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
• People

• 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