Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation
Victoria
The most conventional representation of heritage is Sherwood, the polychrome italianate mansion of a former brickworks owner. For us however, the most interesting aspect of heritage at Balam Balam Place is the ‘diagram’ of layered history.
Heritage practice is predicated on understanding and interpreting history, but versions of history can be contentious and beset by biases, privilege and cultural amnesia. At Balam Balam history is legible, but which history informs heritage? Our team felt strongly that heritage significance lies in the totality of stories – deep history pre-settlement, colonial history of Sherwood and the brickworks owner’s mansion and the history of the site from its time as a school.
Diverse histories remain legible at Balam Balam, but there is a new balance, new ways to read the site through built form and landscape, truer representation of history, which is surely the point of heritage.
Award For Heritage
Challenging conventional approaches of heritage and significance, this project questions why we preserve certain histories, who defines value, and at the expense of what other stories.
At the sites centre lies the restored Victorian manor, Sherwood House. A building with a chequered history Rather than focusing on a singular colonial relic, Kennedy Nolan have presented the whole site’s history as layered, contested, and deeply local. Former hierarchies are dismantled, now understood through siting, scale and architectural form.
Approaching Sherwood House from Phoenix Street the manor is visually bisected by the retained skeletal frame of the former 1950’s St Ambrose School building. From Saxon Street, the Reko Rennie mural embraces indigenous narratives consolidated through Openwork’s native planting.
The approach to heritage is at its core an urban one. Strategic sightlines, massing, and landscape redistribute power and change our reading of significance in architecture. Resulting in a collection of buildings in dialogue, each telling an important story, contributing to Brunswick’s social heritage now and for the future.
For questioning the boundaries of what makes ‘heritage’, this work encourages us to rethink how we read, interpret and design for heritage in all its forms in contemporary Australia. Worthy of an architectural award for the heritage category.
Award For Heritage
Challenging conventional approaches of heritage and significance, this project questions why we preserve certain histories, who defines value, and at the expense of what other stories.
At the sites centre lies the restored Victorian manor, Sherwood House. A building with a chequered history Rather than focusing on a singular colonial relic, Kennedy Nolan have presented the whole site’s history as layered, contested, and deeply local. Former hierarchies are dismantled, now understood through siting, scale and architectural form.
Approaching Sherwood House from Phoenix Street the manor is visually bisected by the retained skeletal frame of the former 1950’s St Ambrose School building. From Saxon Street, the Reko Rennie mural embraces indigenous narratives consolidated through Openwork’s native planting.
The approach to heritage is at its core an urban one. Strategic sightlines, massing, and landscape redistribute power and change our reading of significance in architecture. Resulting in a collection of buildings in dialogue, each telling an important story, contributing to Brunswick’s social heritage now and for the future.
For questioning the boundaries of what makes ‘heritage’, this work encourages us to rethink how we read, interpret and design for heritage in all its forms in contemporary Australia. Worthy of an architectural award for the heritage category.
“There are moments in the building, gentle, thoughtful moments that allow for the play of light or breeze or people to transport you out of your everyday and into a remarkable hybrid of civic and domestic interaction.” The way a building can show the strength of infrastructure, and the care of home is not an easy task but it has been done here with such rigour and generosity it invokes a reciprocal response from those that come to be here, they arrive in awe of it and leave in love with it.”
Joseph Norster – Co-Director, The Projects, Balam Balam Place
Rachel Nolan, Design Architect
Patrick Kennedy, Design Architect
Victoria Reeves, Design Architect
Michael Macleod, Design Architect
Candice Chan, Project Architect
Bradley Kerr, Architect
Danny Truong, Architect
Wyndham Cameron, Architect
Estelle Peter, Architect
Openwork, Landscape Consultant
Finding Infinity, ESD Consultant
These Are The Projects We Do Together, User Experience & Community Consultant
Jordan Rowe, Spatial Branding & Wayfinding Consultant
Tim Rob Don Dow, Strategic Consultant
Lovell Chen, Heritage Consultant
Greenshoot, Community Consultant
Urbis, Town Planner
Brogue, Engineer
BRT, Engineer
Octave, Acoustic Consultant
One Mile Grid, Traffic Engineer
Architecture & Access, Access Consultant
Zinc Cost Planning, Quantity Surveyor
Metro BS, Transport Consultant
JAZ & DDEG, Engineer