Burnie Maker's Workshop

Full description

RESEARCH BACKGROUND
This project continues Terroir's exploration of the contextual complexity specific to each project. In each case, design commences with the establishment of relevant contexts - historical, environmental, social, legislative, material and more - which often clash and conflict. Within these tensions and clashes, Terroir looks for windows of opportunity to create a new proposition, one that shares a family resemblance with the key contexts yet exists as an entirely new 'family member'.

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION
The Burnie Paper Maker's Gallery is a completed building, constructed of concrete, steel, polycarbonate and glass, with a reconstituted timber panel used as a predominant interior lining. This work is an extension of Terroir's earlier topological and contextual projects. Topologically, architectural quality is developed through the phenomenological tension between interior and exterior, an exploration inspired in part by the works of Jorn Utzon. In this case, Utzon's Sydney Opera House, Baagsvard Church and un-built Silkeborg Museum, and Adolph Loos' Villa Mulla serve as reference points and all are significant in Terroir's wider community of practice. The tension between the interior and exterior is expressed by developing a toy-like blunt exterior and a lively interior that, through devices of orientation and axial view, place the subject in a specific relation with the collection and with Burnie.

RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE
Burnie Maker's Workshop won the Alan C Walker Award for Public Architecture at the 2010 Australian Institute of Architects (Tasmania) awards. It has won an Australian Steel Institute Award, environmental awards from the City of Burnie, and been featured in C+A magazine, Architectural Review Australia, and IW Magazine (Taiwan).