Joshua Crowley Honours Student

Werrington South

Around 30 minutes from Parramatta or 70 minutes from the Sydney CBD by car, Werrington South is a semi-regional campus quite removed from the perceived design hubs of Sydney. This project states that observation as neither a good or a bad thing, just a point of difference when you pose it against the reality that most other designs institutions in Sydney are within striking distance of a Surry Hills studio.

A long standing effect of the courageous commute to Werrington South is the creative brain drain of Graduates and Industry away from Western Sydney and therefore the surrounds of Werrington South. It's percived by this project that one of the reasons why our design culture and community struggles to compound, is that we lack the external framework of an active groups of industry bodies and graduates to feed back into the course experience.

So one of the challenges of this project and possibly any semi-regional campus across Australia is how do you express a relevancy to graduates and industry, busy enough as they are with heaving deadlines and aspirations of a NYC move. In addition, how do you address the communitng culture on campus that sees the staff and student population swiftly rise and just as quickly receded with the ebbs and flow of train timetables, peak hour traffic and parking tickets. A flow that stunts extra curriculum activity and a sense of community, qualities that are intrinsic to a healthy university campus.

In conclusion, Werrington South is the hub of the course and therefore a core element of the course experience. While it's a strong resource for the course in specific instances, it's a resource that needs to be supplemented to address the hindrances the campus sustains when it comes to developing design culture and community around the physical space it provides.

Cheerio, Comments below!