MDW: Back of House

Building on 2023’s successful Underpass event, this year Architectus presents Back Of House: a conversation with young and emerging thought leaders, and guest speakers from the fields of architecture, urban design and their adjacent fields, to question what impact and role these Back of House spaces play in the life of the city. What is Back of House? – a space that supports another space, to provide services, logistics, connection to a public-facing space or function.

Like Underpass, it is itself a by-product of a larger idea – the theatre, the restaurant, the shops, the apartment tower – yet the Back of House, essential and yet often marginalised, forms a backdrop to a layered world of experiences, places and peoples.

This often-neglected typology is formed as the negative space of larger city shaping – it is the space that is both required and left behind by multi-million-dollar projects. Where else do you put the bins, where do the cooks go for smoko, where do you put the car park entry? Where can things happen away from “activated” frontages, within otherwise highly programmed and, often, already contested public space? The diversity of publics who find their place Back of House exist in both space and time.

The event will take place at Chinatown Plaza, a square in the Melbourne CBD that interfaces to several back of houses. Speakers will occupy this space as we question the public we’re designing for, and what they need.