Environmental

The studio has been responsible for the creative direction of the Venice Biennale New Australian Pavilion: Di Stasio Ideas Competition for their client Rinaldo di Stasio to celebrate his 20th anniversary of Café di Stasio in St Kilda. The ideas competition involved an open brief to design a new Australian Pavilion in the Giardini Della Biennale in Venice to replace the temporary structure design by Philip Cox in 1988.

The competition attracted over 450 registrations of interest from architects and students from 51 countries around the world, with 170 entries being finally submitted. A judging panel lead by architect and critic Norman Day and including photographer John Gollings, artist Callum Morton and City of Sydney architect Bridget Smyth devised a short list of 56 projects, 37 professional and 19 pre-professional. A subsequent list of 11 finalists has been selected, with the winners in each category being announced on Monday 28 July 2008. For a full list of finalists visit the di Stasio website.

To celebrate the competition, the studio has designed an exhibition featuring all of the short listed entries at Heide Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition will be on view until 3 August 2008. A 256 page publication is currently in production and will be available from Heide Museum of Modern Art or through Café di Stasio.

Click here to listen to Alan Saunders interview with competition judges Norman Day and Callum Morton on Radio National’s By Design program from Saturday 28 June 2008.

Development of a mural for the Heide Museum of Modern Art exhibition Savage Luxury: Modernist Design in Melbourne 1930-1939. The mural forms the backdrop for the Milk Bar exhibit which explores the role of the mural in modernist building developments and the commercial use of tubular steel furniture.

Covering the back wall of the Heide III galleries, the mural looks to emulate the vista of trees that sit beyond the wall.

Catalogue and signage design for an exhibition exploring Sidney Nolan’s paintings of Ned Kelly between 1950 and 1990. The graphic opening of Kelly’s mask has been subtly integrated throughout the exhibition signage and catalogue.

Many cultural developments require the financial assistance of private sector individuals and organisations. During the recent redevelopment of Heide, many of the internal and external spaces were named after such benefactors.

Instead of imposing a signage solution that would compete with the architecture and the exhibition programming, the naming rights signage was conceived as a series of subtle thresholds, embedded in the ground at the point of entry to each space. The external signs are made of bluestone and the internal made of steel.

As part of the redevelopment of Heide a new signage masterplan was established for wayfinding, interpretive and statutory signage requirements on site.