A Sketchbook for the City to Come: The Pop-up as R&D

Ed. This piece first published at cityofsound.com on October 2nd 2015, and follows an earlier post on this set of essays, which also features ‘The Commodification of Everything’ for ‘SQM’ and ‘Urban Parasites, Data-Driven Urbanism, and the Case for Architecture’ for A+U. This one was first published as:

• ‘A Sketchbook for the City to Come: The Pop-Up as R&D’ in ‘Architectural Design Special Issue: Pavilions, Pop-Ups and Parasols: The Impact of Real and Virtual Meeting on Physical Space’, Guest Editors Leon van Schaik and Fleur Watson, May/June 2015, Volume 85, Issue 3

It was an honour either way. But it was a particular honour to be asked to contribute a piece to Architectural Design journal by guest editor Leon Van Schaik. Leon is professor in architecture at RMIT University in Melbourne (where I’m an adjunct professor) and a huge influence on architects and architecture in Australia, and well beyond. Leon has, for a couple of decades, shaped the evolution of the city of Melbourne itself, via his design, curation, and stewardship of the university’s buildings programme, which he’s strategically used as a lever to also enable a generation of brilliant Melbourne architects to emerge, each given the chance to work on significant institutional buildings through that innovative procurement strategy (there are a couple of books about…