In other exciting news - if you are in Australia, grab a copy of the latest Architecture Australia magazine. Page 37 has a great article written about Urban Islands penned by Marcus Trimble of Super Collosal. The photos featured with the article are all taken by yours truly. Very exciting.

The first studio to present was Geoff's and everyone was led into the dog-leg tunnel where the student's "tarot" cards had been strung up and displayed. The students then each had a short amount of time to present their project, and the item of evidence or paraphenalia they had produced to support it. The ideas were wide and varied, and the finished peices included fictional Playstation games, a Cockatoo Island board game, a light brewery and a snow globe from Cockatoo Island Space Center.

The floor was opened for discussion amongst the students, instructors and guests, and predominantly focused on the economics of the items that had been produced, being that most of them were imagined as commercial items.

Following the discussion, we moved further down the tunnel to the first of Mette's studio's installations. At the dog-leg of the tunnel the installation ran in one corner, a grey-silver organza fabric seeming to grow and flow organically into the dog-leg. Slightly motorised, it shook and shivered a little, breaking up the light and disorienting. The intention was for it be reminiscent of fog, ethereal and vaporous, at once solid and enclosing, but at the same time not there at all.

Continuing along the tunnel and walking along to the rooms near the large turbine room, we came across the other textile-based installations. Largish crowds of people gathered around the installations, wandering around and checking them out from different viewpoints. In the first room was an installation of silk, cut into strange patterns and strung up with wire to different points around the room. As we stood and watched the wires would be pulled, and the structure would gradually fall apart, shifting, tensing and releasing where it ripped.

The next room contained  an artificial weather system strung from the roof. Bottles slowly released water onto a grid of string, pulleys and weights, distributing water in a somewhat random fashion, dependant on the changing weight of the bottles, and other factors.

The final of Mette's studio's installations was in the next room - an array of white upholstery thread - laced from ground level up almost to the roof of the room. Its base was a piece of curved perspex, resulting in the threads all traveling along unique arcs and creating beautiful patterns. The nature of the the thread was such that it picked up and reflected the light around it, which made for quite an interesting effect.

As a loosely-knit group we continued out on the Islands main apron where Mark's Studio's installments were set up. All the pieces were connected together physically in some way and sprawled over quite a large distance. There were concrete blobs set around the apron with cord running between them in some kind of indistinguishable grid. At each of these point there were also small tripods set up with fins painted in different patterns coming out of the top.

Later in the day we would climb to a viewing platform above the apron. From that perspective you could see that in fact the grid of cord made up a perspective wireframe of one of the buildings on the island. The wind had played its part and curved and distorted the lines, but it was still clear that this was an almost life-size (75% scale apparently) representation of an actual building.

There were some large bamboo poles set up with fishing wire running between them in a pattern. As it turned out the wires mapped out a scale model of the topography of one of the Island's dry-docks. Along the pieces of string was reflective tape, that was visible, but unnoticeable. When a photo was taken with the flash, however, and the pieces light up, even in daylight.

Scattered on a the apron were a few items known as "the draw". These were viewing devices set up on stands that changed the way you saw Sydney and the Island itself when you looked through them. One inserted a fictional building on the horizon in North Sydney when you looked through it, and another actually showed you (by way of mirrors) the view perpendicularly to your right, instead of straight ahead in the direction you were looking.

After some time looking at the installations we headed up to the top of the Island where a delicious lunch was provided, and we were given opportunity to sit for a while, feed ourselves and have a bit of a chat. The seagulls on the Island certainly seemed to enjoy the possibility of the food, and were making themselves at home grabbing food off people's plates when left unattended for any period of time.

After lunch we made our way to one of the convict cells (which was equipped with a projector and screen) for the presentations from Mark and Mette's groups. After a few technical hiccups with power cords, adaptors and projectors not working, the guest architects/artists were seated, and the groups started to present. Once the groups had presented, there was a time of discussion with some very interesting ideas presented, ranging over all sorts of topics.

There was talk about the gap between the student's vision for the projects and how much of that finally been achieved (given time constraints and other issues). Each of the groups had intentions beyond the final installation, but had run into problems ranging from accessibility issues to technical aspects not working as desired, even the fact that people hadn't interacted with the works quite as expected. Some of the students mentioned how nice it was to actually be putting their concepts into action, and having to deal with the necessary changes when things didn't work was a valuable part of the experience.

Other students expressed their pleasure at working on installations that were full scale instead of smaller scale models (such as they would normally work on). Some of the guests mentioned that they were glad to see students moving beyond working on computer or paper, and using sewing machines, casting concrete and building things.

There was a little bit of discussion about how many of the pieces had almost an art-like quality to them. The spaces on the island had such a gorgeous aesthetic quality that the installations were treated by those viewing them as pieces of art - to be viewed from a distance. Some of the students had anticipated a more tactile interaction between people and the pieces.

The issue was also mentioned of whether or not there had been consideration made to the installations reacting to the presence of people. As it turned out, one of the groups had been planning on having their installation pulse and move when it came in touch with human skin (by using conductive fibre) but didn't have time in the 2 weeks to perfect it. There was some further discussion on the importance (both for and against) of installations reacting to a human presence.

