Summary

Cellar is a design, writing, and mapping project by Nina Nervegna and Felix Garner-Davis, conducting speculative, repair-oriented research into sites around Naarm-Melbourne.

Background

Nina and Felix studied art and literature before moving into architecture. They work together at Garner Davis Architects. Their graduate thesis at the Melbourne School of Design, Limb, proposed a reparative rainwater-management and pollination network in Fishermans Bend, developing prosthetic habitats for birds, bats, bees, butterflies, and people, as well as reconfigurations of pedestrian and cyclist flow. The approach built on existing yet under-resourced community ventures, charting a systematic and design-centric framework that integrated methodologies for engaging stakeholders like CitiPower. It received the Bates Smart Award. Nina also received the Edward Fielder Billson Medal and the Ernest Fooks Memorial Award.

Training

Nina holds a BVA in painting from Sydney College of the Arts, an MDes in service design from the University of Technology Sydney, and an MArch from the MSD. Felix holds a BA (Hons) in literary studies from Monash University, and an MArch from the MSD. He formerly edited Malevolent Soap, a journal of international poetry and fiction. His collection drone was published by no more poetry in 2021.

Method

Nina and Felix continue to interweave these interests, viewing Cellar as a vehicle for applied curiosity and epistemic friction. They believe that architectural ethics, knowledges, and praxes are energised by transdisciplinary experimentation. Collaboratively, they investigate co-authorship, affect, aesthetics, weirdness, autotheory, urban ecology, and design for dis/ability. Their individual projects bifurcate this field, exploring architectural and geopoetic expressions of griefwork and the eco-gothic.

Contact

Emails should be sent to info@cella.red.

Instagram handles are @ninanervegna and @felixgarnerdavis.