Monash's master plan to redevelop architecture

ARCHITECTS have become an "optional extra" in the developer-led building boom, prompting Monash University to put the profession centre stage with what it claims is the first new architecture course in Australia in 30 years.

ARCHITECTS have become an "optional extra" in the developer-led building boom, prompting Monash University to put the profession centre stage with what it claims is the first new architecture course in Australia in 30 years.

Monash will run a new three-year bachelor of architectural design degree followed by a two-year masters of architecture from 2008.

The courses will be run from the art and design faculty at Monash's Caulfield campus, and an advisory panel of architects has been appointed to help design the course and recruit staff.

The degree will become the eighth in the country, following a rise in demand for architecture courses from 12,904 students in 2001 to 15,580 in 2005.

Faculty dean John Redmond said: "I hope the result will be a built environment - homes, public buildings and office blocks - that better reflects the needs and desires of the community."

He said the course was prompted by not only rising demand but by the need to get architects back into a key role in development.

"Over time, the role of the architect in the building process has been diluted by the developer-led processes. The conductor has been taken off the podium and now stands in the orchestra," he said.

"The time is right to reassert the value of architecture and its role as the core discipline of the built environment. The course will turn the key focus back to architecture, and place the architect centre stage once again."

Professor Redmond said the recent property boom had been driven by developers rather than architects, and as a consequence some housing and commercial developments were not great for the community.

"As you move out into the suburbs, you can see slab-built developments, like shopping centres, where plainly architecture has not been centre stage in the development," he said. "I am not sure it is right in the community point of view.

"When you are building houses as cheaply as possible, you are not going to end up in an environment that anyone wants to be in."

Professor Redmond said architects had an ethical responsibility to the community to ensure that development was good for residents as well asclients.