The project is motivated by the question of how place-making — the practice of fostering community in place — can be brought about when many people in that community are transnational and/or temporary. The research is innovative in its guiding contention: that public-private interactions, both in built spaces and in social relations, define the experience of place for those who are new to a locality and community, or temporary members of it, more than they do for long-term residents who are settled in their networks of belonging.

The population of the City of Melbourne is 63,500, of which 23,777, or 37 percent, are students (primarily tertiary students, and primarily from overseas). Our study area — the northern fringe of central Melbourne, which is the location of the University of Melbourne and RMIT University — has a student resident population of closer to 50 percent.

Policy-makers have noted for some time that little is done for students and their cultural experience in Melbourne, despite their increasing numbers. Students are not the only residents of these areas of course, and their housing and recreational activities need to become part of Melbourne’s history and future without swamping it entirely. How will this happen? What opportunities are there for interaction between students and the broader residential communities, and between ‘international’ and ‘domestic’ students? Most educators acknowledge that a great deal of learning, even the most important learning, occurs outside the classroom. How should the ‘university quarter’ on the northern fringe of central Melbourne unfold?

We are examining the ways student residents in the study area negotiate these public-private interactions. We are asking, what kinds of social policy, architectural and urban design frameworks can facilitate meaningful experiences of community amongst a transient and diverse population in place? We are developing a place-making strategy that centres on enhancing the public-private interactions residents have in built spaces and in their social relations. By the end of the project, we will have in place alternative frameworks for institutional partnerships, new proposals for the form and design of student housing, and a fresh approach to the design of public space.

The website was created in 2007 as a way of exploring and facilitating the project. It enables real time interaction, ongoing dialogue, and will ultimately serve to further the acquisition and archiving of research material for Transnational and Temporary.

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