Utopian Edge

Proposals for Katoomba’s over-looked spaces.
UTS interdisciplinary Design Lab led by Heidi Axelsen and Hugo Moline




Film by Justin Morrissey

In January 2017, a group of UTS interdisciplinary design students came to Katoomba to learn about the place by intensively exploring some of her intriguing urban spaces.

The lab, led by Heidi Axelsen and H ugo Moline, sought to uncover what future potential these spaces have by researching deeply their past and present uses.

Katoomba is a city where the mundane and the magical are in constant conversation. It has a richness of contradictions and a density of potentials. It is both a centre and a periphery, a museum and a laboratory, a collection of fictions and a cluster of hard truths.

In groups which brought together together different disciplines, skills and knowledge; the students have reimagined some of Katoomba's overlooked spaces. They have explored the town and learned from local experts, creatives and residents to design 'realistic utopias' - pragmatic yet transformative ideas for some of Katoomba’s roads less travelled.