Tassie architects build global reputation
TASMANIAN architects are making a name for themselves at the 16th Biennale Architettura — better known as the International Architecture Exhibition — in Venice.
South Hobart firm Room 11 and Melbourne architect John Wardle are the first and only Australian firms to have a display at the International Architecture Exhibition in its 16year history.
The new Triabunna Gatehouse visitor information pavilion is also being featured at the prestigious event.
Director of Room 11, Thomas Bailey, said it was a “complete surprise” to be chosen among 70 international architects by the exhibition’s curator.
“They select people from all over the world and they just said, we’d like you to do this,” Mr Bailey said.
“We had to give them a few submissions to show what we would like to do and they basically say yes we like it or we don’t.”
Mr Bailey and his partner and colleague, Room 11 urbanism director Megan Baynes, said it was interesting they were chosen rather than larger Australian firms.
“We’re a little bit left of centre of everything else that’s going on, so for people internationally to think that’s interesting is even more of a surprise.”
Mr Bailey said for the exhibition, they wanted to create a relaxing space where people could be transported to Tasmania.
Their display included a 13m-wide video projected on to six panels on the wall and on to the floor.
“It starts as a landscape shot and then you pull back from the landscape into a building,” he said.
“I wanted it to be akin to the experience of standing at the beach … when the tide is up under your feet and then it runs back out and all the sand goes from under your feet.
“It’s just sort of zooming out continuously so you have this sense of falling away … like a nice massage but a bit strangely threatening.”
Room 11 is well-known for work with the Glenorchy Art and Sculpture Park (National Urban Design Award 2013), D’Entrecasteaux House (Residential Architecture Award 2017) and Little Big House (National Small Project Architecture Award).
The newly built Triabunna Gatehouse visitor information pavilion also features in the exhibition, which runs until November 25.
It features among 14 other Australian projects that high- light the importance of environmental repair in architectural practice.
It is being showcased in a video series on five-metrehigh screens.
The gatehouse is a visitor pavilion featuring maps, an Aboriginal canoe display with a video about its construction, images of Maria Island, a produce stall, brochures, a garden and shelter.
The development, designed by Gilby and Brewin Architecture, opened in May last year as part of the Triabunna Tomorrow revitalisation project.
The project began in 2014 following the forestry industry decline, with its purpose to encourage visitors’ exploration of the town, Spring Bay and Maria Island.
East Coast Tourism chief executive Ruth Dowty said that the exhibition would put the port town, which is traditionally recognised for its forestry, fishing, salmon farming and agricultural industries, back on the map.
“It goes to demonstrate to the world what clever and forward-thinking people there are on the East Coast,” she told the Mercury.
“Triabunna is diversifying itself well and finding its place in the world following the forestry decline.”
The gatehouse was also featured in the Architecture Australia magazine during the March-April edition where it was described as a “visual feast, inscribed with complex narratives of a place in flux”.