National Museum of Australia - Additions

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RESEARCH BACKGROUND: ARM and Robert Peck von Hartel Trethowan architects jointly won an international competition in 1997 to design the National Museum of Australia (NMA) in Canberra. In 2013, they completed a new workplace wing to unite expanded staff numbers in one location, housing a central breakout area, the directorate, meeting rooms and a foyer. The refit is a bespoke design that recognises changes in the way museum staff work. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: Two distinct architectural ideas guide the building's shape: the Boolean string (a series of loops and knots of an imagined 5-sided string), which embodies ARM's views on Australian history as tangled and incomplete, and the jigsaw puzzle, which signifies that the Museum is conceptually unfinished. The new wing is a puzzle piece slotted neatly into the existing building, and the café - a pentagonal cube - is the end of the Boolean string sticking out of the building. The building is clad in handmade ceramic tiles arranged in a pattern based on QR (Quick Response) codes, which can be scanned using mobile devices to access information about the Museum. This project exemplifies ARM's iconic, radical architecture, and their contribution to the dissemination of ideas and the dialogue around the development of an acute, experimental and critical architectural culture in Melbourne and, more broadly, Australia. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: The NMA has won numerous significant awards since its opening in 2001. With the addition, it received 2 further awards at the 2014 Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) ACT Chapter Awards - for Public Architecture and Interior Architecture. The new wing was featured in Architecture Australia, ArchDaily, Canberra Times and 'The Museum' magazine published by the NMA. The project demonstrates the significance of ARM's practice which was awarded the AIA's 2016 Gold Medal - the highest award of the AIA to recognise distinguished service by Australian architects.