1:1 Interface, Majorca House, Melbourne
Thinking big in a small space: Four projects re-imagine the facade of the Majorca Building in Centre Place, Melbourne’s busiest and most loved laneway.
-
Exhibition Overview
This project, developed by Simon Whibley for Platform Contemporary Public Art Spaces, asked the 4 contributing architects to submit a re-design for the Majorca Building ‘s facade. Each proposed facade was installed at 1:1 scale in the areas where it overlapped the Platform’s display spaces; the jewelry cabinets that flank the building’s entry.
By construction a fragment of something much ,much bigger, it was thought that these installations could contend with the visual and spatial congestion of one of Melbourne’s busiest public spaces, that they could temporarily form an active part of the laneway’s fabric.
Façade #1, The proposal developed by Simon Whibley, provides a convergence of the interior and exterior, above and below of the laneway at a natural focal point: the entry of the Majorca Apartments.
Facade#1 stretches the entry’s space into the exhibition cabinets, through a surface developed from the coffered pattern of the light above the doorway.
This image is composed against the texture of the cement render above this entry. A raw surface that goes largely unnoticed, it is pulled into the line of sight of passer-bys as the street and the building’s interior are pushed together.
-
People
Participants
Curator: Simon Whibley
Participating Architects:
- Antarctica
- Serle and Waldron
- Ben Iman
- Catherine Ranger
Assistants:
- Zeeson Teoh
- Daniel Thien
Related projects
Art Space, Casey
A fragment made from fragments: exhibiting art within libraries using on the idea of a distributed gallery, made from a kit of parts.
NGV Summer Pavilion
A helium filled structure lighter than the air it displaces, tethered with weighted tension cables, resting on the courtyard surface.
NGV External Lighting
A comprehensive external lighting strategy for NGV in St Kilda Road which integrates several components into the heritage fabric of the iconic existing building.
Come Closer: A Meeting Pavilion, RMIT
A circle around a fire remembered as a brass table top, a surface gathering the marks of all who sit there.
Porte Cochere, Collins Place
An installation with Bridie Lunny to create a series of stages for performance that are carefully intertwined with the daily life of the Sofitel Hotel.
NGV Asian Galleries
A dedicated display space for NGV’s Asian collection designed in collaboration with NGV under curatorial guidance.
NGV Studio Gallery
An experimental gallery space for NGV at Federation Square for the display of emerging local artists with an emphasis on street art and youth culture.
True Self: Exhibition Design
To account for varied presentation spaces, we carefully employed materials and objects to create threshold spaces between the gallery and the works.
Strathewan Bushfire Memorial
A splintered collage of sky and green with an underside of blackened steel establish a narrative of hope and regeneration, floating above the ashes of devastation.
Rembrandts: 9 Installations
Artistic and architectural responses to Rembrandts; a defunct entertainment centre and a place of memory and significance for its community.
1:1 Interface, Majorca House, Melbourne
Thinking big in a small space: Four projects re-imagine the facade of the Majorca Building in Melbourne's Centre Place.
‘This Way Up’ Installation, Fitzroy
A familiar graphic at an unfamiliar scale and location which demands interpretation, alluding to stencil art, ‘big’ things and the importation of cultural traditions.
Preter Exhibition Design, Melbourne
An installation of abstracted drawing boards turns an ex-Army Drill hall into an architecture exhibition space.
Parallel Intersect, Installation MUMA
The pavilion is formed from two supporting devices; the impossible meeting of floor and ceiling planes and the dual shadow volumes cast from the absent.
Conical Art Gallery Conversion, Fitzroy
An artist run gallery space with a ‘rustic’ room to the front placed in deliberate opposition to the ‘white’ room to the rear.
Projects
Spensley Street Primary School
Grampians Peaks Trail Hiker Centre, Dunkeld
Fawkner Street House, South Yarra
North Melbourne Primary School Stage 1
Mimco Retail Fitout, Paddington
Monash Recreation Pavilion, Berwick
North Melbourne Primary School Stage 2
Westspace Gallery Fitout, Melbourne
The Seymour Apartments, Armadale
Come Closer: A Meeting Pavilion, RMIT
Hampton Park Ambulance Station
Batemans Bay Town Centre Masterplan
Bldg. Eng. Office Fitout, West Melbourne
Nicholson Street Extension, South Yarra
Part Fab Housing: Quicksmart and Cantabrian Project
FB is BIG – Urban Scale Design Research
EcoVillage House Designs, Cape Paterson
Freemans Villa, Freemans Bay, New Zealand
Park Facilities for Masons Falls and Jehosaphat Gully
North Melbourne Primary School Stage 3
Everything, All Together: Flinders Street Station Design Proposal
Affordable Bushfire Home, Kinglake & Marysville
Curtain Street Extension, North Carlton
Greenhills Primary School, Greensborough
Roofscape House, North Carlton
Eaglehawk Bowling Club Canopies
1:1 Interface, Majorca House, Melbourne
Cecil Street Extension, Fitzroy
“Proposition 3047” Urban Centre, Broadmeadows
‘This Way Up’ Installation, Fitzroy
Monash Recreation Pavilion, Clayton
Parallel Intersect, Installation MUMA
re-Housing: Housing Design Research
Preter Exhibition Design, Melbourne
Nam June Paik Museum Masterplan, Seoul
Grover Home Office, Clifton Hill
Joshi-Fordyce Extension, Northcote
Clauscen Street Extension, North Fitzroy
Sorrento Couta Boat Sailing Club
Virtual Reality Centre, Malaysia
Melbourne Wholesale Markets, Epping
SACHA Design Showroom, Fitzroy
O’Reilly Budd Extension, Thornbury
Conical Art Gallery Conversion, Fitzroy