informal urban practices

The previous suburbs our combined group studied were Collingwood and Albert Park, we chose to continue with Collingwood and based our occupation in Smith Street. For the occupation we decided to interview people about the informal urban practices that they were undertaking in Collingwood and their opinions on what Collingwood has to offer in regards to it’s formal and informal spaces. We were extremely lucky with the people we interviewed, one woman was heavily involved in the aboriginal and african communities in Collingwood and stopping public drinking in the Smith Street area. Another man we spoke to was a street artist who had done street art in Collingwood, however he felt that the gentrification in the area of Collingwood over the years had taken away some character from the suburb. The time conditions we initiated our occupation in showed a notable difference in the type of people in the area of Smith Street between Saturday afternoon and Monday night. The most notable difference was on the weekend people seemed to be coming from outside areas to visit Collingwood but on the Monday the people we encountered were usually residents of the area.

Elliot Henkel, Jiazhen Ken Chen, Oscar Langley, Tim Bagnara

The urban interior suburbs of northern Melbourne have been influenced from many different cultures and antiquities. Collingwood has a very diverse culture and in recent years it has become one of the prime property locations in Melbourne due to the diverse ethnicities and economic demographics living and working in the area.

The first examples of informal urban spaces in Collingwood we discovered were around the Collingwood Commission Flats. Although many of the urban spaces surrounding this area are formal in their approach, some have been appropriated for other purposes. The example of yarn bombing that we found was also quite interesting and shows how the urban environment can be appropriated for purely artistic purposes.