Skip to main content

Site navigation

  • University of Technology Sydney home
  • Home

    Home
  • For students

  • For industry

  • Research

Explore

  • Courses
  • Events
  • News
  • Stories
  • People

For you

  • Libraryarrow_right_alt
  • Staffarrow_right_alt
  • Alumniarrow_right_alt
  • Current studentsarrow_right_alt
  • Study at UTS

    • arrow_right_alt Find a course
    • arrow_right_alt Course areas
    • arrow_right_alt Undergraduate students
    • arrow_right_alt Postgraduate students
    • arrow_right_alt Research Masters and PhD
    • arrow_right_alt Online study and short courses
  • Student information

    • arrow_right_alt Current students
    • arrow_right_alt New UTS students
    • arrow_right_alt Graduates (Alumni)
    • arrow_right_alt High school students
    • arrow_right_alt Indigenous students
    • arrow_right_alt International students
  • Admissions

    • arrow_right_alt How to apply
    • arrow_right_alt Entry pathways
    • arrow_right_alt Eligibility
arrow_right_altVisit our hub for students

For you

  • Libraryarrow_right_alt
  • Staffarrow_right_alt
  • Alumniarrow_right_alt
  • Current studentsarrow_right_alt

POPULAR LINKS

  • Apply for a coursearrow_right_alt
  • Current studentsarrow_right_alt
  • Scholarshipsarrow_right_alt
  • Featured industries

    • arrow_right_alt Agriculture and food
    • arrow_right_alt Defence and space
    • arrow_right_alt Energy and transport
    • arrow_right_alt Government and policy
    • arrow_right_alt Health and medical
    • arrow_right_alt Corporate training
  • Explore

    • arrow_right_alt Tech Central
    • arrow_right_alt Case studies
    • arrow_right_alt Research
arrow_right_altVisit our hub for industry

For you

  • Libraryarrow_right_alt
  • Staffarrow_right_alt
  • Alumniarrow_right_alt
  • Current studentsarrow_right_alt

POPULAR LINKS

  • Find a UTS expertarrow_right_alt
  • Partner with usarrow_right_alt
  • Explore

    • arrow_right_alt Explore our research
    • arrow_right_alt Research centres and institutes
    • arrow_right_alt Graduate research
    • arrow_right_alt Research partnerships
arrow_right_altVisit our hub for research

For you

  • Libraryarrow_right_alt
  • Staffarrow_right_alt
  • Alumniarrow_right_alt
  • Current studentsarrow_right_alt

POPULAR LINKS

  • Find a UTS expertarrow_right_alt
  • Research centres and institutesarrow_right_alt
  • University of Technology Sydney home
Explore the University of Technology Sydney
Category Filters:
University of Technology Sydney home University of Technology Sydney home
  1. home
  2. arrow_forward_ios ... About UTS
  3. arrow_forward_ios ... Information on Faculties...
  4. arrow_forward_ios Faculty of Design, Archi...
  5. arrow_forward_ios Architecture Without Occupants

Architecture Without Occupants

DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
DAB Student Project: Architecture Without Occupants, by Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu & Daria Nosova
1/10

Architecture Without Occupants

Jack Gillbanks, Eric Ye, Zihe Lu, Daria Nosova

If one discounts the noble efforts of beavers, birds and bees, there has been one constant throughout the history of architecture, one common link from the earliest cave alterations and primitive huts through the Pyramids of Giza, the Acropolis, to the Crystal Palace and the Frank Gehry-designed UTS Business School. Whether house or tomb, factory or school, cistern or substation, architecture has always been designed with human occupation in mind. Always, that is, until now…

Globalised consumer society and technological developments have conspired to produce a new type of architecture entirely devoid of occupants. Situated on the outskirts and staffed by robots, these server farms, fulfilment centres, archives, seed banks, drone ports and power stations are the architectural harbinger of an eventual post-human age. So how does one attempt to design architecture without occupants? 

In his 1967 poem, the American poet Richard Brautigan imagined ‘a cybernetic meadow/where mammals and computers/live together in mutally/programming harmony’. In this technological utopia, this ‘cybernetic ecology’, dehumanising and apocapyptic Cold-War technologies were reimagined as repurposed for peaceful and just communitarian and countercultural ends (Brautigan was a denizen of San Francisco in the sixties).

Taking this alternative vision as a starting point, and with a little architectural help from Reyner Banham, Claude Nicolas Ledoux, SITE, Cedric Price, Superstudio and OFFICE, students in this studio subject explored promising post-human building typologies and reimagined architectural representation for non-human eyes. Architecture Without Occupants wilfully recast historical architectural treatises as possible blueprints for the future, investigating the role played by Albert Kahn, Henry Ford’s architect, in inventing Modernism’s formal and spatial repertoire, and considering the implications of a world, in Brautigan’s words, ‘all watched over by machines of loving grace’.

School of Architecture
Acknowledgements

otherarchitects.com

Academic leader
David Neustein
Grace Mortlock 
Affiliations

Masters Architectural Design Studio

Share
Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn
DAB Student Project: Spatial Communication 2, by Amaia Sanchez Velasco

Spatial Communication 2

Bachelor of Design in Architecture students

DAB Student Project: Experiential Ecologies: Designed Futures of the Cobar Peneplain,  by Brendan Murphy

Experiential Ecologies: Designed Futures of the Cobar Peneplain

Brendan Murphy

DAB Student Project: Urban Hinge, by Lu Bai

Urban Hinge

Lu Bai

DAB Student Project: Transect, by Junru Yang & Katrina Shaw

Transect

Junru Yang, Katrina Shaw

DAB Student Project: Surrounded Frame, by Katrina Chu

Surrounded Frame

Katrina Chu

DAB Student Project: Strategy, by Jack Jahn

Strategy 2016

Jack Jahn

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation and the Boorooberongal People of the Dharug Nation upon whose ancestral lands our campuses now stand. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands. 

University of Technology Sydney

City Campus

15 Broadway, Ultimo, NSW 2007

Get in touch with UTS

Follow us

  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Facebook

A member of

  • Australian Technology Network
Use arrow keys to navigate within each column of links. Press Tab to move between columns.

Study

  • Find a course
  • Undergraduate
  • Postgraduate
  • How to apply
  • Scholarships and prizes
  • International students
  • Campus maps
  • Accommodation

Engage

  • Find an expert
  • Industry
  • News
  • Events
  • Experience UTS
  • Research
  • Stories
  • Alumni

About

  • Who we are
  • Faculties
  • Learning and teaching
  • Sustainability
  • Initiatives
  • Equity, diversity and inclusion
  • Campus and locations
  • Awards and rankings
  • UTS governance

Staff and students

  • Current students
  • Help and support
  • Library
  • Policies
  • StaffConnect
  • Working at UTS
  • UTS Handbook
  • Contact us
  • Copyright © 2025
  • ABN: 77 257 686 961
  • CRICOS provider number: 00099F
  • TEQSA provider number: PRV12060
  • TEQSA category: Australian University
  • Privacy
  • Copyright
  • Disclaimer
  • Accessibility