Architectural Review Emerging Architects Award 2014 Shortlist

Dulux Colour Award 2013 Commercial Exterior Category

Melbourne Design Award 2012 Architecture – Commercial – Constructed

UDIA Awards 2012 Finalist

LSAA Awards 2013 Winner – LSAA Award of Excellence

Architizer A+ Awards 2014 Architecture + Fabrication Finalist

The brief for new facades to three street frontages of the Wintergarden Shopping Centre in central Brisbane required the creative application of a coherent identity and architecturally holistic sensibility to realise its fullest potential. The ambition was to create an engaging retail experience, a lifestyle destination and a ‘must-go’ meeting place and thoroughfare at the heart of Brisbane’s city centre.
The response to this brief was built upon the deep cultural collateral and public goodwill inherent to the site and the name ‘Wintergarden’ and involved the creation of a radically experiential composition – a complex and beautiful study of nature, geometry and layering that communicated the rich diversity of life.
It is not an ‘illustration’ of nature nor is it merely an abstract pattern. The depth of engagement with these facades lies within this irresolvable ambiguity.

Traditional Custodians of the Land

Location

Status

Client

Architect

Photography

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 12-WEB

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 8-WEB

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 13-WEB

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 2-WEB-cropped

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 15-WEB

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 9-WEB

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 10-WEB

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 6-WEB

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 14-WEB

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 1-WEB

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1076_Wintergarden Facade 7-WEB

Concept
The main visual ‘structure’ of the facade is created by the trees that run (beyond) each side of the facade. As with looking into a forest, the first glimpse is of a dense complexity that is almost ‘barrier-like’. On closer inspection gaps appear and substantial depth is read. Details emerge and the rhythmic activity of life and light energises the scene and captivates the imagination.
Just as the position and strength of the sun changes from day to day and season to season; the folds, cuts and textures of the facade generate new patterns of highlight and shadow, and as night falls the lighting within the facade creates yet another expression.
Development
Wintergarden demanded that we deepen our knowledge of screen geometry, cutting, folding, and panelising. Here, the most complex elements of design and construction are converted from creative potential and idealism to practical achievability.
Every panel and layer in the 4,000m2 facade has a unique design that is fully expressed through the dynamic, experiential interplay between a considered but expansive palette of colours and a rich language of cutting, scoring, folding, and lighting, all of which coalesce as a rich and coherent, visual experience.
Lighting
An integrated lighting system was designed that allowed Wintergarden to change from snowstorm through to spring, into summer and finally into autumn, all within a single night. Rain, sunsets, storms and fireworks are other examples of this systems expressive capabilities. The facade is engaging and entertaining – similar and different but never the same.