Reimagining Heritage

Preservation in the city sparks several points of contention with what should be removed, added, or preserved to existing heritage structures, as well as the process of how to go about doing so without relying on mimicry. This project questions this role of preservation and looks to how machine learning can be used as a tool in developing novel approaches to heritage sites.

This idea is tested with Flinders Street Station, a heritage building that has stood the test of time yet has been left incomplete along the Swanston Street face. The process of machine learning involves training an output production from two existing references. Main references chosen for this project are detail drawings of Flinders Street Station, as well as map images of the Yarra River that traverses along the site. The Yarra River has many a time been shunned by the city, and the use of the river as reference in the completion of Flinders Street seeks to conceptually bring together the river and the city. Bringing these two visually distinct styles together produces results new, yet familiar, standard, yet uncanny. This process can change the way we approach heritage, to stray from imitation and bring about meaningful connections.