Cascades Female Factory History and Interpretation Centre by Liminal Studio, Snøhetta and Rush Wright Associates
We embrace collaborative practices throughout our process, involving people of different backgrounds, expertise and life experiences. Collaborations enable us to deliver large projects while remaining small and nimble, never exceeding a total of 15 team members; this allows us all to touch everything in the studio. Actively seeking out other practitioners we find interesting, and who inspire and challenge us, we look for low-risk opportunities to “test” the potential of new relationships. Meeting a founding partner and two managing directors of Snøhetta triggered our search for such an opportunity.
The national competition for the Cascades Female Factory History and Interpretation Centre in 2018 surfaced just after we had connected with Snøhetta. We already had a great working relationship with Melbourne-based landscape architects Rush Wright Associates and thought that the creative energy between us deserved to be tested; the competition fulfilled this purpose.
The process fostered a creative exchange that broadened our design thinking through challenging and expanding perspectives. Even though we won the competition and were of the understanding that our design would be collaboratively developed further with the client, we view this project as “unbuilt.” A significant mismatch between the aspirations of the competition brief and the delivery intention of the client management team eventuated. For us, the dilution of the competition scheme was a move too far away from the spirit of the original design.
Even so, our primary aim was achieved: finding like-minded creatives who enjoy pushing the creative process, and with whom we will continue to collaborate on projects – built or unbuilt – into the future.