Park Facilities for Masons Falls and Jehosaphat Gully
By combining familiar rural forms with a direct response to the site, we wanted these facilities to connect into new park infrastructure – but feel like they’d always been there.
Client Brief
This project replaces facilities within the Kinglake Ranges National Park that were destroyed in the Black Saturday bush fires. Toilets, picnic and BBQ shelters and a new lookout to Masons Falls were designed as part of a project to establish two new picnic areas.
The designs had to accommodate accessibility, longevity and low maintenance, and respond to the different landscapes at the two sites. With many thousands of visitors to the two sites each year, these facilities are an important contribution to places that are at once beautiful and held dear.
Design Response
Following the path of a walking trail, tracking the edge of a clearing, or seeming to weaving between trees, they are shaped by the landscapes of their sites. At the same time they also bear a likeness to the sheds and structures that appear as silhouettes in the countryside.
A simple and robust ‘kit of parts’ was established, that with slight variations could provide a variety of site specific designs for each type of shelter and toilet, as well as accommodate future expansion.
Despite being small and simple structures, nothing is concealed within linings, all elements need to be considered and coordinated. As such the core part in the kit was the Yellow Stringybark timber truss roof structure that was developed through collaboration between architecture and engineering.
Park Facility Characteristics
Key values
- Kit of parts provides variety through small modifications
- Lookout designed as both viewpoint and gathering place
- Timber structure and cladding
- Response to landscape and local built form
Key materials
- Lysaught Spandek roofing and cladding,
- Yellow stringybark structural trusses
- Shadowclad profiled cladding
- Polycarbonate roofing
- Exterior plywood wall linings
Park Facility Specifications
Core deliverables
- Lookout
- Ttoilets x 2
- 4 and 3 table picnic shelters
- BBQ shelters
Services provided
- Concept design
- Developed design
- Tender documentation
Architect
Antarctica (with Simon Whibley as co-director)
People
Project Director: Simon Whibley
Project Team: Simon Whibley, Sasha Hadjimouratis, Ben Clements, Piran Reitze, Cameron Newham.
Landscape Architect: Mike Smith and AssociatesClient
Parks Victoria
Date completed
2013
Location and area
Masons Falls and Jehosaphat Gully picnic areas, Kinglake Ranges National Park, Victoria
Related projects
Stawell Secondary College
This project celebrates the original heritage building on the campus whilst acknowledging an awakening awareness of local indigenous culture.
Mount Macedon Primary School
Wrapping indoor and outdoor learning spaces around an existing art and music room, a tight budget is cleverly used to provide a new STEAM facility.
Mernda Ambulance Station
A small but important piece of public infrastructure, making its presence felt within the evolving commercial precinct of Mernda.
Myrtleford Jubilee Park
Ties together existing and new elements within Myrtleford’s Jubilee Park creating axis and intersections that drive the geometry of new structures.
Sorrento Visitor Centre
A combination of urban design, sculpture and architecture creating new spaces for the public life of Sorrento.
Pomonal Community Hall
Expressing a moment of change in the town of Pomonal – from the memory of the existing hall to a contemporary place for the community.
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.
NGV Summer Pavilion
A helium filled structure lighter than the air it displaces, tethered with weighted tension cables, resting on the courtyard surface.
Community Care Home
A residential care facility a range of disenfranchised and vulnerable people.