2019 NGV Architecture Competition

Date: 2019

Type: Competition

Location: Melbourne, Australia

Project Team: Darren Dharmadasa in collaboration with CHORD Studio

A machine for viewing

Albrecht Durer said you can render anything within reach in correct perspective by means of three threads, much like the drawing to the left. But throughout the centuries, this once revolutionary technique has become almost banal, as we have come to expect and therefore take for granted, the power of the perspective. House Without Mirrors plays on this banality, curating a multiplicity of perspectival experiences of the sculptural objects and surrounds of the NGV garden.

Surprising encounters

At the same time, the proposed installations subtly inform the visitor’s movements and occupations, inducing chance interactions and new perspectives. By fracturing any one continuous view of the garden, House Without Mirrors simultaneously distorts and frames the objects, landscape, buildings and people that contribute to the garden’s atmosphere. Much like the hall of mirrors scene in Enter the Dragon, the proposal offsets our accustomed perceptions of space.

Space not object

House without Mirrors avoids the development of a singular architectural object: it is the non–pavilion. Rather, a series of radial fin walls are installed, creating thresholds within the garden that reconfigure the scale and nature of spaces that ‘house’ and frame the sculptural artworks and various human occupations.

Gathering spaces

The radial installation borrows on existing buildings, vegetation and ground treatments to create smaller enclosures in the garden. Each enclosure provides distinctive experiences of the artwork, and offers a variety of gathering spaces. Linear furniture pieces penetrate the radial thresholds encouraging a range of visitor-groupings and duration of stays.

Event space

Visitor interactions with the artwork and each other are simultaneously put on display, as the arrayed fin walls frame, reflect and conceal changing movement patterns, play-spaces and gathering spots from different vantage points. The treatment of fin walls differentiate an individual’s experience within each of the enclosed spaces from the larger central ‘void’, intended as the main event space.

Movement + Perception

The variable depth, height and radial arrangement of the fin walls are designed to capture and distort two types of movement: the movement of occupants and environment from a fixed vantage point; and the changing frames, or scenes, as one moves around and through the garden.