2000 Biennale - Exhibition Finalist - Tamara Hall
 Tamara HallRMIT University Grounds on the Horizon Gallery and Gateway to the Botanical Gardens |
Summary Statement To increase the status of the Botanical Gardens a program for a combined Gallery and Gateway to the Gardens was developed as a multi-layered experience of the contemporary nature and history of the site and environs. The desire in this project is to develop a layered 'building park', where the distinction between what is landscape and what is building becomes ambiguous, and where the view and gardens are the domain of the occupants of the building. This building is firmly embedded in the ground, indeed its large roofscape is an added and artificial layer of the ground. A space to be occupied by the walker, picnicker, gallery viewer, researcher and garden wanderer; it is an 'outdoor room' connected to the gardens and itself by unfolding/enfolding balconies and ramps from the interior of the exhibition gallery, the botanical research rooms, theatre, library or the gardens restaurant. The interior domain of the building is an interplay between art, space and research facilities, thought out of the 'experience of place and region'. |
|
Jury comments In the way it works and combines building surface with ground surface this project could be described as an exercise in topographic architecture. The radial form gives the plan an 'explosive' graphic quality plan and seems to imply a more dynamic architecture than might be expected in a buried building. The jury felt the effects of such a plan could only be experienced as internal spaces, but considered those presented less than satisfying. The project also raises issues of scale: firstly, it resumes public space in close proximity to a sacred monument and secondly, within the confines of the building itself, the size and nature of spaces seems excessive. |
