Social Void, 2017
Social Void reflects on and responds to the ongoing neoliberal drive to privatise public spaces, assets, and amenities, transforming commons into sites of exclusion and corporate accumulation.
The project examines Melbourne’s City Square as a case study, where, in the late 1990s, a significant portion of public land was sold to the Westin Hotel chain, leading to the privatisation or loss of many public programs the square once hosted. Social Void reclaims this space as a public entity, repurposing the structure to address various neglected social functions.
To reconnect with the public realm, a large atrium is carved into the centre of the former hotel, creating vertically organised public spaces around the void, with programs arranged on either side. Architecturally, the building is transformed to explore communal social housing by repurposing the former hotel rooms. On the opposite side of the void, a deconstructed section of the structure becomes a vertically organised sports and recreation facility, fostering community connection and integration. The building is retrofitted with reclaimed infrastructure, such as cranes and escalators, previously tied to capitalist production and consumption, now repurposed to serve social functions.