he temporary installation, featuring two water walls, has been created for the Urban Reality design challenge as part of the State of Design Festival. This project sees 100 designers working in teams of 10 to design and create 10 projects. Each team is given a limited budget and a deadline of 72 hours to design, construct and install their projects.

The team of designers behind Dirtybuoy includes Jerome Borazio (St. Jeromes, Laneway Festival, 1000£ Bend and Ponyfish Island), Stuart Harrison (architect and academic at RMIT), Harrison & White architects and Jeremy McLeod from Breathe Architecture, the team behind Seven Seeds, Brother Baba Budan and Chez Dre.

Basically the idea behind the project is to find a way to make the Docklands work. “Melbourne isn’t about glitzy waterside living,” explains McLeod, “But what we do have is this ability to accept imperfect built environments and make them work.”

Dirtybuoy is embracing Melbourne’s water, by creating a water wall installation as part of the pavilion. The first is made of 1500 snap locked bags filled with water from different sections of the Yarra. The result is a spectrum of different coloured water.

The second wall sees water pumped directly from the Yarra onto the site, again displaying the imperfections of the water. Looking through the water walls provides a blurred image of the city from the Docklands.

To lure in patrons, Dirtybuoy is also creating a pop-up cafe for one day. They’ve called in some of Melbourne’s coffee heavy weights including Luke from Deadman Espresso, Justin from Coffee Supreme and Alex from the Premise to work a shift each on the new Slayer Machine.

“The aim is that for a moment in time, one tiny part of the Docklands will work.” McLeod says.

The Dirtybuoy installation launches tonight on the water at Waterfront City Piazza at 6pm and will be serving coffee tomorrow (Saturday 30) from 11am–5pm.

Coffee sets Saturday by:
Deadman Espresso – 11am-1pm
Coffee Supreme – 1pm-4pm
The Premises – 4pm-5pm