Have you ever looked at a building in Melbourne and been like "yeah, I'd swipe right on that"?
Ok, probably not. But a new project for Melbourne Design Week is using the dating format of apps like Tinder to get people engaging with our city's architecture. F*** Marry Kill – Melbourne Buildings Edition is a project created and coordinated by RMIT masters of architecture students Yuchen Gao and Yiling Shen to encourage the public to think about their built environment in a new and entertaining way.
Gao and Shen (along with their team of Carrie Lu, Jennifer Chen, Cody McConnell, Jeffrey Xu, Victoria Marquez, Imogen Smith, Rory Zhang, John Szetho, Ethan Wong and Winnie Chen) have created a website that recreates the "swipe right, swipe left" format of dating apps, except that instead of people, you'll be swiping left or right on significant Melbourne buildings.
Profess your love (or loathing) for buildings such as Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne Town Hall, the Westin, Royal Mail House, Melbourne Central, RMIT's Building 22 (the green slime building), the carbon-neutral Pixel Building and the NGV (among a whole lot more). You can opt to just say yea or nay to the buildings, or you can also expand on why. Just like on Tinder, each building comes with a little dating profile that's filled with the building's history and cool facts – did you know Premier Tower was inspired by a Beyoncé video clip for example?
In addition to the website, F*** Marry Kill will also be presented as an exhibition at Blender Studio as part of Melbourne Design Week. The exhibition is sponsored by Lyons and John Wardle Architects and will be the culmination of the public's engagement on the website, highlighting findings and presenting select Melbourne buildings with awards such as "most loved", "most commented on" and "most controversial".
Head over to the F*** Marry Kill website now to submit your own thoughts on Melbourne's buildings. The in-person exhibition runs from March 25 to 28 and is free to attend (opening night is free but ticketed for health and safety purposes).