Sarah Garba graduated with a Bachelor's Honours Degree (Class 2A) in Interior Design from RMIT University in 2021.

With an interest in empathy, wellness and placemaking, her thesis explored spaces between the lived and built environments and into liminal and transitionary spaces left neglected in the backdrop of life, to prompt a new discourse on the socially prescribed narratives and functions of public space. It also considered the impacts of poor design practices through time on the health and wellbeing of people and environments.

Studying during the Covid lockdowns inspired a reflection upon traditional design principles. She challenged such tenets by envisaging a new utopia that extended beyond the traditional parametres of an industrial age of design – where ‘form’ did not simply cease at ‘function’, rather extended into a new dimension: Care.

Her research project “The Alchemy of Care” theorised and projected possibilities on the impacts of threading ‘care’ in the design and build process. Her final major project “Where Form Follows Care”, explored interventions that activated sites along the Moonee Ponds Creek in Flemington and focused on creating a multifunctional node of connection that bridged the social division between public housing residents and the wider community. The interventions encouraged moments for pause and re-connection that were inspired by the temporal nature of the waterway, and created dialogue and connections with its controlled movements through time in the urban interior.

Can design look through the lens of care? Not only as an intrinsic human need, but social value and design tool.

@thealchemyofcare (Instagram)