First published by Imagine The Future in The Tabloid No.1 Winter 1993.

WITH NEW BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS FROM THE ARCHIVES

The small meeting room at the ecoversity in 1993. The fit-out was designed for ITF by Rosemary Simons and Clinton Greenwood of Rosemary Simons Design, and constructed from the most ecologically benign materials available in Australia at the time.

Imagine this: a very large room in a recycled MacRobertson's chocolate factory that is now the national headquarters of the Australian Conservation Foundation in inner-city Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia.

The ecoversity space at 340 Gore Street, Fitzroy, before its transformation in 1991.

Walls painted red ochre, the colour of the earth, with paint manufactured from all-plant chemistry and natural pigments. (You clean the brushes with solvent made from citrus oil that smells like the most fragrant liqueur.) Two sofas and a long low coffee table glowing now with the oil of tung beans, one of the secret ingredients of Chinese lacquer.

'Sweat equity' volunteer painting the ecoversity walls in red ochre.

The furniture is stylish, very warm and inviting, and built from mountain ash boards recycled from the floor of a burnt out school science lab, trimmed with claret coloured jarrah that was once an industrial fire escape. The top of the coffee table is supported by timber that was once flooring joists in the Provincial Hotel in Melbourne's Flemington Road. 

On the sofas, large and very plump cushions made from a fabric manufactured in Poland from flax (the linseed oil plant Linum usitatissimum) with small contrasting cushions in deep blue silk the colour of night. These are stuffed with a mixture of scoured wool and carded mohair. To supplement the seating available on the sofas, individual fold-up chairs are scattered around the coffee table. These were built from mountain ash (a native Victorian eucalypt) by prisoners at the Beechworth Prison Farm and re-covered to match the sofa upholstery. 

ITF and Australian Conservation Foundation volunteers working late into the night on the papier mache screens for the ecoversity.

Stacked in a corner, hidden almost as an apology for this compromise, are 70 stackable plastic chairs in MacRobertsons darkest chocolate brown. Made of non-recycled material, it is true, but at least they're Australian-made! On the table, a glass vase of native eucalyptus leaves and winter wattle. The vase was made in Turkey, so we call it our 'Kurdish glass'. Our coffee mugs were made in China. We call them our 'Tiananmin Square' mugs. Just to remind us of the world outside ...

The completed screens, by Rosemary Simons Design, dividing a very large space in the Australian Conservation Foundation building into more intimate spaces for meeting rooms and offices.

Dividing the large room into smaller office and meeting spaces are sets of tall folding screens constructed from the recycled floor boards and infilled with fine wire mesh, which a team of volunteers laboriously covered with papier mache made from old newspapers. The desks inside the smaller spaces are also made from recycled eucalypts - although they are not formal desks, but trestles that can be rearranged in any configuration required. Matching shelves. Flax curtains hanging from wooden rods stretched between the screens. Recycled filing cabinets painted in the same red ochre as the walls. And two small grey boxes called Apple Macintosh computers plus modem - which takes this place into cyberspace.

PRAXIS

So this is the ecoversity: a place to explore and exchange the ideas from which we'll build sustainable societies. A space that integrates theory and practice into its very structure, and is a model, though in a humble way, for a more sustainable world.

Designer Rosemary Simons, far right, with builder Ted Black,administrator Catherine Brookes, and ITF founder, Merrill Findlay in the ecoversity's small meeting room, 1993. 

The ecoversity's physical structures were designed by Rosemary Simons and Clinton Greenwood of Rosemary Simons Design, and built to Rosemary's specifications by carpenter Ted Black from Melbourne Recycled Timber 'just down the road' in Fitzroy's Brunswick Street.

TECHNICAL AND DESIGN CHALLENGES

ITF administrator, Catherine Brookes, working in the Ecoversity office, 1992 -- in the days before ergonomic furniture! The chair was manufactured from Australian native hardwood by the inmates of Beechworth Prison Farm, and re-covered in fabric made from Polish flax, by volunteer ITF workers. The trestle desk, book shelves and screens are made from recycled eucalypt floorboards from an old school, and trimmed with recycled jarrah, a beautiful claret-coloured timber native to Western Australia. ITF and ACF volunteers spent many nights covering the screen infills with papier mache, oiling the timber, sewing the upholstery, and stuffing cushions to complete the Ecoversity fitout!

"The limited budget and the requirement to use materials and construction techniques that were as ecologically sound as possible were very restrictive parameters," Rosemary admitted after she had completed the job.

Co-designer Clinton Greenwood putting the finishing touches to the ecoversity space.

"It was very challenging trying to cover the range of activities that Imagine The Future mentioned in my brief. But as often happens, a design blossoms forth in the face of such constraints.

"The design process, like any creative process, is like negotiating your way through a maze - you've got a destination which is the solution to all the design problems and you just keep exerting effort in the trust that you're going to reach that destination," she said.

"Clients always make a great difference to the outcome and in this case it was the spirit of the Imagine The Future group that helped shape the end result. It was their labour, too, which realised the design." 

Ted Black at work on the ecoversity screens in his workshop in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.

Builder Ted Black agrees. "For me there's real beauty in recycled timber," he said. "I always find sourcing it a very enjoyable experience, because I'm often surprised at its origin and the condition I find it in. Most of the timber used in this job was from a school fire and I left the blaze marks on some of it to give added character. The overall effect of the timber and design was that the furniture didn't look raw or new when we finally installed it. It looked like it had been there forever," Ted said. 

"Technically the job was quite challenging, because the ecological and cost criteria were so important. I was able to iron out a lot of the problems though by quietly talking them through with Rosemary. And Imagine The Future really helped. They had the vision to respect us both as professionals and let us get on with the job". 

COMMITMENT AND TALENT

ITF and ACF staff and volunteers in the completed ecoversity, Christmas 1994.

Because of the commitment, skill and talent of everyone associated with the fitting out of the Ecoversity, Imagine The Future was able to achieve far more than we should have expected, given the limited resources we had available. What we have now is only Stage One however. Because we are very ambitious! 

But look, if we define the Ecoversity as 'a place to explore and exchange the ideas from which we'll build sustainable societies", well, can't we do that anywhere? Around the kitchen table. In the backyard. At your local park or playground. Waiting for a tram. Over a cappuccino in your favourite cafe. Or yes, even at a UNI-versity.

By Merrill Findlay. Copyright Imagine The Future Inc 1993

Museum Victoria acquired the Ecoversity fittings and forum tapes for its Australian Society and Techology Collection (Technology and Sustainability) when the Australian Conservation Foundation moved into a new 'green' office building in late 2002.

Page revised 4 April, 2004.