Jury feedback summary
The success of the second place entry for the Kip Island Auditorium competition lies in its simple solution to the existing conditions, using an economy of form and material to create a flexible building characterized by tactful iconicity. The project parti stitches the site, unifying the shed buildings of the exhibition centre, by infilling the triangular space between with a repeating, extruded sawtooth bay. Within this triangular massing, the project contains a large, non-hierarchical, and reconfigurable space, allowing for multiple auditoria and conference spaces while maintaining fluid connections to the existing buildings on the site. The project provides an expansive new public façade: a serrated wall, functioning as a sieve that filters visitors into the inner world of the aggregated and vast exhibition centre. Additionally, the structure and detailing of the project is tectonically thoughtful and ecologically considerate, deploying a repeated post and beam module of engineered wood with steel cable and polycarbonate infill to provide natural, indirect light. Combined, this kit-of-parts produces a subdued iconicity, evoking the industrial nature of the existing buildings and imposing order on a site characterized by an accumulation of disparate conditions.
Jury feedback summary
The first place entry for the Kip Island Auditorium was chosen for its proposal to completely entangle city and stage, creating a performance space radically deconstructing the separation between proscenium and audience. The project centerpiece is an elevated theatre space, cantilevered as a truss over the site, creating an iconic figure in the city. Inside this truss, the linear sequence of auditorium spaces is interconnected by a series of panels that can either separate each stage for simultaneous performances or open up and interconnect, forming a monumental stage that transfigures the nature of performance. The skin reinforces this programmatic gesture and tectonic diagram. Double layers of mesh establish the project’s powerful ambiguity between interior and figure - both exterior form and internal volume assert themselves as equal components of the project’s expression and identity. The iconicity of the auditorium lies in this opposition between object and performance, creating a project in which the archetype of the stage is activated into an entirely new model for spectacle and spectatorship.