very interesting themed retail ideas to solve the problem.

Local is the name of the food themed suggestion. They envisage an inner-city building transformed to allow the growing of local produce. They see producers coming closer to the consumer, resulting in less transport costs, fresher food, and victory for all. From my experience living in Christchurch, being only minutes from somewhere you can buy fresh produce from the people growing it is wonderful. This sort of concept would be an excellent idea.

Format is a new concept for a music store, drawing from both the past and the future. The vision is of old-style listening booths (as those from the 50s and 60s) with the possibility of listening to any album/track/anything digitally. On having made your selection you would be given an option of how you want the songs provided, whether digitally, or physically. I think this is an awesome concept, somewhere I would love to shop.

A concept specifically for niche magazine and zines, Kiosk is seen as a small intimate space. There would be multiple small shops, with warm inviting interiors in order to enjoy and purchase these publications. This seems particularly suited to Melbourne.

London Store is a proposed concept for a large building in the heart of the city that will house a number of boutique international brands within it. I guess similar in a way to David Jones does things, but more exclusive.

I think certainly there are some ideas of this batch that are better than others (I love the idea of Format especially), but they are certainly worth more thought. What do you think?

What is especially interesting is the similarities in relevance to the design of websites and web applications. In this age of social networking websites are now meeting places, and some ways taking the place of the plazas and malls of the physical world. Many of the insights in this clip are hugely relevant to the design of websites.

Those responsible (including, somewhat unsurprisingly, Stefan Sagmeister) expected the work to be interacted with by people as the took coins, or simply moved them about. Apparently as one person was doing this, someone else reported them to the police for stealing it. The police decided it was in the best interests of everyone to "take" the piece for safekeeping.

There's a bunch of pictures on flickr to get the full impact of it all being put together. Its certainly an interesting concept, and was a lot of effort to put together.