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Mongrel Materials · RMIT University · 2024

A Banal Mongrel Exhibit

Queen Victoria Market · Melbourne Material Reuse Reverse Futurism Museum Design Grasshopper Parametric

A museum dedicated to the ordinary — to the brick, the besser block, the aluminium scaffold, the corrugated roof sheet. The materials that build cities without being noticed. This studio harvested the existing fabric of Queen Victoria Market as its material palette, cataloguing everything before designing with it.

Reverse Futurism: the concept that drives the project. Not speculative futures built from new technologies, but speculative futures reinterpreted through the material language that already exists. History embedded in matter, extracted and recombined. The material dictates the form, not the reverse.

True sustainability lies in finding value in what already exists. The project was exhibited at Testing Grounds, Melbourne.

Studio Mongrel Materials
Caitlyn Parry · Solo project
Site Queen Victoria Market
Melbourne, Victoria
Exhibition Testing Grounds, Melbourne
Programme Entrance Foyer · Gift Shop · Gallery
Event Space · Food Court · Loading Dock
Year Semester 2, 2024

The Material Harvest

Before any design began, a full inventory of the site's existing material was catalogued — type, quantity, dimension. The harvest became the brief. Every design decision refers back to this list.

Extruded Bricks 7,000 units · 90×80×193mm
Concrete Pavers 300 units · 720×40×260mm
Besser Blocks 2,000 units · 100×150×350mm
Aluminium Scaffolding 168 units · 40mm dia × 1800mm
Structural Steel K/L/M-Shed Trusses · I-Beams · I-Section Columns
Timber + Cladding Rafters · Board Panels · Corrugated Roof Cladding
Museum masterplan
Render 01 — entrance foyer
Render 02 — gallery space

References

Lebbeus Woods Architecture as resistance — form as political act
Daniel Libeskind Berlin Jewish Museum — voids as presence
Rem Koolhaas Elements of Architecture — the banal as subject
Material detail 01
Material detail 02
Material detail 03
Tide House Chrono-Suburban Living