Submission 3 Concept Design - Biennale of Sydney Pavilions Summer Studio 2010 with Nicole Balestro 3129565

 

The pavilion is located to the eastern foreshore area which was once almost entirely covered with large factories and workshops.

 

This open area, now devoid of buildings, is covered with the traces of these removed buildings. Our proposed design seeks to fit in with these traces and become another layer of the island's history. Its verticality provides a link between the lower island and upper plateau, as well as a visual connection to the factories to the southeast corner of the island (which are also existing exhibition areas).

 

The pavilion is sited in front of the cliff on a a visual and pedestrian axis from the ferry wharf and main entry buildings. Acting as a node along this axis, the pavilion allows the viewer to sit and wait on the grass, enter the pavilion, or move through to the tunnel or the other factory spaces beyond. The lawn area and fig tree introduced to the area provides a much needed shaded area to soften the site and make it a little more habitable in the same way as the northern side of the island has been, without detracting from its existing character.

Drawing on the idea of 'Wunderkammer' or a 'Cabinet of Curiosities' which is part of the manifesto of the 2010 Biennale, our pavilion aims to be a 'container of ideas' drawing on the form of the shipping container as a reference to the site's nautical past and as a symbol of distance, trade and the movement of people, technology, commodities and ideas around the world. 

 

To illustrate our concept, we created our own 'Wunderkammer' containing our central ideas built as three dimensional models.

 

Site Transcript - the pavilion location in relation to entry sequence from the ferry wharf and buildings. Tree and lawn acting as an area for waiting, meeting and contemplation at junction between axes of movement to camp area, tunnel or other factory buildings. 

Open Sequence - the creation of a pavilion that has the ability to expand and reduce the display area for future Biennales through the addition of 'containers' in limitless configurations. As its most basic configuration, the pavilion is a series of structural supports and structures, or 'traces', that appears to be another post-industrial curiosity on the island. 

Rather than creating a space in which the artwork is only displayed on walls, we have designed our spaces where the work of artist Lily Kelly Napangardi is integrated into the containers themselves. Her paintings, which have references to sand hills and water, could be created as perforated metals screens which act as walls, ceilings or however the artist proposes for the Biennale. They screens can be viewed backlit from afar as an entire composition or can be viewed up close from inside as 'peepholes' out to the island.