This project deals with the challenge of introducing an unwanted engineering structure into an existing park setting. The structure is a ventilating shaft located at Chancellors Oval, Australian Technology Park.
Our approach has been to express the natural form of the shaft but to detail the shaft in a manner that imbues the object with a sense of finesse and quality that would otherwise be unexpected for a structure of this type.
A cladding of steel fins layers over the inner concrete shaft and provides textural detail to the surface of the shaft. The interplay between the inner structure and cladding is exploited further by profiling the top of each with opposing curves to develop a visual complexity that softens the profile of the shaft against the sky.
The intent of these subtle manipulations of form and surface texture are to elevate this structure to park sculpture whilst retaining the engineering essence of the structure.
