Whadjuk people of the Nyoongar nation
Western Australia
For the duration of The Fremantle Biennale SANCTUARY 25, House for All stood as a temporary landmark, housing the Biennale’s Community Kitchen and Public Programs. Constructed from reclaimed materials and sited at Manjaree, the pavilion responded to the 2025 festival theme as both structure and provocation.
At once new and old, it took the form of a stretched colonial cottage—familiar yet unsettled. A place of sanctuary, it prompted us to reflect on what home is. House for All was designed to simultaneously retain, distort and unsettle our perspective. On constructed and contested Country, where the sanctity of home is often precarious, the pavilion was anchored and enlivened by the grounding power of community.
An admirable commitment to being responsibly temporary, framed around a culturally aware and locally relevant thematic. ‘House for All’ provided a lively setting which served its biennale function well. Demonstrating the resourceful mining of past art festival relics joined in an architectural ‘Frankenstein’ assemblage. The result is an open building offering habitation freely through its dynamic structure, with its function and subtle symbolism overturning established hierarchies.
In House for All, Officer Woods have created a precedent-setting model for the impermanent structure.
House for All was the community heart and central hub of our 2025 Fremantle Biennale. More than Architectural Pavilion, it was a living, social space, housing Community Kitchen/Public Programs and supporting three weeks of daily activity:shared meals, workshops, talks, performances, encounters.
Instrumental in transforming Manjaree into a sanctuary, a generous environment was created where art, food, conversation and care intertwined. House for All demonstrated how architecture can extend beyond shelter as active agent in building connection, fostering belonging and supporting cultural exchange. Its success is how it held space for community: a house, quite literally, for all.