EMBRACING RUST

Sofala is a small rural town situated within the scenic valleys of the Blue Mountains, NSW. Its site is historic in nature, featuring a naturally-flowing river where people would gather pieces of gold throughout its system.

Our brief was to construct an art gallery and artist residence that would explore and embrace the history of Sofala whilst showcasing local artist works. After visiting a nearby township, my appreciation for historical and weathered architecture inspired me to design an art gallery which embraces the beautiful aging of materials such as corrugated iron and timber. Through the construction process, the idea was to design a pavilion like structure which ran parallel to the river, featuring materials such as corrugated iron, corten steel and hardwood timber for the external landscaping.

During the concept phase, I was interested in precedents which explored the idea of indoor/ outdoor relationships. I felt this was a vital aspect to the architecture as I wanted people to feel as if they could be a part of the Sofala landscape, and see out into the large trees and river from a sheltered pavilion structure. Conceptually, the design’s northern facade is openly glazed, which maximises views outwards along the river, allowing a connection between those within the gallery space and those on the external decking along the river.

The gallery itself was designed with flexible functionality in mind. The gallery space features three unique ‘shed-like’ structures which allow light to permeate in from the ceiling in a controlled manner using in-direct and diffused lighting likened to Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Mu- seum. The sheds are able to open up to each other, or be closed off depending on the spatial requirements and curation of art pieces.

The rest of the site includes private staff offices, an open-space artist studio for varying purposes, and an on-site artist residency which is disconnected to the gallery for privacy. All of this is tied together through natural external landscaping which seeks to minimise the impact of construction of the landscape, instead the pavilion is ‘propped’ up onto the landscape as if floating over the river.