Re- imagining the Drill Hall Gallery Project #5 James Sekoranja

Image: James Sekoranja Re-imagining the Drill Hall Gallery

“A compelling link is established between the two prompts given to this project -collection and vessel. With a hierarchical gesture towards water, viscosity drapes the podium to connect with Sullivan’s Creek, connecting patrons to the water. The podium balances the ethereal vessel above. A spatial unfolding within the vessel envelops and guides the occupant- by treating ramps as datums, spaces are sculpted by manipulating these datums,to accommodate program.”
James Sekoranja November 2017

Join us for a glass of wine Sunday 19 August at 3pm as James explains his unique vision for a new and most innovative gallery space for the Drill Hall Gallery precinct.

In 2017 architecture students at the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Arts and Design were set a project, requiring them to design an extension to the ANU Drill Hall Gallery. Their brief was to enhance the precinct, to establish a dedicated space for storage and display of the University’s art collection, and to provide spaces for functions and educational activities.

studio overview

The Studio Program for the graduation semester of the University of Canberra Bachelor of Arts in Architecture 2017 is focused on the role of civic architecture and the value of transformative projects within the public domain of the city to enrich and extend the quality and experience of our urban realm.

The studio, entitled Collected : ness [vessel] seeks an urban intervention that responds to the cultural value of the Drill Hall Gallery precinct as a socio-cultural asset of collective significance – both in the value of the collections it holds and exhibits and in its role as an urban artefact within the collective memory of the city.

The studio focus considers the interrelated dimensions of social, cultural and public space and their scales of interface within the milieu of civic architecture. Relative to the interconnectedness of the urban/public realm, the architectural response strives towards an understanding of ‘connected : ness’ in time, place and context in which the proposed intervention contributes to the palimpsest of the city’s evolution and acts asa catalyst for future imaginings. The project entails a considered approach of spatial editing and spatial addition to enhance the legibility of the existing building and the creation of a second spatial volume or ‘vessel’ of collected [light], [white], [thought],[time], [art], [cultural value].

Ann Cleary, FRAIA Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Studio Convenor