In relation to Mark's studio there was a lot of talk about the nature of architecture that isn't about building things. The installations were architectural in that they were informed and inspired by the site, but were more of an interpretation and presentation of the island in new ways. They were a tool to inform, to educate and to start discussion. There was a lot of support for this idea that architecture is more than buildings.

There was much more discussed, and i'm sure that each train of discussion could have held it's own for much longer periods of time than we were able to allow. Soon it was time to wrap up. The students dismantled the installations, the bbq was fired up and the beers were opened. It seems that for the organisers, students and instructors the 2 weeks of stress, sleep deprivation and creative thinking had been time well spent.

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There's lots more photos from the day over on flickr...

Geoff's studio is engaging in activities a little different to the other studios. In many senses the work they are doing is more conceptual than tangible, although there will be tangible outcomes on show at the Review Day.

The starting point for Geoff's students was in the concept of Tarot Cards (the physical, functional aspect of them rather than the mystical or clairvoyant. As a group they came up with traits of the island that could be represented on a card, and split them into "suits". The 5 suits ended up being Materials (like steel or concrete), Processes (such as recording or demolition), Routes (things like ferry routes, or electical paths), Absences (things absent from the island such as silence and cockatoos) and the Major Arcana (items that are an elemental part of the island like tourists).

Each of the suits were populated with items the fit the category, and the students were each given reponsibility for 4 or so of these "cards". Their first task was to create physical cards that were representative of their given items, but also communicated MORE than just the item. At the review, all the cards were laid out (a4) on tables for us to peruse. There was unsurprisingly a great variety of styles and approaches to cards, but what was astounding was the quality of the workmanship present in ALL of them.

Some cards were literal, some where illustrative of the item being referred to, some were presented as old scientific drawings, some as comics and some even modeled in 3d from the "card". (I have included shots of a number of the cards at the bottom of this post).

Following on from this, Geoff number the cards 1 through 48 and, using a random number generator, assigned 4 cards to each student - providing them with a new "narrative" drawn from the Island, but not strictly speaking from the reality of the Island. The students are going to be using these 4 items or constraints to inform whatever their final project will be for presentation on Saturday.

We were presented a couple of examples of initial ideas from students who had already started formulating their projects - ideas that were a little wild and out there, but thoroughly interesting. And it seems that will be the direction this studio takes - starting at an idea (no matter how fantastical) and then working backwards and rationalising it.

Discussion from the instructors afterwards was mostly centred on encouraging the students to have these big wild ideas, and the prove them. There was talk of creating architectural fiction by essentially referring to these ideas as certainties, perhaps as things that had already happened. Mette floated the idea to the students of creating fake artifacts of projects that HAD (in the students imaginings) already happened in the islands past.

Geoff has been tweeting little updates throughout the weeks, and it certainly sounds as though his studio is going to be presenting some incredible ideas. So once again, if you are in Sydney tomorrow (25th July) I encourage you to come along to Cockatoo Island for the review day.

As a whole, Mark's studios are based around the title "Ballistic Instruments" and are exploring the relationship between that which is natural, and that which is man-made. There are groups working on four different projects - The Draw, Deep Surface, The Herald and The Rovers.

The Draw is an interpretation and extension of the already existing sight-lines on the island. These lines of sight control what you see, and from where. The different elements of The Draw create new artificial lines of sight, and force new views of the Island.

There will be doodles and sketches of the island around the place, giving new interpretations of what is already there. The big open area on one side of the island is being used to produce a jump-up perspective of the Island. From ground level it will look a mess, but from the viewing deck you will see the perspective in all it's glory.

There will also be other installations around the island that force people to look through an item, and play with what they will see, perhaps a mirror image, perhaps a combination of what they are looking at and something else, or who knows what.

Deep Surface investigates the lost landscapes of the Island - areas that once existed, but are now lost or unseen. One of these lost landscapes is the old dry-dock, now always flooded, hiding the excavation and shape of the land in which they used to build ships. They were seeking to find a way in which they could reveal this hidden landscape to the public.

Their plan is to float a structure made of string above the dock - a model that is a scale model of the topography and shape of the dry-docks underlying structure. Using "Scotch Light Tape" (a fantastic tape that reflects light) you will be able to see the points where the strings intersect, highlighting the old shape of the dry-dock, but only  under specific conditions.

The Heralds are installations that will unify the past, the present and the future of the Island.  These will be sculptures placed around the Island, that in their natural state will be like closed flowers, with their contents hidden. As the sculpture interacts with the Island and the conditions, the sculptures will open to reveal different views of the Island.

The Rovers are a series of instruments that will be carried around by students, scanning, examining and recording the Island. There are four Rovers which have all been conceived with very different personalities, representative of characters and traits of the Island. These Rovers will travel (be carried) around the Island emitting different types of flashes of light - revealing certain parts of the island, and the other installations. Photographs will be taken in conjunction with these Rovers, revealing the travelling flashes of light, and the installations lit up by them.

The important part of all the installations from Mark's studio is that they will come to life and be seen in full after dark. Using the darkness of night, ambient light and deliberate light from camera flashes to be shown in their full glory.

So if you are coming out to the Island for the review day on Saturday, try and stay around after the sun goes down to get the full effect of the work Mark's Studio is doing.

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Coming Soon: The final studio mid-review, and the Review Day.