Michaela Prunotto Thesis

Atlas of Extraction

granular incisions at four terrascapes

Noting that ‘terra’ refers to colonial conceptions of earth or territory, this project proposes that a ‘terrascape’ is an anthropogenic scene of significant geological disturbance, caused by colonial extraction and expansion.

It is no longer tenable to consider a site of extraction as a single place. As the beginning of an open project, this multi-scalar atlas explores four terrascapes radiating from Narrm, Australia.

Sites and interventions include:

1. Blast Pattern Memorial at the Beech Forest Quarry, a site cared for by These Are The Projects We Do Together. The memorial problematises archived drilling and blasting plans that caused this scarred landscape.
2. Algae Lab at the Westgate Salt Lakes (a former sand mine, which sometimes turns pink from algae blooms). The lab works with the development of bio-based materials rather than mined or quarried materials.
3. Birrarung has been subject to dredging and diverting since colonial occupation. No buildings are proposed here, only floodplain reactivation pools for improved biodiversity, and a path.
4. The former GM Holden Car Factory at Fishermans Bend, which is laced with petrochemical soil contamination, could be retrofitted as a water and ecology lab.

Each corresponding proposition bares dirty histories for confrontation, while also proposing a programmatic ethic of care and renewal. Across all sites, the granular ‘point’ becomes an important representational device – as point clouds – and architectural device, as borehole, column, tank and pipe.

Thesis project with The Melbourne School of Design, 2023
Edward Fielder Billson Medal For Architectural Design
RIBA Silver Medal Nomination
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship Nomination
Victorian Graduate Prize Nomination; Bates Smart Award Shortlist; INDE Award Shortlist
Solo exhibition – Melbourne School of Design – August/October 2023

Primary supervisor: Alan Pert
Advisors: Oskar Kazmanli-Liffen, Heather Mitcheltree
Model photographs by Peter Casamento

With special thanks to Millie Cattlin and Joseph Norster for their radical hospitality at the Quarry Pedagogies Camp